Dean sighs. “You really pissed?” he asks, glancing at me out the corner of his eye. “You can drive if you’re gonna be mad about it.”
I bite my lip, distracted. “I’m not mad.”
“You’re acting that way.”
“I’m just nervous.”
“About what?”
“About going back there.”
“You afraid of cemeteries? You worried dead people are going to crawl up out of the ground and drag you in?”
That’s a pretty apt metaphor for what concerns me, but I’m not going to explain it. Dean, after all, is one of the people from my past I’d hoped to never see again lest he pull me back into that world, and yet, here I am, sitting in the passenger seat while he drives me back to hell.
I realize then that he’s not just teasing me, he’s actually waiting for an answer. “I didn’t like being there on Wednesday,” I say finally. “And I wasn’t even near the cemetery. I feel like today will be worse.”
“So why are you going?”
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I’d always thought that the past was better ignored, locked away in a dingy trailer with all my pathetic little secrets. And while having Dean in my life hasn’t exactly been the easiest, I’m realizing it hasn’t hurt me, either. So maybe the past doesn’t have to remain locked away and unresolved. Maybe what I need is closure, and since Renee and her three thousand dollars are part of what sent me running from Riverside in the dead of night, maybe I need to visit her grave and say...something.
I’m sure it’ll come to me.
We take the turnoff for the highway and start to pick up speed.
“I just feel like I have to,” I answer. “For closure or something.”
“I think you closed the door pretty damn tightly, Rachel.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“It’s what you’re doing with me, isn’t it?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” The words are harsh but his tone is mild. And then, because I haven’t bothered to choose a radio station, Dean fiddles with the dial until he finds something playing classic rock. He keeps the volume low, suggesting that he’s still waiting for clarification.
I let out a breath, embarrassed. “You know how you said you wanted me out of your head?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s so you could have closure. So you could move on. Get it out of your system.”
“What out of my system?”
“Revenge or whatever it was.”
“You think I wanted revenge?”
“Yes. Pretty much.”
“Does it feel like revenge when I’m fucking you?”
Now it’s my turn to shrug, avoiding Dean’s dark stare. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes how?”
“Do you understand what I mean by closure?”
“Yes. Sometimes how?”
“I don’t want to have this discussion right now,” I say tightly. “We’re driving to a cemetery—let’s talk about something else.”
Dean’s got one big arm sitting on the armrest between us, the other on the wheel. If I’m not mistaken, he’s gripping it harder than is strictly necessary.
“Tell me about prison,” I say.
He gives me a cold look. “What’s to say?”
“Did you... Was it awful?”
“It wasn’t great.”
“Did you have friends?”
“Yes.”
“Enemies?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Nothing too serious.”
“Did anything bad ever happen to you?”
“Apart from going to prison, you mean? No. I didn’t get raped in the shower if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Or it sort of was. “What’d you do all day?”
“Tell me what you meant about revenge fucking and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about prison.”
I gnaw on my inner cheek for a moment. The opportunity to get Dean to actually talk about something is a rare one, and while I don’t really want to continue our previous conversation, I do want to know about prison. “I didn’t say ‘revenge fucking,’” I clarify.
“You want to call it closure fucking? Don’t split hairs, Rachel. Tell me what you didn’t like.”
I risk a look at his profile, the strong line of his jaw, the sharp cheekbones, full lips. His face is stony, shoulders set and tense, and I realize that his pride is wounded; he thinks I didn’t like the sex, which I did, even if I didn’t always like what motivated it.
My face heats as I try to find the nerve to answer. “I didn’t like how you put your finger in my ass that first night,” I say hastily.
Dean’s jaw ticks but he doesn’t speak.
“I think you did it to humiliate me.” I know he did. I have pretty much no experience with ass play and I’ve never really desired it, but if and when it was to happen, I’d rather it be with someone who wasn’t trying to show me how little regard he had for my comfort or how much he hated me.
His voice is tight. “I told you what to say if you wanted to stop. Why didn’t you say something?”
I blink away the flashback of that night, face pressed against the door, Dean’s angry voice hissing in my ear, ordering me to give up. I remember how wet I was, how much I wanted something I knew I shouldn’t. And how even though I was afraid, I felt like I should stay because Dean was motivated by a wound I had inflicted and I’d foolishly thought there was something I could do to speed up the healing. “Because I was sorry.”
“What?” He looks at me a second longer than he should before yanking his gaze back to the road.
“I answered your question. Let’s talk about prison.”
“Because you were sorry?” he echoes.
“Yes! When I stood you up that night and you waited for me after work, you said you wanted me out of your head. Well, I wanted you out of mine too. And I felt bad. I felt bad about how I left you in Riverside and for hurting your feelings by not going to your apartment. And I felt so stupid showing up at your door, and then you just...”
“Did you fake it?”
“What?”
“That orgasm. Was it faked?”
