Broken

"She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the Universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings." Ariana Dancu I was tired. Not just a little tired, but bone tired, and I still pushed on. I got on the flight to New York to throw the debut party for an artist that I had discovered myself in a little shop in Atlanta years ago. I knew he had talent then and he had only gotten better with time. I still remember his knock-off Van Gogh and how I'd laughed to myself at the quandary the person who owned it would be in. He'd come a long way and so had I, but then again, I had something others didn't have on their side--the power to make things happen. No, that's not quite true. Everyone has the same power, but they can't see it, and can't harness it as I can. The things I can do are sometimes wonderful, and sometimes they're horrible, but I can't change what I am, the same way a rose growing up a trellis can't change its path. It will grow until it dies. So, I followed my path up and down my rose trellis. I am the flower no one believed would live past twenty, perhaps twenty-five. Broken girls have a tendency to die young, but I refuse to die. Part of my path was controlling my boss in New York. He had no idea he was being manipulated, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do. It was his own fault. My resume was a work of fiction, and he knew it. Still, I managed one of the biggest art galleries in Atlanta. Adam Blake was the head buyer in New York. He ruled his elegant world and when I was in that world, he stared at me with ravenous hunger each time. He did his best to manipulate situations to his advantage. He would tell me he needed me in New York and that his secretary had made all the arrangements for me. I always thanked him and told him there was no need. I could have a plane ready in an hour and we owned a suite of rooms at the Carlyle. He would laugh as though he had forgotten, but we both understood he hadn't. He arranged the hotel room so he could f**k me. It was an unspoken invitation for me to say "yes." He made my skin crawl, although I am sure other women would have been flattered. He was gorgeous, chic and, from what I'd heard, delicious in bed. There was just one problem. I was already married to the most exquisite man alive and nothing could make me betray him, especially not for a cheap lay that would only bore me. Poor Adam would never be able to sleep with another woman without crying because it wasn't me. I'd make sure of it. He was such an ass that sometimes it was tempting to give him what he wanted and deserved. I wouldn't do it, but as I said--tempting. He would say outrageous things to me, ask me to come with him to his summer home, and tell me all the things he wanted to do to me. He cornered me at an opening and said in a low voice, "Paige, you're miserable. I can make you a very happy woman." I laughed and exaggerated my southern accent as I protested, "Behave yourself, now! Don't make me have to spank you!" He didn't laugh and told me how much he wanted to spank me instead. Apparently, it doesn't matter where a woman works. Sleazy bosses abide in every f*****g corner of the Earth. There is no escape. I kept my job because I needed it to keep up an image for my husband's parents. I couldn't give them what they really wanted, which was a woman worthy of their son. That I couldn't be, no matter how powerful I was and no matter how much a tried to her--I wasn't. I was a broken girl and that wouldn't change. The flight back to Atlanta after the party was excruciating. I should have stayed the night, but I wanted to be home in bed with my husband. I needed his body close to mine. Instead it felt as if my head was going to explode. It was just the pollen from the Georgia pine trees that had turned my world into a haze of pain and antibiotics. I laid in bed for days, unable to find a reason to get out of it, until the fact that I was beginning to smell bothered me. I rose to shower; moving took all my strength. I removed my smelly pajamas and was about to step into the shower when my heart began to race. My fingers tingled as though they had fallen asleep and I was trying to wake them. My breath became fast and shallow. My legs began to tremble. I clutched the shower door in order not to lose my balance. I briefly thought I should call an ambulance, but I was only twenty-five years old. I had never experienced anything worse than a cold or my recent sinus infection. I ran through the list of medical conditions that might cause rapid heartbeat. I hadn't smoked or even drank a cup of coffee in two weeks. I hadn't taken any medication. My heart pounded as if it might escape from my chest and I felt as if I were suffocating. My limbs began to feel numb. Was I dying or having a stroke? I spoke aloud to myself to test my speech. I wasn't slurring or skipping any words. I forced myself into the shower because if I was dying, I wasn't going to die smelling like a sewer. I also needed to shave and I wasn't going to die like that, either. I washed my hair, despite my hands being numb. I picked up my razor but my hands quaked. It tumbled from my fingers, falling next to the drain. I thought of Sarah, lying on a gurney with her face covered in vomit and her amber eyes half closed. Her mouth hung open and white foam dribbled from the corners of her lips. The trembling of my legs forced me to sit down. I knew that something was terribly wrong, but I dismissed the idea that I was dying. If I were truly dying then I would have done so already. Death was usually either slow and agonizing or struck with one painful blow. It was rarely a tease. I let the water run over me until my heart started to beat regularly and my breathing slowed. I stood carefully, making sure my legs would hold my weight. I retrieved my razor to shave all my private bits. I stepped out of the shower after I was clean and trimmed to look at myself in the mirror. I wiped the condensation from the glass and stared at my reflection. Nothing about my appearance seemed out of the ordinary. My blue eyes were a bit puffy and I was paler than usual, but nothing indicated a serious medical problem. I went back to bed without bothering to put on clothes. This wasn't medical. This was something in my mind and that made things dangerous. I was a damaged person, but I understood my damage. It was no worse than anyone else's. There had been times in my life when I wondered how I would continue to keep living or caring if I did. Everyone feels like that, at some point or another. That wasn't the problem. I made it through those times as I had everything else. There were holes in me, but I was used to them. I snickered at the thought of my psyche looking like Swiss cheese at this point. My laundry list of "Shitty Things That Can Really f**k a Person Up" was long, but didn't explain my current state. I wondered what level of f****d up I was at, currently. After the whole shower incident, I believed I had gone up a notch. I curled my knees to my chest and tried to think my way through the problem. Something important eluded me, and the answer hovered at the edges of my memory. It hung there just out of my reach. I rolled over to stare at my ceiling and turned its pristine whiteness into a movie screen. I let my life play out before me as if it weren't even mine, but someone else's. It was always better to think of my life that way. If my memories belonged to someone else, I didn't have to accept them as my own. Sometimes, it made the ugly parts more gruesome and the beauty even more startling. I was w*********h, but only a few people, including my horrible in laws, knew that. I read every book on proper manners. I married the perfect man and we both had perfect jobs. I was well groomed and in perfect shape. I always appeared to the outside world as the perfect wife. I was the perfect host; getting an invitation to one of my parties was like winning the lottery to some people. I hated those parties and almost every person that attended. I tolerated them because I had mastered the ability to smile while blood ran down my hands. My husband was a handsome and brilliant man. His family despised me and in an odd way, that didn't really bother me. They accepted our marriage because they would face ruin if they did not and so I figured that evened the scales. I could hardly blame them for their bitterness though. No one likes losing to trash. My husband loved me and I loved him. He reminded me of the first day of spring after a long winter. I often found it difficult to look away from his arresting beauty. He took my breath away, then gave me his. He would give his last breath to me, knowing I would only give it back. We had the perfect home, comfortably elegant and impeccable. The problem was its emptiness. We would never fill it with children and I would never feel our child's kick in my stomach. We were empty and trying to fill it with parties and more things. My life was a forgery, a perfect replica of a masterpiece. It was the perfect lie.