Exes With Benefits

by Nicole Williams

  Canaan watched me shifting in my seat and trying not to cower like a cornered animal, but this place wouldn’t accept anything less. Instead of shutting off the engine and crawling out like we had at the last place, he just inched the truck forward until the headlights were shining inside the cavernous void.

  The bleachers were still there, looking like a person should get a tetanus shot after sitting on them. The lights that had been hung from the rafters were still there, swinging lifelessly. The ring had never been an official ring, complete with an elevated floor and ropes. Instead, a chain had been pulled taut across four poles, thus creating a ring where the only rule was there are no rules, anything goes.

  “I was always a tough SOB, even as a kid. A hotheaded dipshit who’d given and taken my fair share of bloody noses.” Canaan’s arms draped across the steering wheel as he stared out the windshield. “The first time I came here, I was in a bad place. The kind of place where men are willing to do things they never believed themselves capable of before.”

  My teeth worked at my lip as I focused on my breath. I hadn’t expected to have such a visceral reaction to returning to this place. Not after all the time that had gone by. Not with how it had been abandoned and left to the owls and moles.

  “After Asher died,” I said quietly, knowing his brother’s death had messed him up. More than I think either of us expected it would.

  Canaan’s head moved, just barely a nod. “I was so angry. Pissed off at the whole world. I wanted—I needed—to do something with all of that rage.” It was clear from the look on Canaan’s face that he was watching something take place inside the ring that was not happening in present times. “This place gave me that.”

  My fists curled in my lap. “So what? You’re trying to convince me that this was some kind of therapy for you? Where normal people go to a shrink to talk about their problems, you chose this?”

  “I’m not trying to justify anything.” His voice was a stark contrast to mine—calm and even. “I’m doing my best to explain the story.”

  My eyes welled, but I refused to let them release. I would not cry one more tear because of this place. “I don’t get it. I’ve tried—god, I tried—but I can’t understand how a person can go from who you’d been to what you became.” My voice echoed inside the cab, filling it. I had to stop to swallow the lump in my throat. “I know you loved Asher. I know how hard his death was. I just don’t understand how your brother dying translated to you trying to kill yourself.” My words made me flinch, but he barely blinked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that—”

  “No, it’s okay. In a way, I think I was trying to kill myself.” His voice sounded as far off as his eyes looked. “In that ring. Or from the bottle. In a lot of ways, I was trying to die.”

  My body curled into itself, my head falling into my hands. I closed my eyes, never wanting to see this place again. “You had me.”

  Canaan’s fingers barely skimmed my arm before falling away. “You’re the only reason I’m still here today.”

  He let those words sit between us for a moment before the truck started to move. Away from this place. I kept my eyes closed the whole time. Even after the bumpy ride leveled out onto the smooth highway.

  “There’s one more place I want to take you.”

  I nodded, though everything inside me felt differently.

  We were moving back toward town, but Canaan turned off on a country road before we made it to the city limits. It was the road a lot of people took when they wanted to go camping or fishing, as there were a few lakes and parks back this way. There was a pond Canaan and I used to visit when we were kids, catching tadpoles in the summer, sliding around on thick ice in the winter.

  Those memories took an abrupt turn when I remembered the reason we’d stopped visiting that pond. The very one Canaan was heading toward.

  It had been impossible to go back after it became the place Asher’s body was pulled from. Once the ice had thawed enough to get to it.

  “Canaan . . .” My hand flew to the door handle, like I was about to throw myself out of the car if we went any closer. “What are we doing here?”

  His knuckles were white, his jaw clenched. The calm had left him, leaving its nemesis in its stead. “This is both the start and end of the story.”

  My head shook as the truck crept down the road, the turn-off for the pond coming into view. “I know what happened. I know this is where Asher died.”

  Canaan’s chest was moving faster, his grip on the steering wheel now looking like he could rip it free if he wanted to. “You know what happened. But you don’t know why it happened.” His jaw worked. “You know Asher died. But you don’t know why he died.”

