“Is something going on?” Brylee follows my gaze. “You’re not thinking about getting back together with that rat bastard are you?”
“He cheated on you,” Reese hisses, and the wind curls the words in my ear like a haunting refrain.
“Once a cheat, always a cheat,” Demi adds like a chorus round.
“I know,” I whisper, taking a step toward him like a dare. I’ve suspected Keith and his cheating ways for quite some time. It was the very reason for our string of serial breakups and reprisals. He denied and apologized, and I took him back. It was the game we played, the one we accidentally perfected. Lather, rinse, repeat. In principle it was the sad glue that held us together.
I’m not sure what happened in my life that made me think this vicious cycle was a good decision, but something about the thought of being on my own, alone, without the love of a man—which I craved more than air—it tormented me far more than the prospect of Keith’s cheating ever did. I blink back to life just as Joanna Knickerbocker wraps her arms around his waist. She was—is—one of his backseat blowjob debutants.
I don’t want Keith Stearns back. Hell, I don’t even want to remember the last four years of our tumultuous relationship. What I do want is my life back. But it’s Keith who’s chained me up, gagged me with the past and is dangling it over my head like a sickle.
Joanna touches her mouth to his ear, whispers something into it, something sexually greedy I’m sure, but his gaze is still fixated on me—his intense hatred matching my own.
Why are you trying to destroy me? I want to shout over the bodies that filter through our impromptu standoff.
We both know it’s me who is going to destroy you.
* * *
The party wilts just like the pastries sitting out too long, but that doesn’t stop me from snapping up a homemade chocolate chip cookie. Everyone knows that when Warren throws a party, you’d better bring your own food—if you’re really nice, enough for a few others. And this chocolate, ooey gooey treat just so happens to be my favorite. I take a bite, and immediate regret sets in. Correction. This soggy, iced-with-night-dew confection is nowhere near my favorite. I’d spit it out in the bushes, but I’m too self-conscious. That’s a Neva thing to do. I’m too wound up in my own vanity thinking, hoping, like some damsel in distress, that Caleb is silently stalking me from afar.
A hand reaches out in the darkness and forces me to spin on my heels. Only it’s not Caleb’s gorgeous face I’m met with, it’s Keith.
I have to hit pause for a moment, from the inevitable trauma that’s about to ensue, to assure you that Keith is very much a handsome boy. I would never “not” love a handsome boy, being attracted to overly handsome men is a weakness of mine, and, yet, I’m not sure I ever loved Keith. I think I did. Maybe. The jury is still out on that one.
“What the fuck?” His eyes glint with rage; his lips are tight as he grunts out the words. “You leave my little sisters out of this!”
“Let go of me.” I yank myself free. “I swear to you, I don’t know what the hell you’re babbling about. I didn’t do a thing to your little sisters.” I actually care about them, and, unlike my feelings for Keith, my feelings for his kid sisters actually did migrate toward love. Petra and Kylie—both cute as a button—a couple of eighth graders that look up to me like I’m some makeup guru slash fashion goddess. What’s not to love?
His eyes expand in disbelief. “They got your gift. Really? A box full of dildos?” No sooner do the words seethe from him than I gasp at the horror of them. “You think that’s funny? You know what I think it is? I think it’s fucking sick.”
“Keith.” I close my eyes a moment trying to digest how this ever-expanding nightmare of a rabbit hole just grew deeper, darker than I could imagine. Here I am, some distorted version of Alice—some demonic version—falling ever so quickly into the abyss with no end in sight. “I would never do that to your sisters.”
“You are a bullshitter, Ken!” His stoned eyes bleed red as they bulge. His finger darts just shy of my chest. “You would do anything to anyone just to prove that nobody fucks with your ego. I’m going to end this shit—break you of your wild, juvenile ways. Just watch me.” He starts to take off, and now it’s me pulling him back.
“What the hell makes you think it was me?”
His eyes cut into mine with an unfamiliar dullness in them, like the pressing indifference of a sociopath who couldn’t care less if I lived or died.
