Dear Tori

by Renee Fowler

  ***

  By the time Abby and Riley depart, I’m dead on my feet exhausted, and also agitated, but there’s plenty left to do. I don’t have time to sit around a sulk. Overall I’m grumpy, so when Christian sends me some long winded text about how I should give the news of his deceit a few days to settle in, and then I’ll see things more clearly, I lash out like a child for the second time today.

  I fling my phone like a frisbee. It flies a short distance through the air, then skates down the wide, concrete isle that separates the rows of stalls. The phone crashes into the corrugated metal wall with a loud, dull clang.

  Thank god Maggie and Brandon aren’t around to witness my immature fit of rage. A few of the cows look up from their trauth to peer at me dully while I stoop down and collect the fragments of my phone.

  Surely I’m entitled to feel some anger at being misled, but there’s no excuse for behaving this way. Even my six year old brother is past the point of temper tantrums.

  I guess I can go pick up a new phone in town tomorrow when I make the trip to grab that paint for the carriage house. Originally I’d planned on getting it tonight, but I’m too tired and frazzled to deal with more people right now.

  After dinner, when Maggie is getting Brandon ready for bed, I snag a bottle of wine out of the pantry and head back out towards the pond. The dock sways as I walk out to the end. I kick off my flip flops, settle myself on the edge, and drag my feet through the water lazily. Taking a swig of the wine, I grimace. It tastes terrible, maybe because it’s not a good wine, but probably because I don’t like any wine to begin with. It’s the only alcohol in the house though, and I’m in desperate need of something to take the edge off.

  Christian knew all about wine. What a fucking pretentious hobby. Who gives a shit? I always assumed the more expensive it was, the better it should taste, but it all tasted like crap to me. I take another gulp, and smack my lips at the weirdly sweet, tart, dry taste.

  Everything about Christian was pretentious, and… fake. Our whole relationship was fake, and it’s the only one I ever remember having before now. I’m still thoroughly pissed off at him for lying to me, but I think I’m more mad at myself for rolling over and going along with it for so long.

  Am I really that weak willed and spineless?

  Maybe I am. Maybe I always was.

  I hear Noah approach before I see him in the semi-darkness. The half moon casts his face in sharp shadow. Thanks to his large stature and strong features, he almost appears menacing in the harsh light, but I’m not afraid of him, only very weary at the moment.

  “Maggie said she thought you were out this way,” he says.

  “Fair warning, Noah. I’m in a shitty mood.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.” The dock rocks back and forth as he stalks towards me. He nudges my flip flops aside, and takes a seat to my left, resting the heels of his boots against the edge of the wood planks. “Is that why you didn’t answer me back earlier?”

  “Nah.” Staring out towards the rippled reflection of the moon on the water's surface, I take another swig of wine, and pass the bottle off to Noah. “I threw a tantrum and smashed my phone like an infant.”

  “Because I asked if you needed help painting tonight?”

  Laughing, I shake my head.

  “Is it about last night?”

  “No, but… Can we talk about that? I mean, what the hell was up with the baby making business?”

  “You didn’t like it?”

  I’m glad it’s dark. My face burns, and I bet my cheeks are stained the same shade as the merlot we’re passing back and forth. “It was just kind of out of left field, you know?”

  “Sorry, Tori. You used to love when I said things like that.”

  “I did?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Is it? Well, you’re the weirdo who got off right when I said it.”

  I couldn’t exactly deny the fact now. “Maybe it’s not that weird. You know, the biological urge to procreate and all.”

  “Biological urge to procreate? Jesus. Only you would say something like that, I swear.” Noah lets out a gruff laugh. “I probably could’ve toned it down a bit. I keep forgetting that this is new for you. We were so close, and for some reason it almost doesn’t feel like you ever left.”

  “It’s okay, but just FYI, I’m not interested in having a baby, and I’m on birth control.”

