The Casanova by T L Swan

KATE

I sit at the window seat and stare out over the road as the rain comes down.

Even the weather is miserable. Like a dark heavy blanket of sadness.

I glance at my watch, Elliot will be in France now.

I get a vision of the two of them sitting in a romantic location, staring into each other’s eyes.

I’m in a literal hell.

“Is everything alright with your meal, ma’am?” the waiter interrupts me.

“Oh.” I look down to see my untouched cold dinner. “Yes, I’m sorry . . . I’m . . .” I pick up my fork. “A little distracted.”

“Perhaps some wine?” The waiter smiles hopefully.

“Yes.” I nod. “That would be lovely.”

He raises his eyebrow as he waits for something.

“What is it?” I ask.

“What wine would you like?”

“Oh.” I shake my head, embarrassed. “Surprise me.”

“Very well.” He disappears into the kitchen and I take a forkful of pasta into my mouth.

Ugh, my stomach rolls and I clench my teeth to stop the gag reflex.

I make myself swallow; food is the very last thing I can handle tonight.

I don’t even want to go home to my roommates, because then I have to pretend that everything is okay . . . or tell another lie, or worse still, tell them the sordid truth.

Neither of the tasks I feel capable of while I’m this weak.

I’ll just wait until everyone goes to bed, it’s easier that way.

It’s 9 p.m. and . . . in a few hours, I will know.

Elliot will either call me . . . or he won’t.

I know he will . . . he loves me, I know he does and I believe in us. He will call me.

He has to.

I’m not in this alone. I haven’t imagined this entire thing. We do have something real.

I know we do.

I can’t be this gullible.

I force another mouthful in and my stomach rolls and I heave.

I think I’m going to throw up.

One a.m.

I walk up my street toward my house in the rain. With two bottles of wine under my belt, I should be happy.

What I am is . . . devastated.

He’s with her.

I take out my phone and check it for the ten thousandth time tonight.

“Call me,” I whisper angrily. “You fucking call me, goddamn it.”

I screw up my face in tears. Why is this happening? What on earth did I ever do to deserve such fucking shit in my life? I lost my parents, my sister is the devil, and now the man that I love . . . doesn’t even love me back.

“Why?” I cry out loud. “What have I done to deserve this?”

I get to my apartment and I can’t face going inside, because then I have to sleep.

And then it will be morning, and too late to go back on what happened last night.

And I will know what he did.

I get a vision of Elliot and her waking up in bed and him being all witty and charming and wowing her with his sexuality and her falling madly in love with him.

How could she not?

There’s a lot to love about Elliot Miles.

I drop to sit on the bottom step and I stare into space. And as the rain comes down on top of me, wet, afraid, and alone . . . I cry.

It’s the silence that kills you. The things that aren’t said.

The closure you never got.

Three days.

Seventy-two hours. Four thousand, three hundred, and twenty minutes.

Too many seconds to count.

The clock ticks in my office. It’s like a megaphone, loud and annoying, reminding me of how time’s going by . . . with not a word.

Not even a text.

He’s with her.

I know that now, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.

I really thought he loved me.

My faith in humanity is smashed to smithereens.

Did he even care about me at all? He couldn’t have . . . nobody could treat someone that they care about like this. The joke of it is that he doesn’t even know that I know what he’s doing in France.

Was that his plan, to just disappear on a business trip and ghost me . . . let me down easy? Push me to end it with him?

Maybe I’ll never hear from him again . . . nothing would surprise me any more.

It’s like I’m grieving a death all over again.

I still haven’t told my flatmates . . . I can’t.

I don’t feel strong enough to talk about it . . . so I avoid going home.

I’ve been going to the movies, loitering in restaurants. Spending five hours in the gym. I’ll do anything rather than bring this up and show everyone how weak I really am.

I hate myself for being so weak, I thought I was stronger than this.

Wednesday.

“Knock, knock.” A soft tap sounds on my office door. I glance up to see Christopher and I instantly get a lump in my throat.

Go away.

“Got a minute?” he asks softly.

No.

I force a smile and gesture to the seat at my desk. “Sure.”

He sits down and leans back and crosses his legs; his eyes hold mine.

He knows something.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Have you heard from Elliot?” he asks, his voice soft, cajoling.

I press my lips together hard. “No.”

He narrows his eyes.

“Why do you ask?”

“We haven’t been able to reach him.”

I frown.

“I’m a little worried, to be honest.”

I turn back to my computer and act busy. “You don’t need to worry, he’s in France with his artist.”

