Illicit Affairs by Holly Dixon

Forty-Four

Nate staredup at Ava in awe, their heavy breathing slowly returning to normal after several more sessions of lovemaking that morning. His mouth stroked against hers, a grin on his face as he tried to grab her lip between his teeth.

“Wait right there—I need to pee!” Ava beamed down at Nate, sprawled across his bare body as she awkwardly clambered to her feet, scolding any help he attempted to offer her. Walking was a struggle when half her leg was wrapped in white stone, but she was adamant that it wouldn’t hinder her ability to walk without aid. If athletes could sprint on prosthetic limbs, then she could walk with hers in plaster.

“If you ain’t gonna use your crutches at least use the walking aid,” Nate sighed, running his hand through his messy dark locks, the roots saturated with sweat as he lazily turned onto his side to admire Ava’s beauty—even if she was comically hobbling about the living room without any clothes on.

“Don’t need itttt!” she said in singsong, clumsily staggering her way towards her bathroom.

“Whatever you say, hop-a-long!” Nate chirped, rolling onto his back with his hands cradling his head as he grinned from ear-to-ear up at the ceiling. He couldn’t remember a time where he’d felt such peace, as though the sun pouring through the window was filling his soul and bringing him a euphoric high. Ava changed his perspective on things and sweetened everything bitter in life. The rain was no longer depressing, it was cleansing, and the wind was no longer cold, it was refreshing. She made him feel overflowing with bright and warm sunshine.

Eyes closed, he listened to the birdsong outside before a shrill buzzing interrupted his moment of bliss as his cell darted across the coffee table causing him to squint at the caller ID that pulled a dark cloud over his soul.

“So, I was thinking we could maybe try going for a walk to—” Ava cut short as she wandered back into an empty living room and frowned, fastening her dressing gown around her. “Nate?” She heard chatter coming from the balcony extending from her kitchen as she padded as quietly as she could towards the white curtains blowing gently in the wintery breeze.

“Whoa,lookjust slow down, your padre? You mean your dad?” Nate spoke in hushed tones on the phone, stood shirtless upon the balcony as a pair of loose jogger bottoms hung from his defined hips. “Oh, Nat, I’m so sorry…”

Ava’s stomach sunk upon realising who he was talking to. For the past few weeks, she had been drowning so much in her mourning that she had completely forgotten about the other woman. This morning, without a second thought, she greedily grabbed on to the first chance of happiness as a way of respite from that dark place inside of her, but now she realised she was simply swinging from one high to the next low.

There was a point in her life, not so long ago, that she felt like she had everything, that she held all the puzzle pieces to a complete jigsaw. She had her best friend, a blooming career, wealth, and good health, and in her blinded state, she had a passion that consumed her with love.

Now she had nothing.

Her friend was gone, her father had dismissed her as his assistant, her health was in tatters, and the love she experienced was all just a dream, rendering her puzzle in pieces on the ground.

How foolish of me, she thought. How foolish to think that things were that simple and that the one good thing left in my life was mine to keep.

“Of course, Nat! I’ll get the next flight out—shit, wait, no, I…I can’t. I’ve got this…this work thing I—” Nate clamped his mouth shut as his wife screeched down the phone at him, the cell phone held away from his ears as she did. “I’ll figure something out…”

Ava didn’t know what bothered her more: the fact he was lying to his wife calling her a “work thing” or the fact that he was leaving her to go back to his wife. It twisted like a hot knife in her gut making her want to erupt at Nate but the feeling faded quickly. She didn’t have the capacity to feel anger right now, her body tired of feeling emotion and wanting to switch them off. Then it loomed on her that this whole time she had thought of his wife as “the other woman” when in fact she was the other woman.

She was the homewrecker, the adulterer, the slut… not Natalia Brooks.

Ava retreated towards the living room with her stomach lodged in her throat. The room with high ceilings was shrouded in shadows as the sun hid its head in the dark snow clouds. She felt entirely alone in that moment, like a little boat straying far out into the big black ocean. As her eyes glanced at a picture frame upon the cold fireplace, she released the breath she didn’t remember holding. The picture was taken by Suzy many years ago, a young Ava dressed professionally after her first big day stepping into the working world. Sam was with her in the photo, showering Ava in champagne as they both screamed and laughed. That was the first time in Ava’s life that she felt a sense of completeness, that all the boxes in her life were ticked and yet she had so much still to achieve and look forward to. Now she felt completely lost and had a desperate need to get her life back on track.

Glancing up at the mirror suspended above the mantel, she didn’t recognise her own reflection. Her complexion was washed out, her hair wasn’t quite golden, and dark crescents hung beneath her eyes. Whatever light was inside her was gone.

Closing her eyes, she materialised Sam in that room with her, imagining her friend stood behind with a hand on her shoulder. In her mind was the only place Sam now existed and these little delusions had been Ava’s only saviour this last month.

Ava’s eyes opened as she heard Nate’s slippers scuff against the floor as he stepped in from the snowy balcony and joined her in the living room.

“You need to go back to America.”

“You heard?” he asked, cautiously moving towards her and stopping when she turned around and he saw the grave expression on her face. “Her father passed away suddenly last night, but it’s fine, I can find a way out ofatten—”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Nate’s thick brows pulled into the bridge of his creased nose as he watched her cold eyes slice into him in the dully lit room.