I went down on this piece of shit for four long years, and he could just as easily drown me in the lake as he could bend me over the nearest canoe. Keith and I were never worth the time of day. I’m not sure how we lasted so long to begin with. I’d love to blame it on the mountain, the lack of men to choose from, on Loveless itself with its unique moniker that offers a slight FU to the idea of romantic affection in general, but really it’s my own stupid fault. Keith had become like a pair of comfortable shoes. It wasn’t all that bad. Maybe if our relationship were a ball of smelly crap, this conversation, this bloody aftermath would be easier to deal with.
His eyes soften to mine. “Ken, your name was on the receipt at the bottom of the box.” His shoulders sag a moment as he expires a tired breath. “Look, it’s done. I was an idiot. I get it. You’re pissed. Let’s call it—game over. You win.” He tosses his hands in the air. “I’m pleading mercy. You can tell everyone on this planet what an asshole I was, hell, that I still am. I’ll shout it from the highest peak if you want. Just let’s end this psychotic game you’ve got going. I’m not into it. I’m not playing.”
Something about his abrupt shift in demeanor has me rattled. Keith and I have been warring for weeks, and this last incident, the box full of dildos, seems to have pushed him over the edge. I don’t blame him. I’m over the edge myself.
“I did love you, Kennedy.” His jaw tightens. Keith was never known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve, but, tonight, under the shiny eye of a silver dollar moon, he’s moved to something just this side of tears. “Every time I said it, I meant it. You’re a good person. You didn’t deserve the things I did to you. I’d say I’m sorry, but I think we both know it’s a little too late for that. Let’s just grow the fuck up and move on.”
He takes off in large, heavy strides as if he were escaping a bear, and he might be. I’m at the point in life where if there were a carnivorous, fur-dressed beast behind me, I’d fall into a heap and shout have at it right into his big, hairy face. I simply don’t have the energy to care anymore.
I take off in the opposite direction, toward the swampy part of the lake filled with reeds as tall as trees. This is my place, my spot, and, sadly, the real reason I’m headed in this direction is because it’s where I would spend hours sticking my tongue down Caleb McCarthy’s throat. Unbeknownst to Keith, the summer layoffs he issued me as his girlfriend were met with very little disdain on my part.
I run my finger over the evergreen with our silly initials carved into it like it’s some kind of splinter-filled Braille. I engraved them one year before he arrived and presented it to him like some pathetic love-struck teenager. I was one, but that’s beside the point. Summer meant it was Caleb season. Caleb’s hot and hungry mouth over mine season. His eager hands up my top season. Caleb sweetly informing me that I was jailbait season. I can still feel it, his warm breath riding heavy over my neck, the serrated muscles along his chest—nobody looked better shirtless than Caleb McCarthy. Selfishly I miss that time in our lives—me trying desperately to seduce a godlike college boy. This divine quasi-sexual intervention went on for two hot and sweaty summers and a partial. The partial being when Caleb swung by the mountain to shred my heart—telling me that it wouldn’t be fair to have a long-distance relationship. I was ready for more, and he was headed to NYU to get his law degree. He had an education to earn and girls to bed, at least that was my take on that very brief, very heart-stopping conversation. I believe the words I’ll be back for you were said in lieu of goodbye. All those years I nev
er gave myself to him. I could have seduced him. I had the power. His will was noble but weak as water. My heart had no intention on becoming his mountain whore. Each year I watched as Caleb blew off the mountain like leaves in the fall. I cried for months the last time he left. Of course, Reese assumed I was heartbroken over another one of Keith’s well-known orgies. Not really an orgy in the traditional sense, but when you clump his very naked summer fun in a human ball and condense it into one pornographic event, that about sums it up nicely.
I find a spot near the edge and take off my shoes, letting my toes squish into the damp sand, slimy and cold as snow. The moonlight spills haphazardly around the water as the pond grass stands erect out of the lake like a series of hypnotized snakes.
A set of careful footsteps tread in this direction. I swallow hard, straining to keep from running my fingers through my hair or pinching color to my cheeks like some Victorian age socialite waiting for her suitor. I’m no Elizabeth Bennet and he’s no Mr. Darcy. Or at least the jury is still out on that one.
