Donna didn’t know and never would. It was between Kerri and Mitch. He wasn’t going to tell and neither would she. Unless he pissed her off. Then, she would have to come clean to her friend, crying hysterically for days prior to the confession, forcing Donna to drag it out of her. But Mitch knew better than to piss her off. And if they got caught by some other means, flat-out denial worked ninety-five percent of the time. On those very rare occasions when it didn’t work, lots of tears, deep regret, and solemn promises usually did. Of course, the betrayed would need to know why? Again, through tears, the standard explanations would be employed: “We were wasted and it just happened” or “We were both upset and weren’t thinking.” Neither of which was true because, despite the Donnas’ and the Seths’ great admiration for the truth, they couldn’t even conceive it, much less accept it. Why did Mitch and Kerri fuck that night? The truth? Because they could. It turned a boring night into a semi-interesting one. It was fun. It was something to do.
A sick panic rose inside of her as she wondered again, what was Seth doing at that bar? Either scenario—he knew she was there or he was looking to hook up—was bad but the latter bothered her most. He still hadn’t returned her text and that was a bad sign. Whatever was going on, she had to get to the bottom of it.
“I swear, you’re worse than Mitch!” Donna said.
“What are you talking about?” Kerri asked, her heart starting to run.
“You are not even listening to me!”
“I don’t feel well,” Kerri said.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I feel clammy. My stomach is upset. Maybe it was one of the drinks. When we get to the Red Wolf, I need to get my car and go home.”
“Are you sure you—”
“I’m sure, Donna,” Kerri said, her eyes welling with tears.
21
After finding Kerri’s house dark and the garage empty, Seth’s addled mind had come up with several places where he might find her. A bar called The Abyss was the second of those. Shorty after walking in, he’d been approached by two young girls. Like in a dream, they were at once familiar and strange, especially the hot one who was clearly out of her element as the pursuer. She was too forward, too fast and then abruptly, they were gone. The encounter had snapped him out of the trance-like state he was in.
He felt so lonely. Not for Kerri but for himself. Who was this man stalking his girlfriend in a crowd of lost, young souls gyrating against each other amid a deafening noise that could hardly be called music? Who was this man whose brain was soaked in a flask of another man’s booze? How in God’s name did he get here?
The phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it. Kerri was calling.
Don’t answer it.
But he wanted to. He wanted to tell her that he knew she was lying to him about being home sick. That he’d finally caught her.
But you didn’t catch her.
No, he didn’t. Not really. There was a very logical and indisputable reason why she was not home in bed right now and if he answered the phone, he would hear it.
He silenced the phone, slipped it back into his pocket. Standing there, he felt like he was in the middle of a deep, dark tunnel, and while he was trying to decide whether he should try to get through to the other side or turn around and go back, he realized that he’d become so discombobulated that he didn’t know which way was which. He was just standing there in total darkness.
But he couldn’t stand there forever so he picked a direction and started walking. He moved through the pounding music of the club and into the cool quiet of the night. “Ticket?” the valet asked him.
“I walked,” he said. This was partly true. For some reason he no longer remembered, he’d parked in the Giant Eagle parking lot a few blocks away.
“Seth!”
He stopped and turned around. Another surreal moment. The guy with the gargoyle tattooed on his head was striding toward him looking like a rabid dog. He was smaller than he looked on the website but meaner and all kinds of fucked up. It radiated off of him. Hate. Anger. Seth’s heart started to race. Fight or flight, he thought, absently. “Levi.”
“How the fuck do you know my name?”
Kerri had never told him the name of the creep with the tattooed head that came into the store where she worked. Seth had gotten the name from the website. So…the website had been real; it had existed. Kerri Engel was a goddamned liar. And worse. Much worse but there was no time to think about that right now because Levi was right up on him.
“I said, ‘How do you know my name?’” His teeth were chipped and his breath smelled of cigarettes.
“Kerri’s website. How do you know mine?”
“Ex-boyfriend means ex-boyfriend, asshole, as in no more. Leave Kerri alone or you’ll be sorry you were ever born.”
This was beyond bizarre. “Ex-boyfriend is right. While you’re playing messenger, you might want to let her know we’re no longer together.” He turned to go and Levi grabbed his shirt and jerked him around.
“I’m not done talking to you yet.”
An instant, blinding hatred overwhelmed him. Not since high school had he been face to face with someone like this, a bully he was certain, someone looking for trouble and determined to find it. Nothing Seth could say was going to change the direction of what the son of a bitch was here for and talking was only going to give him more of an edge than he already had. “Yes, you are,” Seth said and slammed his forehead into the guy’s face and then they were on the ground, rolling over the gravel, hitting, grabbing, pulling, punching.
Everything was happening so fast, so unbelievably fast. He was hitting as hard and as quickly as he could but he was getting hit a lot too, in the face, in the ribs. Again and again. His ears were ringing, his mouth was bleeding. They turned over and over. Dirt, rocks, blood. Somehow, Seth was on top hitting the guy’s face.
Smash it in! Break his face in! Kill him! Kill him or he is going to kill you!