“You need to go home and be with your wife.”

“Not this again… Ava, I told you, Natalia is just my—”

“She is your wife, Nate. It is as simple as that.” She lifted her shoulders with her lips turned inwards at the corners. “Whether you try and make it as black and white as the contract you signed on your wedding day or not, she is still your spouse and I’m…I’m just your mistress. I am anything but yours and you are anything but mine which is why we cannot be together right now. You cannot keep lying to Natalia.”

“What?” Nate said, winded as his hand swept across his face in bewilderment. “Did we not just make love moments ago on that couch?”

“We did but—”

“Then where the hell is all of this coming from, Ava?!” Silence befell the room as he watched her avoid his glare. It was ludicrous to backtrack to square one when they had come this far. He began pacing up and down the living as he ranted, “I have told you before and I will tell you this again and again until I am blue in the face. She means nothing to me, and I mean nothing to her. That heartless bitch wouldn’t give two craps if I walked up to her today and confessed where I’ve really been this past month or even that I have spent the last couple of months being madly in love with you because I am nothing but financial gain to that woman!”

“And so, what if she doesn’t care, Nate? Does that make it the right thing to do?” Ava hissed as she angrily limped towards him. “You know what you’re doing to her isn’t fair and I know that you are a better man than that, which is precisely why you need to go home and sort your bloody life out!”

“And I will, Ava! The second I’m back in Manhattan it is over with her and we can start a life together!”

“No.”

“Fucking give me strength!” Nate roared as he threw his hands into the air and sunk down onto the edge of the couch. “You are an impossible woman!” He covered his face with his hands as his neck began to ache, unsure if it was from lying on the couch or the emotional whiplash that this Brit was giving him.

“You need to go home and fix your life. Stop letting people dictate how you live your life. You work to live, not live to work so stop living by other people’s rules and put yourself first, Nate—not your title, not your reputation or even your career.”

“That’s goddamn hypocrisy at its finest when you stand there and dictate what I should do with my life when I am perfectly happy with what is right in front of me right here!”

“I am not saying that we can’t be together. I am saying we can’t be together right now!” This brought on a lull of silence in their debate as Nate’s frown softened ever so slightly and a small flicker of hope glimmered in his honey gems that peered up at her. Ava hobbled over to the sofa and stood in front of him. “Nathaniel, my best friend just died… I don’t have a job to distract myself with, I need to make amends with my father, and I am like this,” she croaked as her hand slapped at her broken leg. “My life is a mess right now and I don’t have any more space for unbalance. I need to be better and do better. It’s what Sam would have wanted me to do.”

Nate dropped to his knees before her, his eyes pleading for mercy as he gazed up. “Ava, please. I…I just got you back…you said you loved me, I thought we’d—”

“I do love you, of course I love you!” she whimpered, hating to see him so vulnerable and wishing she could drop to her knees to join him. “Your heart is the perfect storm. When I am with you, it’s chaos. The most amazing, mind-blowing chaos that sets my soul on fire and makes me feel alive. But right now, I don’t need chaos in my life. I need structure and I need to get back on track, starting with me, Nate. Can you please just try to understand?”

“I can’t lose you again.” His voice broke as tears blinked past the barrier of his eyes and trickled down his face. “It nearly killed me, Ava. That night…that video…not knowing if you were okay or not… I…I can’t—”

“You will never lose me,” she vowed, wiping away each of his tears as her own began dripping from her chin. “I am not saying we can never be together, but right now is not our time. Everything isn’t in place. We need time apart and need to sort out our own train wrecks before we are ready for each other.”

“Ava… I don’t think I have it in me to wait anymore to start living my life…”

“Then don’t wait for me…start living it on your terms,” she soothed despite the tears thickening her voice. “But I think a part of me will always be waiting for this. Have you ever heard the saying about love and lust?” When he shook his head, she gave him a small smile and said, “Lust blinds you but love lets you see. You opened my eyes, Nathaniel Brooks.”

It took him a moment to rationalise the bomb she dropped on him after such a blissful morning. Part of him wanted to grab on to her legs like a petulant child and scream her name until his lungs burnt out. However, he knew he couldn’t be selfish and had to face the fact that she wasn’t in the same headspace as he was right now. She had her own demons to contend with and had to heal herself from the inside out first.

His legs trembled as she pulled him up onto his feet and wrapped her little arms around his neck. “We’re really doing this then? We’re going our separate ways after everything we’ve been through these past couple of months?” he asked with a tired sigh, feeling the last thread of hope snap as Ava weakly nodded up at him. All the words crumpled into a heap inside his heart and all he could do was pull her close and bury his face into her hair. He filled his lungs with all of her, committing her to memory like the picture of them that would forever remain inside his wallet.

Pulling back from her embrace, he watched the silver lines of heartbreak slip down her cheeks and wiped them away with his lips, tasting the salt of her sorrow on his tongue.

“Fate has shitty timing,” Ava said, pouting up at him before nuzzling her face into his throat.

Nate chuffed sadly through his nose as he rested his chin on top of her head and squeezed his arms around her petite frame. In that moment, he made himself a vow: one day he was going to defy fate and marry this woman.

“Yeah, it really does, sweetheart.”