The Alexandra Series by Lizbeth Dusseau Read Free Book Online Page B

with her would have been all I needed—so I thought.
    Tears streamed down my cheeks as I drove block after block, street after street, eleven o’clock at the night and nowhere to go. I thought perhaps I’d roam the city forever in my hurt. It was a rich hurt. Far more feeling than I’d felt in years. Better than the insidious gnawing pain of just being alone. This was a sharp and angry pain; and that mixed well with the aching in my heart.
    How I found my way back to my Lincoln Shores Apartment, I don’t remember. I don’t remember how I found the hallway door or the stairs to the second floor. I remembered nothing except the jumbling thoughts that whirled inside my head and the hurt deep in my gut. I remembered nothing until my foot suddenly caught the loose stair – the one I’d begged my landlord to repair. My knee came crashing down on the metal edge of the stair above and a searing pain shocked me into recalling who I was, and where I was, and why I was so hurt.
    Everything seemed to spill out all at once – the tension of the past months with Jane so near, my fantasies coming to life, the bar, the tavern, the men and the wild high, and the shock of Jane’s sudden departure. All of it, all of it came crashing down on me with a force I simply couldn’t handle. Tears flowed freely from my eyes, dark mascara ran into my hands. I felt so trapped in my sweet little world. With Jane I’d had some courage. Without her, I didn’t know how I’d find my way. I still needed someone to take me by the hand, someone to push me, someone to rescue me. I simply couldn’t do this alone, but I had nowhere to turn.
    As my tears finally subsided, I fingered the old gritty stairs. They’d been made of wood, reinforced with metal at the edges, then strips of non-skid paper had been tacked across them to prevent slipping. Funny, I thought to myself, I’d slipped anyway. The confident woman I was trying to become dangled before me, mocking me and then disappearing. Damn!
    Someone in the building was playing jazz, and that lazy rhythm only reminded me of my night with Jane. She was the outrageous siren. Me? Still the naïve innocent. But there was a siren in me, too, although at the moment, I felt like a puppet caught between two fucking bitches!
    The seedy stairway, the crumbling linoleum of the corridor, the threadbare carpet, all had that tacky sort of class that had attracted me to this place and gave it such character. That night, I belonged in that threadbare world. Things couldn’t have been more bleak. I wished there could be some angel to pull me out of the humbled mess. Another Jane. What a silly thought!
    The ancient steps that rudely jolted me from the horror comforted me in a small way. I probably wasn’t any different than a thousand, no a million other woman who cried over lost loves during lonely nights. I knew my life would continue, that I’d survive the night, and the next, and the one after that.
    I looked up to the crude bare bulb that lit the staircase. Its glaring light was blinding as I stared straight into its white, glowing orb. However, the light didn’t go far beyond that bare bulb…the space around me was dim and drab and overwhelmed with shadows.
    Maybe in the morning things would look better. Maybe I’d understand it all then. But for the moment, I was frozen where I sat.
    I imagined myself getting up, walking to my apartment, closing the door and leaving the night and the hurt and confusion behind. I imagined myself undressing in silence and slipping into bed, falling asleep and waking in the morning, happier. It seemed easy in my thoughts, but I couldn’t move. I was afraid to go to bed, to lay my head on my pillow. I was afraid of the half waking world where I created visions and fantasy and dreams that made my body come alive. Even if I could find some pleasure in that, if I could masturbate over and over again to raunchy fantasies, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was alone. And, damn