166. Ashamed

Warning: coarse language

Bridgeport, present day...

Leigh felt the dark cloud of tension as soon as she opened her eyes . But she didn’t think much of it; she just assumed it was the residual strain from last night. Ariel hadn’t wanted Krisis anywhere near her last night; every time he’d approached her she’d screamed blue murder and no matter how hard he’d tried to get through to her, he couldn’t. In the end Leigh had politely asked him to stay out of the nursery and she’d spent the night there, on the floor.

She slowly dragged herself from her sleeping bag now, yawning and stretching at the same time.

“Good Morning, where are the kids? Where’s Krisis?” She asked Michaela as she passed her in the hallway. Her niece tried to stop her, mumbling something unintelligible.

When she checked the kitchen and didn’t find Patty or the kids, Leigh decided to go find Krisis, they were obviously with him. He was in the study, with Jessica Rubin, his lawyer, and K-Infinity’s management. The triplets and Lily were nowhere in sight.

Their conversation halted as soon as they saw her hovering at the door. Jessica suddenly busied herself with the legal brief on her lap, Mark and Stanley seemed captivated with the chess pieces in front of them, and Krisis looked at everything but her.

“What’s going on? Where are the kids” Leigh asked. If she’d thought the tension around the house was bad, it was worse in here, she could almost taste it at the back of her throat.

“I’m so sorry,” Krisis pulled her in his arms and held her.

 Leigh was confused, more so when the feeling of dread rose from her tummy and crept up to her heart.

“Where are the kids?” she asked him again, trying her best not to freak out at seeing him freak out.

“They are with Krimsyn and J.D.” he explained.

“Why?” Leigh asked.

For the first time in their relationship Krisis couldn’t meet her eyes as he wordlessly handed her the newspaper.

Her first reaction was to laugh when she glanced at the front page of Dirt, one of the sleaziest tabloids around.

It had obviously happened in the past when she wasn’t in his life. It was nothing for her to worry about.

She was about to dismiss the article and forget she’d ever seen it when she caught the date on the bottom right hand corner of the picture. It was the After Dark Release Party.

While she was heavily pregnant with the triplets, his kids, he’d fucked around backstage, and gotten head from a pretty brunette, while two blonds touched each other provocatively, pleasing him and whoever had taken the pictures.

Tears of hurt and anger and humiliation stung her eyes. But no matter how much she wanted to cry, she wouldn’t.

“Tell me that’s not true.” Her voice was surprisingly steady.

                                            

“It’s not.” Krisis told her. He tried to reach for her, but she put up her hands.

“Which part?” She asked him. Jessica and the others excused themselves then, they clearly needed some privacy.

“The date on the picture and everything else in the article.”

“But the pictures are?” She demanded.

“Yes. I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“My God, Krisis!” She finally broke down and cried. Not for herself, but for Ariel. It all made sense now, the triplets’ crabbiness last night. Ariel had obviously foreseen this, and her anger had trickled down to her siblings. That’s why they were all furious with Krisis and didn’t want him anywhere near them last night.

Leigh wondered how much of it her daughter had seen, she hoped her visions weren’t as graphic as the picture.

“I’ve never cheated on you. It happened a long time ago. Before we met. Before the kids. I’m sorry, please we’ll fix this. Jessica will file a lawsuit. It will all work out, I promise.” Krisis stammered and stuttered and Leigh brushed him off.

“No fucking law suit will fix this. Ariel has seen it. She’s picked up on this shit. The damage is done.”

“No, Ariel didn’t see this. She was angry with me because she knew I was going to hurt you today, but she didn’t know how or why. I talked to her before they left,” Krisis explained.

Relief washed over her when she heard this. She said a silent prayer of thanks, grateful that their daughter had not been exposed to his indecent behavior.

Krisis then explained that the shot (along with a series of others which hadn’t made the rounds yet) was taken at an album release party a few years ago at the Crypt, the same venue After Dark was launched, making it easy for whoever had leaked the photos to add the date and make it seem like it was recent.

“What? So you think this is some kind of conspiracy? Who has the time to Photoshop dates in Krisis? Who?” Leigh screamed at him.

“I don’t know. I don’t know okay. But I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t fuck around with anyone while you were pregnant. What do you take me for?” He growled back at her.

Leigh recoiled from his anger and cried some more on the couch. For the second time that morning she felt grateful. This time she was glad their kids were not around to witness them butcher each other like this.

“Think back to that night, I wasn’t wearing that. Besides when would I have had time to cheat on you? I stayed with you the whole night; the only time I left your side was when we had to perform,” he tried to make her see what was glaringly obvious.


But Leigh still looked very angry. Their kids, in a few years’ time, would come across this clip someday, or something worse and there was nothing she could do to spare them the embarrassment and shame, nothing to protect them.

“I’m sorry. And if there’s a way I could prevent things from my past from coming up, I would.” He knelt in front of her and forced her to look at him. “I’d never do anything to hurt you. I love you, Leigh. You and the kids are all that matter to me. I’ll quit the band if it means protecting you and the kids.”

Leigh still couldn’t look at him. But Krisis, a little unnerved by her silence, carried on pleading with her, “I understand you’re angry, you have every right to be. But I need you Leigh, please don’t shut me out. Not now!”

Even if she’d wanted to after this, she couldn’t say no to his heartfelt pleas. She loved him, and she knew he was telling the truth about everything.

“Okay. How do we fix this?” She sighed tearfully…

An hour later, with Natalie’s help, Krisis and Leigh addressed the reporters outside their home.

In their joint statement they apologized to their family and friends, and to his fans. They acknowledged his dalliances in the past, but vehemently denied the allegations that he had cheated on Leigh while she was pregnant. They pointed out that the pictures were taken a few years ago, at a private function, obviously one of the people there, someone he’d considered a friend, had abused his trust, and leaked the photos.

Krisis politely asked the reporters to respect their privacy while they worked through this minor setback in their relationship and he assured everyone that he and Leigh remained committed to each other and to raising their children.

At 17:00pm when Carmen tuned in to VMC Krisis and Leigh’s joint statement was the last thing she’d expected to see.

“That bitch!” She screamed at the empty room and hurled her tub of ice-cream at the TV, instantly killing off Krisis and Leigh’s taunting faces.

“No!” She shrieked like a banshee as she overturned every piece of furniture in her tiny room.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

Leigh was supposed to dump Krisis, leaving herself open and vulnerable to her attack. Or better yet, she was supposed to vanish off the face of the earth and leave her to nurse Krisis’ broken heart.

It had seemed so easy when she’d altered the photos on the memory card Beau had given her. In her mind, the pictures were supposed to drive a wedge between Leigh and Krisis, and destroy whatever chances they had of staying together.

For the first time in years Carmen cried. She couldn’t believe that a week of digitally altering images and hounding journalists to publish the story had been in vain.

“No. It’s! Not! Fair!” She shrieked again.

The smell of failure came off of her in sickening waves. And she couldn’t stand it. She had to get rid of it before it consumed her completely.

She ran to the bathroom and took out her knife from its usual place. This time she didn’t stop at just cutting herself, she flayed bits and pieces of her skin from parts of her body she thought the smell of failure was radiating from the most…