Caleb appears out of the murky darkness like a ghost, his eyes glowing a pale shade of iridescent. That ten thousand kilowatt smile of his lights up the vicinity, making my stomach explode with the energy of an entire cave full of fluttering bats, and, much to my chagrin, my knees turn to water like the aforementioned Victorian-era socialite. Where is a silk folding fan when you really need one?
“I thought I might find you here.” He holds out a sweaty brown bottle between us as a peace offering.
You have to give it to Caleb. He is my most ardent consumer—ready and willing to buy what I’m selling by the boatload.
“I don’t drink.” I wave it off with a gentle trembling of the fingers. It’s only partially true that I don’t drink. I do drink alcohol by definition just not beer or wine. I’m more of a Cosmo girl, a Skinny Bitch lots of ice, mimosa on a Sunday if I’m feeling grand. I’m not feeling grand tonight, far from it. I’m for sure not feeling like a ballgame watching, belching, let me unbutton my blue jeans, up for anything kind of a girl tonight. Nope. If Caleb McCarthy wants to land me horizontal, or in any other position, he’ll have to pull overtime, work a hell of a lot harder than a Miller Light buzz on a stony autumn evening.
The wind picks up, iced and crisp, as if the weather just roused from a lazy nap, and a mean shiver runs through me.
“Here.” He whips off his flannel, and underneath his T-shirt glows a bluish cast against the navy backdrop. He drapes it comfortably over my shoulders before I have a chance to protest, and I sink into his warmth, its aura of testosterone. Caleb is all about manly, expensive cologne. His well-educated scent clings to me just before the heat of his body tenders to mine.
“Ah.” I lean my head back and revel in the surprise softness, the delight my naked arms feel as the fabric sears over my skin. “So chivalry isn’t dead after all. Thank you,” I say, taking a seat on the sand, my frozen feet sinking into the water. “Thank you very much.” I bat my lashes at him as if he just offered a rousing applause.
“You’re welcome.” He settles unwillingly next to me on the shoreline. I’m sure he’s hoping I might change my mind and go off with him to somewhere more hygienic than a damp beach strewn with twigs and night creatures—like the comfort of his bed. “So what brings you to the swamp? Deep thoughts? Theories on the universe in general?” He falls back on his hands, and I do the same. “There are so many damn stars here. We don’t get those in South Lux.”
“South Luxemburg. That’s right. That’s where you hail from. So you’re working for my stepfather, huh?”
“I’m working for my uncle, who happens to be partners with your stepfather.” He cinches in closer until his thigh is warming mine, the air between our limbs buzzing with anticipation for that inevitable first touch. Caleb and I always did create our own electricity. This time it feels more than risky. It feels dangerous. We are two live wires bouncing with our own perilous currents. Once we touch, we won’t be able to let go. We are more than perilous. We are flat-out dangerous—and me with my feet in the water. Things could turn fatal if we’re not careful. Too bad for Caleb, my mother always taught me to never be the fatality. I was taught to spot the threat in the distance and always have an alternate plan of action. Never get burned alive. Make sure the other guy fries first.
“So what are you doing back in Loveless?” I shoot the question like a dare, the arrow of my words digging in close to the heart. I want to see if he’ll tell the truth—see if at least one of us knows how to do it. My ego has expectations of where this conversation might lead.
Caleb tips his head back. His lips curve into one of his signature cocky grins. His mouth opens void of words or excuses before he clears his throat and lands those blue-mirrored lenses over mine.
“I came back for you.”
A thick silence thumps by. It feels as if it lasts four long years. “You sure took your time.” I cock a wry smile at him. One thing I learned with Keith is that you have to throw the dog a bone once in a while if you want him to stick around. But Caleb is no dog. He’s a fox, a stud, a steed, an inseminator bull that all the pretty girls go out of their way to bat their lashes at, sort of like I’m doing now. It’s disgusting, I know. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever be back. You McCarthy boys aren’t necessarily known for telling the truth, at least not up around these parts.” I do my best impersonation of a country bumpkin when I say it. It is true, though. His cousin, Warren, is a classic weasel—the exact weasel who cheated on—tried to rape—and marry, Reese. Thank God for Ace. And when I look into the glowing firefly eyes of this beautiful man before me, I think of Keith and want to scream thank God for Caleb. It makes little sense, but very few of my lucid thoughts do.