“No.”
He looks slightly mollified. “Did it hurt?”
“The orgasm? No.”
“Not the orgasm, Rachel.” His tone is sharp, like he’s gathering facts and has no patience for fools. “The finger. In your ass. Did it hurt you?”
“Was it supposed to?”
Dean runs a hand over his face and I know I’ve caught him.
“You know what I wanted?” he asks.
“What?”
“You’re going to throw yourself out of the car when I tell you.”
I glance over at him. “Did you want to kill me?”
He laughs humorlessly. “No.”
“Rob me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He glances over as though trying to judge whether or not I can handle the answer. “I wanted you ass up, face on the floor, dress over your head. I wanted to fuck you up the ass so hard you begged me to stop. I always figured that if I found you, I’d make you regret it.”
My heart stops beating. It’s a struggle to breathe. My fingers and toes feel numb. A tear spills out, making its way down my cheek and dripping off the end of my chin before I even know I’m crying.
Dean notices but plows on through clenched teeth. “When I shoved my finger up your ass I was just getting started. I wanted to stretch you enough to get my cock in. But you were so tight, Rach... And you wouldn’t tell me to stop even though I knew you wanted to.”
More tears come, but mostly I’m just numb. He’d wanted to humiliate me that night, which I can understand, but this confession is one I didn’t see coming and it hurts more than his planned revenge.
“I hated you, Rachel. I hated you and I wanted you. And then I had you and I could
n’t do it. All of a sudden I didn’t feel the way I thought I would. I was so angry but I didn’t want to hurt you, I wanted to make you come. That’s what I wanted to feel. I thought maybe if I knew I could make that perfect little lawyer come for me, I’d feel better.”
“Did you?”
He thumps his fist lightly on the steering wheel. “No. You said five words and walked out, and I felt like shit. Worse still, I wanted to do it again.”
“So it was revenge.”
“It was supposed to be, but I certainly didn’t feel like I’d fucking avenged anything. You’d had the power all those years in prison, and when you left that night you took it with you all over again.”
I fold my arms across my chest and take a shuddering breath. I made the mistake of starting to feel comfortable with Dean, and now I’m paying for it. If I hadn’t started to...like him, this news would hurt less. I guess that’s the risk you run when trusting ex-boyfriends. And ex-cons.
He’s watching me closely, probably checking to make sure I don’t try to launch myself out of the car. “Did it feel like revenge the second time? You said not to touch your ass and I didn’t.”
I think back to Dean’s bossiness, his coldness, his control. And what I’d thought was his determination to get the most out of his limited opportunity to fuck me, I now realize was his effort to work it out of his system, to take back the “power” he imagined I possessed.
“I guess not,” I mutter at length.
“Any of the times after that?”
I shake my head no.
“Then what? What’s your good friend Todd like in the sack?”
I snort. “As if.”
“What? He better than me?”
“You just told me you wanted to rape me up the ass, Dean. Do you really think I’m going to compare and contrast that with what Todd did? There is no comparison. He didn’t hate me the way you do, he didn’t fuck me to hurt me. He didn’t fuck me at all.”
“Did he call it making love?”
“What Todd called it is none of your business. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I’m visiting my mother’s grave for the first time, I’m stressed-out and you were supposed to come along for moral support, not remind me why I never wanted to go back to Cranston.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because everybody hates me!”
“What makes you say that?”
“Seriously? You want to tell me that story about your rape fantasy again?”
Dean strums his fingers on the wheel, obviously trying to stay calm. “Nobody raped anybody. And I told you already I don’t hate you.”
“You have an awesome way of showing it.”
He shoots me a dark look. “And I’m sorry if I hurt you that first night.”
“Is that something you get off on? With other women? Is that a thing for you?”
Dean looks offended. “Hurting them? No.”
“I meant anal.”
His eyebrows raise. “Not particularly.”
“But you’ve done it.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Don’t worry, I know where you stand on the subject now.”
I swallow a hysterical laugh. How great that Dean knows where I stand when I no longer have any clue. Five days ago we’d had a civil conversation, sex that didn’t feel like hate sex and he’d walked me to work, agreeing to come on this very personal outing to lend support. And today I learn that our already weak foundation was built on even shakier ground.
“I shouldn’t have invited you.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No kidding. How would you feel if I told you how I’d spent years fantasizing about humiliating and debasing you?”
A pause. “I think I’d get over it if you realized you couldn’t go through with it.”
“You really feel that way?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant that you wouldn’t go through with it.”
Dean’s look is patronizing. “I’m not a complete asshole, Rachel. I know what you meant.”
“If you say so.” I dig a compact and tissue out of my purse and mop up my smudged mascara.
He exhales heavily. “You still want to talk about prison?”
I crumple the tissue in my fist and lean back against the door so I can watch him. The additional distance between us makes me feel better, helps regain my composure. “Do you feel like that was someplace you deserved to be?”
