Twenty-Eight Geny
Grace insists on going back out to the fire, tissues stuck up both nostrils like a post-fight boxer. The three of us keep looking at her, waiting for an explanation I’m sure we won’t get. Grace digs into Tara’s abandoned cooler and cracks open a can.
Murphy laughs. “I guess it’s the least she owes you.”
“The very least,” she says and takes a long drink.
This isn’t at all the night I thought it’d be.
But of course it isn’t. It never is. But it’s not over yet, so I grab another drink.
Instead of returning to my own stump, I sit on Wyatt’s lap, wrapping an arm around his neck.
I tell myself I’m imagining his stiffness and hesitation.
He eventually moves his arm around my waist and butterflies flit around my insides.
Grace and Murphy are laughing about something I can’t hear over the music. I glance down at Wyatt to see he’s watching them too. I’d do anything to know what he’s thinking. But then, I probably don’t want to know.
“I’ve literally never punched anyone,” Grace says, louder than the music now.
“Not even once? You telling me you and your sister never got into fist fights?” Murphy looks over at me.
Grace balks. “No! We aren’t barbarian men.”
I laugh. Our fights were always psychological. Sometimes verbal.
“Don’t let her lie to you, Murph. She punched me more than a few times,” Wyatt says.
My stomach clenches. Grace spins toward him, losing her footing but only slightly. She points a finger at him. “That doesn’t count!” she says.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because they weren’t serious,” she says. “They were play punches.”
“A punch is a punch.”
Murphy stands up. “Okay,” he says and holds his palms up. “Give me your best punch.”
Grace sets her drink down and staggers to her feet, holding her fists up like she knows what she’s doing.
“Ready?” she asks.
Murphy nods. He claps his hands and holds them up to her again. Grace punches with her right hand and it lands in Murphy’s. He looks surprised and shakes out his hand.
“Okay, I call bullshit on you never having punched someone seriously,” he says.
Grace giggles, hopping on her toes. “I never said I didn’t know how to punch. I just said I’ve never punched anyone. And I haven’t. Only punching bags.”
My eyes widen, but she isn’t looking at me. Murphy laughs.
“You liar!” he says, lunging for her.
She squeals and hops out of his reach. “What?” she asks. “I took kickboxing for a few years. But it was a workout class. We only ever punched and kicked bags.”
“You could have laid Tara out!” he says.
She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t have hit her.”
Murphy shrugs. “She would have deserved it. I told you I hadn’t seen her in a long time. I had no idea she was still a lunatic.”
Grace smiles, but it looks sad. “She’s not. It was a misunderstanding.”
It didn’t look like a misunderstanding to me.
It looked like Tara very much understood that she wanted to punch my sister in the face.
Tara had always been hot-blooded when we were younger, but she distanced herself from all of us shortly after Grace disappeared.
She seemed to have grown up. But I guess those parts of us never really go away.
No one grows out of who they are to their core.
Grace throws back drink after drink, and by the end of the night, she’s properly drunk.
She doesn’t have work in the morning. I remember suddenly that I never called in at work today.
I just didn’t show up. Brittney is going to be pissed.
She’s probably blown up my phone. My heart starts to race as I search my pockets and my purse for my cell. I just had it earlier.
“Geny? You okay? What are you looking for?” Wyatt asks.
“My phone.”
“Oh, it’s right here.” He picks something up from the ground and hands it to me. My phone. I must’ve dropped it.
The screen lights up, and sure enough, there are half a dozen missed calls from my boss and twice as many texts. I completely forgot to call her, and I haven’t looked at my phone since I asked Wyatt about tonight’s plans.
My stomach is in knots as I text my boss and apologize. It’s time for us to go. I look over at Grace, and she’s laughing with Murphy. I’m not leaving her here or letting her drive home in her state.
“Hey, Grace? We need to get home. We have work in the morning,” I say.
I don’t normally work on Tuesdays, but I plan to offer to take Brittney’s shift as an apology.
She looks up with big brown eyes. “Okay. Drive safe.”
“Come home with us. I’ll drive you, and you can pick up your car tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can drive.”
“Please? It would make me feel better.” I know she’ll argue if I make this about her and her ability or level of drunkenness. I’m hoping she might still be feeling bad enough about last night and be agreeable for once.
She sighs. “You probably have work in the morning too, don’t you?” she asks Murphy.
“Unfortunately,” he says.
“Ugh. Lame.” She stands up and my muscles relax.
Murphy gets up and starts dumping a few buckets of water into the fire. Wyatt helps him, and Grace walks up to the house with me. Inside the kitchen, she pulls the tissue out of her nose.
“Is it bleeding still?” She tilts her head back and sways.
“Nope. I think you’re good.” I watch her, ready to reach out and steady her if I need to.
