Chapter 20 - Shredded Memories (Alex’s POV)
After everything at my wedding, all the drama with Liam and I, Taylor didn’t hate me or even blame me. He did however blame Liam for coming to the wedding and ruining our special day.
A part of me after that day was dead though. I wasn’t the same girl anymore; everything had hit me in the face making me feel aged and weighed down. My life had thrown so many punches at me that I felt like I couldn’t get back up. I really just wanted to lie down and give up but Taylor wouldn’t let me. He pushed me to keep going.
The first year of our marriage was great after I finally picked myself up and moved on that is. I made the best out of what I had.
To most people what I had in life was amazing, but most people had no clue what went on behind my closed doors. The ones that kept people from seeing the real me. The me that was dead inside…
I had no hopes…No dreams…I had nothing at all…I was just an empty shell of the girl I used to be.
It was about August when everything started looking up for us. Taylor got a great job that he loved and I had got a chance of a lifetime…I got an offer to show my work off in a showing of my complete collection. A show of my own. The show was to be in September and I was working my ass off to get it set up and ready, so people could see what I could do. I still couldn’t wrap my head around being able to have my own show.
I was working so hard on the show that I really hadn’t realized how much time I was working and away from home and Taylor. But, I was happy and felt alive for the first time since the day of my wedding.
When I got home the night before my reveal and working really hard on the final painting for the show, Taylor was waiting for me with a glass of wine in his hand and slow, rhythmic music playing in the background. He came over to me handing me the wine. I gladly took it from him, taking a huge gulp before sitting it down. It was just what I needed to relax.
Taking my hand in his, we danced around our living room slowly swaying to the melody as it relaxed and lulled me into a blissful heaven. A heaven I hadn’t had in many, many months.
“What’s all this for?” I whispered into his ear as he spun me around slowly.
“All this? We’re celebrating my wife’s hard work. You’re going to be amazing tomorrow.”
“Thanks. I hope it all goes okay. I’m sort of freaking out about it all. What if they don’t like it?” I asked.
“It will be great, just like you. Everyone will love it because your work is as beautiful as you,” he whispered into my ear and kissed my forehead.
That night, after some slow rhythmic love making to the music still playing in our living room, I fell fast asleep in my husband’s arms. Completely oblivious to the hell that was about to break loose the very next day.
The next day, the day of my show, the sun light beamed through the curtains of our room, telling me to get my ass out of bed because I was running late. But, my body wasn’t listening to the sun. It wanted to stay in bed all morning, until it caught up with my brain that is. I shot up and out of bed, muttering about being late and dashed toward the bathroom.
Getting dressed quickly after my shower, I ran towards second street and into the building my show was in making it there only fifteen minutes late. I got to work right away with the help of my friends, we got everything set up and ready two hours ahead of schedule, giving me enough time to head home and get ready.
Taylor was supposed to be there when I got there but he was nowhere to be seen. I figured he would get there while I was in the shower, but he wasn’t there when I got out. So I got dressed still waiting for him and was still waiting twenty minutes before my show was to start. To say I was upset was an understatement. I left our place, slamming the door behind me and headed towards my car and to my show.
My show was a hit though, even with me being upset about Taylor not being there. Every single piece of my artwork was bought. I was on cloud nine and had no one to share it with. Taylor never showed up. My own husband wasn’t here to bask in the happiness with me. He should have been here to share this with me.
That’s when I saw him….
“Hey, Alex. This showing was amazing congrats babe. You look beautiful as always.”
Smiling I thanked my old friend that I hadn’t seen in so long. Well, over a year that is. Anthony graduated college a year before I had. He was a great friend to me. When I had wanted to give up on everything in college and run home with my tail between my legs crying, he was a rock that didn’t let me do it.
We sat there and talked for about an hour, telling each other stories about stuff that had happened since college. I told him about my life with Taylor since I had seen him. Then of course that brought up the subject of Taylor not being here with me and I had to explain that away, telling him that Taylor had to work. After our talk, I knew it was getting late so we hugged and said our goodbyes and wished each other well.
As he walked out he stopped and came back to me, handing me his card and kissed me on the cheek, whispering into my ear.
“You ever need a friend to talk to Alex, you just give me a call. I’m here for you if you need me.”
I didn’t know what to say really, so I didn’t say anything at all. I watched as he went out the door, leaving me standing there stunned.
I looked around at the blank white walls that were as empty as they were when I walked in there. All my artwork was loved and bought. Sitting there in silence I waited a little longer for Taylor, but he never showed up. Giving up I picked myself up and closed the doors behind me.
I pulled into our place, parking the car and looked up into our living room window, seeing a bright light shinning out the floor to ceiling windows. Shaking my head I got out of my car and headed in. Opening the door Taylor was just standing in the middle of the room. Staring at the floor. The tension in the air was so thick it was choking me and I couldn’t take it anymore I just exploded with my anger.