He stays silent, so silent that I look back.

His eyes hold mine, and I know that he knows just how broken I am.

My eyes well with tears. “I’m sorry. I just . . .”

“It’s okay—”

“It’s not,” I cut him off; this is the most degrading moment of my life. My boyfriend’s brother coming to comfort me after he ran off with another woman.

I just want to be out of here, away from all these . . . snakes.

“I’m giving you my notice.”

His face falls. “Kate, no.”

“I can’t be here, Chris.”

His haunted eyes hold mine.

“I just . . .” Words fail me, because there are none. None that will make sense anyway. “Today is my last day, I’ll be out by close of business.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” he whispers. “Elliot wouldn’t want you to leave.”

“Elliot is not here, is he?” I snap sharply. “I’m sorry.” I shrug. “I don’t mean to snap at you but . . .”

“It’s okay.” He watches me for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Get the hell out of London for a while.”

He leans his face on his hand as he watches me. “Mom’s upset.”

That makes two of us.

I nod, unable to push out words in fear of a full-on meltdown.

“Can I help you pack up?” he asks as he looks around my office.

I smile sadly, Christopher is so kind. “No, I’m okay.”

“Are you?” His eyes hold mine.

“Not really.” I smile through tears. “But . . . I will be.”

We stare at each other for a while. “Kate, for what it’s worth . . . I know he’ll—” He cuts himself off as if reconsidering what he was going to say.

“What?”

“He’ll regret this.”

“I know. I do.”

He frowns. “Do you?”

I puff air into my cheeks. “Actually, that’s not fair, I can’t say that. Elliot showed me what it was like to feel again. I’ve been numb since my parents died, so in a way”—I shrug—“I have to be grateful for that.”

He smiles sadly. “You’re a pretty cool chick, Landon.”

“Ha.” I smirk. “You should probably leave now then, before you get the jilted-lover-psycho-smashing-up-the-office version.”

He holds his hands up and laughs as he stands. “Yeah, I’m leaving her well alone.”

He puts his hands in his expensive suit pockets, and his eyes hold mine.

I reach up onto my toes and kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

“For the record.” He twists his lips. “He’s a fucking idiot.”

I smile, grateful for his kindness. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

I lie in the darkness in my bed; the world is a dark and lonely place.

I feel like this hurt is just going on and on.

I opened up and told Daniel and Rebecca everything tonight and it’s torn down the last of my defenses.

Now that I don’t have to act brave, I’m falling apart. I can’t stop crying.

Howling-to-the-moon heartbreak, where he’s not coming back and I feel like my whole future has been snatched from my grasp. The life I saw us having, living at Enchanted, his animals, the laughing and loving, his family . . . all gone.

My eyes are red and swollen and I’ve taken three showers tonight to try and make me feel better.

I’m sobbing, my chest wracked, and for the life of me, I can’t stop it. To the point that I think I’m going to have to take a sleeping tablet or something to calm myself down.

I remember this kind of grief all too well.

I feel the bed dip and Daniel crawls in behind me; he’s wearing boxer shorts and is bare-chested. “Baby,” he whispers as he pulls me close.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur.

He tightens his grip and I close my eyes, grateful for the warmth.

For a long time, he holds me as I cry, and every now and then he pushes the hair back from my forehead as he looks down at me. “Tell me how to make this better?” he whispers, his body snug up against mine.

“You can’t.”

He wipes my tears and holds me. He’s warm and big and a closeness runs between us. My head is on his chest and his arms are tight around me; he kisses my temple and I feel something move down below.

I frown.

He holds me closer and I feel it again.

What?

He’s hard.

“Let me make you better, baby,” he whispers.

I stare up at him in the darkness.

“Let me take away your pain for a little while.”

I frown again and he takes my hand and runs it down over his rippled abs, and lower into his shorts.

We stare at each other, my breath catches, and I feel his pubic hair and then hard cock; my hand closes around it instinctively.

“Let me love you,” he whispers. He kisses me softly and I screw up my face against his.

He kisses me again and rolls me onto my back as he leans over me, and I feel his body up against mine. “Stop,” I whisper. “Daniel, stop.” I sit up in a rush and pull away from him.

What the hell?

“I don’t want this; my body isn’t even mine to give to you,” I stammer in a panic. “It’s Elliot’s.”

“He’s with another woman, Kate, he’s not coming back for you. They’re probably making love right now.”

I wince as I get a visual.

“I’m trying to help you,” he whispers.

“You’re trying to sleep with me.”