  “Now you tell me.” Noah takes the wine bottle from my outstretched hand, and sets it down between us. Something tells me he’s not too much of a vino fan either. “So who or what ticked you off enough to break your phone?”

  I let out a loud sigh. “It’s kind of a long story, but do you remember Christian… er, Chris from high school?”

  Noah murmurs that he does. It’s a little hard to see in the dim light, but I think he might be scowling.

  “It turns out that’s who I was engaged to,” I say quietly, my voice barely audible over the sounds of night insects, gently lapping water, and leaves rustling in the nearby trees. “He lied to me the whole time. I had no idea that we knew each other before. He had this story concocted about where he came from, and why he never had any family around. And I fell for it. The whole thing makes me feel like an idiot. So I threw a hissy fit, and broke my phone, which makes me feel like a bigger idiot.”

  “Are you kidding? Hearing that makes me want to break his fucking face.”

  “So I’m not being irrationally angry?”

  “No. Hell, no. That’s bullshit.”

  “You pretended to be someone else too,” I point out, not angrily, but with a tiny smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

  “Yeah, for all of two days, and you smacked the shit out of me for it.” Noah starts to laugh. “You smacked me after the very first time I kissed you too.”

  “I did? Why?”

  “Because you had a boyfriend.”

  “Christian… Chris?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then why did you kiss me, if I had a boyfriend?”

  “Because you were looking at me like you wanted me to kiss you.”

  Had I wanted him to kiss me? Did I kiss him back? I’m too afraid of what he’ll say to ask. “Was he my first?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ugh.”

  “That’s alright. Every princess has to kiss a frog or two to find her prince.”

  “I’m no princess.”

  “Good, because I’m no prince.”

  I pull my feet out of the water, and wrap my hands around my ankles. “Christian said you were a drug dealer.”

  Noah laughs bitterly. “Did he?”

  “He also said you were in jail.”

  “And you said you hate being lied to, so I’ll tell you the truth, but you might not like it.” Noah leans back on his elbows and blows out a long breath. His eyes are fixed on the clump of reeds and cattails jutting out of the water at the opposite shore. “I never did time for dealing. I’m not saying I didn’t dabble in it, but I never got caught. I did sit in county for a couple of months for some other shit.”

  “What shit?”

  “Fighting. Public intoxication. General dumbassery, more or less.” Noah turns his face in my direction. “After you’d been gone for a while, and it didn’t look like you were coming back, I kinda went off the rails a bit.”

  “If my dad had given me those letters, then—”

  “There ain’t no point in thinking about it like that, Tori. Trust me. Playing the what-if game is one sure fire way to drive yourself bonkers.”

  Didn’t I know it. I’d been asking myself what if I hadn’t gotten drunk and stumbled over that ledge for years. “Then what changed? Or are you still getting up to all this dumbassery you speak of when I’m not around?”

  “Nah. I’ve been a pretty good boy as of late.” He flashes me a smile. His teeth appear brilliantly white against the night. “Cooling my heels in a cell for a couple of months was a big wake up call.
I never wanted to follow in my pop’s footsteps, but that’s exactly where I was headed if I didn’t make a change. That’s when I got Lola.”

  I smile at the thought of his golden retriever who he spoils rotten. Lola has more chew toys than my little brother has regular toys. “I guess she was a good influence on you.”

  “She’s never led me astray yet.”

  “I’m glad you found someone to keep you on the straight and narrow.”

  “That used to be you.” He reaches over to touch my hair. The brush of his fingertips against the outer shell of my ear makes me shiver despite the heat. “I was such a punk ass idiot back in high school before we got together. Hell, I doubt I would’ve even bothered graduating if it wasn’t for you. You always made me want to be… better.”

  “Abby said you and me were crazy about each other,” I whisper. “She said we were so in love.”

  “She’s not wrong.”

  His fingers trace over the bracelet on my wrist, pausing over each of the charms that we’ve already added.

