26
26
BACK TO LIFE; BACK TO REALITY
I stayed awake as long as possible, breathing in the last dregs of him. I wasn’t sure I could actually go through with it. Like, what’s one more day? I’d been asking myself this every morning since I got here. If I kept on asking, maybe that twenty years of heaven-on-earth would actually manifest into reality.
No. We’d been living in fantasyland. The cherubs had already told on us. We were in trouble. Somewhere along their strumming way, they’d gotten jealous of us. Put down their lyres and went and told the Man-in-Charge on us. Tattled is what they did. You see, humans aren’t supposed to have heaven-on-earth; it went against the natural order of things.
There was a price we had to pay for all this happiness. The great evening thing called life had called us in. We had so much love it was sinful. These thoughts wove themselves into the fabric of my dreams, so that I woke up with reparation on my mind.
I rolled over to find a cold empty bed. Not yet ! My heart stopped immediately, until I heard the sound of the shower. It was as soothing to my soul as rain on a parched desert. Still here. I could breathe again, so I chose to do that by hugging his pillow to my face. Maybe I could take his pillowcase with me? I know—I can make him breakfast! My thoughts bounced around my head disjointedly.
I jumped up and felt my new silver necklace bounce up with me. And then I had to sit back down. I fingered the bump of Topaz, the jagged edge of heart—a broken heart. Pete had no idea how fitting it was. I recalled him informing me last night it was actually silver and not white gold. This, with a rueful smile that about broke my heart. Whatever—it was precious metal to me. I could think of no way to take it with me though. Way too risky.
Forever. The cherubs were laughing at our audacity.
The shower stopped, and so did my heart. Our time was running out faster than Earth’s most precious resource down the drain. A useless minute of me trying to function later, and Pete came out whistling with a towel wrapped around his waist. I almost started crying.
He paused on the way to his closet to give me a smack on the cheek. “Good morning, twenty-year-old!”
I was hit by a shot of love so powerful it was like those paddles ER doctors use to shock a heart. Only mine just lost its rhythm. I sank back onto our bed, clutching my chest.
A furrow lodged between his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I gotta go pee” was my answer. I wasn’t lying.
“Well, the bathroom’s free.”
I nodded while he looked at me funny. I truly had to go bad, but that meant a couple of minutes of not gazing at him. I gave him a pitiful semblance of a smile, but it was enough to get him whistling onward to his closet. Meanwhile, I felt like I needed a suicide watch put on me so I wouldn’t drown myself in the toilet.
I managed to hold my tears long enough to take care of business. Then found myself facing the mirror with his razor in my hands, and realized I couldn’t even look at our comingling toiletries without a breakdown. So I closed my eyes and splashed some water. Then decided to brush my teeth while I waited for the fresh batch of tears to dissipate with the steam from his shower. I finally got it together enough to come out, only to find him already dressed—I’d missed the last show.
Seriously, I needed a hotline number to call.
“Hey, babe,” he said, zipping through his shoe-tying routine. Was he always this fast? “I got a ten o’clock with the Dicon people. They’ve had two security breaches with their current carrier. It’s a referral. Could be a great account, if all goes well.”
He was in his business casual ensemble: khaki shorts, ribbed long-sleeved-not-navy-blue shirt, and sneakers. He came to give me a quick peck and was already running out the door. Could not have that.
“Pete!” My heart plummeted the same time I jumped up. “Wait!”
He jerked to a stop. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . . just need a hug.”
“Well, you came to the right place,” he said, coming at me with a lop-sided grin that caused my face to have weird spasms. He chucked my chin up to stare into my misty eyes. “What’s wrong? Having the post birthday blues?”
I nodded. Mercifully, I could tell his mind was elsewhere. Sure enough, he pulled away to get going. Could not have that. “CanImakeyoubreakfast?” I blasted at him, bolting up to bar his exit if I had to.
He tilted his head sideways while I rearranged my face a couple of different ways. Before I could stop myself, I cradled the side of his face in my palm.
