CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

February 24, 1993.

I meet Javier at his office, and he drives me to Layne’s house.

My hands already shake enough that I can’t slide my keys into the lock, and Javier takes them and unlocks the door for me.

When we walk inside, it still smells like Layne. His detergent, his cologne, his air conditioning, his leather furniture polish.

I toss the keys on the kitchen counter, and listen to the familiar clink. “I haven’t been here in months.”

“Where do you want to start?”

I walk around the kitchen. “They could just keep all of this, right? The blender, dishes, food processor. That could all come with the house.”

“If you want it to.”

When I get to the sixteen-piece knife set, I rub my fingertips against the wooden block. I imagine Layne chopping vegetables… and then I imagine something else.

Javier touches my hand. “Come back,” he whispers.

I look in the abandoned pantry and fridge. Paul and Joan emptied them several months ago, and they’re startlingly bare.

I glide into the living room, Javier close behind me. “I don’t need any of this furniture either.”

“What about the art? Some of these are expensive originals.”

I shake my head.

“The photographs?”

I touch the glass of the frame holding our picture after we went skydiving. “We both look so fucking happy,” I whisper.

“Because you were.”

“Photos need to be boxed up.”

“You can hire someone for that.”

I nod as I make my way into the bathrooms and guest bedroom, seeing nothing of importance.

But then I go to his bedroom. Our bedroom. Where we slept in each other’s arms. Where we spent days talking. Where we loved each other.

Someone’s made the bed, and it looks like it’s waiting for us to come home and share our dreams.

Javier’s watching me from the doorway.

Photos of us on the nightstand scream of more memories. Haunting smiles and echoing laughter.

I open our walk-in closet and turn on the light.

All of his clothes. A few outfits of mine. The smell of detergent.

And there it is.

Hanging alone on the wall.

White satin and lace.

Queen Anne neckline.

My wedding dress.

Before Javier can react, I run to the kitchen, pull the Nakiri knife from the wood block, and run back into the closet.

The sharp blade rips the fabric.

Again. And again. And again.

Javier doesn’t stop me.

I’m crying, and screaming, and watching small pieces of lace and satin float down to my feet.

The dress is now a collection of streamers, a jumble of tattered hopes and slashed dreams.

More than once, I’ve nicked the wall behind the dress, and bits of plaster mix with the pile of fabric scraps.

My shrink would probably think this is cathartic, but it’s not.

It’s not helping at all.

My nerves hum, and voices claw beneath my skin. Someone inside me is screaming, and they’re so loud, I wonder if others can hear them.

This isn’t a a fucking panic attack.

This is my destiny.

I can barely lift my arms, and I catch my tear-streaked reflection in the blade’s glint.

I don’t remember ever seeing anguish this thick–not even at Layne’s funeral.

My muscles tremble, but the humming, clawing, and screaming continue. And this blade…

Javier grabs the knife’s handle and pulls it from my grasp. “Enough!”

He tosses it across the room, and it lands on the carpet with a distinctive thud.

I’m breathing too quickly, and adrenaline courses through my veins.

He’s looking at me, but I’m looking at the taunting knife. Finally, I say, “You don’t understand!”

“What? That you’re in pain? That you have no idea how to fucking handle it? That you can keep it together long enough for me to see your future, and then you completely fall apart back into your present? That you don’t even fucking know why you do that? Is that what I don’t understand?” I’m still looking at the knife, and he snaps his fingers. “Hey! Look at me.”

I raise my eyes without moving my head. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, that’s not what you don’t fucking understand!”

“Then tell me.”

I look at my shredded dress and run the back of my fingernails down my arm. “I have to go.”

I walk out the door, and he locks it behind us, but when I get to his truck, I keep walking.

“Sam, where are you going?”

“I’m taking a walk.”

“The wind chill is eleven degrees. You’ll get hypothermia.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

I hear his truck door shut, but then he’s walking beside me.

“Go home, Javier.”

“We both know I’m not going to do that.” He pulls a beanie out of his coat and hands it to me.

I want to stay mad, but I can’t help but appreciate the gesture, and I put it on.

“I run,” he says.

“What?”

“I run. I’m a runner. You’re a runner, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, let’s fucking run.”

When I look at him, he raises his eyebrows. A challenge. “Fine.”

I barely warm up before I’m sprinting, and to my surprise, he keeps up. Sprinting and stamina are enemies, and yet, here we are–on track for a nine-minute mile.

“This is what you needed!” he yells over the wind.

“You don’t know what I fucking need!”

I wasn’t paying attention when we made three lefts, and I realize he’s running me back to the truck, like leading cattle to the slaughter.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t dressed for this, and my toes and fingertips are freezing. If it were just me, I would keep going, but I do care about him enough to not want him to lose an extremity. When we get close, I slow, and I eventually stop by the truck.

