by Claire Adams
Grace shrugs and says, “Shit happens. Are you going to try calling her or not?”
I nod and pull out my phone. The line rings, but eventually goes to voicemail. I try it again, but after only a couple of rings it goes to voicemail again.
“Rejecting your calls?” Grace asks.
I don’t answer.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “You can stay here until you hear something from her.”
“Okay,” I answer, detached.
“You know, if you really want to get back at her, we could always make our own video. I mean, I’m on chemo now, but I’m sure we could figure something out.”
I absolutely never know when she’s joking about stuff like that. There’s not really time for me to find out, though, as my phone starts to ring.
“Just a second,” I tell Grace and answer the call. “Hello?”
“What are you doing?” Melissa asks.
“Where are you?” I return.
“Why aren’t you at work?” Melissa asks.
“I wasn’t feeling up to it,” I tell her.
“Where are you?” she asks.
“I’m out,” I answer. “Why?”
“When are you going to be back?”
“I was just waiting to get a hold of you,” I tell her. “I can be back home in 20 minutes, if you’d-”
“Why aren’t you at work?” she repeats.
“I told you,” I answer, “I wasn’t feeling up to it. How did you know I wasn’t at work anyway?”
“I’m not home,” she says, out of context.
“Where are you?”
“I’ll be home in a few hours,” she says. “Then, I think we should talk.”
“I think that would be a good idea,” I answer.
The line is quiet, and for a few seconds, I’m thinking that she’s hung up.
“You watched the video,” she says.
“Yeah, I watched the video,” I answer.
“How did you-”
“You know,” I tell her, “I think you should probably head home now. I’ll meet you there.”
The line’s quiet again.
“Melissa?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll be home soon.”
I hang up the phone and turn to Grace, saying, “I should probably-”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Go.”
My mind isn’t doing me any favors right now. All I can see when I blink is Melissa’s mouth moving and that little one-sided smile she gets when she knows she’s getting away with something.
I shouldn’t have put Grace in the middle of this. She was right — I did know what Melissa was saying, but I didn’t want to believe it.
Adrenaline is surging through me as I pull into my parking space and get out of the car.
I give Melissa a quick call to see if she’s here yet, but she doesn’t answer.
Not knowing where she is right now, it’s impossible to know how long it’s going to be before she gets home.
When I get upstairs, I let myself in and just sit on the couch in the silence, waiting, hoping that nothing’s actually happened. I’m still holding onto the hope that I didn’t see what I know I saw and that Grace just happened to have the same delusion.
It’s ridiculous, I know, but it’s all I’ve got to hang onto right now.
The key enters the lock after a few more minutes and I get up to greet Melissa at the door, just hoping she’s alone.
“Jace,” she says, startled at the sight of me. “I didn’t-”
“Let’s talk,” I tell her, and walk back to the living room.
Everything’s quiet for a very long time.
I can’t be sure, but I do get the feeling we’re both holding our peace for the same reason: once we talk about it, it becomes real.
Finally, I’m sick of waiting in limbo. “Want to tell me what you were saying on the video?” I ask.
“First off,” she says, “I don’t even know how you saw it. I deleted it off of your phone after I sent it to mine.”
“You didn’t delete the message itself,” I tell her. “Deleting the video from my gallery didn’t unattach it from your message.”
“Right,” she says. “Look, I can explain-”
“And, you didn’t just send it to your phone, did you?” I ask. “If I call the other number you sent it to, who do you think is going to pick up the phone?”
“Why are you being such a baby about this? It’s not even what you think.”
“I’d love to hear what it is, then,” I tell her.
“It’s stupid,” she starts.
“Of that, I am certain,” I answer.
She gives me a dirty look, but her expression softens into the face she pulls when she’s trying to talk me into something.
“It’s only happened the one time,” she says. “It happened yesterday after he gave me the promotion. I don’t know, I felt like I had to.”
“You’re saying that he made you have sex with him?”
“No!” she answers quickly. “I don’t know. Just…”
“Just what?” I ask. “If he forced you, then we need to talk to-”
“I wanted to do it,” she says. “I came onto him.”
“Did he tell you he wouldn’t give you the promotion if you didn’t? Because that’s still-”
“I came onto him,” she repeats.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, that’s not nearly good enough,” I tell her.
“I guess I was just so grateful for getting that promotion — you know how I’ve always been overlooked in the past and everything. I guess I just-”
I interrupt, saying, “You’re doing a lot of guessing for someone who initiated the whole thing.”
“That’s not fair,” she says.
“In what way is that not fair?” I ask. “I’m just parroting back what you’ve already told me.”