“You’re not freaking out on me, are you?” he said.
I shook my head. I had to do better than this. I removed my hand from his face to splat his chest a couple of times. My own heart felt mangled in my chest. I needed just, like, five more minutes. That wasn’t too much for a girl to ask for, right? What could I do to make him stay for five dadgum minutes?
And then I knew . . . A sudden smile lifted my saggy mouth, and it was a seductive one. Pete arched an eyebrow, looking at me like I was a crazy bitch—he wasn’t wrong. He barked out a laugh and picked me up, giving me a tight squeeze. When he went to put me down, he found he had a human appendage stuck to him.
“Kate?” He stopped just shy of shrugging me off.
I let go of him just long enough for him to step back, but I held onto his belt loop just in case he tried to bolt. He stood staring me down, but I couldn’t look him in the eye—misery and betrayal would be reflected there. Without thinking, I dropped to my knees and grabbed him around the waist, hugging him to me.
“Kate? What’s—” He sucked in a sharp breath as I went for it. “Going on?” he finished, sounding strangled right away but he didn’t try to pull away again.
I let my actions speak louder than words, and anyhow, my mouth was a little busy. I wanted to leave him something to remember me by. A thank you for last night, for the best time of my life, and yunno . . . just for being him—a miraculous thing I didn’t deserve.
I was a bad girlfriend; I was a worse wife.
I had him backed up to the bed now. His hands were digging into my hair, hot, heavy breaths coming from him. At just about the five-minute mark, “Sweet Jesus!” erupted out of him, along with a bunch of other stuff I had a mad urge to preserve in a jar. Because I was a crazy bitch.
“Holy shit!” He collapsed back onto the bed, seemingly boneless as a jellyfish for the moment. After a minute more of catching his breath with his eyes closed, he slit them open to find me. He gifted me with the last lop-sided grin I was likely to ever see.
My body began a slow, terrible tremble, but he didn’t notice. He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me to him. I collapsed over him, doing what it was that I set out to do—breathing him in for the last time. I was like some kind of addict or something.
“Good Lord, Kate! I think you’re trying to kill me or something!” He stroked my hair a minute while his breathing slowed down. Then he flipped me over and started kissing a line down the center of my body, heading south.
Did not deserve that. I pulled him back up.
“Can I do something for you?” He nuzzled my neck. “I’m sorry. I’ve got, like, less than a minute, but I promise when I get back . . .”
Suddenly, I knew just the memento I wanted to take with me. Something they couldn’t strip from me. “Can you give me a hickey?”
Pete laughed into my neck, and then lifted his gaze to mine to gage my seriousness. My eyes scrabbled away to that Disneyland picture of us on the nightstand.
“I’m serious,” I said, then took a second to modulate my voice. “Now that I’m no longer a teenager, it feels like I’m too old to walk around sporting a hickey. And I love them so much, so that’s what I want from you this morning—one last hickey.”
“Okay. One hickey coming up, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be the last one.” Pete gifted me with one more heart-breaking smile. “I guess you realize I came out way ahead on this little deal you got goin’ on this morning.”
I strangled out a laugh that morphed into a groan of pleasure as he bent his head to my exposed neck and vampired me a good one. About a minute later, I shivered and exhaled, and he leaned up on an elbow. “That outta do it.” He got off me and started zipping back up. “Man! I’m late.” He threw me another foolish smile. “Woman, you just wait till tonight . . . I’m gonna work you over!”
My chest felt like it just caved in on me. I took in a long, shuttering breath.
He bent down and gave me one last peck, which I forced into a longer lip-lock. When we came up for air he said, “Maybe I won’t even wait for tonight. This meeting will only last about an hour and a half . . . then I’ve got the whole day free.”
Could not have that. “Wait!”
He turned around with the first whif of impatience on his face. I had to smile at that. “I, um. Could you please run by the store and pick up some prenatal vitamins?”
“We just got you some in L.A.” He gave me a patient smile. “You know, I’m pretty sure that when it says take o-n-c-e a day,” he pronounced it in Spanish, “that doesn’t mean eleven.”
