Never Cover up What We Did With a Dress

I made myself comfortable in the cheap hotel I now called home. It was an understatement to say this place was like my own personal hell. I couldn’t believe I had left my daughter to prove a point to the man I loved. Maybe this was the wake up call Manson needed to change who he was slowly becoming.

I flipped through the channels on the television, everything that I watched reminding me of Manson or Lily in one way or another. I had no idea how I was going to last three weeks like this. It had been hard enough, the initial idea of leaving my little family, but actually carrying the action out was so much harder than I had originally imaged it to ever be. I hoped Manson would come to understand my reasoning for leaving – for ruining both our lives – and that he would forgive me eventually. I could only hope.

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It had been two weeks since I had left Manson, and I could safely say that I regretted it everyday since I had. He didn’t hear me leave; I had packed my bags the night before I left whilst he was sleeping with Lily in his arms. I had decided to keep her with him until he left for his tour. She needed to be in a stable home that was familiar to her, not a hotel room where I was now.

Sitting on the hotel bed, holding back tears, I wondered how it had gotten to this point. The whole reason why I was doing this was for Lily and her safety, and yet I had totally contradicted my actions by staying here with out her. I decided I should go back to the apartment to check on her, and to tell Manson what I was planning to do.

Showing up out front on my old street made my heart pound, and my chest sink. I wish I was still here, with Manson, happy. I wish everything hadn’t happened. I wasn’t even angry anymore, I didn’t even care. Suddenly I felt it pointless to have done this in the first place. I loved him, it didn’t make sense that I left him.

Knocking on the door and getting no response, I opened the door with my own keys, feeling horribly confronted when I saw what was in front of me. The house was an absolute mess. There were obvious traces of cocaine on the bench in the kitchen that I could see from the door, not to mention empty bottles of absinthe. My heart was stuck in my throat. Lily needed full time care, and he was drinking, getting the place beyond toxic, and doing drugs?

“Manson!” I screamed. I moved toward the bedroom, not bothering to knock on the door. He was passed out in the bed.

“Manson, get up!” I yelled at him. He moaned, and his eyes opened reluctantly.

“What are you doing here?” He muttered.

“What are you doing in here!?” I cried. “Look at this place! You said you’d change, and I trusted you, and now you’ve put Lily in an even worse situation than she was before I left you!”

His eyes rolled back into his head, and it became clear to me that he was still not sober. I ran into Lily’s room, sudden terror flowing through my veins. Would I find her dead? Would she be okay?

“Lily?” I called as I entered her room, walking toward her crib. She wasn’t in there. Where was my baby?

“Manson!” I screamed again, running back into his room. Fear was now consuming me. I jumped on top of him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him up off the pillow. I began shaking him. “Wake up!” I screamed. “Tell me where she is!”

“She’s not here…” he whispered. “I gave her to uh… uh…”

“Who?”

“I don’t know who he is.”
Sweat coated my body as I sat up in the bed of my hotel. My body shook from the reality of the nightmare my brain had decided to conjure up. I hadn’t been to see Lily since I left, and something made me realise I had to. Now. I checked the clock to see it was half past one in the afternoon, and so I got up, had a shower, and got dressed.

As I drove to the apartment for real, anxiousness overwhelmed me. What would I do if Manson wasn’t there? What if he shut the door on me or something? After all, I had been the one to leave him. Had it been stupid of me to leave Lily alone with him? I knew how much he loved her, possibly more than anyone else, so why did it feel so wrong to leave him in full responsibility?

When I arrived in the apartment, the door was locked and no one was answering. I took out my keys and opened the door, frightened that my dream was a case of déjà-vu. As I came face-to-face with the apartment, relief washed over me. It was clean; there was no evidence of drugs and alcohol being used… it appeared Manson had everything under control.

I proceeded into Lily’s bedroom to be met with vacancy. I checked Manson’s bedroom to see the same. They weren’t there, so where were they? It wasn’t like Manson to be going out during the day time. I checked Manson’s studio, and then walked up the stairs within the studio that led to the roof top where Manson usually paints. He wasn’t in either, and nor was Lily. I re-entered the apartment, walking through to the living room and kitchen. The sight I saw made my heart stop, and tears prick in my eyes.

Manson was asleep on the couch with Lily on his stomach, wrapped in his arms, sleeping with him. It made me regret everything all over again. I sat down opposite them and watched, thoughts multiplying in my head as different emotions registered within me. Did I really want to do this? Was it really worth it to leave him? I loved him, and I am pretty sure he feels the same about me. The only reason why I left was to make him change his ways, to be a better father to Lily, and he had proved he could do that. So, why wasn’t I back home? Did he want me back?

A groan emerging from the couch opposite me made me sit upright. I stared at them as Manson stirred, eventually waking up, holding Lily softly to not disturb her sleep. He didn’t even realise I was there until he sat up, Lily in his arms.

“Fuck!” He cried when he saw me, jumping slightly. We both looked down at Lily, hoping she hadn’t woken.

Without looking at me, Manson stood up and took Lily into her room. I waited for him to return, not even sure if he would. Moments later he returned into the living room alone.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

“I came back.” I said, stating the obvious.

“Obviously.” Manson said, groaning slightly and leaning back against the couch. He closed his eyes momentarily, as if gathering his thoughts. “Well? I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry.” I said. “I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“About everything. I just… I wanted to make you understand what you were doing.”

“You think I don’t know?”

“No… I just… Manson, I’m sorry.”

“So what, you’re coming back for real now?”

“I think so…”

“So you just come and go when you feel like it, huh? You know Lily could barely sleep this whole time? She knows you’re not here, and she misses you. How could you abandon her like that?”

“I didn’t abandon her! I left her with you!”

“Which is such a caring thing to do, considering what you thought of me when you left.” Manson sighed, looking me in the eye for the first time. “Everything is so fucked up!” He cried.

I looked to the floor, sudden tears pricking at my eyes again, filling up, and slowly sliding down my cheeks. I sniffed, not bothering to hide them.

“Do you still love me?” I asked.

“What do you think?” He said. I looked at him, watching as he stood, walked toward me, and crouched in front of me. I looked down at him as he brushed my tears away. I slid off the couch and into the comfort of his arms as he encircled me in a warm embrace. I held him, breathing him in, realising how much I had missed him.

“I missed you so much.” He whispered in my ear, his hand playing with my hair.

“I missed you too.”

We looked at each other as Manson carefully pushed me onto the ground, lowering himself onto me as we began to kiss. Slowly it deepened, and moved to my neck. I slid off Manson’s shirt as he did the same to me, changing position and sitting on top of him. I kissed down his chest until I reached the waistband of his jeans, unbuttoning them and sliding them off. Manson unzipped my skirt and it fell to the floor. Manson picked me up and sat on the couch, placing me on his lap, facing him, as we continued to kiss. As Manson latched onto my neck, his hands slid up and unclasped my bra, and I hung my head back as his hands cupped my breasts. I got off him and slid off my underwear, doing the same to him so that we were both fully naked. I went back to sitting on his lap, carefully lifting myself on to him. We both moaned uncontrollably as the raw feeling of being joined as one took over. I had missed him so much, and it was evident as we collapsed onto one another at the end, holding onto one another until having the energy to get dressed.

“I don’t know what to do.” Manson said.

“What do you mean?”

“About the tour and everything; I can’t leave you and Lily now.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” I said, kissing his lips softly as I heard Lily cry from her room.

Excitement got the better of me as I ran to see my daughter, feeling utterly content.