by Cassia Leo
Part 2
DROWNING ALL DOUBT
“Her love was a churning river, her tears the dense stones in my pockets.”
Chapter 9
Laurel
The morning Dylan moved out was dark and dreary, with dense fog hanging low enough to cloak the streetlights and the rising sun. It was perfect weather for the day before Halloween, but terrible atmosphere for saying goodbye to a friend.
Dylan’s best friend Avery was nothing like I imagined. I pictured him as a blonder, more athletic version of Dylan. But Avery was a couple of inches taller than Dylan, with dark hair and a gut that protruded ever so slightly despite the rest of him being a strapping, sturdy young man. But his piercing blue eyes stunned me. They reminded me so much of Jack’s.
Avery opened the trunk of his forest-green Subaru with the yellow and green “O” University of Oregon sticker on the back window. Dylan tossed in his suitcase and his Xbox.
“Is that everything?” he asked Dylan in a deep voice.
Dylan pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head as the first droplets of morning rain began to fall. “Yep, unless you want to hop in there, too,” he said to me, nodding toward the trunk.
I smiled. “Thanks, but I only ride in the trunk when I’m being kidnapped. Plus, I have a ton of laundry to do today.”
Dylan pouted as he reached for me, pulling me into his arms. “I’m going to miss you like crazy, Goldie,” he said, and I wrapped my arms around his waist as he squeezed me tightly. “You’re a hot mess, but no one has ever made a hot mess look quite as exquisite.”
Dylan had taken to calling me by the nickname Goldie lately. I didn’t know where he got the name or why he chose it, other than my blonde hair. But I never questioned it. I missed Jack’s many nicknames he had for me. I missed the familiarity giving someone a nickname implied. I’d probably let Dylan call me Poopie McPoopface just to feel that closeness.
I let out a congested laugh as tears welled up. “Don’t forget about me.”
He let go of me and cocked an eyebrow. “Girl, you’re crazy if you think I’m not going to be texting you every day until you get your ass over to Barley Legal with that app proposal.”
I swiped my fingers over my damp cheeks. “I haven’t even started on it yet. I don’t know if I have it in me to create a good app. I haven’t created an app by myself since college.”
“But you said you always help Jack with his work.”
My shoulders slumped. “But Jack isn’t here.”
Dylan reached forward and tilted my chin up. “Then it’s Jack who’s lost without you. Anything Jack can do, you can do better.”
I smiled reluctantly. “No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Yes, you can.”
My smile widened. “I love you. Call me tomorrow so I know you’re settled in.”
He planted a quick kiss on my forehead. “Love you, too.”
As I watched Avery’s Subaru disappear around the corner, I blinked away tears. Glancing at Isaac’s house as I turned around, I had a sudden memory that I’d dreamt of him last night. He was in my house and I was drunk.
Dear God. Even in my dreams I was a disgusting mess.
I immediately headed inside and took a seat at my mom’s old desk in the downstairs office. I ran my fingers over the smooth silver surface of my MacBook laptop as I recalled the last time I was in this office with my mother.
* * *
“Have you seen your cousin Twyla’s new fiancé?” my mother asked as her finger skated over the touchpad on her laptop. “Come and look.”
“Mom, this better not be one of those scare videos where some disgusting monster woman is going to pop out at me, is it?”
“No, it’s a picture of Twyla’s fiancé on Facebook. His name is Giorgio. She met him in Italy. Come here,” my mom insisted as she gathered her wispy blonde hair into a bun at the nape of her neck and secured it with a couple of large hairpins.
I approached cautiously, knowing how my mother loved to surprise me with jump-scare videos and raunchy Magic Mike-style gifs. As I rounded the desk and came up next to her chair, I shook my head at the picture my mother had open on her laptop. It was a gif of a Siberian husky looking like a doofus with it’s nose pressed against a window.
“Twyla’s taste in men seems to be getting worse every year,” I remarked.
My mom looked up at me with a huge grin on her face. “You would have never come over here if I told you it was another dog gif. Instead, I have to promise to show you something you can gossip about. You’ll see when you get older. It’s the dog gifs that matter more than anything in life.”
“Your wisdom is breathtaking, mom. I’ll have to get that quote made into a large vinyl sticker I can plaster on my living room wall.”
She shook her head as she continued to scroll through her Facebook feed, which was overflowing with dog and cat gifs. “Your cynicism is heartbreaking, Laurel. There are a million reasons to shrug off your armor and embrace the beauty and joy this world has to offer,” she said, spreading her arms wide as she said beauty. “One of those reasons is asleep in his Grandma’s bed right now. Yet, you still choose cynicism.”
I wrapped my arms around my mother’s slender shoulders and planted a loud kiss on her cheek. “That’s why you should move in with Jack and me, so your optimism can rub off on Junior.”
She shook her head. “You and Jack are welcome to move in here. I have two empty bedrooms. But I am never leaving this house, nor my garden.”
I stood up and headed for the door. “Think about it,” I said, turning around to watch her from the doorway.