I couldn’t even pretend to laugh at his funny. “I know that, but can you get the good kind from the natural grocery store instead?”
“Sure,” he easily agreed, picking up his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. I caught my breath. “Anything else while I’m there? Some eight-dollar pickles maybe or some organic ice cream?”
I shook my head. “Nope. That outta do it.”
“Okay then. I’ll see ya soon, little mama.” He shot me a smile that seared my soul. Then opened up the door and took a step out.
“Pete!”
He whirled around, staring at me with real concern.
“I—” I briefly met his eyes and swallowed back tears. “It’s fucked-up, bat-shit, crazy love I have for you.”
Pete’s face glowed with the same wattage of his smile. “Ditto,” he said. The last word I would likely ever hear from him.
Then the door closed. On us.
And then I didn’t stop to think or wallow, or else I would slide into the depths of despair and not be able to climb out in time to make my escape. I scrambled to the closet and put on my preselected traveling outfit—some stretch jeans I left unbuttoned, a sleeveless black shirt with a high collar that didn’t fit right anymore, and some black sandals. The color choice seemed symbolic—I was already in mourning.
Next, I went to the bathroom and did a light makeup and made a phone call to arrange for a driver. Then, for some inexplicable reason, I made the bed before dashing down the stairs. I grabbed a shovel from the garage and dug around for a minute in the garden until I unearthed a plastic bag full of dirty money and private info about a bad guy that would, hopefully, help my good guy start a new life. I removed my beloved necklace, kissed it, and put it inside a jelly jar. Then buried it with the fresh dirt I just turned over. I did this while the leaky faucets I called eyes continued dripping down my face to water the blooming plants.
Afterwards, I hauled myself back up the stairs—for the last time—and removed the cash from the bag and put it into a manila envelope. I grabbed one of Pete’s notebooks and a pen. Then hesitated while that clock started ringing again. I was immediately alarmed. The jangling sound of it scrambled my brain, so I couldn’t think. In the end, I scribbled out something I couldn’t say out loud, ripped it out of the notebook, and left it next to the cash.
I was running out the door when I whirled around one last time. On a whim, I ran to our nightstand and removed our Disneyland picture from its frame. I hugged it to my chest before moving it to its new location—the middle of his Grey’s Anatomy textbook. I didn’t stop to look at it; I just couldn’t bear the thought that he’d trash my second-to-the-most prized possession. My eyes couldn’t land anywhere that didn’t hurt, so I ran out the door and down the steps before the ghost of blissful past could haunt me and scare me out of my decision.
I crashed through the red door, catching Ruthie and Bob by surprise. They were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and splitting blueberry scones and the paper while watching the morning news.
“Katie!” Ruthie dropped at once, her face going slack with worry. Must’ve been my face.
“Bob! Ruthie!” I gushed out, failing at remaining calm.
“What is it?” They both scraped their chairs back to get up.
“It’s P—Ty.”
Bob came at me then, a kind of understanding in his deep brown eyes that Ruthie never had in hers. He placed a hand on my shoulder; I didn’t realize I was shaking. “Tell me,” he said.
“You have to make him leave! Today, if possible!” Was my body shaking my voice or the other way around?
“Dear Lord!” Ruthie’s hand flew to her throat. “What in the world is the matter, child?”
I froze up. How to explain? My eyes bounced from Ruthie’s to Bob’s. “I just need you to do that. Please . I’m so sorry! More than I can say, but it’s for his own good.”
“Is he in some kind of trouble?” Ruthie exclaimed.
“No. I mean yes. I mean not yet.” That dadgum three-letter-word that wouldn’t go away.
Ruthie looked like she might faint. She removed her reading glasses from her nose and collapsed back into her chair. That’s what I wanted to do.
“What did he do? Does this have something to do with your other fellow?” Ruthie looked like she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.
“He kinda . . . uh, took me.”
“What?” Ruth sat up, peering at me dumbly. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean that he sorta . . . kidnapped me.”
