Fearsome

by S. A. Wolfe

  We’re standing together, alone in the dining room. I don’t know why he doesn’t race back up to New Paltz and his hot date instead of taking the drunken abuse from Imogene and Lauren. Somehow, he doesn’t seem in a rush, though. Besides, I’m not in a rush to see him leave. In the chaos of the stormy weather outside and the drunk women laughing in the other room, this moment alone with him in the dining room seems private and rather intimate.

  “Are you okay?” he asks me, breaking our silence.

  “We’re fine. Thanks for finding the lanterns.”

  “I meant you. Dylan doesn’t talk to me about you, but I know you two had a—”

  “Break-up,” I finish for him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Please don’t get the wrong idea by what you see here. Imogene and Lauren came over to cheer me up. I’m not happy about what happened between Dylan and me.”

  “I would never think badly of you.” His voice is soft and understanding. “Dylan is closed off. That’s nothing new. I wanted to make sure that you’re all right. That’s the real reason I came down here tonight. I know those two can handle themselves in this storm, but it gave me a good excuse to come check on you.”

  My breath hitches in my throat; I’m surprised by his admission.

  “Did you really leave your date back at Mohonk?”

  “She’s in good company. We met some nice couples at the dinner we were invited to, so she’ll be fine without me.”

  “Hmm, she’ll probably be ticked off that you left her to go check on three young, drunk women. Did you tell her that part or did you tell her you were checking on seniors?”

  Carson laughs softly. “I told her a friend was worried about her granddaughter’s safety.”

  “So she thinks you’re checking on a baby. Good one.”

  We both laugh and then a thunderbolt cracks, causing me to duck and shudder with it. Carson holds my shoulders and moves closer. “It’s fine. That’s at least two miles away.”

  I try to look brave. “Sure. I’m fine.”

  “Hey, happy birthday.”

  “Not really. I expected twenty-one to be a great celebration, but the timing is horrible.”

  “Don’t let a little thunderstorm ruin your night. You have two very good friends in there who want to have fun with you.”

  “They are good friends. It’s not the storm,” I say and then I begin to hem and haw because I’m afraid to tell Carson about the ring.

  “What is it?” His smile fades and he looks concerned.

  “Tonight, before the power went out, Imogene found a ring in the kitchen cupboard. We were mixing drinks and you know I don’t cook or really know my way around a kitchen, so if you wanted to hide something from me, where would you put it?” I’m rambling while Carson stares at me, waiting for me to get to the point.

  “In the cupboard? And?” Carson’s tone is heavy with worry. His brow furrows.

  “Dylan bought a ring and hid it in the cupboard, Carson. It’s a big, fat diamond ring that was purchased last week. I saw the receipt. He put it in there the same night we argued and he left.”

  “Did you and Dylan talk about marriage?” His voice is less friendly.

  “No, of course not. We never even talked about living together until that night. Dylan brought it up. I thought we were moving too fast and I wanted to slow down, take a break.”

  “A break up, you mean. Taking a break is a break up,” Carson clarifies.

  “Yes.”

  “Did Dylan have any idea that you wanted to end it?” There’s that accusatory tone again.

  “I never said I wanted to end it, Carson. I said it was moving too fast and I wanted to slow down.”

  “You wanted to break up. No guy is stupid enough to believe that slowing down isn’t the same thing as saying you aren’t that in to him and want to break up.” His voice is stern.

  “I didn’t realize that after less than two months, Dylan would want to live together and that he was actually thinking of proposing. Maybe we’re wrong about all of this. We’re just speculating about this ring.”

  “We’re not speculating. He bought a ring.” Carson spits out the words at me.

  “But he never gave it to me. Maybe he changed his mind.”

  “Or maybe he didn’t have a chance to propose because you kicked him out.”

  The blood rises in my face. Now I’m pissed at Carson and any sweet thoughts I had about him are quickly being erased. “I didn’t kick him out. He left on his own without saying a word to me!”