  My fingers fumbled with the seat belt, undoing it because I wanted to leap out of the truck and escape. The last time I’d been here had been the winter of Canaan’s and my junior year. We’d played our childhood favorite game of branch hockey with a rock puck. He’d pulled me onto the ice and kissed me until I’d felt we might melt right through, then we’d returned home to have dinner at my grandma’s.

  The following month, Asher hadn’t come home after school one day. It was Canaan who figured out where he was, knowing his younger brother loved to play on the ice. However, that winter, the temperatures had been warmer than usual. The ice thinner than was typical in February.

  It was also Canaan who’d discovered the hole in the ice and his brother’s backpack propped against the tree nearby.

  At least that was the story I’d been told. I hadn’t been there when Canaan and his dad went looking for Asher. I’d been in town with Grandma, searching Asher’s favorite stores and hideouts.

  Canaan parked the truck and turned off the engine.

  My head shook when I saw him reach for his door. “I don’t want to go down there.”

  “I don’t really want to either,” he said quietly. Then Canaan opened the door and stepped out.

  He stood outside, waiting for me. He didn’t look back or call out; he gave me whatever time I needed to work up the courage to join him. He looked as though he could have waited forever if that was how long it took.

  My hand was shaking when it finally made it to the door, my body feeling the same as I stepped out of the truck. When I made it to Canaan, I found a look on his face I’d never seen before. I wasn’t sure what was tormenting him, but I knew I’d never seen guilt or regret like I was seeing now in the eyes of the man beside me.

  He held his hand toward me, giving me a choice. Usually he took my hand, but this time, he left it up to me. When my hand slid into his, he started down the short path to the pond.

  I’d missed the sounds of crickets and frogs at night. The loud chorus filling the night. The occasional rumble of a big toad joining in. Those were the sounds of my youth. The scents of grass and flowering plants, musky still water, and fresh-cut hay created a sensory display of all I’d left behind. The man beside me—keeping me close in more ways than one—was another reminder of what I’d left. Of what I’d lost.

  We didn’t stop moving until we’d cut through the brush and the trail spit us out at the pond. The water was quiet, black, a few ribbons of silver from the moon slicing across it.

  Despite the heat lingering in the air, I couldn’t help the shiver that jetted through my body.

  Canaan was staring at the pond, his face frozen like he was having a conversation with a ghost. It was clear from the pain in his eyes and the quiver in his shoulders that he was not experiencing a nostalgic moment. He was not reliving the good memories, but reincarnating the bad.

  “Canaan?” I shifted closer, letting my eyes return to the dark pond. “Why are we here?”

  His chest lifted as he inhaled, but I never saw him let that breath go. He held onto it, taking it with him forever. “Asher came here that day for a reason.” Saying his name made Canaan wince. Just barely, but enough. “He was supposed to meet someone here. Someone who’d promised to meet him after school to test the ice to see
if it was strong enough to play one last game of hockey on.”

  Ice crept into my veins, spreading throughout my body. I didn’t know this story. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know this one.

  Canaan’s head dropped as though something were pushing on it. He forced it back up, almost glaring at the quiet pond. “He was meeting me here. I told him I’d meet him after school and we could test it out together. He was waiting for me.” The sinews of his neck showed through his skin, his whole body looking so tense he might crumble if I tapped on him. “I never showed. At least until I got home later that night and Dad freaked when he realized Asher wasn’t with me. That was when I remembered. That was when I knew.”

  My legs felt weak, but they held. My eyes saw the pond in a whole different light. “Canaan . . .”

  “I was supposed to meet him. He waited for me. And I’d done some asshole thing in gym class and shoved Tim Matthews into a locker and had to sit detention after school. I didn’t remember. I forgot all about what I’d promised him that morning.” His throat moved. “I forgot about him.”