“Look, the fact is that it happened and you saw the video. I wish that hadn’t happened, but we are where we are,” she says. “It is what it is.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask. “Are you sorry that you screwed your boss or are you sorry that you got caught?”
“I’m sorry that I-” She stops short. “I’m just sorry.”
“So, this is something that’s probably going to happen again, isn’t it?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I realized something today. I realized that whatever short-lived fantasy I was cooking up in my head, you’re the one I want to be with. I don’t want to be with him and I wish I hadn’t made that stupid mistake in the first place.”
“How stupid do you think I am?” I ask.
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” she says. “I think you’re mad, and I don’t blame you.”
“You’re right,” I tell her, “I am mad.”
“And, you have every right to be,” she says. “Look, I made a stupid, terrible mistake and I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.”
“Where were you today?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You weren’t here when I got up,” I tell her. “You weren’t here when you called me. Where did you go? I know you didn’t have work today.”
“I had to run into the office,” she says.
“And it took you five hours to do it?” I scoff.
“I had to get my office packed up.”
“Sounds like this worked out pretty well for you,” I snap.
“It’s just sex!” she shouts. “Why are you so fucking uptight about it?”
“We made a commitment,” I tell her.
“You’re the one that’s been going out with other women almost every night,” she says.
“That was your fucking idea!” I return. “You had to talk me into it, and every time I’ve told you that I think I should quit, you always find a way to convince me not to.”
“We don’t have to talk about this right now,” she says, her voice softening again.
“We’ve both made some mistakes, and I think that we should just forgive each other and move on.”
I’m dumbfounded.
“Let’s just move on,” she repeats. “We’ve gone through some hard times before, but we’ve always worked through them. Do you know why?”
“Because I’m a blind fool,” I answer.
“No,” she says. “It’s because we love each other, and when you love someone and they make a mistake, you find a way to work it out.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I start. “You’ve already admitted that not only did you screw your boss, you got me to make a video for you to send to him where you’re mouthing about how much you wish it was him inside you, and now you’re saying I should just suck it up and deal with it because that’s what people do when they love each other?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“I really can’t believe you even agreed to that. Why did you even make that video? What was the fucking point of that? If that’s what you wanted to do, why didn’t you just take it on your phone? You might have even gotten away with it if you’d done that.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Melissa?” I implore.
“What?”
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t think we’re accomplishing anything right now,” she says. “I think we need to both take a little time and think about what’s happened so we can approach it later with calmer heads.”
“I think we should talk about it now or you can start getting your shit out of my apartment,” I rejoin.
“It’s our apartment,” she protests.
“I’m the one on the lease,” I tell her.
And, of course, this is the moment that she starts crying.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I know that what I did was wrong, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive me.”
“Yeah, I think that’s going to be a tough sell,” I tell her.
“See?” she bawls. “You hate me.”
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”
“And, what am I doing?” she asks through her tears.
“You’re trying to make me feel bad so I end up not only letting you stay, but actually trying to make you feel better about the fact that you fucking cheated on me and only came clean after it was clear that you didn’t destroy all the evidence.”
“How can you think that?” she asks, laying it on even thicker now. “I wanted to tell you as soon as it happened, but I was scared that you’d leave me. I don’t know what I would do without you. I love you. I want to spend my life with you.”
“That’s a little harder to believe today than it would have been yesterday,” I tell her.
“If I can’t be with you, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.” She decides to top it off with a cliché, “I don’t know how to not be with you!”
I roll my eyes, but that just makes her bottom lip start quivering. She’s laying it on, but whether the pain on her face is real or not, we’ve been together long enough and I’ve given enough of myself to her that it still affects me.
“This isn’t okay,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “I know I messed up. I’m not going to let anything like this happen again.”
“Would you have told me about this if I hadn’t seen the video?”
“Of course,” she says, straightening her posture. “It was eating me up inside.”
“Seriously, did you buy a book of ‘I just cheated on you’ clichés or something?”
Her expression turns again. “I can’t believe you’d say that,” she says. “You’re behaving like I’m putting on some kind of act. I feel terrible, but if you’re not willing to work through this, I understand. I’ll grab my things.”
She gets up and starts heading to the bedroom.
I don’t know if it’s a bluff or if she’s actually ready to walk out the door, but even knowing that she’s playing me, it’s still a reflex for me to say, “Stop.”
She turns around, her eyes sad but hopeful. “I’m not going to stay if you don’t think I’m worth it,” she says. “I’d certainly understand if that’s the way you feel. I’d probably feel that way right now, too.”
“I know what you’re doing,” I tell her.
She turns back toward the bedroom, hanging her head.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t still love you,” I tell her.