Ruthie’s mouth caved open. “B-but you two are so in love,” she spluttered. She looked at me like she dared me to deny it.
I mean please, like I could.
“And you’re over eighteen,” she continued reasonably. “He can’t get in trouble for that. It’s obvious you went with Ty willingly.”
I shoved both hands over my face and into my hair. I wasn’t conveying this right. “I’m pregnant” slipped out. Bomb number two. Bob held onto my arm as if to steady me. “It’s not his.” I lobbed that one straight at Bob. His wizened eyes didn’t even widen. “I have to go back—for a couple of different reasons.” I didn’t elaborate further. The Henrys seemed shocked into silence. “I don’t want to, but I think it’s in . . . everybody’s best interests.”
“Except yours,” Bob uttered, his first words.
I nodded, biting my lip to keep from crying.
“Now, Katie.” Ruthie got up to come at me with all her years of maternal wisdom. “I can see that you’re panicked, but getting pregnant by a young man that’s not the one that you love is not the end of the world.”
It felt like it. Before she got going on talking me down from the ledge, I got going with my acknowledgements. “I want to thank you both so much for welcoming me into your home. And most especially for taking such good care of him.” I couldn’t say Ty.
“Now, Katie”—Ruthie squeezed my shoulders—“you know we love you both like you were our own. Sit down. Have some tea. Let’s talk this out. You don’t want to do anything rash in this state.” She turned to go fill the kettle, as if I couldn’t possibly walk out on her while she was making me tea.
“I love you both, so much,” I said, really meaning it . “Please . . . see that he leaves.”
I heard my Uber guy pull into the driveway and honk, per my instructions. Ruthie still looked mutinous, but Bob met my eyes and nodded his understanding. I nodded back and mouthed “Thanks.” Then I hugged his salty old chest to me, and he clapped me on the back.
“Bob!” Ruthie scolded. “Now you can’t let her walk out the door like this . . . at least wait until Ty gets home, so we can sit down and discuss—”
I shut her up with a run-by hugging. “Love y’all! Please look out for Mr. Whiskers when we’re gone.”
“Gone!” Ruthie banged the kettle down. “Well that’s just nonsense. You act like the mob is after him or something.” She threw this at me like I was going out for a pass.
I whirled around. “Not the mob, but somethin’ like that. But with impunity. Don’t forget: he has to go. Today, if possible. I’ll do the best I can to protect him, but if they get him—”
Ruthie sank back down, her dark face turning ashen. “Katie, now you’re really scaring me.”
“I’m really sorry.” I ran back to squeeze her limp hand. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Let me escort you out.” Bob quick-stepped forward to take me firmly by the arm. It’s a good thing because I could barely stand much less walk as he helped me out the sunny kitchen, through their picture-cluttered living room, and out the door. He paused us on the porch, gesturing at the driver to wait a minute. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my burner phone. “You can make an anonymous call from this cell to the Aberdeen, South Dakota police department about someone that fits his description, breaking into cars in a busy parking lot—throw them off the scent.” I paused to stare into Bob’s eyes, with the full force of my will for him to do this good deed for me. And more importantly for Pete. “I know it’s gonna be a terrible inconvenience,” I said, “and costly, but if you could fly there and make that call so it won’t be traced, that would be ideal.”
Bob nodded. “That it?”
“Maybe flatten the Jeep tires or somethin’ in case he tries to come after me. He cannot do that, no matter what! I’m gonna try to help him, if I can, but . . .”
He nodded his understanding again and pried the phone from my hand. “We’re sure going to miss you two love-birds round here.”
I nodded, tears blurring his kind, stoic face. The driver honked his impatience. “Oh, Bob!” I wailed, throwing my arms around him.
“You gonna be alright, girl.” He patted my shoulder. “You’re doing the right thing.” He gave me the stiff arm because I was clinging. “You’ve got to be strong.”
I nodded at Bob Henry. He nodded at me. And then he closed the door in my face.