The Darkest Secret: A New Adult Romance Novel

by Jessica Pine

  For some reason I expect Dr. Stahl to turn her nose up at my new living arrangements, but when she arrives she surprises me. "This is beautiful," she says, perhaps the only value judgment I've ever heard her make.

  "You think so?"

  "Oh yes. Real old Hollywood." She smiles up at the peeling paint and sits down on the folding chair I offer her. "How are you, Amber?"

  I sit down opposite her.

  "I'm still mad at you," I say, clinging to the rags of my outrage.

  "I'm sorry if I overstepped a boundary," she says. "But given your history..."

  I sigh.

  "Well, you were right."

  She inclines her head and waits. I can't stay mad now - she's someone familiar in a world that feels like the surface of Mars.

  "I know what you thought I'd do," I say. "You thought I'd throw myself at Jaime, imprint on him like a baby chicken and start the whole dumb, needy, codependent cycle again, right?"

  Dr. Stahl's expression barely alters.

  "I was concerned," she said. "That a relationship would be detrimental to your mental health right now, yes."

  "To-mah-to, tomato," I mutter, and inspect my fingernails. They're a mess - all scratched from the sand at Big Sur. "You were right," I say, into the bubble of neutral silence she projects around herself like a confessional. "I slept with him. And I probably lost him his job. I don't know whether I did or not because I don't even have a phone number for him. How fucked is that? I don't even know him well enough to phone him and I fucked him anyway."

  "I see," she says, and it's so soothing I could kiss her.

  Do I want to get into this? This is really private stuff. Do I want to admit that there were times when I was this close to falling in love with him, or is that going to make me seem even crazier than she knows I am already? Asked and answered - it's option B. No question.

  She straightens her skirt over her knee and licks her lips before speaking.

  "What made you head for Big Sur?" she asks.

  I shrug.

  "I don't know. Same reason a dog returns to its vomit, I guess."

  Dr. Stahl raises her eyebrows.

  "That's an interesting choice of expression."

  "First thing that popped into my head. I don't know what I was thinking. At the time I just wanted to put distance between me and L.A. Big Sur just seemed...logical." I sigh. "And I guess there was an element of rubbernecking involved. Is it possible to rubberneck at your own car wreck?"

  "How did it make you feel? Being there."

  I pick at a cuticle.

  "Honestly? Not nearly as bad as it should."

  "Why would you say that?"

  "Why do you think?" I say.

  I should have felt so much worse, but it was easier to pretend like it had all been a bad dream. And once I started thinking about Jaime I didn't have to think about anything else. I know this train of thought leads nowhere good - not for him, not for me.

  "I found a piece of tape in the closet," I say. "Crime scene tape. I screwed it up - stuffed it in my pocket. That was the only sign I could see that anything had ever happened. There was a new bed. I don't think I could have stayed there if there wasn't. I was on the bed when I...when he...well...you know."

  She nods.

  "I wonder," she says, very softly. "If you weren't attempting some kind of...do-over. Does that make any sense?"

  Do-over. If only. There are certain moments in life when you realize there are no such things, no takey-backsies.

  "I don't know," I say. "I guess some part of me was hoping that I could feel what I felt with Justin with somebody else - the good parts, at least."

  She says nothing, just peers steadily at me. I can feel the heat flood to my face just thinking about it.

  "He did," I confess. "Jaime, I mean. He made me feel that good. Better. And that was something - knowing Justin wasn't that different to other men. He didn't have any occult power over me. It was just...sex."

  "I see. Excuse my asking but apart from Justin, was there anybody else?"

  I shake my head.

  "No. I've had two men in my entire life." First the worst, second the best - wasn't that how the old rhyme went? "It's funny - he looked at me like I was some kind of...sex goddess. When I'm practically a virgin in terms of experience."

  "Do you feel as though Justin shaped your sexuality?" she asks.

