Tara Sivec - Worn Me Down

He joked about it once. ONCE when we first got married he asked if it was too much work to turn the coffee mugs around so he could grab the handles. We laughed about it. Right here in this very spot we laughed about his coffee mug OCD and then we made love on the kitchen floor.

Before I could reply, he shoved me away from him and began turning all of the mugs so that the handles faced the same direction.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were joking,” I whispered.

I’m so confused by his actions that I barely had time to react when his hand wrapped around one of the mugs and he turned and hurtled it in my direction. I quickly shielded my face with my hands and the ceramic cup smacked into the top of my hand, hitting me with enough force that I cried out in pain as the cup crashed to the floor in a pile of broken pieces. I bit my lip to stop the tears from falling as I stood in the kitchen in shock and cradled my sore hand to my chest. I stared at William as he turned around all of the coffee mugs in the cabinet so they were in one, uniform row.

“Next time, don’t be so stupid. The handles should all face the same way.”

Before I even know what’s happening, I’m stalking across the office and swiping my hand across the top of my desk. The mugs are sent flying to the floor, each one smashing against the tile as I stand there shaking with fury, staring at the mess I just made.

“Just because you’re pissed at me doesn’t mean you need to take it out on the coffee cups.”

I whip around and the smile on Austin’s face dies when he sees me.

“Did you put those on my desk? Why did you put them there like that?” I ask frantically as I turn away from him and begin picking up the shattered pieces.

I hear him walk up behind me, but I ignore him.

“The handles can’t face out, they can’t face out,” I whisper to myself.

My throat gets tight and I blink back the tears as I pick up every single piece, piling them in my hands and not paying attention to the tiny cuts I’m making on my skin as I clutch tightly to the broken shards.

I jump when I feel Austin’s hands on my shoulders. “Hey, come on, it’s just a couple of cups.”

His voice is soft and comforting and it should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. I know in my mind I’m not behaving rationally, but I can’t make myself stop. I shrug out of his grasp and quickly stand, dumping the handfuls of glass into the trashcan next to my desk. I stare down at the pile at the bottom of the can in a trance and swipe angrily at a tear that falls down my cheek. When I pull my hand away from my face, the dots of blood on my palm catch my eye. I hold both of my hands up and stare unblinking at the cuts.

“Don’t do that again, the cups don’t belong like that,” I mutter, watching as a tiny river of blood makes its way down to the edge of my hand.

Austin is suddenly in front of me with his hands holding gently to my cheeks, lifting my head up to meet his eyes. His face is filled with confusion as he searches my face for answers. “Gwen, what the fuck? I didn’t do anything with the cups, I was out getting coffee.”

I glance over at my desk and see a paper cup from Starbucks sitting on the edge. His hands slide down off my face and he wraps them around both of my wrists, gently pulling me towards him.

I’m too busy thinking about the past and the memories I wish I could forever erase from my mind forever to worry about him touching me.

“Jesus Christ, you’re bleeding,” he mumbles as he drops one of my hands and wraps his arm around my waist.

My legs move robotically as he leads me over to the sink against the back wall of the office. He doesn’t say a word as he runs cold water, holding my hands under the steady stream until all the blood has washed down the drain. He silently pulls a towel from the top drawer next to the sink and gently pats both of my hands dry. I watch what he’s doing and have to bite back more tears.

What the hell is happening to me?

I can’t do this. I can’t fall apart like this, especially around Austin. I can’t be this weak, pathetic person around him or he’ll just jump right in and take advantage of the situation. I’m not that woman anymore. I don’t fall apart at the drop of a hat and I don’t let people walk all over me. Maybe he put those cups on my desk as a joke, not realizing what it would do to me, or maybe he didn’t. Either way, I can’t let him take care of me like I’m some wounded animal. I’ve fought hard these past couple of months to stop being such an insecure, cowardly person. I can take care of myself.

Pulling my hands out of his grip, I turn away from him and walk back to my desk.

“Gwen, what the hell just-”

Cutting him off, I pick up my purse and head towards the door. “If you’re coming with me, let’s go. I have to be outside the Sunset Motel in twenty minutes if I want to get a good shot of Connor Anderson with his mistress.”

I’m sure he expects an explanation for what just happened, but he isn’t going to get one. I still don’t even understand what the hell happened. Did I freak out over the coffee mugs because that phone call from Karen has got me tied up in knots, wondering if William really isn’t planning to let go of us that easily? What if that was him following Emma and Karen? What if he somehow found out where I work and came in here while Brady was gone to mess with me? It seems absurd that he would go to such lengths, but I wouldn’t put anything past him.

As I walk out into the afternoon sunshine and head towards my car, I kind of hope Austin will decide to stay at the office instead of going through with this stupid promise of his to Brady to keep an eye on me. I need some time alone to call my lawyer and to clear my head without Austin staring at me like I’m a bug under a microscope.

We’ve been sitting outside the Sunset Motel in Gwen’s car for twenty minutes and neither one of us has said a word. She’s pretending like nothing happened, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep letting her shut me out. Obviously, my usual charm and finesse isn’t going to work on her; I’m going to have to use another tactic. The only problem? I know next to nothing about communicating with a woman unless we’re naked and I’m telling her to fuck me harder. Coercing someone to talk to me on the job usually involves them being tied to a chair with a gun to their head. Something tells me Gwen wouldn’t respond well to either one of those options.

