Into the Light(5)

It was a typical Friday afternoon and I couldn’t wait for the week to be officially over. Emma and I were reading a brief for an upcoming fraud case when we heard a commotion outside. I asked Emma to take a look but it wasn’t long before she came in pleading with me to come outside.

“Oh for God’s sake, Emma, I’m not interested in office gossip,” I lectured.

“Nikki, seriously, you need to come out here NOW!”

I didn’t care for her disrespectful attitude and made a mental note to reprimand her after I sorted out whatever it was that was kicking off outside and disrupting my urgent deadline. I walked outside and was met with an angry Lex banging on Charlie’s office door. The security guards, the sad pathetic overweight donut-eating bunch of fuckers, could do nothing to hold him back. I motioned for them to leave because I no longer wanted a scene in the office.

“Lex, what the hell do you think you are doing? You can’t come in here and disrupt our office with your personal problems.”

“Where is she? I’ve given her four days and she hasn’t responded to any texts or emails, nor has she been home. Tell me where the fuck she is staying, Nikki!”

“In my office. Now,” I demanded.

He walked into my office, pacing up and down, not pausing for a second. His appearance took me aback. His hair was even messier than it normally was, his tie crooked (making it look like a five-year-old had dressed him) and his face covered in hair. Yes, an overgrown beard, a tell-tale sign of a man’s sorrows.

I pulled Emma aside for a moment “You make sure the office is back to normal. I don’t want anyone mentioning this to Charlie. Warn everyone out there that anyone caught discussing this will have to answer to me. You find out where she is and if you need Eric’s help make sure she does not come into the office. You understand?” She nodded and scurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I was over this bullshit. Charlie had gone AWOL and here was a devastated man, a side to him I never thought I’d see.

“I don’t know where she is,” I said. “She won’t talk to me right now. I told you not to smother her.”

“Do you honestly expect me to sit here and do nothing? Let her believe all the fucking lies? I flew back in because I needed to see her. I will not leave till I speak to her.” He bowed his head, trying to gain some sort of composure. “I never wanted to leave her, Nikki. I always loved her. She doesn’t understand how much pressure I was under back then. We were both so young.”

I sighed. They had history, a lot of it, and Charlie only gave me dribs and drabs of information whenever she felt like it. I was curious as to what really happened so I asked even though I knew that by asking him to reveal a personal part of his life, I was dragging myself into this mess even more. “What exactly happened, Lex?”

He stood up and walked over to the window. He gazed out, watching the city beneath him. Moments later a very vulnerable Lex told his story.

“It was exactly two weeks after prom. The night I told her that I would find a way for us to finally be together, whatever it took.”

June 2005

“Alex, finally you’re home,” she angrily greeted me at the door.

I looked at my watch. Oh shit, it was after seven. I told her I would be home for dinner. This had become a reoccurrence lately and I knew I had to start being more careful. Just until I told her it was over. Soon, I kept telling myself. Soon.

“Sorry, I got caught up at the hospital with Dad,” I lied.

“Well you are here now I guess, I have some news to tell you.” Her face lit up. I knew this couldn’t be good, I just didn’t know how much it would impact my life. “Come sit down.”

She patted the couch where I reluctantly took a seat next to her. She continued to smile, something I hadn’t seen in a while. She was a beautiful woman. Her long strawberry blonde hair flowed down her back, her blue eyes sparkling as she spoke. I remembered a time when I couldn’t get enough of her. But that was before…

“Alex, I’m pregnant.”

My ears did a double take. She was what? My brain couldn’t register and I blurted out the first words that came to mind. “How did this happen? I haven’t fucked you in three months!” I yelled.

Her demeanor changed. The smile that had lit up her face only moments ago disappeared. Her face turned red, the veins on her forehead looked like they were ready to burst. She folded her arms, her chest rising up and down at a fast pace. I braced myself knowing that the storm was about to hit and I was standing in its path.

“That’s nice, Alex, that you can’t even remember fucking your wife!” she shot back. “Well it was that night you came home drunk a month ago, I remember it because you couldn’t get enough of me, fucking me for hours telling me how much you loved me.” Lost in thought, she paused, the smirk of satisfaction subsiding as if she realized the enormity of this situation.