  My shouting attracts the attention of Imogene and Lauren. They stop dancing and drinking to join us in the dining room.

  “Carson, you know that Jess is not responsible for what Dylan has done. She didn’t know he was so serious about her,” Imogene says, sounding pretty sober.

  “I know that!” Carson shouts.

  “Stop yelling at my friends, Blackard,” Lauren snaps.

  Carson undoes his tie completely and opens the top two buttons of his dress shirt.

  “What? Are you getting ready for a fist fight?” Imogene asks.

  Carson ignores her and turns back to me. “I warned you about Dylan.”

  “You said he’s very sensitive. You didn’t say he was intensely serious. I like Dylan, I didn’t want to break it off completely, but I was not ready to live with him. I had no idea he was considering marriage.”

  “She just turned twenty-one for fuck’s sake.” Lauren is much drunker than Imogene. “Dylan was her first real boyfriend. She was expecting sex, not a husband.”

  Carson glares at me as if I’m responsible for Lauren’s crass words.

  “Dylan may be in worse shape than we think,” I say.

  “You think?” Carson says loudly. He has every right to be mean and sarcastic. It’s his brother I screwed around with, but I can’t stand being scolded by him.

  “I want to help,” I say. “I told him to see his doctor. Dylan wasn’t listening to me. Tell me what to do.”

  “I’ll tell you what to do. Stop trying to help my brother,” Carson says, so enraged that Imogene and Lauren gasp. “Don’t date him, don’t talk to him and definitely don’t fuck him.” He walks to the couch and picks up his jacket before going to the front door to head out into the rain.

  I run after him through the blinding sheets of rain, ignoring the pleas from Imogene and Lauren to let him go. I chase him down to the truck and grab his arm.

  “Carson, wait!”

  “Get back in the house!”

  Instead I open the driver’s side door and climb in the truck cab. Carson follows and slams the door as I scramble to the passenger side. The rain beats down on the truck roof and it’s like being inside a drum. We’re drenched and I’m freezing. Carson swings his wet jacket around my shoulders. My hair is plastered to my head like a wet blanket.

  “That was stupid,” he says to me in a calmer voice.

  “You can’t blame me for Dylan,” I say, shivering.

  “I don’t. And I’m sorry for yelling at you back there.” He nods towards the house. “I hate you seeing me like that.”

  I pull his coat in closer around me.

  “I blame myself and I blame Dylan. You’re not the cause of Dylan’s behavior, you’re a symptom. We’re all part of the fallout whenever he does something like this. He’s very emotional and he sometimes lives in another world all his own.”

  “So you don’t think my rejection of him is the cause?”

  “Well, it didn’t help. He had problems before you got here. I saw the signs, but you were a distraction, at least temporarily. Then, when his depression started creeping back in, he thought he could cover it with more drama, moving in with you, I suppose. I don’t know what he was thinking. He didn’t talk to me about this, but I’m assuming he thought ramping up the stakes to living together and a proposal were the way to go. He’s probable feeling very desperate to find an antidote to his melancholy and he believed falling in love with you and escalating the rela
tionship would make him better.”

  “Are you saying he doesn’t really love me? That he’s crazy?”

  “No. Of course he has very strong feelings for you and he’s not crazy. He simply overdramatizes things in his head. In his mind everything is on fast forward because it’s like a drug; he keeps reaching for his next hit to make himself feel better, feel happy, or at least make the pain go away.”

  I am shocked and a little hurt to think that Carson thinks I am a participant, even if unknowingly, in Dylan’s delusions, as he implies. That Dylan isn’t really in love with me. At least, I feel like a dope for not comprehending what Carson was telling me weeks ago when the relationship started. I did not heed Carson’s words seriously and I know nothing about the mindset of someone who suffers from extreme depression. I was the ninny who assumed she would be an enormous help, a saving grace for Dylan.