What’s that old saying – you catch more flies with honey or some shit? Maybe if I give a little something of myself she’ll give me something of her. Doesn’t that touchy-feely childhood shit usually work on chicks?

“This motel reminds me of one I used to live in when I was thirteen. I bet they even have the same green shag carpet and piss stains on the bathroom floor.”

I glance over at her in the passenger seat and she continues to stare out the window at the second floor balcony with her camera resting in her lap.

“My foster mom at the time ran the motel,” I continue. “It was actually the one and only place I ever lived that I kind of liked.”

She closes her eyes for a second and slowly turns to face me. “You actually lived in a motel?”

I shrug and bend my head down to look through the windshield at the room where Connor Anderson is currently banging his flavor of the week. “For about a month, until it was time to move on to the next place. I had to help clean the rooms to earn my keep. It’s where I learned all of my stellar housekeeping skills.”

Leaning back in my seat, I grin at her and she returns the smile. I don’t tell her the part about how I would get smacked upside the head if I didn’t fold the sheets right or how I’d get kicked in the leg if I forgot to put new rolls of toilet paper under the bathroom sinks. No sense in ruining the moment.

“My best friend, Ellie Larson, grew up in a foster home, but she stayed with the same family until they eventually adopted her,” Gwen tells me.

“Good for her. That’s actually pretty rare. Most kids get bounced around, especially if they’re older when they go into the system. I was five, so technically not old, but older than most people wanted. Everyone wants a perfect, tiny baby, not a mouthy kid who craves attention.”

Gwen rests back against her seat and stares at me. I wonder what she’s thinking. I don’t want her to feel bad for me because I had a shitty childhood. I’m sure she doesn’t know the first thing about growing up with folks who didn’t give a rat’s ass about you and only cared about themselves.

“Was it really bad for you? I mean…did people hurt you?” she asks quietly.

I mirror her pose and lean back in my seat. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. For the most part, I learned to stay out of the way and keep quiet and they left me alone.”

I can’t believe I’m actually telling her this shit. Even though I left out all the gory details, I’m still giving her more information than I’ve ever given any woman.

She studies me intently for a few seconds before shifting her gaze to a spot over my shoulder, unblinking and staring at nothing. “Sometimes, even when you’re so quiet you could disappear, that’s when they hurt you the most.”

She sounds so matter-of-fact that I instantly want to pull her across the seat into my arms and tell her everything will be okay. I don’t like how familiar she sounds with this subject. It makes my gut clench in anger that she’s ever felt even a tiny bit of the pain I did growing up. I’m so shocked by her admission that I sit here in silence like an idiot instead of asking her to explain herself. Too soon the moment is lost and Gwen is blinking out of her daze, quickly pulling her camera up to her eye.

“There he is. Mr. Anderson is coming out of his room,” she says aloud, holding the camera steady while pressing the button on the side of it to zoom in.

I watch her work, silently snapping a ton of pictures as the guy walks out onto the balcony with his suit jacket draped over one arm. A tall, leggy blonde that is most definitely NOT Mrs. Anderson walks out behind him in a skimpy black cocktail dress. She leans against the doorframe and they exchange a few words before Mr. Anderson leans in, kisses her and grabs her ass.

“Bingo! I got you, you cheating bastard,” Gwen mutters.

I smile to myself as I watch her face light up with excitement as she continues to take pictures of the ass grab and face-sucking going on right in broad daylight. Gone is the haunted look on her face from moments ago and I realize that Brady was a smart man to put his sister in charge of his business while he was gone. She’s good at what she does and she obviously loves it. It makes me wonder what she did before this – what kind of job she used to have, what kind of life she used to live. Thanks to Cole I know she was married to a surgeon and the dude probably had a shit ton of money. She probably didn’t need to work, but Gwen doesn’t strike me as the type of person to be a housewife, just sitting around twiddling her thumbs.

“So what did you do for a living before you moved here?” I ask as she pulls the camera away and looks at the digital screen.

She clears her throat uncomfortably and for a minute I think she’s going to ignore me. She takes a while before she answers. “I didn’t work, really. I mean, I was busy; I did a lot of things for charity and stuff like that, but I didn’t have a paying job. God, that makes me sound awful.”

She shakes her head in irritation as she scrolls through the pictures she just took and, as much as I want to make a comment about her being spoiled, I keep my mouth shut. I’m slowly realizing there’s more to Gwen than I originally thought and I don’t want to ruin the moment by being an asshole.

Shocker, I know.

“I realize you don’t have a very high opinion of me and you think I’m a spoiled brat. It’s not like I didn’t want to work. I just… wasn’t able to,” she finishes.

“You weren’t able to? Do you have a wooden leg or a lobotomy I’m unaware of?” I ask with a laugh.

“Ha, ha. You’re hilarious,” she tells me before starting up the car. “We need to get back to the office so I can print these pictures off and show them to Mrs. Anderson.”

And just like that, sharing time is over.

When we get back to the office, while Gwen is busy printing the photos and calling Mrs. Anderson to schedule a meeting, I go outside and pull out my phone. Brady answers on the first ring.