“To make you forget him.”

“Please . . . don’t.”

He gets out of my bed and puts his hands on his hips. “I was trying to help you.”

I turn my back to him and stare at the wall. “I know.”

He sits on the chair in the corner. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

I nod, grateful that he isn’t leaving but he’s out of my bed. I would have never forgiven myself . . . not that it matters to anyone anyway, I guess.

But I would know.

I wasn’t lying—my body belongs to Elliot, whether he wants it or not.

I sip my coffee in a crowded café on a Sunday morning. I got up early and went to the gym; I have a chocolate muffin in front of me and I’m feeling a little better today. I had a talk with Daniel and I believe him, he was just trying to be of comfort.

And maybe on some level I should have done it, maybe it would have helped me to move on and forget him.

I hear the familiar ding of my phone and my blood runs cold.

Ed.

I ignore it for a moment, and it dings again.

I don’t want to talk to Ed, because I know he’s going to tell me about her.

I’m cutting ties with him too.

I’m sick of all the fucking lies. No more charades, it’s obvious I can’t handle this game.

It dings again and I close my eyes.

Go away.

With a shaky hand I lift my coffee to my mouth. It dings again.

Fuck it.

May as well get this over with . . .

I take out my phone and click on his message.

Hi Pinkie,

Sorry I haven’t been in touch, I’ve been busy.

I’ve missed you.

His sweet words open it all back up, emotion overwhelms me, and the tears I so gallantly told myself that I no longer had, appear once more.

I go to type but everything is blurred so I put my phone down on the table and angrily swipe them away.

No, I have to know.

I type:

How is your artist?

A reply bounces back.

I don’t care.

I frown and write:

Why?

Because, she’s not you.

What?

What are you talking about?

I love you . . . Pinkie . . . or should I say, Kate.

My eyes widen and I sit back in my chair—what the hell is going on here?

Are you going to eat that chocolate muffin, or will I?

I look up and Elliot is sitting at a table across the café; his eyes search mine as he gives me a soft smile.

And something snaps inside of me and I’m furious and I hate him, so I stand and march out of the café and down the street.

“Kate,” he calls as he runs after me. “Kate, come back here.”

I don’t want to hear his lies, I don’t want to be anywhere near him.

I walk quickly across the road to the park, needing to get as far away from him as I possibly can.

“Kate.” I can hear his voice getting closer.

I get to the park and I run.

“Kate,” he cries as he takes chase. “Kathryn, stop.” He grabs my arm and I turn and take a swing at him.

“Get away from me,” I scream like a maniac through tears.

He pants as he tries to catch his breath; his eyes are wide. “I love you.”

“Don’t you dare say that to me!” I cry.

“I had to go,” he whispers. “I had to know.”

“And now you do.”

“It’s you.”

“It took you a week in her bed to find that out?” I hiss.

“No.” He pauses as if choosing his words carefully. “There was no chemistry.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel special . . . you fucking asshole?” I cry.

His chest rises and falls as he gasps for breath.

“Should I feel flattered that you didn’t feel something?”

His shoulders slump.

“You are always going to be this person, Elliot,” I whisper through tears as I take a step back. “You are always going to want the fairy tale . . . the artist or the dancer . . . the singer.” I screw up my face in tears. “You want extraordinary.”

“You are,” he whispers.

“No, I’m not,” I cry. “I’m just a hot piece of ass that you happened to like in a netball dress.”

He shakes his head as if lost for words. “We can get past this.”

“No.”

He dives for me and holds me against my will as I struggle to get away from him. “I love you,” he says. “I fucking love you, don’t do this.” We struggle as he tries to hold me. “Don’t do this.”

“It is done,” I cry as I break away from his grip. “You did it, the moment you got on that fucking plane. It is over. I’m nobody’s second prize, Elliot.”

He stares at me.

“Least of all yours,” I sneer. “You think I could honestly be with someone who I know will throw me to the side every time he finds something shiny and new?”

We stare at each other, me in full-blown tears and him with flared nostrils as he battles for control.

“I swear to you . . .”

We hear the click of a camera and we both turn to see a photographer taking photos of the whole thing.

“Give me that,” Elliot growls.

Oh no.

The guy with the camera begins to run and Elliot chases him.

He wrestles him to the ground and people around them scream. Elliot snatches the camera from him and smashes it into a million pieces.

The photographer gives him a mouthful and goes to stand and Elliot punches him hard in the face.

He punches him again, and again.

What the hell is going on?

I turn, and I run.