Brown-Eyed Girl (Travises 4)

I closed my eyes as shame scalded every vein like poison. People who had experienced true shame didn’t fear death the way regular people did… we knew that death would be a lot easier to tolerate. “I can’t talk about it,” I whispered.

Joe guided my wet head to his shoulder. “The groom called it off that morning,” he continued evenly. “No one would have blamed the bride for falling apart. But instead she started making calls. She changed all the plans she’d made, so she could donate the wedding reception – which she’d paid for – to a local charity. And she spent the rest of the day with two hundred homeless people, treating them to a five-course dinner with live music. She was a fine, generous woman, and well rid of the asshole.”

It was a long time before I could speak. Joe’s fingers shaped to my skull and he kept his hand there, as if he were protecting me from something. I needed this more than I would have believed, latched so securely against him that his body formed the necessary margin, the boundary between me and the rest of the world.

It was more intimate than sex, to have someone hold the broken pieces of you together like that.

Gradually, I felt warmth coming back into my body, sensation returning until I was aware of his bare shoulder against my cheek, how hot and smooth the skin was. “I didn’t want it in the paper,” I said. “I asked the shelter not to say anything.”

“It’s hard to keep a gesture like that secret.” Turning his mouth to my ear, he kissed it gently. “Can you tell me just a little, sweetheart? About what he said that morning?”

I swallowed hard. “Brian called and told me he wouldn’t be at the ceremony. I thought he meant he was going to be late, so I asked if he was caught in traffic, and he said no, he wasn’t coming at all. I was so shocked, I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even ask why. He said he was sorry, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever loved me… or maybe he’d loved me but it had just gone away.”

“If it’s real,” Joe said quietly, “it doesn’t go away.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what real is.”

We moved slowly through the water, turning, floating in a lazy push and pull. I had no connection to anything except Joe, no contact with solid ground. He was in absolute control, leading me in a languid glide, and I was lulled by the peculiar sensuality of it.

“Brian didn’t cheat on me, or anything like that,” I found myself saying. “He had a terrible lifestyle – no one who works on Wall Street should even try to have a relationship until they’re at least thirty. The schedule was insane. Eighty-hour workweeks, heavy drinking, no exercise, no spare time… Brian could never stop long enough to figure out what he really wanted.”

As Joe turned in a slow circle, I found myself wrapping around him like a mermaid. “Sometimes you think you love someone,” I said, “but it’s really just that they’ve become a habit. At the last minute, Brian realized that was how he felt about me.”

Joe pulled my arms around his neck, locking my fingers together at his nape. I brought myself to look into his eyes, lost in the dark, steady heat. Our progress around the pool resumed, and I held on to him, drifting easily. Whatever Joe’s opinions were about Brian – and no doubt he had some strong ones – he kept to himself for now. He was quiet, waiting patiently for whatever I might want to tell him. Somehow that made it easier to confide the rest, the part that only Sofia knew.

“I went to my father after Brian called,” I said. “I’d paid for him to fly up from Texas, so he could walk me down the aisle. My mother was livid when she found out. She and I were never all that close – I think we were both relieved when I left home to go to school. I love her, but I’ve always known that something wasn’t right between us. She got married and divorced twice after Dad left us, but of all the men in her past, he was the one she hated the most. She always said that getting involved with him was the worst mistake she ever made. I don’t think she can ever look at me without thinking of me as the daughter of the mistake.”

We were in deep water now. I tightened my arms around Joe’s neck.

“I’ve got you,” he said, his tone reassuring. “Go on.”

“My mother said she wouldn’t come if Eli was there. She said I had to choose between them. And I chose him. That was pretty much the end of our relationship – she and I have hardly talked since then. I’ve invited her to come to Houston and meet Sofia, but she always refuses.” I relaxed as Joe eased us to shallower water. “I don’t know why I wanted Eli there so badly. He’d never done any of the things fathers were supposed to do. I guess I thought having him walk me down the aisle would make up for some of that. It felt like it would make everything right.”

Joe’s face was unreadable as he looked down at me. “What happened when you told him that Brian had called off the wedding?”

“He gave me a tissue, and hugged me, and I remember thinking, This is my dad, and he’s here for me, and I can lean on him when I’m in trouble, and it might even be worth losing Brian to find that out. But then he said…”

“What?” Joe prompted when I fell silent.

“He said, ‘Avery, it was never going to last anyway.’ He told me that men weren’t cut out for monogamy – you know, the biological thing – and he said most men ended up disappointed with their wives. He said he wished someone had told him a long time ago that no matter how much in love you were – no matter how convinced you were that you’d found ‘the one’ – you would always find out when it was too late that you’d been lying to yourself.” I smiled bleakly. “It was my father’s way of being kind. He was trying to help me by telling me the truth.”