“Where were you? You said you would be there. You should have been there with me. I wanted to…”
I didn’t get to finish what I was saying, his head snapped up and the look on his face stopped me in my tracks, reminding me of another time he was this upset. A time where he punched a hole in our wall. I just didn’t’ understand why he would be angry, he was the one that missed my show. Something very important to me, a big day in my life, not his.
“You’re going to yell at me? At me? I wasn’t the one hugging and kissing on someone else Alex. You were. I SAW YOU!”
I didn’t understand what he was talking about and I told him just that, which pissed him off even more. I didn’t understand what was going on at all. I didn’t know what was setting him off.
“What are you talking about? I wasn’t kissing on anyone! I would never do that. I don’t understand why you’re so angry at me? You are the one that missed my show. It wasn’t your show and I missed it. It was mine and my own husband wasn’t there.”
As soon as those very words were out of my mouth everything around me turned into a cataclysm with me in the middle. Taylor started yelling and throwing things. Anything he could get his hands on was thrown at me or around me, trashing our apartment and everything in it.
His temper had exploded and it was aimed at me. I couldn’t understand how I had gotten here. On one of the happiest days for me, I was now standing in the middle of my apartment getting yelled at and my things shattered around me.
I watched as it all crashed in around me. I didn’t hear one word he was screaming at me. I watched as he went for something I cherished dearly, something I had painted my first year in college. It was a painting, one that he had no clue as to why I loved it so much.
First beach, the place I had met Liam. The painting was an exact replica of the log I had sat on so many times. The one I sat on crying over my dad so long ago. The one I had sad on waiting for Liam when he was busy with his brothers. That very log that had Liam’s and my names carved into it by Liam.
Taylor lunged for that very painting and I lunged for Taylor. There was no way in hell he was taking that from me.
The screams from us both were deafening by this time, I had no clue which one of us was louder. I really had no clue why no one even called the cops on us, but they never showed up. I do know however that Taylor heard me clear as day when I screamed that he wasn’t taking the last part of Liam that I had left.
Which in return set him off even more then he already was, which was crazy seeing as I thought he was already to his peak, but he wasn’t even close. He stopped going for the painting and instead came for me. I started stepping back as fast as he was coming for me but fell down. I was trapped and had nowhere to really go. My feet kept sliding on our hardwood floor and he just kept coming for me.
Right as I got my footing though and almost up and standing, his fist collided with my jaw and all I could hear besides him screaming was the loud thundering crack my jaw bone made as his fist hit, knocking me back onto the floor with tears flooding my eyes and flowing down my cheeks in a torrential downpour.
Blood pooled in my mouth almost choking me, but he didn’t stop. He kept punching every blow pushing me toward my death. Something, by this time, I was praying for. Begging to just die.
My breaths came in ragged timing I tried to beg him to stop, but the words were garbled and the blood was everywhere.
His fist had met every part of my body, parts that he had caressed the night before were now battered and bruised by his very hand. Every single inch of me hurt, but he intended to crush me to smithereens even more.
As he walked away from me, my body a jumbled mess on the floor, I saw his intentions clear as day through my swelled, barely opened eyes. I couldn’t move to stop him this time. The frame crumbled in his hand as he tore down my painting, ripping the canvas into shreds, throwing the pieces at me.
“I hope you’re happy now Alexandra, look what you made me do,” he spit out at me as he ripped the last piece of canvas and threw it at me walking to our door and slamming it closed behind him leaving me there all alone.
I laid there covered in the shreds of the memory, surrounded by the past. The painting resembled the actual future I would have had with Liam. A future I would give anything to piece back together, but it was a future even the strongest glue couldn’t hold.
I wanted death to just take me. I could barely breathe, my eyes were swelled shut, my jaw broken. I was pretty sure a few of my ribs were broke as well. I had no clue how long I had lay there, but I just stayed where I was all night…awake, staring at the mess around me.
I watched as the sun came up through our floor to ceiling windows in the living room where I lay on the floor. He didn’t come back, he had left me there.
I finally broke out of my trance when the phone rang. Luckily for me it was within reaching distance and I didn’t really have to move. I really hadn’t planned on answering it I just wanted to see who it was. Checking the caller ID I realized it was Seth. So I answered it hoping he wouldn’t notice anything.
“Hello,” I whispered into the phone, my voice cracking. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice but of course he realized it.
“Alex, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t help but break down. I couldn’t play my part and act as if everything was okay when it wasn’t. I was laying here in my living room floor a heaping mess. I couldn’t even move. I needed help so I asked for it.
“Seth can you…can you come get me.”
“Alex what’s going on? Of course I can come get you. I’ll head that way as soon as you tell me what’s going on. Tell me why you can’t just get in your car and come here.”