  “You shoved Tim Matthews in a locker because he was going around bragging about getting a blow job from Rachel between second and third period and he was telling a shitty lie.” I tied my fingers through his tighter. “He deserved it. And you got detention because Principal Waters had a vendetta against you from the time you set foot in his high school.”

  I knew it was pointless trying to make him feel better—since all he saw was how small and insignificant what he’d done was compared to what had happened—but maybe my point wasn’t just that one instance of Canaan doing the right thing when others turned their backs. Maybe it was about all the times Canaan had refused to stand by when others were content to ignore a wrong.

  “Asher died because of me.” His words sounded strangled. “My brother died because of me.”

  The lump surged back into my throat so suddenly I choked on it. It came out sounding like a sob, and I suppose that’s exactly what it was.

  “Asher died because he fell through the ice. He . . .” The word was harder to speak than it should have been. “Drowned. He didn’t die because of you.”

  “He died because I wasn’t there when I said I would be. He died because I wasn’t there to pull him from the water when he went in.” His nostrils flared as he glared at the pond. “He died because I wasn’t here to save him.”

  “You would have broken through the ice if you had tried to save him. Then you both would have died.”

  When he blinked, his eyes stayed closed. “I could have saved him.”

  “No.” I angled myself toward him, my free hand lifting to his chest. His face creased when I set it there, as though my touch were painful. “You couldn’t have.”

  I knew the story that came after Asher fell through the ice. Once Canaan realized what had happened, he’d gone crazy, past the point of reasoning, from what John had described. He’d grabbed the first large rock he came across and started beating the ice along the edge of the pond, chipping it apart, piece by piece.

  At first, John had thought it was because Canaan was so overwhelmed with grief, he was taking out his anger on the ice. But when Canaan didn’t stop tearing that ice apart, John realized the truth—Canaan was trying to beat through that ice, every last chunk of it, to retrieve his brother’s body.

  John finally managed to get Canaan to drop the rock and leave the pond, but not before exhaustion and hypothermia had set in. Canaan spent that night in the hospital, being treated for hypothermia and having some of the deep cuts on his hands stitched up.

  “When I realized what I was doing to you, how I was dragging you down with me, that’s why I let you go that night.” His eyes opened, but they stayed aimed at the ground. “That’s why I stayed away when I knew where you’d gone. I wasn’t there to save Asher. But I knew I could save you.” His hand unwound from mine. “I knew I could protect you from the most dangerous thing in your life. Me.”

  My eyes burned. When I felt the cool trails winding down my cheek, I realized I’d let myself start crying. This story—this place—deserved my tears. “You weren’t a danger.”

  A puff of air broke past his lips. “Tell that to the poor guys brave enough to climb into that ring with me and all my endless anger. Tell that to every bottle of cheap tequila I sucked down in an attempt to exorcise the demons in my head.” Canaan’s head lifted, his eyes darkening almost to the color of the pond. “Tell that to my little brother.”

  My memories of Asher flitted through my mind. A young life being taken in such a dreadful way made everyone left behind feel a level of survivor’s guilt. I couldn’t imagine the magnitude of Canaan’s, given what had happened.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, keeping my hand on his chest even when he feinted back a step. He was pulling away, but I wasn’t going to make it an easy task.

  “I didn’t tell anyone. Not even my dad.” His voice, like his eyes, was hollow.

  “Good god, Canaan, you’ve carried that secret with you this whole time?”

  He chest expanded as he took a breath. “I finally told someone a couple of years ago. My sponsor. After that, I worked up the courage to tell Dad.” For the first time since arriving, Canaan’s eyes moved to mine. “And finally, I found the courage to tell you.”

  My chest ached as I imagined the pain and suffering he’d gone through alone. “What did you think I’d say if you told me back then? What were you afraid I’d do?” My shoulders lifted. “I would have comforted you and loved you and told you what I just said right now—it’s not your fault.”

