She took a long drag from the cigarette held aloft between the middle and index finger of her left hand. She was, in actuality, right handed, but had been told that to do things with your non-dominant hand would cause you to perform the action slower, and with more thought. She applied this theory to eating and smoking, and swore it was her secret to keeping off the weight that plagued the women in her family.
Smoke billowed and curled from her lips and nostrils, and from behind the gray curtain, heavy-lidded eyes peered up towards the arms he'd crossed over his chest. She knew without looking that he was glaring at her, could feel it. The impatient tapping of his foot was like a persistent muscle tick, grating on her nerves. But she kept her demeanor disinterested as she swung her right hand over to the table and grabbed her drink, while in the same movement looked up into his eyes and smirked. She sipped her gin and tonic casually, holding his gaze, and when she moved the lipstick-stained glass from her mouth, she licked her lips and answered his unspoken question, "Yes, we can leave now."
The dim lights caught the sequins of her floor length black dress, and though she hadn't said a word to anybody, all eyes were on her as she sashayed from the room, cigarette still held between those two fingers of her left hand. The world stopped when Fayte chose to stop it, and more often than not, even when she didn't. She was not in love with her husband. Nor was she in love with his money. She was his trophy wife, and she was the one always watching quietly, watching life pass her by while she dreamed and schemed on the day she would get out of this Hell and live her own life. She had time, after all. 19 years old, carrying on as though she were another one of the middle aged wives of her husbands business associates and so called "friends".
In the car, she watched the people on the streets, created their stories in her mind. The weight of her long black hair piled elegantly on top of her head was giving her a migraine, and she ached for the moment when she got home and could release the tangle of curls, brush it out to it's full silken glory. When her hair was down, and her makeup removed, and she was down to her black satin nightgown, she would look all of her 19 years. But the mind behind those piercing, perceptive eyes was wise beyond her meager life span.
Before she turned in for the night, she checked the phone and found a missed call and the voicemail light blinking unfeelingly. She pressed the button and listened to the automated bullshit before she felt her heart turn to stone.
"Fayte, it's Uncle Dane. Your mom... we tried your cell phone... call me back as soon as you get this. And hurry..."
The machine beeped to signal that there were no more messages, and with the final words from her uncle, she felt the last remnant shards of hope slip from her grasp.
Without a word to Dominic, she slipped into a pair of jeans, red flats, and a black sweatshirt and raced her maroon PT Cruiser to the hospital where her mother had been spending more and more time as of late. She didn't noticed she was holding her breath in the elevator until she let it all out in one heavy exhale as the doors slid open at her floor. Fear almost rooted her to the spot, but the need to know pushed her on. The hallway seemed to stretch out in front of her as if she were living in a horror film, and the sense of dread on her heart only made the walk ten times more painful. She almost closed her eyes when she turned the corner, afraid of what she might see, but before she could, she saw Dane crouched on the floor; head in his hands and body shaking with the sobs that contorted his voice and probably his hidden face.
And she ran. Past the nurses, past her uncle. Into the room where she knew what she'd find, but had forgotten to prepare herself for. Her mother lay still, her eyes sunken in and her hair, so thin, fanned out on the pillow beneath her skull. Her lips were barely parted, and though Fayte stared hard, waiting on her breast to raise with an intake of oxygen, no movement happened. She stumbled, unfeelingly, to the edge of the bed and laid her face to her mother's hand, where she allowed herself to break. Hot tears poured from her tight shut lids, and she screamed, screamed for all the pain and anger and loneliness filling her otherwise empty heart and soul. The nurses ran to stop the commotion, but Dane provided a physical barrier between the emotional torment in the room and the doctors anxious not the alarm the other patients and visitors until she had calmed down.
These last few years, her empty marriage, all the medications and surgeries and tests, were all for naught. And when she finally left the hospital, escorted under the tender arm of her husband, she was not actually there at all. Though her body went through the motions of riding in a car, being comforted, and laying down to sleep, she was elsewhere, in her own little world away from all this bitterness and trying to process it. And when she fell to sleep, it was not a restful sleep, but one devoid of dreams and damn near utterly pointless.
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