  "God, yes. More than that. Much more. He...owned it." The resentment rises like heartburn. At the time I never felt that kind of anger, but perhaps Jaime's touch did what I wanted it to do - rinsed away Justin's, reminded me that I could be me. I press my knees together, sick when I think of Justin's fingers inside me and how he used to tell me that I was his.

  "I think," I say, slowly. "That I was trying to take it back. For myself. Selfish as usual."

  "Amber, you've survived a toxic relationship," says Dr. Stahl. "It's okay to want to get better."

  "Right. And I've probably lost him his job. Dragged him away from his family."

  "Well, that is something we do need to talk about," she says.

  "I know." God, such a mess.

  "You're extremely lucky he didn't press charges."

  I shake my head.

  "Luck had nothing to do with it. He knows how I panic - he's a good enough person to forgive me."

  "Perhaps you need to speak with him."

  I glance up, surprised. "Are you kidding me? I thought you'd tell me never to see him again."

  "I said 'speak'," she says. "It's a very different verb to the one you're thinking of."

  Sometimes I wish she wasn't so smart, or I wasn't so obvious. Whichever. It's true - I can't think of him without thinking about sex. I got this stupid idea in my head to seduce him, and it worked even better than I could have dreamed. He wanted me so much he didn't notice I was terrified when I took all my clothes off and gave him the full floorshow. And then I called him beautiful and he laughed and I thought I'd lose what was left of my mind. I don't think I ever realized you could laugh during sex before - with Justin it was always super serious.

  "He's not like Justin," I say. "They're like night and day."

  She shakes her head.

  "Amber, you know I can't give you my blessing on this. As your doctor..."

  "...I know, I know. It's a terrible idea. He probably hates me anyway."

  "You have no idea how a healthy relationship is supposed to work."

  "Can't I learn?"

  Dr. Stahl sighs.

  "Eventually. But your own mental health is the bedrock to you avoiding people like Justin in the future. That's what we need to work on before anything else."

  "Okay," I say. "But I'm doing better. You must see I'm doing better. The panic attacks aren't so bad..."

  She raises an eyebrow. Okay. Apart from that one time where I drove into a crash barrier and then kidnapped the security guard...

  "I'm pleased you decided to call me, Amber," she says. "I think we do good work together. You've made a lot of progress, but remember not to try to run before you can walk. You've made some very big changes in your life recently - and it's natural to feel afraid or anxious from time to time." She rummages in her purse. "I'm going to give you my home number and I want you to call me if you need anything, okay?"

  "Thank you. I'll do that."

  When she's gone I feel weightless. Sometimes if Justin slept late I used to sneak out of the cabin and go down to the beach. I'd just float around naked in the ocean, feeling the tug of the tide and the ghost-house thrill of knowing I could die out here, that the deep blue sea could tear me forever from the devil of him.

  That thought never scared me nearly as much as it ought to. The apartment looks wider than the sea, stretching out around me in all directions. And for a second I feel that kind of wild, lizard-brained panic that goes along with emptiness, especially when we have no idea how to begin to fill it. I can buy things - couches, television sets, rugs, lamps - but are they ever going to answer the bigger ques
tion of what my life is going to be now?

  I hear the old elevator rumbling up the shaft and realize that it's coming to my floor.

  Who else knows I'm here? Apart from my Dad?

  It's like falling back in time. When I hear the door I picture red blood, white roses. You can't leave me, Amber. You're the only one who really knows me. I know you only hurt me because you love me, baby - each man kills the thing he loves, isn't that how it goes? Is that what went through your head when you killed him? Is that how it felt to you, you murdering fucking bitch?

  If there was furniture to hide behind I'd be crouched behind the couch right now, but the apartment yawns around me. There's no other way out, other than off the roof. And he's dead. He's dead. He's not coming back. Ghosts aren't real. Don't be ridiculous.

  I jerk the door open. Jaime is standing there - no blood, no flowers, just him. I'm so relieved to see him that I throw my arms around him, but I'm not relieved for long. He's stiff and polite, holding me like we're hugging at a funeral.

