by Anthology
Kayla: Cricket? You there? I’m sorry. Can we talk? Please?
I can’t explain what I do next. I only know that I can’t ignore this but I’m not going to let her off the hook with some stilted, polite conversation. I’m not going to let myself off the hook either.
Me: Kayla, you want to talk to me, then you can TALK to me. Here’s my number.
It takes less than ten seconds for my cell phone to ring. It’s an Ohio area code.
“Cricket?” She sounds hesitant, almost fearful.
“Kayla.”
Kayla Swenson lets out a shaky sigh. “Thanks for talking to me. I know you have no reason to. I know that better than anyone.”
“What do you have to say, Kayla?”
There’s a long silence. It sounds like she’s taking deep breaths. I wonder if she’s spent some time over the years figuring out what she would say to me. It doesn’t sound like the Kayla I once knew, who would step on your jugular if you were lying in the street and there was a shoe sale on the other side she needed to get to.
“I just – I – shit!” She clears her throat. “God, Cricket. I’m so sorry.”
I’m still going to make her say it. “For what?”
She pauses. “For saying that I messed around with Bran.”
“Saying? SAYING? You took pictures of it, Kayla. You made sure everyone everywhere knew the shape of his dick and how well you could deep throat. I would place a hefty bet the original pic is still floating around the digital ether somewhere.”
A pained noise escapes her. “It is.”
After all this time I shouldn’t feel this kind of helpless, hollow despair. It’s done. The fallout is long over. At least that’s what I told myself until Bran showed up here. Now I’m wondering if it’ll ever really be over.
A bitter little laugh erupts from me. It hurts to let it out. “I guess you did me a favor, Kayla. I wish I hadn’t found out the hard way, but it’s better to know if you’re being cheated on. But maybe you can answer something for me. I was always curious if that was just a one time deal or if you guys had been fucking around on the sly for a while.”
“What?” She sounds stunned. “No! God. Cricket, we didn’t even do anything that time. The guy in the picture was actually Cory Frisco. I don’t know why the hell Bran didn’t argue when it all turned to shit but he must have at least told you it wasn’t true. I was sorry for everything as soon as it was out there and I even tried to tell the truth but by that time people believed the first version.”
Wait. Huh??
“You lied?”
She takes a deep breath, lets it out. “I lied.”
“You and Bran never…”
“No. Not since long before he got together with you. That night, the night of the party, we talked a little. That’s all. He seemed kind of out of it and took off shortly after he returned without you. I swear, Cricket, the only time we touched was when he accidentally brushed my shoulder on his way out the door.”
“I need you to tell me it’s not true.”
“No.”
“Dammit,” I whisper. I can’t make sense out of this. Why wouldn’t Bran have defended himself? Would I have believed him if he had?
I hear sniffling on the other end and realize Kayla Swenson, with Wicked Witch of Hickey, Ohio, is actually crying. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I don’t expect you to forgive me but I’m not the same person I was, Cricket. I’ve always regretted my part in your breakup. I was jealous, miserable. No one was ever crazy about me the way Bran was about you. Now that I have a good guy in my life I get it. I understand what I cost you.”
I don’t think she’s lying, not now. But I can’t tell her it’s okay. It isn’t. Still, I have no desire to torture her. Or Bran. Or myself.
I turn the conversation in a different direction and ask her a few polite questions, which she seems happy to answer. She’s living in Bernville, a town about thirty miles away from Hickey. She’s engaged to a guy who works for the railroad and she’s expecting her first child in the spring. I don’t even have the energy to be irritated that things have worked out so well for her. Maybe I shouldn’t feel that way anyway. Maybe happiness is something we all deserve a second shot at even if we haven’t always behaved admirably.
Right after I make up an excuse about having lots of schoolwork to get back to, Kayla hesitantly asks me if I’ve heard from Bran.
“I saw he has a Face Me account, but his profile is set to private and I guess he doesn’t keep in touch with the old crowd. He didn’t answer my messages. I was really surprised that you did.”
“No,” I answer, unsure why I’m lying. “I have no idea where he is.”
Once I say goodbye to Kayla I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel exhausted and ready to jump out of my skin all at the same time.
Bran didn’t screw around with Kayla.
Bran didn’t betray me.
Buy he still let me walk away, hurt and distraught. He never bothered to fight for us. Was it because he glimpsed a way out of the impulsive folly that was our marriage and grabbed at it? I don’t know. And all the angst-ridden wondering in the world won’t answer that question for me.
Only Matthew Branson can answer it.
Chapter Eight
Before I can think twice about it, I’m up on the third floor, pounding away on his door.
“Bran!” I shout. Across the hall a girl opens a door. She watches me for a silent moment and then withdraws. I bang on the door again with the heel of my palm. “Bran!”
“Jeez!” The door bursts open and a skinny dude with a mop of brown hair glares at me. “If you’re looking for Matt, he’s not here.”
“Are you ah…” I search for the name of Bran’s roommate. “Mark?”
The mop bobs up and down. “Yeah. He took off on his bike a few hours ago. Seemed like he was in a shitty mood.”