She tosses the tissues into the garbage, and we walk to the front door. The guys come in and meet us there.
“Thanks for coming by, guys. Besides the random fight club moment, it was a lot of fun. Nice for us to be back together.”
“Thanks for having us,” Wyatt says. “We’ll do it again soon. Sans fight club.”
“Says who?” Grace holds up her fists and looks around at us. The guys laugh.
I loop my arm through Grace’s and start toward the door. “Bye, Murphy. Thanks for everything.”
Grace gets into the back seat without argument and I breathe easily when I start the car and we’re on the road.
It turned out not to be as bad a night as I thought it was turning into.
Not as good as I’d hoped, but not as bad.
Grace was occupied with Murphy, and though I could feel it bothering Wyatt, it gave us time together.
“Hey, drop me off at Mom and Dad’s, please,” Grace says from behind me.
“What? No, just come home with me.”
I drive past the turn to our parents’ house. Grace leans forward.
“I want to sleep there. Please just take me there, Geny.”
I don’t slow down. She’s being ridiculous. And I feel better when she’s home with me. When I know where she is and that I’ll see her in the morning.
“Grace, you’re drunk,” I say. “You don’t have your car. Just come home with me and I can drop you off to get your car tomorrow morning.”
“I can walk to get my car from Mom and Dad’s. Why aren’t you listening to me?”
Wyatt watches cautiously from the passenger seat. Grace keeps talking, but I try to ignore her. She’s just drunk. There’s no reason to sleep over there. We’re pulling onto my road when Grace gets louder.
“Geny! I don’t even have any of my stuff at your house. I took it all to Mom and Dad’s when you were at work. You can’t decide for me where I stay.”
I look at her in the rearview mirror. “Why would you move all your stuff?”
“Because I want to stay over there. It’s more comfortable for me.” She’s on the verge of yelling.
I pull in front of the house, and she flies out of the car. I hurry out behind her. She’s walking toward the road like she’s going to walk all the way back.
“Will you stop?” I grab her arm and she spins on me.
“No. You can’t force me to stay here. I’m not comfortable here.”
Another gut punch. Like I’m one of the bags she used to punch in her other life. “Why not?”
I don’t know why I ask. I can assume the answer, but the words come out before I can stop them.
“Oh, I don’t know, Geny. Maybe because it’s weird for me to watch my sister and the boy I loved playing house together.” She spits the words and I flinch. I don’t know where Wyatt is, but I know he’s near and hears her.
“Don’t do that. That’s not fair.”
“Not fair? Nothing is fair. Nothing has ever been fair. That’s beside the point.”
My hands tremble. I ball them into fists.
“You disappeared,” I say. “I used to think you drowned and your life was taken away and that wasn’t fair for you, but that’s not what happened.
You can say you don’t remember, but you’re lying and we both know it.
You stayed away. That was your choice. Everything was always your choice, but guess what.
Wyatt chose me. He chose to marry me and have a family with me.
And that’s something you’re going to have to accept. ”
She laughs. It’s a nasty sound. “What choice? I was gone. I wasn’t an option. You were a default answer.”
I want to hit her like Tara did. To make her bleed and put a stop to her words.
“Guys, stop. Come on,” Wyatt says uselessly.
“You didn’t care about him!” I shout. “You never did. You cheated on him and he was still going to go back to you!”
She takes a step back, shock clear on her face. She didn’t think I knew. She never thought I knew anything, but I did. Always way more than she thought I did.
“You were fucking his dad, and you still want to act like the victim. So typical of you.”
She runs at me and I react instinctively, putting my hands up to stop her. We collide in a clash of arms and hands, and then Wyatt is there pushing us away from each other.
“That’s enough!” he shouts. “Geny, go in the house. This is done.”
“No,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes you are.” He keeps an eye on Grace as he puts his hands on my shoulders. She stands behind him with rage on her face, breathing hard, but not coming for me again. “Hey, look at me.”
I look up at Wyatt, my eyes filling with tears.
“Go inside with the boys so my parents can go home. I’m going to take Grace to your parents’ house. I’ll be right back.”
I shake my head and the tears fall down my face. “No. I don’t want you alone with her.”
He sighs. “Please trust me. I’ll be right back. I promise you.”
I don’t want to hear another word. I spin out of his hands and stomp toward the house. If he’s going to leave me for Grace, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. If they’re going to have their little heart-to-heart, that’s what’s going to happen.
I open the front door and pray the boys are in bed so they don’t see the state I’m in.
It’s bad enough Wyatt’s parents are going to.
I feel my face get warm when it clicks in my head that Frank and Tina are here.
I was shouting just outside about something no one was supposed to know. Please God, don’t let them have heard.