“I’m not, you have to believe me.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t. What do you need to end this? Closure?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing to end.”
He sighed. “Liv, please. Your demeanor hasn’t changed, which leads me to believe there’s still something going on.”
“I don’t understand what you want me to do,” I said, although I feared that I did.
“While I’m gone, end this for good. I don’t care how. If you e-mail him, CC me. If you go see him, take Gretchen with you. It’s not an excuse for a last hook up.”
“I refuse to play this game.”
“It’s no game,” he said calmly. “I have to know that this won’t happen again. You still haven’t said anything to Lucy, have you?”
“No, but at some point we have to – ”
“I won’t be made a fool in front of my friends – or my family for that matter. Nobody else needs to know about what you did, end of story.”
“Okay,” I relented.
“I have to go. I’ll call you from the airport.”
I was still staring at the phone long after he hung up. There wasn’t anything going on. But he was right not to trust me. Late nights were my time with David. As I fell asleep and as I dreamed, he was there. I swam in his brown eyes, pressed my cheek against his stubble or touched his hair. His hair – I could not forget the way his hair felt in my hands; so shiny and smooth like the obsidian rock it resembled. The pain was still acute, like a knife wound, but at night it was soothed by the memories.
~
The empty apartment I came home to wasn’t much different than it had been the past month. There had been an emptiness there since the morning of my confession.
I flipped on all the lights, suddenly not wanting to be alone. I turned the television on. It was always on ESPN, the only channel Bill watched, and the barking sounds of some sporting event were comforting.
I sat in front of it with a bowl of Cheerios, scooping them onto my spoon and then watching them slide off the tip, back into the milk. I looked at the call history of my cell phone. Several missed calls from Lucy, unreturned. One from my mother – a conversation so heinous to even think of that I hid the phone under the nearest pillow.
But even from under there, she judged me. Her insecurity was almost something I could touch as a child. She was so convinced that my father was cheating on her that he might as well have been. It ate away at her. If she ever found out what I’d done, she would surely disown me. So be it, I thought. I wouldn’t take it back for all the love she’d always denied me.
I took a bite of cereal and swallowed. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume of the game up to a deafening level. The ceiling shook as the upstairs neighbors banged on their floor. My jaw clenched; my nostrils flared. I launched the bowl across the room, finding comfort in the way it shattered against the wall, splattering it with milk. “How could you, David?” I screamed into the apartment. Hot tears spilled over my cheeks. But God, how I fucking missed him.
I planted myself face down on the couch and cried into a pillow. I didn’t even care about the Oak Park house or why he’d done it. I just wanted more, more anything. More of his touch, more of his eyes on me, more rides in his car, more fucking, more walks, more reflections.
I didn’t know how to go on without him. I compressed the pillow in my grip and cried harder. Did he ever care or was it all just a game? Even through my anger, I knew the answer: there was no faking what we’d had. The force we’d given in to was one thing. But he’d purposely driven a knife through my marriage by buying that house. That was a side of David I didn’t know. It was the same David from the masquerade ball. The type of man who slept with women for sport, stringing them along until he didn’t need them anymore.
“It’s too much,” I insisted, biting into the pillow. Bill had my love and respect, but he no longer had my heart. I’d left it in David’s office, at his feet, and I didn’t care if I ever saw it again. I didn’t deserve it. I deserved to cry, deserved to die right here in this black hole, on this horrible, shit-colored couch, because of what I’d done. And because I would do it again. I had fallen from a strong, capable woman into a weak, piddling mess, and I hated myself.
“David,” I begged. “David, David.” How could I have risked everything for you? How could I have ruined a life for you? And how can Bill and I ever be happy again in my black hole?
Clenched into a ball on the couch, I admitted that it was because I needed David. That there was something stronger than the two of us, forcing us together. We’d made mistakes, we’d made decisions that could never be changed – but we belonged together. And now I would have to live the rest of my life knowing that I was separated from the person I was supposed to be with. And knowing that as much as he had pushed me away that night, I had pushed him back.
It wasn’t something that could be remedied – the damage was done. People didn’t just leave their husbands on a hunch that they’d met their soul mate. I realized that that was never an option, no matter what David had thought. He and I were destined to be together, but destiny had torn us apart.
~
When my phone rang from under the now damp pillow, I almost sent it in the direction of the cereal bowl to shut it up. But instead, I extracted it and, sniffling, answered.
“Now is not a good time,” I told Gretchen.
“Bill called me.”
“What? What did he say?”
“He asked me, in a very clipped tone, to keep an eye on you while he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He shouldn’t be involving you. You’re the only person who knows though. What did you say?”
“I told him to fuck off.”
I smiled barely. “No you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t, but only because you need me around right now. What the hell is he thinking? Are you really going to see David?”
“Of course not. You know it’s really over. But I can’t tell Bill about the house. He would flip.”
Her tone changed. “Maybe you should go see David.”
I sighed. “No. I just can’t.”
“Are you all right, really? I can tell that you’re crying.”
“I’m – ” I stopped before the word ‘fine’ left my mouth. I wasn’t fine, not in the least. “No. I’m dying, Gr
etchen. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life.” There was dead silence on the line, and eventually, I continued. “I’m so hurt and angry. At David, at myself. At Bill.”
“Bill?”
“I need him now, and he needs me. But he left. Without him here, all I can think about is David. I feel,” I paused when my voice cracked, “like I’m slipping, and there’s nothing to grab onto.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said fervently. “I’m coming over.”
“No,” I insisted. “You don’t have to.”
“I will be there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up.
I fell immediately back into my couch. When she arrived, she let herself in, looking concerned as she peeled her trench coat away. She ran a hand over my hair with sadness in her eyes. She wiped the spoiled milk from the floor and the walls. She turned off the television and helped me into my pajamas. I wanted to stay on the couch, but she forced me into the bed I’d come to fear. She held me as I cried myself to sleep, shaking for David like an addict.
~
It’s only a shadow, but it is as real as the bones in my body. If I stop moving – if I look behind me – it will consume me. But it’s already here, inside me, waiting. It’s been waiting; waiting to pounce, waiting for the end.
“It’s okay,” I hear. “You’re safe now. I’m here, and nothing can touch you.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, I am safe in his arms. David strokes my hair and tells me it’s okay to cry. My chin quivers. My eyes water. It was just so sad. So profoundly sad. My grief was bottomless, but it’s over now.
I opened my eyes to the same blackness of my dream. Everything was still at that lifeless hour. The shadow from my dream was there with me, because it was part of me. Underneath my head, the pillow was a cloud; beside me, Gretchen was warm. But it felt like the end. And that night, a piece of me died.
CHAPTER 24
THUNDER SOUNDED SUDDENLY, ripping me from my trance. Looking around the bedroom, I saw our life together – a framed wedding photo on the bookshelf, Bill’s dirty socks just inches from the hamper, a coffee table book about the Chicago Bulls I’d given him for our first anniversary.