“Oh.” I lean against the doorframe, feeling thwarted, wondering how I’m going to pass the hours until I deal with this. I have to talk to him. Seven years have gone by but suddenly I don’t think I can face with another day until the two of us sort through a few things. “You have his phone number?”
Mark shrugs. “Won’t do you any good. He never answers the damn thing.”
“Well, please tell him I came by, okay?”
He frowns. “All right. Who are you?”
“Constance. Ah, wait, Cricket. Tell him Cricket came by.”
“Cricket!” Mark suddenly perks up. He even smiles and points a skinny finger at me. “You’re Cricket! I’ll tell you, that guy doesn’t say much but whatever he does say usually has something to do with you. “ Mark laughs. “I’ll tell him you were looking for him.” He shuts the door before I can answer.
The thought of returning to my personal cave and waiting for something to happen is intolerable. The football game must have ended because there’s a general buzzing and shouts of “Fucking shutout, FUCK YEAH!” coming from outside. Usually I would run in the other direction from that kind of noise but tonight’s not a usual night.
Out on the quad there are students of all shapes and sizes lurching around, decked out in university colors and crowing as if they threw the winning touchdown pass themselves. I’m happy to see them. Their excitement, their exuberance, their youth, is contagious. I wander aimlessly, just sifting through their revelry, catching snippets of conversation.
“Great fucking game.”
“Holy shit, that was one hell of a return.”
“Party later, Lantana Hall.”
“Damn you, I saw you checking out her tits the whole game!”
“So I said ‘Suck it, bitch!’ and she went to town, bobbing up and down like it was a pogo stick.”
“You hear about that mess down at the lake tonight? Some poor bastard on a bike was run right off the bridge. No trace of him or the bike.”
That last one stops me cold.
“Wait!” I run after the speaker and grab his arm. I guess I must look prett
y wild because he recoils as if I scared him. I can barely get the words out. “What did you say? About someone being run off the bridge?”
The kid shoots a glance at his friend. “Look, all I heard is that some guy on a motorcycle was chased off the Mill Street Bridge. There’s a ton of cops and shit down there dragging the water for him. Hey. Hey! You okay?”
“No.” I let my grip on his arm fall away. “No, I’m not.”
I don’t hear anything else but the echo of Bran’s roommate in my own head. “He took off on his bike a few hours ago.”
I’m not a runner. I’m really not a runner while wearing flip-flops. It doesn’t take long for the plastic on the left one to snap so I kick them both into the nearest bush and continue barefoot. Every turn I make I’m met with startled faces right before I leave them behind. The Mill Street Bridge is less than a mile away but it feels as if the distance stretches cruelly with every step.
Not like this, Bran. Not before we make peace with each other. Not before I tell you that for better or for worse, you were my only love. It was always you.
There is a small crowd gathered on the north side of the bridge along with a bevy of emergency vehicles. I babble incoherently to a sympathetic policeman and he leads me to a bench, gives me a bottle of water, and tells me what they do know.
At approximately 10 p.m. a man riding a motorcycle was run off the bridge by a drunk driver. So far the dark water yields no trace of either the vehicle or its rider.
I don’t know how long I sit there with my head in my hands, before Dorritt materializes and gently starts guiding me back to Agave Hall. She doesn’t ask me why I’m distraught and I don’t tell her. I couldn’t find the words even if I tried. But it’s devastating, the terror of never seeing his smile again, of never getting the chance to piece through the confusion of what we were and what we might be. I think of his hands on me, his lips pressing on mine and the loss is so crushing I can’t breathe.
No, it can’t end this way, in a tragic finale filled with regret and despair, with no way to find out what’s real and what isn’t. Life can’t be that cruel.
It just can’t.
Vaguely I realize I’m somewhere close to Agave Hall. A few game revelers sill wander around. Dorritt’s pinched and pretty face regards me worriedly. She says my name, only it’s not my name. It’s just the name that she thought belonged to me.
“Cricket,” I correct her. “My name is actually Cricket.”
She raises her eyebrows and delicately pats my arm. I’m sure she wonders how close I am to going right off the rails and becoming one of those chick-who-cracked stories.
Then the world shifts and everything changes. I stop in my tracks.
“I’m fine,” I announce loudly and suddenly it’s true.
Because right there, sitting on the same bench we occupied together only a few nights ago, is Matthew Branson. He looks exactly the same as he did when I last glimpsed him, right before he watched me walk away. A smile crosses his face and he straightens up, his eyes locked on mine as I slowly walk back to him.
Dorritt fades away somewhere. Everyone fades, and everything. There’s only him. All the emotion of the last hour erupts and I break into a run. I see the smile on his face change to surprise but he opens his arms and lets me in. My cheek presses against his hard chest and I feel the life-affirming thump of his heartbeat. Bran’s hand circles the back of my neck and massages briefly.
“Hey,” he says in a soft voice as he rests his chin atop my head. “What happened, Crick?”
I tilt my head back and stare into the blue eyes so vivid they are nearly electric. I can’t stand the idea that I came close to never seeing them again.
“I thought you were gone,” I tell him.