By the time he had stopped questioning me, I heard my grandma sue in the background.
“Seth, please…I can’t move put grandma on.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T MOVE…IF THAT HUSBAND OF YOURS HURT YOU I’M GOING TO…” he growled but didn’t get to finish what he was saying because I heard my grandma grab the phone from him.
“Give me the phone, Seth,” I heard her say as he was still yelling a string of profanities in the background.
“Alex, honey what’s going on?” This time I really broke down hearing her voice. but I couldn’t get it all out. I was in and out of it and all I really wanted was her to be here.
“Grandma it hurts, please help. Taylor. I can’t move.” That was all I could get out before he butted in and said they were on their way and she hung up. I figured she meant her and Seth. Dropping the phone out of my hand I watched as it rolled away from me, my eyes slowly closed.
Laying there after coming back around was torture waiting for them to show up. But the first ones to show up weren’t my grandma and Seth, it was the paramedics. Then Emily and Sam showed up, then my grandma. The whole entire time I was laying there I was praying Taylor wouldn’t show back up.
As the paramedics worked on me, the cops showed up as well and started asking a hundred and one questions. My grandma told me that she had called my mom and dad and told me that they were heading home right away. They were off on their second honeymoon seeing as the first one didn’t go so good.
“They are trying to get a flight home as we speak,” she told me.
I had messed up their second honeymoon. What kind of daughter does that after all they have been through?
“One that needs her family,” Emily said as she knelt down beside me brushing my hair out of my face. I couldn’t help but try to smile at her, I loved her like my mom. She was always there for me when I needed her when all the crap went down before.
The thing they all failed to see, I was glad they were all there, but deep down they weren’t the ones I wanted to save me. Leah and my dad weren’t the ones either. I really needed him at the moment. I kept that to myself though.
Emily smiled at me like she knew what I was thinking. That’s when I heard Sam speak for the first time. He was on the phone and the only thing I heard was, go find him.
I had no clue as to who he was talking about. As he hung up the phone he caught me watching him, he gave me a slight smile and hugged Emily to his side.
The next thing I knew was I was being taken out of my apartment on a stretcher and the police were still trying to get information out of me.
I just wanted all this to go away, me included. I guess I said that part out loud because I got a ‘don’t even go there look‘ from my grandma, who was holding my hand on one side with Emily on my other side. The ambulance rushed me to the hospital, where the police still asked more questions. I answered all of them I could since I seemed to be a bit more lucid this time. Finally they left me alone, but left a police guard for me at the hospital.
Taylor had broken three of my ribs and bruised two others, my jaw was completely shattered and I had to have surgery to fix it. My whole body was one big giant bruise.
Both grandma Sue and Emily stayed with me in the hospital. Leah and my dad relentlessly pleaded with me on the phone to come home and take care of me. I reassured them I had grandma and Emily both and they could just stay there and have time together. I told them I didn’t want to mess up their second honeymoon and if I did I would never forgive myself. I asked them to stay there and have a good time. That I would go back to La Push and I would see them as soon as they got back. They finally gave in but only promised to stay one more week of their two weeks they had left.
The last day I was in the hospital, Emily left and headed home promising me that she would see me as soon as I got to Sue’s house. I hugged her and thanked her for everything and she whispered something in my ear that made me cry.
“You were always like a daughter to me. I love you dearly. I’ll see you when you get to La Push.”
I nodded my eyes full of tears and told her I would see her in La Push.
By the time I actually got to La Push after being in the hospital for a week and all, the bruising was already going away. The only reason I had to stay for a week was that I had to have the jaw surgery and it took three surgeries to actually fix it.
I had always dreamed of coming back to La Push but this wasn’t the homecoming I always dreamed of. Grandma pulled up to the house and helped me out of the car and into the house. She even helped me up to Leah’s old room.
She had gotten it all ready one night when Emily told her to head home and get some rest. She helped me get into bed letting me know that she had to work that night and that Emily said she would check on me. She promised to bring me lunch before she headed out to the hospital.
Emily came over for a few hours till I fell asleep then I’m pretty sure she left. The next several days went by in the same fashion. I stayed in the room, laying in the bed. I didn’t really talk to anyone, except for the cop that called and my lawyer. The cop called to let me know that Taylor was in jail, which I was happy about.
By the end of the week, my dad and Leah were on their way home, and I had a restraining order against Taylor seeing as he got out of jail and was awaiting trial. My divorce was also started as well. But I still hadn’t talked much to anyone. I hadn’t even seen Seth. I had figured he would have come to visit me but he never did. I had talked to Caro and she was on her way this weekend to come see me.
I hadn’t left Leah’s old room at all, all I did was lay there in bed and stare. The depression overtook me and I was drowning in it. Emily and Sue both tried to talk to me but it was useless. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Sam even tried, which really shocked me.