  Canaan lowered himself, taking a seat on the grassy ground. “I’d just lost my brother. I couldn’t face the idea of losing you too.”

  I crouched onto the ground with him. “You wouldn’t have lost me.”

  Canaan lifted his left hand, holding it between us. “I did lose you.”

  “Not because you told me what happened that day,” I said, loud enough the hum of frogs dulled.

  “No, because of what happened that day. Telling you the part I played would have only sped up the leaving part.”

  “You didn’t give me enough credit.”

  Canaan’s eyes lost focus. “And you gave me too much.”

  My fingers raked through my hair as I wrestled with the feelings bristling inside me. There was a tenor of shock from what he’d just revealed. Guilt, anger, and sadness fell quickly into line behind it. Then there were half a dozen other emotions rushing into position too.

  I wanted to comfort him. I needed him to know that I didn’t view him any differently now than how I did before. However, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say to him that would convince him.

  “When we lost the baby, I thought it was life’s way of paying me back for the life I’d taken, you know? Karma catching up to me.”

  I hadn’t expected the baby to come into this conversation. Going back to that time period, hearing Canaan confess how he’d viewed our loss, had my nails digging into my palms so deeply, I expected to feel blood seeping through my fingers.

  “The miscarriage wasn’t your fault either.” My voice was trembling, but with each word, I felt stronger. Like I finally understood everything now and could start deciding where to go from here. “Just like it wasn’t my fault. We lost the baby because things like that happen and life sucks sometimes. You can’t try to make sense of every bad thing that happens. There isn’t always someone or something to blame.”

  His eyes traced from the pond to me, the pain in his eyes so real I felt like I could reach out and touch it. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m sorry for what I became. I’m sorry for dragging you into my dark world with me. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to let you go sooner.” The skin between his eyebrows creased as he stared at my hands. “I’m sorry you fell in love with the wrong guy.”

  My hand swiped at my eyes as I relaxed my hands enough to reach for his. “I didn’t fall for the wrong guy. You could never be the wro
ng guy.” My fingers notched through his. “I fell for the right guy, at the wrong time.”

  His head shook, just barely, as he blew out a breath. “I’m a lot of things, but the right guy isn’t one of them.”

  I leaned closer, aligning my face in front of his. “Only the right guy would say that.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t look convinced. “Wrong guy. Right guy. It doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t change what I did, or that you left, or that you’ve got divorce papers waiting for me to sign come the end of our month-long arrangement.” He smiled, but it was a sad one. “I’m going to lose you either way, so I’d rather stick to being the wrong guy. It’s easier to accept.”

  This vulnerability, it was unexpected. I’d never witnessed a fraction of the openness he’d exposed me to just now. The defeat was also unexpected. Was he giving up? Giving in? Was he letting me go? Ready to sign those papers I’d been convinced I would need a miracle to get filed?

  “Who says you’re losing me?” My voice was quiet.

  His palm pressed deeper into mine. “You.”

  My heart wanted to argue, but my head knew better. He was right. I’d given him nothing to show that there was hope for us when this month was over. I couldn’t give myself any either.

  “Why tell me all of this now? So many years later?”

  His head tipped. “Because you asked what went wrong,” he said, his shoulders lifting. “Me. I went wrong.”

  Scooting on the ground, I shifted until I was sitting beside him, staring at the pond with him. “I think you turned out pretty great.”

  He huffed softly. “I had to go through hell and lose everyone I loved. It wasn’t worth it.”

  My head fell onto his shoulder. “It was.”

  Days. We were down to the last couple.

  At least in terms of our original agreement, because neither of us had mentioned what came after. Almost like talking about it would jinx it all.

  After that night at the pond, so much clarity had come over me. What I knew now about Asher’s death explained so much about what had happened after. Maybe it didn’t excuse every instance, but it definitely explained them. After that, we’d been able to make more progress forward. The walls and distance that had come between us years ago was gone, leaving nothing between us but my indecision.