  The charms and corresponding tattoos. The letters he wrote for years. Up until today I found it all romantic, but after recently learning the depths Christian sunk to, I’m a bit on edge.

  “I wish I could remember,” I say for what feels like the millionth time.

  “I wish too, but even if you don’t, we’re making new memories, right?” Noah lifts my hand and presses his mouth to the inside of my wrist, then my palm. He catches the pad of my thumb between his lips and bites lightly.

  The gentle scrap of his teeth is the friction of a match striking. That’s all it takes and I’m shoving the bottle of wine aside so I can climb on his lap. Kissing him, I start peeling his shirt up his body. In the dark those tattoos are just a shadowy, indecipherable stain against his skin.

  Clouds are rolling in overhead, a storm approaching, and the feeble moonlight winks out. I can’t make out Noah’s features at all now. In the inky dark I could be kissing anyone. Touching anyone. It could be an absolute stranger tugging my clothes off gently, but it’s so obviously not. Everything about the way he touches me is familiar. Even if my mind doesn’t remember, my body does.

  Abby said we were crazy about each other. So did Maggie at one point, and Noah confirmed it. Maybe we really were, because I feel a little crazy and not quite myself when I’m with him.

  The pace is vastly different than last night, not so rushed and frantic. We find a rhythm that is as much dictated by the sway of the dock, as his body moving against mine.

  His form above me is a dark silhouette against the shifting sky. The heavy smell of ozone hangs in the air warning of rain, competing with Noah’s familiar scent, engine oil, clean sweat, and sun-browned skin.

  His shoulder tastes like salt and sex. He exudes it out of every pore, and right on the edge of orgasm I remember learning about pheromones.

  It’s just biology, I reason and worry. Chemical attraction. Something primal in me recognizes a suitability between us that has nothing to do with shared experiences or any commonality.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve had this worry either. I remember my teeth catching against his shoulder, and tall grass flattened and tickling beneath me. The sky was dark then too, but clear and cloudless, and a breathtaking view of the milky way stretched out above us. My chest ached, before and now, as I wondered what this is. Do I love Noah, or do I just love the way he makes me feel? Does it mean something that I never want this moment to end?

  It eventually ends with my head tipped back, and Noah buried deep inside me. The ache between my legs is soothed, but the one in my chest is just getting started.

  Noah touches my face. He kisses me softly. The gentle ache in my chest spreads until I’m glowing warm from head to toe in his embrace. I almost want to say it, but I hold back. There’s something about being lied to and deceived so thoroughly that makes me skittish.

  No matter what Christian hid, and how he behaved, I’m embarrassed to realize that I never felt this way about him. Not one single day. Not even the day he proposed. Every time I said I loved him was a lie, but not an intentional one. I thought I loved him.

  I’m also starting to think I haven’t completely sorted out what that word means yet.

  A gentle rumble of thunder in the distance breaks the spell between us. We disentangle and seperate. Without Noah’s solid body holding me down, I feel oddly weightless beneath the big, open sky. It’s an unpleasant sensation, like I’m vulnerable to being swept away by a sudden gust.

  I suffered a splinter above my shoulder blade from the dock that Noah pulls out with his teeth. He reaches for his clothes, but I slide into the water, and coax him in with me. The storm’s still a ways off. We have time.

  I don’t tell him about the memory I had, and we don’t say anything as we tread water close enough that our knees and hands bump beneath the murky surface.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Noah

  Tori shows up the next morning with coffee, donuts, and a basket of tomatoes for Buck to take home. “You know, you’re allowed to stop in and say hi without bringing something,” he says.

  “I was raised better than that.” Tori gives him a warm smile. “And it’s the least I can do after all the work Noah’s done on that old house.”

  “From what he says, you’ll be ready to move in soon.”

  “Before you know it.”

  Buck likes Tori. He always has, but there was a time he warned me to stay away from her. Namely after Kevin Nichols showed up at his place and threatened to shoot both of us if I didn’t keep my hands off his daughter.