“You don’t know me,” I pant, placing my hands behind my head.

“You’re right. I don’t. But I do understand you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have suggested we run in this fucking cold.” He takes a deep breath. “I see how your mind works.”

I scoff. “The hell you do.”

“I do.”

I study him. “It’s dark in there.”

“I know.” He simpers. “Loud too.”

I whisper, “Fuck you.”

He tries to slow his breathing. “There’s a 5K run for AIDS on Saturday. You should go.”

“I am. Tom and I have been training for it.”

He furrows his brows. “Tom?” he asks, and I appreciate that there’s no jealousy in his tone.

“My boss and mentor.”

“Ah. Well, I’m going. Maybe we’ll see each other.”

“Why are you doing this, Javier?”

“Let’s get in the truck. It’s freezing out here.”

When we get in, he turns on the heater. “Ask me again.”

“Why are you doing this? Giving a shit? I ask you to come with me, then I treat you like shit. You try to help me; I tell you fuck off. Is it just because I’m Layne’s fiance?”

“Obviously not.”

“Then why?”

“You don’t mean any of the shit you say right now. It’s just reflexes because you’re in so much pain and in such deep denial. Also, when you snap out of that denial, I think I’m your best chance of handling it. No offense to Tom or Ra’Shelle, but it’s different with me, and you know it.”

“Because you’re harder on me.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Yes.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s what someone should have done with me, and because if you just wanted people to coddle you, you wouldn’t keep showing up at my office.”

“Cocky much?”

“Badass much?”

I look at Layne’s house, proper and untouched, like there aren’t thousands of demons living there. “I fucked up today.”

“With the dress?”

“That too.”

“You know why you did that? Why you act like this?”

“Because Layne died.”

He lightly snaps his fingers, and I look at him. “And?”

“Because I killed him.”

He rolls his eyes. “Because of your guilt about making the decision, yes. And?”

I shrug. “I’m out.”

He rubs his face with both hands. “Sam… It’s staring you in the face. It’s screaming in your head. You just have to hear it.”

“The other screaming drowns it out.”

He rubs his chin. “I’m afraid if I just show it to you you’ll shut down… Okay, let’s try this. I know about the twisted game that you and Layne played that wasn’t a game.”

I furrow my brow and squint. “What?”

“You’d been engaged for maybe a year, and you played that ‘game’ that wasn’t a game that fucked you both up for a few days, but you were glad that you did it. I know about that.”

“Why?”

“Because it messed up Layne, and he told me about it.”

“I’d forgotten about that,” I whisper.

“Um, no,” he says, trying to make eye contact. “You blocked it out a few months ago because it was too painful with everything else going on.”

I rub my eyes. “Javier, why the hell would you bring that up now?”

“I have to gently lead you to water because if I bring you too fast or try to make you drink, you’ll fucking drown.” He places his hand on top of mine. “Consider that a step.”

I scoot closer to him, and he puts his arm around me. We look into each other’s eyes, and I feel the spark.

The spark that can stop the hum.

I kiss him, hard, urgently, and when he returns the kiss, my stomach flips. Not breaking the kiss, I straddle him, and he places his hands against my lower back.

I slide my hand down his shirt until I land on the button of his pants, but when I begin to unbutton it, he gently pulls my hand away.

“You don’t want to do that,” he says softly.

“I definitely do.”

He shakes his head. “Last time we fucked, it was late at night, and you still ran out of the building and told me you never wanted to see me again.” He looks around the truck. “It’s broad fucking daylight, and you’re stuck in a vehicle with me. If it backfired, you’d lose your shit.”

“But the voices,” I say weakly.

He places his hands against my face. “But it’s not the orgasm that calms the voices, right?” he asks genuinely. “It’s the refocus, the commitment to the moment?”

I nod. “I guess.”

“We can do that,” he says, and he kisses me again.

On the third kiss, he nibbles my lower lip.

On the sixth kiss, he sucks it.

On the ninth kiss, he bites it.

On the twelfth kiss, he bites it harder.

“Ah, fuck,” I say, sitting straight.

He trails his hands down my back. “Too much?”

I check in.

The humming is quieter. The scream is gone. The clawing is pricks.

“No,” I say, and lean forward again.

He bites, and nips, and runs his nails over my shirt.

And I breathe a little easier.

With every bite that’s a little too hard and every suck that’s a little too long, the voices quiet a little more.

Eventually, I sigh, and he rests his forehead against mine. “Better?”

I nod. “Tell me you don’t love me.”

“I don’t love you, Sam.”

I move off of him and scoot back to my seat. I look out the window as he pulls out of the driveway. “My therapist thinks I engage in attention-seeking behaviors.”

“Tell her there’s a difference between ‘attention-seeking’ and ‘comfort-seeking’.”

I smile. “Maybe I will.”