Between the car and the house, about 50 feet away from us, stood a lone figure in the rain, wearing jeans and a sopping wet t-shirt plastered to his muscular frame.
Derek.
He was peering at the house with one hand shielding his eyes from the floodlights, trying to see who was on the porch. He was also drunkenly weaving, as though he couldn’t quite maintain his balance.
“Kaitlyn?!” he yelled, and my heart skipped three beats.
I realized in the seconds that followed that I was clutching Ryan’s arm as though I might rip it off. I was both terrified and elated. Which I felt more, I couldn’t say.
“Derek,” Ryan said neutrally.
At the sound of his best friend’s voice, Derek dropped his hand. His face became a mask of hatred as he squinted into the floodlights. “YOU – you fucking TRAITOR – where is she?!”
At first I was mystified –
I’m standing right here, can’t you see me?!
– but I realized that the lights were blinding him. Ryan and I were in almost complete darkness under the porch, so for Derek, it was probably like trying to see inside a pitch-black room while somebody shined a flashlight in your eyes.
Ryan squeezed my hand. I knew immediately what he wanted:
Stay quiet. Just for a minute.
My heart caught in my throat, and I complied, though I wasn’t sure how long I could hold out. It was like a volcano of emotion was erupting inside of me:
Love, especially for everything wonderful Derek and I had shared.
Hatred for how he had cheated on me.
Swooning desire – because he had traveled a thousand miles and was here in the middle of a rainstorm, screaming out my name.
Fear that he was unbalanced, that the Derek who had called me a bitch a thousand times might have shown up, rather than the Derek who had pleaded for me to forgive him.
There were other emotions, too – doubt, shock, anger, guilt, hope – but love and hatred and desire and fear were the ones that overwhelmed me most.
“She’s here, but I’m not a traitor,” Ryan called out. “She’s just been staying here. Nothing’s happened between the two of us.”
“
Fuck
you – KAITLYN!” Derek screamed, and suddenly it sounded like he was in torment. “Kaitlyn, PLEASE, come out here!”
I almost spoke out, but Ryan squeezed my hand again and stopped me.
“Why are you here, Derek?”
“To take her back with me, you fucking Judas!” Derek shouted, and staggered drunkenly in the rain.
“What if she doesn’t
want
to go back?”
“Why don’t we ask
her,
huh?” Derek said – but he said it through clenched teeth, all bile and venomous anger.
“Just say what you want to say.”
“I’ll say it to her, not
you
, you fucking backstabber – KAITLYN! PLEASE, COME OUT HERE!”
“I’m here,” I said – squeaked, really. I could barely get the words out.
Derek paused in surprise, and then suddenly it was like his features were lit from within. He looked so happy he might have started crying. He stumbled towards the house, his boots sloshing through the mud. “Kaitlyn!”
Ryan walked down the front steps of the porch and out into the rain, holding one hand out in front of him. “Stop. You can say what you want to say right there. She can hear you.”
“Fuck
you,
you goddamn piece of shit motherfucker – ”
He reared back drunkenly, cocking his arm behind his head, readying a punch.
“DEREK, NO!” I screamed. Suddenly all my fear was for Ryan, who stepped back into a defensive crouch –
You know that sound in the movies where somebody cocks a pistol or pumps a shotgun? Unmistakable. Everybody’s heard it, everybody knows it.
And you know in the movies how everything just
stops
when that sound happens?
Whether it’s life imitating art – since hundreds of millions of people have watched a scene just like that in the movies, and now ‘know’ what to do if it happens – or whether it’s art imitating life and something that really happens, it doesn’t matter.
That sound works.
Off to my left in the rain, there was the metallic
clack-clack
of a gun.