Bran cocks his head. “I was.” Then he circles both arms around me and bends his head to nuzzle my cheek. “We were both gone. But now we’re here, baby.” Bran takes my hand and leads me back to the bench. The throng of post-game celebrants is thinning but they don’t matter to me anyway. Bran keeps a tight hold on my hand and I tuck my legs underneath me as I settle in beside him.
He listens when I talk about the poor biker who was run off the bridge. He squeezes my hand when I tell him my worst fear, that it was him.
Then he gives me a gentle smile. “Look honey, I didn’t come this far, enduring daily life with a bunch of oversexed teenagers, to let our story end like that.”
I unclasp my fingers and move his hand to my lap, turning it over to stroke the rough palm. “Bran. You never cheated on me.”
His smile fades. “No. I never did, Cricket.”
“Why then? Why did you let me think you had? If you were tired of being married you should have just said so.”
He swallows hard and seizes my hand, my left hand, kissing the finger where he’d once placed a ring. “I thought I was doing you a favor. Well, I thought I was doing both of us a favor. It killed me, Crick, that I’d dragged you into my little fantasy world because I couldn’t handle the fact that nothing turned out the way I thought it should. Shit, I didn’t have the right to do that to you.”
“Give me a little credit. You didn’t exactly drag me anywhere.”
He nods. “Maybe. But I also thought as long as I kept clinging to you, you’d never do anything you’d dreamed of. We’d stay in Hickey together, we’d grow old together, and we’d resent each other for giving up too soon.”
I think of the dark, cold nights I’d lain awake at his side, wondering that very thing. Perhaps if we’d been honest with each other it would have made all the difference. Or not. We were so young. We were trying to offset enormous setbacks in our lives with each other. Maybe it just wasn’t our time.
He turns my hand over and presses his lips against my palm.
“Bran?” I ask gently. “Did you ever love me?”
A strange noise, a pained groan, escapes him. His voice is a low whisper. “So much. So goddamn much.”
My heart swells. My hand squeezes his. “I loved you too.”
Matthew Branson watches me, sincere and eager. “And now?”
I echo the word. “Now?”
In truth, I don’t really know much about what life has been like for him since that long ago winter’s night. We have a lot to learn about each other. But I do know the way my heart died tonight when I thought for a few terrible minutes that I might not get the chance. I tell him the truth.
“Now… I think I’d love to love you again.”
The instant smile on his face is the most genuine, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Bran pulls me into his lap and I settle against his chest.
“Hey,” he points. “Where are your shoes?”
I wiggle my bare feet. “I threw them away. Stupid flip-flops. They never last. “
“Good thing I came along then.”
“Good thing you did. You could save me from walking an entire twenty feet over smooth concrete.”
He chuckles then lifts me, standing up straight in one smooth movement. It seems the effort cost him nothing. I wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face against his skin.
Bran’s breathing quickens and his arms tighten possessively. “Just so you know,” he says casually as he starts to carry me in the direction of Agave Hall. “If I get my way tonight you won’t be walking anywhere in the near future.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It is. Don’t think I’m just going to stop at your body though.”
“Oh yeah? What else do you want?”
Bran stops, runs his lips along my neck and finds my mouth. “I want everything,” he whispers. “I want you.”
“Double challenge.”
He shoots me an arch look. “So do you accept?”
I run my hand along his cheek, needing to look directly into his eyes when I say it.
“I do.”
EPILOGUE
(Six months later)
“Come on, baby,” he moans. “You know I love to watch.”
&
nbsp; I was in a hurry a second ago but now I slowly untie the knot of my robe, biting my lip as a rush of heat surges between my legs. Bran has already tossed the bed sheet aside and kneels on the thin mattress, drinking in the sight of my damp, naked body with one hand around his swelling dick.
“I’ll be late for class,” I warn. “So will you.”
His answer is a wide grin and a few pumps of his dick.
“Touch it,” he orders.
“Me or you?”
“First one, then the other. Now, Crick.”
I slide two fingers into my own slippery core. “God, you’re demanding.”
Bran breathes heavier and pumps harder. “I’ll show you demanding in a second, sweetheart. Don’t you fucking come though. Not without me.”
His filthy words, the sight of his stunning body and the feel of my own fingers hitting the right spot are going to drive me over the edge. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, willing a little bit of self-control.
“Shit honey,” he pants, watching me and touching himself. “I love the way you’re dirty.”
I drop the robe altogether. “Then come dirty me up properly.”
Bran practically vaults off the bed and confronts me, splendidly naked and hard as a cannon. Gently I cup my fingers around his balls as he groans and grows another two inches. My hand slides up and wraps around the solid extension of his cock, skimming over the thick shaft and toying with the swollen head. I would sink down and take him in my mouth for a little more teasing, but Bran’s had enough of foreplay. He pulls me down on the floor and positions me on my knees. One deep breath later and he’s deep inside me, riding hard and fast. We come in the same instant, his hands gripping my hips, my core muscles clenched around him as a pulse of hot release spreads deep.
When we’ve both squeezed every fragment of pleasure out of the moment, he collapses on the floor, laces fingers behind his head, and watches me. “Tell me you took your pill.”
“I took my pill.”
“Good,” he groans. “’Cause I think that load would have birthed triplets.”
