Because Of Love

Rafe sat on the couch at the helm of the yacht and watched as vessel after vessel pulled out of the harbor and sailed towards the setting sun to enjoy the night out in the open ocean. He should have been one of them, in fact, he would have already been out there if not for the sudden bout of laziness. He smiled against the rim of his brand glass as he remembered why he felt so lazy. His body was completely unwound and lax, like jelly had been fused in with his bones and muscles. When was the last time he’d felt tired and relaxed at the same time? Sadly, he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t even remember the last time his mind was so silent, without one hurried panic thought rushing through it. When had he stopped living like a human being and started existing like a robot? He ran his hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. Being a DeLuca would do that to a person. No, his younger brother Renaldo wasn’t so knotted up like he was. He lived an easy life, an envious one too. All he did was take vacations and party every single day. The boy didn’t work, never once tried to apply himself to anything that didn’t come easy to him or wasn’t fun. A lifestyle their father, and now Rafe, work hard every day to furnish. Come to think of it, Rafael began to wonder if he’s brother was just being ignored by their father because he was useless to anyone but himself. Was that a better thing? Rafe would love for their father to ignore him and let him live his life. Another intriguing thought struck him. Was Renaldo purposefully being useless so their father would ignore him and let him live his life as he pleased? If that was true, he wished his little brother had let him in on that secret long ago. But Rafe didn’t believe it would have been such an easy option for him. Senior definitely wouldn’t let Junior sully their good name. Appearances meant everything to the old man. Rafe had been trapped from birth.

Rafe lightly touched his neck with his free hand only to realize there was no tightness there. Back and forth he rubbed his neck, touching the base of it to his clavicle and then up to his Adam’s apple, over the flesh between his hyoid bone and chin. There was absolutely nothing there. Previously, to state it clearly, just yesterday the thought of home and the word trapped would have had him grabbing at the invisible force around his neck strangling him.

“Huh? Would you look at that,” he marveled to himself, relieved at the absent anxiety.

Had those thoughts really held him hostage for so long that it had become reflexive to reach for his neck in anticipation of a panic attack? Now he started to question if his anxieties and panic attacks were real or just something he’d imagined.

The ringing phone beside him drew his attention. For a moment, his heart leaped at the thought of Talia calling him, asking him to go back, but he knew better than that. She’d wanted him out of her apartment so fast; if he had delayed a minute longer, she probably would have set it on fire just to make him leave faster. He could tell she regretted their night together, the lines they had crossed and would never be able to uncross. But she was dead mistaken if she thought it was going to end with a slammed door in his face. He wasn’t done with her.

Rafe picked up the persistent ringing phone and checked the screen for the caller ID. Seeing it was his cousin Angelo, he immediately picked up, eager to share the new progress he’d made with his collapsing life. He’d found someone to keep the walls of sanity from crumbling.

“What happened to you last night? I heard you left with a girl?”

Rafe snorted at that. He should have known the organized play date with their college friends would include an after event report. He wondered which one of them called to tell. Must be the guy who greeted him at the door, he had been too eager and it wasn’t long before Rafe found out why he was being friendly. An investment. These days, everyone who saw him, old friends and distant relatives all saw him as a cash cow not him. What was he to expect? He’d learned early on when his friendships suddenly came with an addendum of expectations when he took over his responsibilities as head of the DeLuca Empire. He’d pruned his friends list and set barriers with friends leaving on Angelo, cousin, friend who not only took pity on him for his situation, but found it damn hilarious. An island, a magical oasis, Angelo had taken to calling him. Or a genie that made wishes come true with a stroke of a pen on a check leaf. Rafe’s favorite and most accurate description, a shark stuck in a fish tank full of piranhas. His bite was bigger but their tiny numerous ones didn’t just hurt more, but were impartial of where they took a chunk out of his flesh driving him crazy with anger.

“Yes I did,” Rafe answered the eager question easily.

“And?” Angelo pushed and Rafe had to smile at that. He was the only one Rafe had told about his uncooperative friend downstairs, and the numerous failed nights he’d had, followed by the cherry of self-loathing on top. Slowly but surely, it was as if he couldn’t recognize himself anymore.

Rafe remembered the day when it all came to a head, as clear as the image of the sun setting before his very eyes. The day he’d had his first out of body experience, like his soul was trying to escape his body but the chains on his feet and wrists kept pulling him back. For months he’d felt it coming, like a lit fuse slowly burning, the sense that he was losing control of his life, until that very night the flame reached the blasting cap and his reality exploded.

It was a night like every other night of social gathering he was accustomed to in his circle. His father had thrown one of his glamorous parties where he took credit for all of Rafe’s accomplishments. ‘Built it all on my back’, he would say, his favorite opening line to his long winded speeches. He remembered watching his father parade on the stage like a boisterous proud peacock, blowing his own trumpet and wind out of his ass. He remembered being bored out of his mind and thinking he had better things to do than endure the same night on repeat for the umpteenth time. Then someone had patted his shoulder and said, ‘You’re just like your father. A chip off the old block. Soon you’ll be up there talking about your son.’

He wasn’t sure what exactly did it, but the stem of the glass of champagne he’d just taken off the waiter’s tray slipped through his fingers, but thankfully the bowl wedged between his numb fingers halting its descent to the floor. Those words played over and over in his head and with every turn, one truth about his father he’d discovered over the years popped up, joining each one echoing the thought he had but refused to admit in his heart. Then suddenly the sound of his erratic heartbeat filled his ears, sweat poured from every pore in his body soaking into the designer suit his father had picked out for him for the night, he realized then, like every other night like this and it became a fight to draw in a single breath.

The clothes, the shoes and even the style his hair was combed was but a copy to Senior’s. Just like the name was. He had always wanted to be like his father, and his father had always wanted Rafe to be like him, but at that moment, Rafe felt like a fraud. No, a copy of a fraud and a buzzing filled his ears as a vice squeezed his chest. For a moment Rafe thought that he’d been having a heart attack. With a hand over his wild beating heart, he discreetly left the ballroom. But not subtle enough to pass attention, for his mother and Angelo had quickly followed.

All he remembered was their blurred images running towards him, calling out to him, as he searched for a room to hide in, refusing to be a public spectacle. Fortunately enough he didn’t have to search far, the first door handle he pushed gave way, the door swinging open. He stepped into the room then it tilted and darkness consumed him. When he woke up some time later, thankfully, it had just been to the audience of the two of them. No one else had been alerted, no ambulance had been called either. His shoes were off, belt and bowtie undone and the shirt undid to the mid of his chest. His mother, with a wobbly smile told him he had passed out due to exhaustion. Angelo’s shadowed wary gaze told him he didn’t share the same opinion. The questions he’d asked, put Rafe on edge but he answered each one truthfully. Only then did he understand that he definitely hadn’t been having a heart attack, but there was a slight chance it had been a panic attack.