I felt so alone…I didn’t want to do anything or say anything, all I really wanted to do was stare. In reality I was torturing myself with memories, memories of us together when we were happy. I relived the night we had made love so many times I could feel his hands on me. Some nights my grandma even woke me up because of the nightmares I was having. She wouldn’t tell me what I was screaming but I remembered I was screaming for Liam to help me.
I even dreamed that I stopped him the day of my wedding telling him it was all a mistake and that I wanted to go with him. Then it turned bad and Taylor would kill Liam and I would be there in a heap on my wedding day still crying over Liam. I was drowning in my own despair and I couldn’t breathe.
I heard Leah’s voice first as she and my dad flew up the stairs, I listened as my grandma stopped them and warned them of my condition and how I had been cooped up in the room barley moving. And of course I heard my mom get pissed off and stomp up the stairs and I watched as she threw open the door to the room.
“Alex…Alex look at me.” I looked up from the door and into her eyes and watched as the pissed off Leah turned into my loving mom. She ran over to me hugging me to her. I clung to her as she clung to me. I didn’t want her to let go.
Leaning back she took my face in with her own eyes. I felt my dad come in and sit next to me on the bed. Leaning into him I broke down in tears and told them everything. Everything that I had been holding in. Except one thing: I left Liam completely out of the story.
I heard Leah mention something about us going home and I refused. I told them that I wanted to stay here in La Push, that I felt it was more of a home to me. I told them that I felt safe here and that settled it.
Grandma Sue of course over heard this and got the ball rolling for me. By the next day I had a place to live and a job.
Emily and Sam had bought a cute little house by the beach and had fixed it up. They told me that they were going to rent it out. What they failed to tell me is who the little house was meant for. The little house became my new place to live. The job grandma set up for me was actually an answered prayer for her.
The corner store the family owned was getting ready to be closed because Sue didn’t have anyone to run it for her and with her work schedule she couldn’t. So that became my new job. I would run the store for her and I would get to stay in La Push and make it my home, just like I always felt it should be.
The next several weeks went by and everything was going great. I loved the house and the job. I hung out with Emily almost every day when she would come by the store. I had thought everything was great until I got a letter in the mail stating that I had to come clean out the apartment.
I didn’t want to step one toe in that place, let alone walk in there and clean out all my stuff, but Grandma said it would be good for me to be able to get all my stuff. So I agreed to go and do it and Emily and her whole family agreed to help me move.
I really had no clue why they were all so very nice to me, but they were. I was okay all the way to the apartment but as soon as I opened the door I was rooted in my place. Everything was exactly as I had left it, in shattered pieces. Standing there in the door way I looked in on the broken pieces of my life and I was frozen. Rooted to the carpet below me. Everyone walked in around me, not even noticing I couldn’t move till I saw Emily pick up a few pieces of the canvas trying to put them together to see what it was.
Running towards her I grabbed them out of her hand clutching the shreds to myself, throwing myself on the floor grabbing as many of the pieces as I could.
“Please, please don’t take these away…they are all I have left of him…shreds are all I have, please,” I begged as I looked up at Emily and tears rolled down my cheeks, my heart breaking. “Liam I’m sorry,” I whispered, not even realizing I had said it.
I heard Emily’s shuddering breath and knew she was crying. They had heard me, they knew who I was talking about. They had put the pieces together. One of Liam’s brothers, Sam Jr., tried to help me off the floor but I shrugged him off. His arms felt way to much like Liam’s and I could have just melted into them but I pushed that feeling off. They weren’t Liam’s.
Getting up from the floor trying really hard not to look at anyone’s face, I clutched all the pieces to my chest and walked out. I didn’t give a fuck about anything else in that damn apartment, just these shredded pieces of canvas.
After the crazy trip to the apartment I went straight back to my little house on the beach and locked myself in it. The only time I ever came out was to go to open the store and work, other than that I went out after everyone else was asleep and I would walk down the beach and sit on my log. I had tried to repaint the picture but it never looked the same.
One night around midnight after having one of my crazy dreams, I got up and dressed and headed out to my log and sat down. Tears started to flow as I stared out at the ocean around me.
“I’d give anything to take it all back Liam. I still love you…with all my heart, what’s left of it will always be yours,” I whispered to myself as I wished he could hear me just this once.
As I got up to leave I turned around towards the woods and there, standing in the darkness surrounded by the trees, was a figure. I couldn’t see who it was and I couldn’t help the panic that I felt right away. My breathing started to speed up and all I could think of was that Taylor came back to finish me off. I couldn’t help but scream I was so scared.
“No, please…”
I sank to the sand below me and curved into a shaking ball. The next thing I knew the very arms I had wanted for so long were wrapped around me and pulling me into his lap.
“Alexandra, relax it’s me…” he whispered into my ear, moving my hair out of my eyes and face.
“Liam?”
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