A smug smile curled her lips. “Sweetheart, I love that boy with every molecule of my being. I would give my life for him the way I’d give it for you. But I spent twenty years tending to my garden in my spare time while I worked full-time to support you and your father. Now that I’m retired, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t jump at the chance to give up my life of reading trashy romance novels, cooing at dog gifs, and frolicking in the garden so I can be your full-time nanny.”
“You wound me, mother,” I said, clutching my chest dramatically.
“You’ll understand when you’re my age,” she replied with a warm smile.
* * *
I lifted the lid on my laptop and immediately opened my Airmail app. The first year Jack and I were together, while we were still in our senior year at OSU, we broke up for a couple of weeks. We got back together when I received a five-word email from him: Why are you so afraid?
Before Jack, I had only been in one serious relationship, my senior year in high school. My love affair with Todd Germaine ended when he decided to go to college in Florida and I couldn’t follow him. I was pretty sure I packed on my freshman fifteen in my first week at OSU.
The following week, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get involved in another serious relationship until I’d graduated from college. I loved Oregon too much to end up falling in love with an out-of-state transfer. With my luck, I’d end up moving to Nowhere-ville after graduation to be with my new boyfriend, dooming me to settle for a job as a cashier instead of the tech job I’d worked so hard to achieve.
I spent more than three years at OSU bouncing back and forth between meaningless one-night-stands and excruciating dry spells. But I managed to remain relationship-free, and my GPA was a solid 3.72. My plan to avoid falling in love was working according to plan.
Then, my best laid plans flew out the window the moment Jack laid eyes on me.
* * *
Someone was staring at me. Somewhere behind me. I could feel it like a white-hot sunbeam shining on the back of my head. It was him. It had to be him. The guy who always scored highest on all the exams, yet still managed to look like he belonged in an Abercrombie+Fitch ad, with his immaculate dark hair and eyes so blue I could drown in them. He looked like he spent his weekends playing lacrosse, getting shit-faced with his buddies, and having fuck-loads of meaningless sex.
I tried to ignore the butterflies in my belly, but I couldn’t focus on anything but the intense feeling of being watched. As soon as the professor dismissed us, I quickly slung my army-green laptop bag across my chest and basically ran out of the lecture hall. But I didn’t get more than ten steps out the door before he was at my side.
“What are you running from?” he asked with a sly grin as he kept pace with me.
The butterflies in my belly were singing a chorus of hallelujah.
“Nothing. I just have to get to my next class,” I replied, keeping my attention focused ahead of me. The last thing I needed was to slam face-first into a door or another human while talking to Mr. Perfect.
“Your next class isn’t for more than five hours,” he replied.
I stopped in the middle of the corridor in the Graduate & Research Center and stared at him. “What did you say?”
He cocked an eyebrow and his icy-blue eyes darkened slightly as his pupils dilated. “I said your next class isn’t for more than five hours, which contradicts your claim that you’re in a hurry to make it there,” he said, tilting his head curiously as the fluorescent lighting glinted off his perfect hair.
He was clearly amused he’d caught me by surprise, and pleased he now had my full attention.
“How do you know my next class isn’t for five hours?”
He shook his head as his full lips curled into a smile that radiated confidence. “We’re in the same class.”
I scrunched my eyebrows together. “No, we’re not. I would remember that.”
“You would?” he replied, clearly picking up on the subtext.
I cleared my throat as I began to feel as if my laptop bag was constricting the blood flow in my neck. “I’m pretty sure you’re not in my next class,” I reiterated, but I stopped myself from once again lying about not wanting to be late.
“I changed my schedule. We’re in software engineering and wireless systems together now,” he replied simply, as if that was something he did all the time.
“Oh, really?”
He chuckled. “Really.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked as I lifted my laptop bag a little to ease the pressure on my neck.
He glanced at my hand and my neck, then he looked me in the eye. “Give me the bag. I’ll carry it.”
My stomach did an Olympic tumbling routine inside me. “I can carry my bag, thank you. And you still didn’t answer my question.”
He shook his head. “You’re going to pretend you don’t know why I would change my schedule to match yours?”
I gulped, trying to drink in just a drop of his confidence. “Oh. Am I supposed to make this easy on you?”
His seductive smile stretched into an X-rated grin. “God damn. I like you more by the second.” He reached forward slowly and my heart galloped as he curled his fingers around the strap of my laptop bag. “I’ll carry that. It’s a long walk from here to REI.”
My mouth dropped wide open. “It’s half a mile. And how do you know where I work?”
He chuckled. “I saw you in there last week.”
“Have you been stalking me?”
He laughed harder now, a deep, seductive laugh that sent a chill racing through me. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, “let me take you out this weekend, then you’ll be the one stalking me. I guarantee it.”
* * *
I smiled to myself as I remembered how often Jack used the phrase “I guarantee it” in those days. It was a reference to those annoying Men’s Warehouse commercials, which became another one of our many inside jokes.
My heart sunk as I realized I didn’t have any emails from Jack. But I did have an email from my father.
My father and I only spoke on the phone about once every six months these days. But he did email me every other month. I was fairly certain he had a reminder on his calendar to do it or he’d forget. Not that my attempts to communicate with him were any more frequent. It was just that, ever since the murders, we didn’t really have much to talk about. Well, nothing that didn’t hurt.