Half of me is relieved that the status quo is still in effect, at least for a while. The other half of me wants to curb stomp the first part.
What the hell am I doing? This isn’t me.
Before I met Melissa, I was a very different person. Yeah, I was a lot rougher around the edges, but I also remember being a lot happier.
Now, the only one that ever has a smile is her, and that only seems to happen when she’s successfully manipulated me in one way or another.
Like right now.
“You’re not going to regret this,” she says. “I’m going to prove to you that you can trust me. I’m not going to let you down again.”
“Uh huh,” I answer, apathetic.
“In fact,” she says, “I don’t know about you, but I could go for some makeup sex right now.”
Although I’ve already made the mistake, the damage has already been invited back to do its thing, something clicks in my head, and I’m starting to feel a lot more like my old self.
“Go ahead,” I tell her.
She furrows her brow, but her confusion only lasts a moment.
“Where do you want to do it?” she asks. “We could do it right here on the couch, or in the bedroom, or in the kitchen or, ooh, we could do it in the shower. We haven’t done that in a long-”
“You didn’t understand me,” I tell her.
“What?” she asks.
“When I told you to go ahead,” I answer, “you didn’t understand what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I meant that you can go ahead and fuck yourself.”
Holy shit: that felt good.
Chapter Seven
New Friends in Old Places
Grace
“No,” she says, “you’ve got to pull the carton almost all the way out of the water.”
Yuri’s helping me get rid of my remaining stash of buds and is attempting to instruct me on the proper use of a gravity bong. The process is pretty interesting, but I’m having a bit of trouble with the finer points.
“Here,” she says, “I’ll get it prepped again, but this time, you’re taking the hit.”
We’ve been at this a while.
Yuri’s apartment was a little…I guess the polite way to say it is that it’s cluttered. The not-so-polite way to say it is that that place is a fucking hellhole.
Needless to say, we’re back at my place.
It’s been a couple of days since I’ve seen Jace, but he called me yesterday to give me an update on what’s going on with him and the town skank...I forget her name.
He sounded a lot more confident than I’ve ever known him to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s whipped like a little bitch. I think it’s my duty as a kind, caring human being full of empathy and puppy farts to do what I can to extricate him from his royal blunder.
For now, though, Yuri’s got the bottomless milk jug full of smoke and she’s unscrewing the bowl.
“Put your mouth over it, but not before you exhale everything from your lungs,” she instructs. “You’re going to need every bit of space in there to take all of this.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” I tell her.
Toward the end of my conversation with Jace, he was kind enough to remember that he’s my doctor and I still haven’t had that scan he seemed to believe was so important, so he’s got me scheduled for a few hours from now.
Let’s just say that my tolerance is starting to grow.
“Are you going to be good to drive me?” I ask.
“Qu
ick,” she scolds, “before the smoke gets out.”
I put my mouth over the opening at the top, and once I’ve got a good seal, Yuri starts pushing the jug down into the water, forcing what amounts to a metric fuck ton of smoke into me.
Somehow, I manage to get it all in, and I lift my head, holding my breath.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I can’t really answer right now.
“You don’t need to hold your breath,” she says. “Word has it that something like 95 percent of the THC gets absorbed into your lungs in the first few seconds. You can blow it out.”
I’m not sure where she’s getting her information, but she seems to be an old hand at all this, so I let the air out of my lungs with a surprisingly large, seemingly neverending plume of smoke.
“That’s the way to do it, girl!” she says, holding her hand up and just staring at me until I give her a high five.
“Holy shit,” I tell her. “I feel like I just breathed out a pine forest fire.”
“I know, right?” she says. “Now, load me up one more. I like to be good and baked before I get in to work.”
“Do you really think that’s wise?” I ask. “I mean, you’re working in a doctor’s office.”
“A reticulated giraffe could do my job,” she says. “Hell, it could do my job after smoking more than I do.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to figure in body weight,” I explain, feeling very proud of myself for being able to contribute so wonderfully to Yuri’s hyperbole.
“Oh, and I’m not driving,” she says, replacing the screw-on bowl, formerly the lid, onto the milk jug, loading the bowl faster than seems possible, and flicking her lighter, the flame just above the cap.
“I really have to do this scan,” I tell her. “I’ve been having these headaches and my vision goes weird sometimes.”
“I’ll get you there,” she assures as the container fills with thick, silvery smoke. “We’re just going to have to take a cab.”
“Shouldn’t you be there?” I ask. “I mean, I’m going to the doctor’s office where you work to have a procedure done.”
“A test,” she says, unscrewing the cap. “Not a procedure, a test. But that couldn’t possibly make the slightest difference.”