  "What are you doing here?" I ask, close to panic. He's dressed in ordinary clothes - jeans and a t-shirt. He looks anxious and I have a leaden feeling in my stomach; I know he's about to reject me.

  "Your father told me where to find you," he says. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

  I wave my hand around the room.

  "Good. New apartment. You like it?"

  His expression doesn't change.

  "We need to talk," he says.

  Oh God. Here it comes.

  "Okay," I say, gesturing to the two folding chairs. They're the only furniture in the room, making it look like the set for some avant-garde play. "Sit down, please."

  "How are you?" he asks, like we didn't fuck each other's brains out. I don't know if I can handle this - I've never been dumped before.

  "I'm...good." I say, my heart beating out a mad tattoo against the inside of my ribs. "I...I missed you."

  He swallows. He looks better than I remember and somehow that makes it worse. His eyes look black in the fading evening light, and they shine when he looks up at me.

  "When were you going to tell me he was dead, Amber?" he says.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Amber

  I did two pregnancy tests, just to be sure.

  They both came back positive.

  "I should call Justin," I said.

  "Why?" said Everglade. "So you can tell him you're carrying his rape baby?"

  I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. All these years I'd been telling myself she was nothing like her mother, but this? This was the kind of thing Kiersten Rowe would say for effect - and she knew it. I told her so in no uncertain terms, but her Woman's Studies major had stood her in fine stead.

  "Bullshit," she said. "You consented to fuck him with a condom, correct? If he takes it off without you knowing or consenting then it's rape. For God's sake, Amber - don't you read the news? That Wikileaks guy is wanted for questioning in Sweden because he's supposed to have done the exact same thing."

  "Yeah, in Sweden," I said. "In case you didn't notice, we're not in fucking Sweden."

  "I don't care. It's still rape. You consented to protected sex, not raw-dogging."

  "Oh, thanks. So the stalking, the fucked-up pictures and everything else aren't enough for you? You have to make me a rape victim too, just to score some feminist points?"

  "Yes," she said. "Because you minimize every shitty thing that man has ever done to you. He makes you get a tattoo - it's just fun and games. He howls outside your window like a cat in heat - he just misses you. He stalks you until you can hardly leave the house without having a panic attack, but oh, it's okay - because his mommy didn't love him. He fucking rapes you..."

  As she spoke her voice started to turn into a kind of drone in my head, like the teachers in the Charlie Brown cartoons. I let the words wash over me and when I ended them with a slap, it was like someone else was doing it. She didn't clutch her cheek or stare at me in shock - she just stood there, one eyebrow raised and my handprint turning red on her face, her big tits like a wall or a mountain range in front of her. I hated her in that moment, because deep down I knew why I tuned her out.

  "What are you going to do?" she said.

  I burst into tears and she reached out for me, but even as I was crying on her shoulder she said, "You know I can't keep doing this, don't you?" in a voice that, had I been less of an asshole, I would have known have meant I was breaking her heart.

  There was no question of keeping it. I told myself that from the moment I saw the result on the first test. She was right - I was a mess, Justin was a mess and worse, I was a mess because of Justin. Neither of us were in any shape to be parents. Everglade drove me to the clinic, only for us to find it surrounded by protesters - some state level politician had recently said something that brought all the right-to-life crowd out of the woodwork. As soon as I saw the placards - like a nasty car accident and twice as gory - I begged her to drive me someplace where I could throw up.

  "Don't let them guilt-trip you, Babycakes," she said. "That's what they want. We'll just have to be extra sneaky is all."

  'Sneaky' came in the form of a 'Marilyn Monroe' wig that made me look like a cross between Harpo Marx and a low-rent party clown. I remember it well because it was one of the last times I laughed. I switched it for a bobbed brown wig that was much more convincing as real hair and Everglade called ahead to the clinic to ask if there was a way of sneaking in unnoticed. They arranged to see me out of hours, which was so kind of them that it started me off on another crying jag; the protesters had got to me, and now I felt as though I was planning murder, no matter how many times I told myself this was a necessary evil.