As I hit send on my reply, a marketing email came through from REI thanking me for subscribing to their newsletter. I squinted at the screen as a horrifying thought occurred to me. What if I blacked out while I was drunk last night, and I did things I couldn’t remember today?
I gasped as I thought of how I remembered dreaming of Isaac coming over while I was drunk. What if it wasn’t a dream?
I quickly scrolled to the bottom of the email and unsubscribed. Then, another thought occurred to me. If I subscribed to the REI newsletter while I was drunk last night, why was I just receiving the welcome email now?
I shook my head as I realized that it was probably programmed to send welcome emails twelve hours after someone subscribed. I sighed and closed my laptop, relieved that I was being paranoid for no reason at all.
I leaned back in my mom’s leather desk chair as I recalled how Jack often came in to see me or pick me up at the end of my shift while I was working at that REI store near campus. How my heart skipped a beat every time I saw him walking in with that gorgeous, crooked grin on his face. How we almost got caught having sex in the stockroom more than once.
I had a vague memory of trying to call Jack a couple of days ago — while drunk, of course — and I was certain I’d left him a voicemail. Or maybe I had successfully deleted it before it could be sent. Jack wouldn’t ignore a voicemail from me, would he?
Expelling a heavy sigh, I scooped my cell phone up off the desk and called the one person I least wanted to talk to right now.
“Well, hello,” Jack’s mother Victoria answered in her smooth, haughty voice.
Victoria had grown up in Seattle proper, the daughter of a civil engineer who worked for the city and a stay-at-home-mom, both of whom firmly believed a woman’s place was in the home. Her older brother, a very successful architect, lived in Vancouver, British Columbia. Victoria graduated from Vassar with a degree in French Studies. She made it a point to show off her impeccable French accent any chance she got.
“Good morning, Victoria,” I replied, trying to keep my tone serious. “Have you heard from Jack?”
She let out a puff of laughter. “When was the last time you spoke to him?”
I ignored the laughter and the snide tone. “Look, I know you’ve probably already heard that Jack and I are separated. And you probably already know it happened last Wednesday. That’s the last time I heard from him. I tried calling him the day before yesterday, but—”
“The day before yesterday?” she replied with disbelief. “You waited a week to call your husband after you cheated on him? What kind of person does that?”
The sharp sting of shame was like a slap in the face. “I don’t expect you to know the truth or to understand. But I’m worried about Jack and I want to know that he’s okay. I deserve to know that he’s okay.”
She huffed. “What you do and don’t deserve is not for you to judge, my dear.” She paused, waiting for me to respond, which I would not give her the satisfaction of doing. “Despite your obvious unwillingness, or inability, to care for him, Jack is perfectly fine,” she continued. “But I suggest you don’t call him again. Give him the courtesy of time to process what you’ve done.”
I bit my lip until I tasted blood, but the pain failed to quiet me. “I know you haven’t had the easiest time with Edward, but I am not your husband. Not even close. I have always been faithful to your son. And I will continue to worry about him and check on him, because I love him and care for him, and nothing you say can change that.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Goodbye.”
>
As I ended the call, the hangover that failed to appear this morning, slammed into me full force. My vision blurred as my heartbeat pounded in my skull. Sweat sprouted over my brow as a wave of nausea crashed over me. If Jack hadn’t worn a condom the last time we had sex — while I was on my period — I would consider taking a pregnancy test.
As it were, I would probably never be pregnant again. Jack and I would get divorced, and I would end up alone in my mother’s house, with a dozen dogs, pining after Jack for the rest of my days. No one could replace Jack.
I’d never feel his hands exploring my body. I’d never feel the weight of him on top of me, securing me to the earth when I felt as if I’d disintegrate into the ether. I’d never feel the roll of a tiny leg moving inside me. I’d never look into my child’s eyes and see the shine of pure innocence or feel the weight of their unfettered trust.
I knew I was only thirty. Still plenty of time to find someone new and have another baby. But how could I possibly find someone who compared to Jack?
Isaac was beautiful and fierce and caring. But he was also unpredictable. In that way, he and Jack were quite similar. But other than their lack of predictability, Isaac and Jack couldn’t be more different.
Jack and I had matured together. We made all of life’s big decisions and mistakes together. We built a life most would envy, filled with inside jokes, belly-aching laughs, happy tears, and late-night conversations about how we were going to change the world one app at a time. It was a love so beautiful it ached to remember. Then, it was stolen from us.
Instead of building something new, we abandoned each other.
Maybe that was the biggest difference between Jack and Isaac. Maybe Isaac was my chance to build something new.
I shot up from the desk chair and headed out to the living room. I wanted a drink so bad. Or a Xanax. Instead, I left.
I power-walked to Isaac’s front door and rung the doorbell. Then, I remembered that he probably couldn’t get up easily to answer the door. When I tried the latch, I was surprised to find it unlocked. As I pushed the door open, I couldn’t tell if Isaac looked more surprised that I had let myself in his front door or that Boomer had not reacted to my sudden intrusion.