I see his biceps flex and relax.
“I didn’t, for a while. But now I do.”
“What changed?”
That damn shrug. “I got older, I guess.”
“Do you know the security guard is deaf in one ear because of that beating?”
Dean nods tersely. “Yeah.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Nicky hit him, not me.”
“Why’d you rob the store?”
I think some part of me had always figured the timing of the robbery was too coincidental to be unrelated to my departure, that maybe Dean had pictured himself fencing the jewelry and using the money to find me to start a new life.
“It was something to do.”
I gape at him. “Seriously? You’ve got ten years’ perspective on the thing and that’s your answer? You were bored?”
“If you found Riverside so fucking stimulating, why’d you leave?”
“Stop answering questions with questions, Dean.”
He purses his lips and checks the mirrors as though he’s going to change lanes, but then doesn’t. He’s just buying time. “We’d been talking about it for months.”
My breath catches, but I don’t interrupt. I’d known he’d been stealing for a while, but I didn’t know how much it had escalated until it was too late. Even when I thought I knew him, I hadn’t. Not really.
“We’d done little things, here and there, but never when the places were open, when we’d have to deal with people.” He glances over. “It was addicting, Rachel. Suddenly having money, being able to afford things we never would otherwise. It was nice, having something that was out of our reach. We’d feel good about ourselves for a few weeks, then we’d need more. And the jewelry store seemed like the answer.”
He risks a look at me, trying to gauge whether or not he’s said enough, then sighs when my expression makes it clear that he hasn’t.
“We didn’t think it through,” he continues eventually. “I was angry in general back then, and I was extra pissed because you’d taken off. Everyone thought I was such a fucking pussy, Rachel, waking up and asking where my girlfriend was. I acted like I didn’t care, and soon enough I’d convinced myself that I didn’t care about anything. And when Nicky chose that day to rob the store, I said okay. Why not? I couldn’t think of a single reason not to. They had something I wanted, so I took it.”
I raise an eyebrow and look away, recognizing the alarming theme in his thinking.
“Nicky was high,” he continues, remembering. “I should have known he was worse off than usual, but I didn’t care about anything that day. And when he started hitting that security guard, I still didn’t care. And I didn’t care when I went to prison, either. It wasn’t like Riverside was a fucking dream, and I was big enough and angry enough that I didn’t get too much trouble.” He takes a breath. “So that’s that. Satisfied?”
“Is it behind you?”
“Prison?”
“Committing crimes that would send you there.”
He laughs roughly. “Yeah.”
“What were your prison friends like?” I don’t know anything about Dean’s life outside of our twisted relationship. He boxes, he likes Reginald, he dreams of humiliating me. I want to know that there’s something human about him. Something he cares about.
Dean glances at me tiredly. “Nobody special. I spent the first three years in medium security lockup, and met a couple of guys. They were in for more serious things—one was in the cell next to me, the other two were his friends. I stuck with
them until I got transferred out to minimum security for good behavior.”
“Are they still in there?”
“Oh yeah. Look, we’re not pen pals or anything. The guys I knew, some came, some went, some stayed gone and some came back. When I got out I walked away and never looked back. My parole officer got me the position in the warehouse and I moved up to Camden. Now I’m living the life.” His lips twitch with a wry smile.
I nod and watch the cars flowing past us in the opposite direction. Ironically, my anxiety seems to have abated in the face of some of the meanest information I have ever received. But still I’d give anything to be in one of those other cars, with any other person.
Dean touches my arm, just the slightest nudge with the side of his hand before returning it to the armrest. I glance over to find him watching me.
“I’ve never lied to you, Rachel.”
“I believe your story, Dean.”
“It’s not all pretty, but it’s true.” His cheeks are flushed, as though the explanation still shames him, even after all these years.
“Fine.”
“How long do you think your feelings are going to stay hurt?”
“How long have you held this grudge against me? Ten years? Let’s start there.”
“So I shouldn’t expect to get laid tonight?”
I refuse to smile. “You shouldn’t expect a ride home, asshole.”
Dean does laugh. “That’s an interesting choice of insults.”
“Don’t.”
He ruffles my hair. “I won’t. I promise.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cranston is two hours south of Chicago, and we ride the remaining thirty minutes in relative silence. Dean’s confession bothers me, but the closer we get to our destination the further it falls down the list of things I wish I could ignore. The smell of the flowers in the backseat becomes cloying, the air conditioner is alternately too cold and not cold enough, and it feels as though my seat belt is too tight, crushing my lungs so it’s hard to breathe. I see Dean look over at me occasionally, recognizing my struggle, but he wisely chooses to remain silent.
I feel sweat drip down my back when we take the first Cranston exit, the one marked with a green sign promising a cemetery. Dean knows the way and navigates the periphery of the town easily, soon steering us into the small parking lot.
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