  “Dylan said I was his drug, the only one he needed. I thought he meant that he was so in love with me that he didn’t need medication because I made him happy, but you’re telling me that he latches on to people. That I could have been replaced with any other woman and he would have reacted the same way?”

  Carson cups my cheek with his hand. “God, no. That’s not what I meant. He is in love with you, or at least, it’s his idea of love. It’s real to him. Are you in love with him?”

  I shake my head slowly. “No,” I whisper. Carson’s face gives away his relief.

  “What I meant is that a drug for Dylan is any idea that he gets in his head. It doesn’t have to be a person; it could be an activity like when he was racing motorcycles in college, or it could be his work. He’s asked for a bigger role in managing our business accounts and he’s obsessive about it. In this case, you did become his drug. He’s obsessed about you, thinking you will keep him distracted enough from his illness. His feelings for you are genuine; however, he’s not really in a healthy enough emotional state to tell the difference between caring for a girlfriend and asking her to marry him. He’s not thinking clearly.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I say. “You have to believe me when I say this started out fairly innocently. He flirted, I liked him and I thought we’d date and have fun. I should have listened to you in the beginning. Dylan was becoming so intense that I should have stopped him then or told you. When we found that ring tonight, I felt sick to my stomach. I think of how I must have led him on; that if he’s feeling rejected and it’s exasperated by his depression, then I know I have a hand in that.”

  “No. Stop,” Carson says, shushing me. “We’ll… I’ll get him help. If I have to do it by force, I will.”

  “I’m so sorry, Carson. You have to believe that if I could take all this back I would. Even if it meant I never came to Hera and never made these new friends. I’d give it all back to take all this pain away from Dylan.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say, but Dylan is like the weather tonight. He’s been a storm that was brewing. As long as he refused treatment, refused going to therapy and taking his medication, this was going to happen. Maybe in a different way, maybe worse, but it was going to happen in some way.”

  “Lauren says he’s living at Leo’s house again.”

  “Yeah. He’s there and he’s lying low. He comes into work early every morning. He’s quiet, but he’s working hard. He wants me to send him out to visit some accounts in other states. If he was on medication I’d say yes, right now, though, I have reservations about letting him leave town. He’s okay. At least I know he’s with Leo, who is a very good friend to Dylan. My brother is safe, that’s what I know.”

  My eyes pool with tears. I wipe them with the sleeve of Carson’s suit coat. Then I take it off and hand it back. “Maybe you don’t want to wear this now that I slobbered all over it, but you probably need to get back to your date before she feels completely deserted by you.”

  “I’m not going back there. She has a room at the hotel so she’s not stranded. I’m going to head back to my house.” He sounds as though he wants to make sure I understand explicitly that he is not sleeping with his date tonight.

  “Really, you’re going to disappoint the lady?” I laugh, although I’m very relieved. I don’t want him with another woman. I don’t care if Dylan is with another woman, but the thought of Carson touching his date makes me feel very territorial. “Who is she?” I want to sound nonchalant, but I’m really dying to know what kind of woman attracts Carson.

  “She’s someone I know through my business.”

  “But you brought her all the way out here and then you stood her up?” I tease.

  “She asked me out. She asked if I’d meet her at Mohonk because she was meeting other business colleagues there. I didn’t stand her up. We were done with our dinner when Imogene’s parents contacted me. So I cut the date short. She’ll live,” he replies. “There wasn’t any chemistry going on there anyway.”

  “Ah,” I say, trying to not sound so happy about that.

  “Hey.” He leans in quickly to give me a peck on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Jessica Olivia Channing.”

  My breath catches. He knows my full name and says it so beautifully.

  “How do you know my middle name?”

  There’s that lopsided smile. Small, but it’s there. “Archie and Gin showed me the will.”

  “Oh, right. Well, thanks.” We look at each other for a moment. It’s awkward after yelling at each other, yet the high-octane atmosphere in the truck cab is fueled by the intensity of the storm raging outside of our small, enclosed space. “I should get back to my drunk friends,” I say, but I don’t really want to leave and Carson doesn’t acknowledge my statement. He merely runs his hand through his wet hair and continues to look at me. It’s as if we’re both waiting for the right words to come to us.

