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The fragments of sunlight peeking through the blinds woke Scarlet the following morning. She rolled over expecting to meet Javier for a kiss but found a sheet of paper in his place. The beautiful script read: “you looked so beautiful in your sleep it seemed a shame to wake you. Out rehearsing with JP. See you soon. With love, your Javi.”
“Aww,” she cooed as she held the note in front of her, “he’s so romantic. I don’t deserve him…” She didn’t have to steep herself in thought too long before dismissing her skepticism. She’d never felt happier or more complete than she had the past few days and she wouldn’t trade this time with him for anything.
As she readied herself to take on a promising new day, Scarlet perceived not one but two voices inside Juan Paulo’s bedroom. One started singing and she gasped. Since she began spending more time at the band’s rehearsals, she’d been treated to a new song from Juan Paulo nearly every morning upon her arrival. She could only shake her head, admiring how prolific he was, and wish she could one day bring the same dedication to her dancing.
As she inched her way down the hall to hear better, her cell phone rang. She hastily picked it up on the first ring as to not give herself away. “Ruby,” she whispered so harshly she was almost hissing, “could you call back later? JP and Javi are working out a new song and I want to hear it.”
“Scarlet, listen. You missed something major last night and I need you to…”
“Shh! I’m moving closer. You need to hear this too.” Ruby silently agreed and listened closely.
Scarlet slowly cracked the door open for a better look. Ocher streaks of sunlight produced an intriguing contrast with the oak furniture and pale-yellow walls. Javier sat on the edge of the bed, his hands folded on his lap and his head angled upward. It was when she panned over to Juan Paulo and noticed a distinct difference in his tone she realized something was wrong. He held his acoustic guitar across his lap and strummed it with the same fervor, but his eyes lacked focus. At first, they appeared to search for an answer he couldn’t find. As more lyrics came into being, it was clear he was the one who was lost.
“You ran away, wish I could take back what I had to say. You were my sun, now all I have is rain. It was all for you…”
Scarlet covered her mouth to muffle an involuntary scream and staggered backwards, reaching for the other door to catch herself. After shutting the door, far louder than she’d intended, she half whined into the phone, “Ruby… she didn’t…”
“Yeah, she did.”
“I don’t understand. She came to our show last night and they left together. What could have happened?”
“What always happens, apparently… you weren’t expecting the four of you to exchange vows at a double wedding or anything, were you? I can see Emilia dreaming that up but not…”
“No…” She fought to keep her voice as even as possible while fidgeting with the fringe at the bottom of her dress. In truth, the thought had occurred to her once or twice, but she never dwelled on it for too long. If she grew too attached to the idea, it’d be twice as devastating if it failed to manifest into reality.
After her sister had maintained her silence for over a minute, Ruby took a deep breath before continuing, “I hate to continue the bearing of bad news but there’s more.”
“More?” Scarlet’s voice cracked. She rubbed her cheek to scratch a tickle when she noticed she’d started crying. “Where are you? I need to hear this in person.”
“I’m heading over to their place right now, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be there right now. Not if Vanessa was right about fearing the worst…”
“I don’t care! I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
A sudden knock on the door nearly made her jump out of her skin.
“Scarlet? Everything ok in there?” asked a concerned Javier, his voice muffled by the door separating them.
It dawned on her that she’d completely forgot about whispering. She quickly ended the call, “I’ll be there in a minute,” before Javier opened the door.
“Scarlet, what is it?” She turned away to wipe her eyes, but it was already too late. “Oh, I guess you heard…”
“Yeah, I need to see my sister for the rest of the details.” On her way out she stopped by the other room where Juan Paulo was still sitting at his desk with his guitar. “JP…”
“Hey Scarlet,” he purposely avoided her eye, pretending to tune his guitar to keep his hands occupied.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“It’s sweet of you to offer but no…” He picked up his head and leaned forward. “Emilia tried to help last night. But then I heard from her this morning and she apologized up and down about how she couldn’t.” He put on a brave smile but judging by his reddened eyes and dark rings under the lids, she didn’t quite believe him when he added, “I’ll be ok. This isn’t the first time my heart’s been ripped out of my chest.” She could only respond with a nod before exiting the house.