A large arm came around Seth’s neck and jerked him backwards and onto his feet. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to pry the big arm away but he couldn’t. He was being dragged backwards fast. The guy whipped around in front of him and slammed Seth’s back against the side of a dumpster, holding him at arm’s length, yelling at him. “Calm down, Seth! It’s me. Remember me? I’m on your side! Relax, man!”
He was a student from last semester. Jonathon. A kid in his early twenties who wanted to be a fireman. No, not Jonathon. James. James from last semester said, “Are you okay?”
Seth nodded that he was though he didn’t know if he was or not. He couldn’t catch his breath. His whole face was throbbing. His ribs hurt. He spit a mouthful of blood on the ground. “Fuck.”
Two guys had Levi on his feet. His face was covered in blood, his eyes ferocious under the parking lamps. “This isn’t over you prick!” he shouted to Seth. “This is not over!” The two guys stepped in front of him. A police siren was wailing in the distance. People were coming out of the club, rubbernecking around the side of the building, muttering “oh my God,” one guy laughing and his girlfriend telling him it wasn’t funny.
Levi turned and stumbled off in the opposite direction like a wild, wounded animal.
“Let him go!” one of the two guys said to the other. “Just let him go.”
“That siren is for you,” James from last semester was saying. “I’d get out of here.” Seth was still trying to get his bearings and he stupidly remembered that James had a hell of a time with the thesis-driven essay, particularly introductory paragraphs. “Look, you helped me and I’m trying to help you.” That was true. Seth had no doubt that James would have never made it through Composition One without the countless times they’d worked together after class. “Seriously, dude,” the guy said, looking toward the sound of the siren getting louder, closer, “you do not want to be here when the cops show up.”
“Thanks, James.”
“Thank you. Go.”
Seth nodded, waved and started off.
22
Kerri hated, hated, hated that she had to go to her house first but there was no choice. She couldn’t show up at Seth’s place looking like she’d been out dancing. Damn it! She raced home, calling Seth, but the bastard wasn’t answering. Fine. She’d just keep hitting redial until he did answer.
No one was home when she got to her place. Timmy was spending the night with a friend and Mother was off with her bank president. The emptiness of the house howled through her like an icy wind; it was haunted when she was here alone. She moved fast, getting out of her clothes and into the shower long enough to wash the makeup off her face, get the product out of her hair and the smell of the bar off of her. She put on the most boring pair of underwear she could find, sweat pants, no bra and a hoodie. She took a bottle of cough syrup from the medicine cabinet and swished it through her mouth, gargled with it.
Then she was back in the car, leaning forward over the steering wheel, driving fast, hitting redial every few minutes, rehearsing what she was going to say. “Why weren’t you answering my calls?” she said, angrily, then in a tone more hurt, concerned, “I was worried. I had to get my sick ass out of bed and come here and check on you.”
She couldn’t think about it anymore. She just had to get there. She wouldn’t know what to say until she heard what he had to say. She was good at that. The best. Mr. Open and Honest would always spill what he knew—what he thought he knew—in the first few minutes. She just had to get there!
The house was dark when she whipped into the driveway. She ran to the garage window and cupped her hands to see inside. His SUV wasn’t there. It was 12:30. Where the hell was he? She couldn’t fix this, damn it, if she didn’t know how it was broken? She started to cry. How dare he treat her like this! After all they’d been through.
What if he was still at The Abyss? With some girl? She’d go there right now and walk right up to them! But what if he wasn’t there? What if they were on their way back here? No, no, no she couldn’t think about this anymore. Even if there was another girl—and by God, there better not be—he’d have to come home sooner or later, and when he did, she’d be waiting!
She moved her car out of the driveway and parked out of sight so he wouldn’t know she was here. She tried to put on music but it was no good. She was too anxious, too wound up. She couldn’t wait in the car. She ran across the street and went around the house to let herself in through the back door. She paced the kitchen like an animal in a cage, her phone in her hand, hitting redial. Every time she heard his voicemail start, she screamed and finally, she threw the phone across the room.
She was so mad she didn’t know what to do with herself. No one did this to her! No one! She grabbed a plate that was sitting out and smashed it on the counter. She saw the block of knives then. She pulled the butcher knife from its home and pressed its sharp point into the fatty part of her hand between the forefinger and the thumb until it broke the skin. She cried out and began to bleed. Good pain, she thought, good, sweet pain as she took the blade away and caught the blood in her other hand. It was so lovely, blood, deep and warm.
She sighed deeply and felt better. Calmer. Cleaner. Better, better. She laid the blade against her neck. The carotid artery. One deep slice and Seth would come home to find her lying on the kitchen floor where fucking and loving first overlapped, pale and cold and dead in a sea of blood. This is what he did to her. This is his fault. He would never get over that. He would be so, so sorry for not answering her calls and he’d miss her so much. He’d give anything to hold her again, kiss her again, but he’d killed her. Ruined her. He would cry at her funeral, cry so hard that everyone would see how much he’d loved her. He’d be broken beyond repair. He’d visit her headstone every day for the rest of his life. His illusions of a benevolent universe, a place of design and beauty where everything happened for a reason and there was always hope and guidance for those who asked for it, gone for good. He would have to grow up. That would be her parting gift to him: reality.