  If being with Carson is right, then I suspect we’d have plenty to say. That sentiment along with the thought of all the grief I may have inflicted on Dylan is upsetting. I’m stupid enough to get romantically involved with Dylan and harbor a crush for his brother at the same time. I am pathetic, the type of person I wouldn’t trust.

  “Before you go, I have something for you.” Carson reaches across me and opens the glove compartment to take out a small gift box with a bow. My mouth drops open and Carson must have mistaken my surprise for alarm. “Don’t worry. It’s not a ring.”

  “You got me a birthday present?”

  “Yeah.” He says this as though the drama of Dylan’s diamond ring has already overshadowed any gift Carson could give me. “Open it.”

  I unwrap the paper and open the box. It’s an old fashioned skeleton key. I turn it in my fingers. It’s gold with HERA engraved on the side and it’s attached to a delicate gold chain.

  “Not so impressive after seeing Dylan’s gift,” Carson says.

  “It’s beautiful. A goddess key,” I say. “Hera, wife of Zeus, goddess of marriage.”

  Carson looks down and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s uncomfortable that I make the gift sound more personal than he has intended. I try to change his discomfort as quickly as possible. “It’s very cool. Where did you get this?”

  “One of the estate auctions nearby. The key belonged to some local banker from a hundred years ago or so. He had these keys made for his personal use.”

  “Hera doesn’t have a bank.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Carson laughs. “It’s a yoga studio now.”

  “That’s funny. And this is very thoughtful.”

  “It’s nothing special, I guess, but I thought of you when I saw it. Maybe it will bring you better luck here.”

  I slip the necklace over my head. “It’s my favorite present.” He could have given me one of his grungy hammers and it would have been my favorite present. I like Carson more than I’ve ever liked any man and being with him sets my insides on fire. I’ve known this all along. I should have been honest with Dylan from the beginning.

  Carson’s tense face relaxes as he gives me a one-sided shrug.

/>   “I should let you go,” I say. I’m getting really good at lying to men.

  “Take my coat and use it to cover your head on the run back to the house.” He hands the coat back to me.

  “Thanks.”

  “Was Dylan really your first boyfriend?” he blurts out. “Lauren said that in there.”

  “I dated some dweebs and jerks in college, but, yes, Dylan was the first really nice guy I would call a boyfriend,” I say. I know he’s fishing. What Lauren implied correctly was that Dylan was the first guy I’ve slept with and Carson is really asking me about that; however, considering we’re connected by his brother in a very awkward way, he doesn’t pry further.

  “Do you still have feelings for Dylan?”

  I’m about to open the door, but I pause.

  “Carson, I never felt for Dylan what he felt for me. After what you told me tonight, I don’t even know if Dylan’s feelings were authentic. I’m really confused about all of this.”

  “I get that, but Dylan’s feelings aside. Were you ever in love with him at any point?” He’s already asked me that, but this time he adds “ever”, as if to clarify for himself.

  I shake my head slowly. “No.”

  Carson doesn’t say anything. I lift his coat to cover my head. “Fifty million,” I whisper to myself and Carson chuckles.

  “This is Armani,” I say, looking above my head at the label.

  “So? It’s a suit, who cares?”

  “We’ll have to take this to the dry cleaners. And what about the ring? I forgot to give it to you.”

  “I can’t deal with the ring right now. I’ll get it later.”

  “I saw the receipt. Carson, he spent thirty thousand on that ring. I can’t let it sit around with the Domino Sugar and the Jif.”

  “Damn, Dylan,” he says. “Put it in one of the upstairs closets and I’ll come by to pick it up in a few days. Will that work?”

  “Sure,” I say, but I’m already on to another thought that strikes me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He spent thirty thousand on that ring and that’s right after I got a check from my art dealer for close to the same amount. Do you think that means something?”