  The clinic was like a fortress - metal detectors and razor wire. It didn't help my mood, knowing I was about to do something that some people considered so bad they felt it justified murder, just to prevent it. My mind was full of blood and death - those horrible placards had done their job - and for much of the afternoon I'd been wondering if it might not be easier to just kill myself. What if he changed as soon as he found out I was pregnant? Stranger things had happened. He might shape up and become the perfect father.

  I never voiced these thoughts, obviously. I knew how Everglade would react.

  A nurse led me into a room and ushered me behind a screen, so that I could undress and put on a paper robe. Everything felt as though it was happening to someone else, even while I was lying there with my feet in the stirrup cups and nothing but another sheet of paper between me and the whole wide world. A pretty Indian doctor came in and said a bunch of things I barely remember, although I remember that she said she wanted to 'just' do a pap smear 'while we're here'. She had an unexpected English accent that reminded me of my Dad and brought me to the edge of tears, tipping me over when she opened up the speculum and I felt something twist and hurt deep inside me. I lay there with my legs open and my arm over my eyes, knowing that I'd start sobbing if I looked at her.

  "Okay," she said. "Looks like you're about six weeks along. That's fine."

  "Thank you," I said, because I didn't know what else to say. I wanted to close my legs. I wanted to jump off the table and run out of the room.

  "If you'd just like to step down for a moment," she said. "And we can have a little chat."

  "Can't you just do it now?" I heard myself say. I was a monster, talking about killing Justin's baby like taking off a band-aid.

  She pretended not to hear me and I climbed down out of the cups, my ass hanging out the back of the paper robe and my crotch gluey with lube. I had never felt so indecent in my life.

  "Was this a planned pregnancy?" she said. The past tense hit me like a rock and I sat there, reeling. It could be that simple - I was pregnant and now I’m not pregnant. I managed to shake my head, but this time there was no holding back the tears. I didn't just sob - I wailed. I howled. I shrieked like a banshee. The poor doctor didn't know what to do - she pushed a box of tissues towards me, hel
d my hand and waited patiently for me to cry it out.

  "I know this isn't an easy decision to make," she said.

  I sniffed.

  "Understatement."

  "We offer a full range of counseling services here, whatever your decision. Also a full free STD screening."

  I nodded slowly.

  "Why would I...?"

  "It's usually recommended," she said, folding her hands.

  "I'm not a slut, if that's what you're saying."

  "No, that's not what I'm saying at all. We offer free STD screening and rape counseling as part of the service."

  "Who said I was raped?" I said, scowling at her, but her face said it all. And my defensiveness was just the final nail in the coffin. I still wasn't ready to admit that he'd done something to me without my consent. You couldn't ask consent for every little thing in bed, could you? Really? It seemed absurd.

  She told me I had time to think about it, and that I should, so I went home with nothing taken out of me except for a couple of vials of blood and some pee. I was still pregnant. The worst part was that I didn't feel a bit relieved. If this was a Lifetime movie then surely this was the moment when I decided to keep the baby, and raise it as a triumphant single supermom. Only that didn't happen. I just felt like an immovable obstacle to the rest of my own life.

  The next few days were rough. I stayed in bed and stared at the TV. Everything felt unreal, like I was moving through a thick fog. Nothing really connected with me - not the pictures on the TV screen, not the flavor of the food that Everglade kept trying to make me eat. I was so far sunk in apathy that I didn't care that she was screening my calls - she must have been, I figured, since Justin had gone quiet.

  Then the clinic called and told me I had gonorrhea.

  I called Justin. It went to voicemail so I figured I'd leave him a little something, just like he'd left me. I think I said something like "Congratulations - you have an STD," and probably told him to fuck himself. It felt like the last straw. Knocked up, dropped out and diseased - a perfect trifecta of suck.

  Everglade asked me if I was thinking about killing myself, but I told her not to worry. I honestly wasn't. Suicide would have required some level of self-hate, and self-hate would have required a mental effort that was currently beyond me. I had nothing more to give - no more anger, no more outrage, no more pain.