But she didn’t want to die alone. She didn’t want to die without kissing him one last time, and she couldn’t bear the thought of him ever being with someone else. Ever.
But the concept of death was so beautiful right now, so freeing. He would be home sometime tonight. Maybe any minute now. He wasn’t with some other girl. At least he wouldn’t bring her back here. This was their space. Her stuff was all over the place. No. He wouldn’t do that.
She would cut the lights and burn some candles, maybe build a fire in the fireplace, open a bottle of wine. She could greet him with a kiss and using a razor or a smaller knife cut him first. He would never expect that and then she’d sever her own life line. They would bleed out fast and it would only take seconds for him to realize there was nothing to be done. No one to save them. No way to save themselves. They could only surrender to it, give over and hold on to each other. Kiss one last time. God, it would be beautiful. Dying in a kiss. Kissing until their hearts stopped beating and their souls were un-caged…
23
Adrenaline was still pumping so wildly through Seth’s body as he drove back to the house that his hands were shaking. The fight had knocked an upper tooth loose, split the hell out of his lip, torn one of his good shirts, blood-stained his jeans, and cracked the screen of his cell phone. “Fucking freak,” he said, considering the phone and knowing it could be months before he would be able to replace it. It still worked at least because Kerri’s calls had been coming nonstop. He silenced it and tossed it on the passenger seat next to a bag of recently refilled prescriptions.
He was getting on to Route 2 when he realized that he was driving down the off ramp and was about to drive into oncoming traffic. “Shit!” He whipped the SUV into the grass, bouncing and bounding back on to the on ramp, and though his heart was in his throat, he was feeling lucky until he saw a cop car light up in the opposite lane, racing towards the median strip.
“Oh, God, no,” he said, flooring it and tearing across the median on his side putting him and the cop in opposing lanes once again. The siren went off then and Seth took the exit opposite of the one he’d just come down, watching the cop in the rearview slide broadside across the median only to be trapped there as approaching traffic filled both lanes. Seth raced off the exit, through the red light, and pulled into the Perkins right there, parking and jumping out of the SUV. He ran across the lot and out of the reach of the lights.
The cop came off the exit two minutes later, lights flashing, but the siren off. It was obvious that he was unsure of his target. He drove slowly past the Perkins, looking but not stopping, then checking the McDonald’s parking lot, turning around at the Arby’s and came back again like a shark trolling for what should have been an easy meal. Seth stayed in the shadows, bleeding, aching, whispering, “Keep going, please, please, please keep going.”
The cop circled back a few more times and finally sped off.
Seth tried to think. It wasn’t a good idea to go into a restaurant looking like he looked, and, obviously drunker than he thought, he wasn’t about to risk getting back behind the wheel. He had no wallet, no money, and no credit cards. He tried to think of what he was going to do. He thought about sneaking back into the SUV and sleeping it off but he couldn’t risk that either. Just last week one of his students was sleeping it off in his car—in the backseat even—and got slapped with a DWI anyway.
Seth was outside of himself again, looking at a picture of a man who kept getting worse. Now beaten, bloodied, exhausted, drunk, half out of his mind, hiding in the shadows, gazing longingly at his vehicle and wondering, again, how the hell he got here. He pulled the flask from his pocket, filled his mouth and rinsed. It burned like hell. He spit it out on the ground, his eyes watering. Then he took a drink. More burning, the taste of whiskey and blood.
It started to rain.
Fuck.
24
The birds were singing and a cool breeze was coming through th
e bedroom window. Kerri stretched between the sheets, naked except for the engagement ring on her finger. She was reborn. Today was going to be a very special day. A brand new beginning.
Kyle was in the kitchen downstairs clanging and banging around, whistling a tune. Until 3:00 Sunday morning, she had waited for Seth to return. She’d been ready to die for him, with him, the two of them together. But he never showed. Exhausted and not knowing what else to do, she’d driven to Kyle’s place. The lights had been all ablaze, but he hadn’t answered the door when she’d knocked. That and the fact that Jinx wasn’t barking, as was normally the case when anyone came to the door, had told her something was wrong. Kerri had used her key to get in and before she could say a word, she heard what turned out to be Kyle weeping over Jinx in the kitchen. He looked up at her pitifully, eye and lip quivering. “I should have had her put down sooner,” he’d cried. “I should have but…she was all I had. I loved her so much.”
Kerri sat down next to him without a word and put her head on his shoulder. They cried together, petting the dead dog’s snout and talking about how much they were going to miss her. Kyle said that he believed Jinx was happiest when the three of them were together. They’d agreed that the best place to bury her was at Kyle’s parents’ estate in Moreland Hills where Jinx had spent many weekends swimming in the pond and chasing tennis balls and rabbits.
“Happy Monday,” Kyle said, coming into the bedroom fully dressed and carrying a white tray which held a steaming mug of coffee, a plate of French toast, a small bowl of sliced fruit, silverware, a red cloth napkin and a bud vase with a single, white rose. “Get yourself situated,” he said, in a paternal tone, as if she should have known this was coming and been prepared.
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