* * *
Ruby had just finished the call when she arrived at her destination. She took a deep breath, bracing for impact, as she banged on the door. “Talia, Vanessa, it’s Ruby. Open up!”
Unsurprisingly, it was Vanessa who answered. She yawned, “Come in, Ruby. Feel free to make yourself comfortable because it might be a while… if she makes an appearance at all.”
Ruby skimmed the place. Her purse leaned at an angle as she shifted her weight to one side. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I expected this to be a war zone. Were you up all night cleaning the mess?”
“If I’m being honest,” she said as she had a seat on the sofa along the back wall, “I’m not quite sure what happened between midnight and when I got up this morning. There’s still scratches and dents in some of the walls, but the place is remarkably pristine compared to what it was.”
Ruby sat on the cushion next to her and listened intently to her version of the fight she had with Talia. She nodded regularly and offered the occasional shrug; knowing Talia as she did, a tantrum wasn’t unexpected. She searched the room for any remaining shards of glass from the mirrors, but there were none. Both had been mysteriously replaced sometime in the early morning hours.
Oddly enough, the remaining evidence that would take more than elbow grease to erase made her think about her sister. More than a decade later, Scarlet still carried invisible scars from the atrocities their father did to her, and they always resurfaced in the form of nightmares. Since she met Javier, they’d gone into remission. She shared these thoughts with Vanessa once she came to the end of her recollections. “I really haven’t been Talia’s biggest fan these past few weeks, the way her personal drama has been impacting the rest of us. But now that I’m seeing all this, I can’t help wondering about the scars she’s been hiding under the surface. It’s enough to almost make me feel sorry for her. Maybe if she had a better way of dealing with her pain than taking it out on the rest of us, I’d be more sympathetic.”
Vanessa stifled another yawn. “Believe me, she’s dealing with it. Kept me up half the night.” Almost on cue, ravenous cries of ecstasy pealed through the closed bedroom door. Ruby’s eyes widened as she panned between Vanessa and the door. Before she could formulate a question, Vanessa replied, “how everything got cleaned up so quickly, the only person who has that answer is Talia and I doubt she’ll be forthcoming with the logistics. Since our fight, she’s kicked into full Spanish while speaking with her ‘visitors,’ so she clearly wants to keep us in the dark. “Yeah…” Ruby sighed, “times like this make me wish I knew the island’s native language better than I do. I think the only person at Calypso that does is Alejandro and he’s definitely the last person that needs to be brought into this situation.”
“Agreed…” Vanessa echoed the sigh. Images flashed in her head about the fights Talia’s had with Alejandro over the years and it made her shudder. If anything could be worse than what she’d recently witnessed, it’d be the end result of yet another attempt on Alejandro’s part to fix things.
Through the night, Talia reached deep into her black book in hopes of finding some measure of solace. Two months after that demoralizing night with Carlos, she once again found her thoughts dominated by regret and self-loathing. But since her sex drive has recovered its full stamina, she planned on using it to ease her mental anguish. Staggered apart at varying intervals of time, her “visitors” helped clear out some of the damage and tidy up the loft. In exchange, she performed whatever sexual favors they requested from her bag of tricks before parting ways.
However, her ultimate goal for the unforeseeable future remained her own personal secret. She was too embarrassed to speak it aloud in any language. Even if she did, no one would understand it. Despite her past reservations, she accepted that Juan Paulo had been her best chance at happiness. If she ever found the nerve to apologize, she feared she’d done too much damage for him to forgive her. The only way she could conceive of fending off the pain she felt in her heart was to experience an instance of rapture so potent that she’d pass out shortly after. Not much different than an addict regularly dosing to maintain a long-lasting high, she wanted sex to be her gateway to a perpetual stupor. That way, she could sleep her life away until the hurting stopped. Even if it took forever for that goal to be realized, Talia was willing to pursue it.
***
JP's song: "I did it for you" by David Cook
(The lyrics mentioned aren't identical to what's in the song, but it fits the melody playing in my head. There weren't many songs on that album I really liked- this one was easily my favorite, followed by the opening track, "Declaration," which I see as an album opener for the band in the story)
(The lyrics mentioned aren't identical to what's in the song, but it fits the melody playing in my head. There weren't many songs on that album I really liked- this one was easily my favorite, followed by the opening track, "Declaration," which I see as an album opener for the band in the story)
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