  Back then I didn’t see the sense in pointing out that she was the one climbing in my bedroom window more often than not, especially with that rifle her dad kept mounted on a rack in the rear window of his pickup truck.

  Kevin eventually warmed up to me, a bit. Maybe he just grew resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere, but that all changed the day after her accident. I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t for Maggie, he really would’ve shot me dead. With the way I was feeling about things, I might’ve just stood there and let him.

  I crawl out from under the car I’m working on, and wipe off some of the grim before taking the coffee from Tori’s outstretched hand.

  “Can you put your number in my new phone for me?” she asks in a quiet voice.

  “Sure can. Did you pick that paint up yet?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, I guess I know what I’m doing tonight after work,” I grumble, pretending to be put out, but my grin gives it away.

  Tori takes her phone back from me, letting her fingers brush against mine. I think she’s about to turn and go, then she leans over to give me a quick peck on the cheek.

  We didn’t really talk about it outloud, but something changed last night. It feels like my whole world changed. If Buck wasn’t standing there, I would’ve grabbed her and laid one on her for real. Instead I watch her walk back towards her car, slightly mesmerized by the sway of her hips and the sun glinting white and gold in her hair.

  “That’s a damn shame,” Buck says after she’s out of earshot. He said something similar after I first told him about some of the difficulties Tori has with numbers now, and he’s not wrong. It is a damn shame, but she’s still smart as a whip in my book. I can’t count how many times in the last few weeks she’s thrown out some ten dollar word that left me scratching my head.

  More than that, she’s tough. I guess she always was, but to come back from that fall the way she did, and to watch her step up and fill her dad’s shoes on that farm, I’m proud as hell of her.

  And I still can’t believe she’s back.

  About an hour later I hear footsteps, and another familiar voice asking Buck if I’m around. How the hell did she know to find me here? I can’t ever remember telling her where I worked.

  I roll out from under the car I’m never going to get finished in time at this rate, and stare up at Natalie wearily. “What’s up?”
>
  “We need to talk.”

  “Okay. So talk.”

  Natalie scowls down at me. I know I’m being an ass, but she’s the one who emphasised no strings and no attachments over and over again. “Wanna step outside for a smoke?” she asks.

  I scoot out all the way from under the frame of the car on the rolling creeper, and climb to my feet. “I quit smoking.”

  Natalie stares pointedly at Buck, then back at me.

  “I guess I can take a fresh air break,” I say, grabbing the remainder of the coffee that Tori brought me, which is lukewarm now. “What’s up?” I ask again as soon as we’re both outside.

  Natalie is standing closer than she needs to be, close enough I could count the individual freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose if I were so inclined, which I’m not. I take a big step back until there’s a safe distance between us.

  She wets her lips nervously. “Noah, I’m pregnant.”

  Fuuuuck. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Are you sure it’s mine?” I ask, and brace for her anger, although it’s a fair question. I have no idea what Natalie gets up to when I’m not around, which is most of the time. And we’ve never once had unprotected sex, although I know anything is possible.

  “Actually… I’m not completely sure.” Natalie’s eyes skitter away from mine. She reaches into the purse loped over her shoulder and pulls out a pamphlet, then thrusts it in my direction. “We can find out right now, before the baby is born.”

  I almost feel outside of my body, like I’m floating above as I watch myself read the words, Non-invasive Prenatal Paternity Testing. There’s a picture of a smiling, grandfatherly looking guy in a lab coat seated in front of a microscope on the front. “We need to find out one way or the other,” I mumble.

  Natalie nods. “Sorry, Noah. I know this wasn’t what you signed up for.”

  “I’m with someone now,” I blurt out.

  She nibbles on the corner of her lip. “Yeah, me too.”

  “But if this is my kid… I’m not a deadbeat. I would help you…” My words trail off as the gravity of all this sets in.