“I’m back, Kennedy.” His dimples dig in without the effort of a smile. Caleb is legendary for those deep-welled divots in his cheeks. I’m not so sure that even his law degree impresses the ladies as much. “I’m staying.” He says it emphatic, stern, as if he were about to dole out a punishment. I’m not too sure I’d mind. “Tell me what happened between you and Keith. I heard rumors. You’re not together. I want to hear it straight from you.”
“Then what? You’ll know whether or not you’re wasting your time?” He’s not. I take that back, he might be. Keith and I broke up for good early last summer. It was strange the way it finally went down on the long way to our doom. After all those fits and starts it was all rather anticlimactic. I caught him with his mouth sealed over some drunk coed, and I simply tapped him on the shoulder and waved hello—technically, it was goodbye, not that anyone cares. I certainly didn’t, but I pretended to. God, did I ever. I wielded my false broken heart like a handful of sharpened knives all over campus. I made sure my sorority sisters knew that I was not to be cheated on—ever.
I was a liar, still am in many respects. It’s a sad admission especially when the only person you’re really lying to is yourself. But a long time ago those lines were blurred for me, and for some incomprehensible reason, I don’t feel a shred of guilt over these vague deceptions—a gift from my mother. Treachery, betrayal, deceit—she had me roll them over my tongue, my heart, like rosary beads until they became my religion. We were the liars, the crucifiers of men through our twisted words. She molded me into who I am, a monster with a black hole where my soul once stood.
“We just quit.” I shrug. Keith and I were glorified quitters when it came to our relationship. It was the only thing we were ever really good at, the only thing we could get right (even temporarily), the only thing we ever wanted to do together was quit one another. “He cheated, and I left. It was rather un-dramatic.” Lie number two. Have I lied yet? I’m terrible at keeping track of my transgressions. That’s where Reese and I are so different. Her transgressions eat her alive, and I’m rather noncommittal to mine. “He dumped me. I dumped him. Six of one, half dozen of the other.” I give another unconcerned shrug. “We all lived happily ever after—separately, of course.” Lie number three. There were so many odd
and juvenile occurrences that have happened since. Who could live happily ever after? First there was a rash of magazine subscriptions—hundreds of them—sent to Keith’s dorm with a surprising gift message, from Kennedy with love! All suspiciously billed to him. Not sure how I pulled that one off. Then there was the more to-the-point graphic selection of magazines sent to his parent’s house—a gift from me to his father. His parents are both happily married. They still kiss and grope one another whenever they can. They call out weak innuendos while whipping up Sunday dinners together. All that saccharin solidarity made me want to vomit. Not that I didn’t want that for myself, but witnessing it, imagining what they might be doing behind closed doors was all a little much. I’m betting they don’t look at the magazines together. Then came the Craigslist voyeurs, pounding down his door to pick up his prized collection of guitars, which were all listed as free! And who could forget the crowds coming to take a quick look at his vintage roadster, which was up for grabs for a whopping $20.00 or best offer! Keith was not amused and quickly lost patience with my “middle school antics.”
Then things swiftly elevated. There was a hand written proposal sent to him, outlining the prospect of pinning a rape, a murder on him—all written in my perfect penmanship. None of those (ingenious) gags were actually perpetrated by me. None of the more serious pranks, not the gasoline doused on his luxury sports car with a book of matches lying over the hood like a promise, not the dozens of bloody Kotex stuck to his windshield (it was red nail polish come to find out). I didn’t put the dead raccoon in his oven. Keith doesn’t cook, so he lived with the rancid stink for a week.
A smug grin comes over my face at the memory. I hope it reminded him of a trip to visit Ms. I’ll-show-you-my-Knickerbockers. Some people just need to be taught a lesson, and Keith happens to be one of them.