The Despair of Strangers

by Heather Topham Wood

  I wanted to take care of him, cure him of every hurt existing inside. I wanted to do whatever it would take to make it better for him. Still, I couldn’t make Emily alive again and I prayed she wasn’t the only thing that could fix him.

  For my entire life, I’d been a reluctant caretaker. Looking out for people who didn’t deserve it. But I loved Derek. I loved him in a pure way, a way that made me want to sacrifice everything to give him another chance at a good life. And I was sure we could have a good life together. I knew it in my bones. But we couldn’t have that life until he was ready.

  After grabbing a bottle of water and the aspirin from my purse, I went to his office. Scanning the books, I tried to analyze the look of the spines, checking for signs of wear. Finally, I slipped one off of the bookshelf and made my way up into the bedroom.

  Derek wasn’t asleep. The light I had turned on in the hallway illuminated him lying on the bed, his eyes staring emotionless at the ceiling. I moved into the room, stopping at the foot of the bed to start taking his sneakers off.

  “What are you doing?” he mumbled.

  “Practicing my nursing duties,” I said lightly, although my heart felt heavy. Because only one thing could be wrong, one person would make him feel like this.

  “I don’t need a nursemaid,” he said with a gruffness I normally loved. Tonight, he only sounded broken. Sadness was seeping out of him and I resisted the urge to succumb to it with him. Broken people seemed always to be attracted to one another, like they could see themselves in the other person. The problem was how could you become whole again if you were both broken? I no longer wanted to be fragmented, poorly pieced together. I wanted to be strong enough to save us both.

  “How about practicing my girlfriend duties?” I asked. I held out the water bottle for him and the aspirin. “Here, take these and try to drink most of the water.”

  His stare was accusing. He looked down at the aspirin and didn’t make a move to swallow them. “You wouldn’t let me have you.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “If you don’t take the aspirin and drink the water, you’ll be too hungover to have me in the morning.”

  He made a grunt before swallowing the aspirin and downing the water. I climbed on the bed next to him, smoothing back his dark hair. “You don’t want to talk about why you’re drunk, do you?”

  “No,” he said shortly, closing his eyes. He turned on his side, facing away from me.

  I shifted on my side, still smoothing back his hair. “That’s okay, you know. We don’t have to talk.” Depression was impossible to conceal, but not something I had to make him face with me. I couldn’t lie next to him and command him to be all rainbows and happiness. Besides that wasn’t our story. Our history was borne from shared pain, shared sadness.

  Grabbing my phone, I used the flashlight app to shine a light on the book I brought upstairs. I began to read about Paul and his family’s rule over the ocean planet Caladan and their planned departure to the desert planet Arrakis.

  “What are you doing?” His voice scratchy, out of the darkness.

  “I’m reading to you. Maybe it will relax you and help you fall asleep. Dune looked like one of the books you read a lot from your library. Do you like it?”

  “Sure, it’s only the greatest piece of science fiction to come out of modern literature, but yes, I guess you could say I like it,” he said.

  I laughed at him. “God, you sound like such a snob. Even when you’re drunk, you’re insufferably elitist when it comes to books.” I turned back to the book. “Anyway, where was I?”

  So, I read to him. I read to him until his breathing became less ragged and more even. I wasn’t sure if I was helping, but I had believed so. I would hope he could find a little peace, albeit temporarily. I couldn’t make him hide his pain or pretend I didn’t know it was waiting below the surface, but I loved him enough that I never wanted him to hide pieces of himself from me.

  The next morning, I awoke to the phone ringing relentlessly. The urgent chirping would stop for mere seconds before starting again. As I forced open one eye at a time, I realized it wasn’t my phone making the sound, but Derek’s on the nightstand next to his snoring form. He still wore the same wrinkled clothing from the evening before and I assumed he slept through the night. I hadn’t bothering changing for bed either, drifting off hours after he had. My brain had refused to turn off, questioning everything about the two of us.

  Had Derek and I only sought each other out because we were lonely? But if that was the sole reason, I would’ve still felt lonely when I was with him. Loneliness wasn’t cured so easily. I’d been around people my whole life and always felt alone. We weren’t merely a comfort to each other or at least I didn’t feel that way. Every time we kissed, it felt important, like this monumental event and not just two people who were looking for a fun night.

  I never knew how good things could feel until Derek. Like the wrongness of Jake was my norm. Hugging felt suffocating, kissing left me cold. Derek made me get in touch with sides of myself I hadn’t even known existed. He made me feel stronger, finally a survivor and not a victim. I had changed since him, in the best ways.

  But the fact also remained that although I felt healed, Derek was still tormented. Whatever magical effect he had on me hadn’t applied to him. Because as last night proved, he was still going through hell. Maybe the entire time together, without my knowledge, he’d still been held chained to his misery and sorrow. And I just hadn’t seen it because I was too busy falling in love with him.

  When his phone rang again, I walked out of bed to check the screen. Someone was trying to reach him desperately and I had to decide if I should wake him up to deal with it. I groaned loudly as I saw the last five calls were from Julia Hill.

  “Derek,” I said softly. He didn’t move, so I called his name louder. When he still continued to sleep, I shook his arm roughly. “Derek, Julia keeps calling you. I’m not sure if it’s important.” And I certainly wasn’t answering the phone. Derek may have gone public with our relationship, but he never told me how the Hills handled the news. I understood he still had a connection with them, but he was discreet about their relationship. He had two lives: my boyfriend and Emily’s grieving fiancé.

  He blinked at me as he woke up, confused and looking a little lost. His body was strong, so powerful on the outside. But inside, he was vulnerable. He wasn’t weak, that wasn’t the reason for his struggles. He just never understood how to deal with people, so he had disappeared often in his head. Preferring to live in the world of science fiction, where physical survival superseded anything else. The aliens in his books had emotions, but they were able to turn them off. They were winning the fight against the humans because they valued logic. They had fight in them because they didn’t fall apart in the face of all the hell life could rain down.

  “Alyssa…” Derek mumbled as his phone continued to ring. He rose to a sitting position, still staring at me intently. He didn’t make a move to answer. “I’m so sorry about last night.”

  I shook my head at him with a forced smile. “You weren’t the best company, but I still had a good night. I actually got into Dune and read three chapters before I went to sleep.”

  “You were reading to me. I wasn’t sure if it was a dream or not.” He looked uncertain as he examined me like he sensed my hurt, but understood I wouldn’t show him the depth of my unease. I wouldn’t ask him why he was drunk—we both knew the only reason he turned to the bottle. He looked on the cusp of saying more, but his phone started to ring again.

  “Maybe you should get that. It must be important.” I shifted from side to side. “I could go—”

  He quickly cut me off. “No, please don’t leave. Let me talk to her for a second and then I’ll explain everything.”

  After my nod, he reached for his phone. I waited for him to leave the bedroom, but he remained in place. As he greeted Julia, I drifted off into the connecting bathroom. Splashing cold water on my fac
e, I listened in on his side of the conversation. Something had happened, but I wasn’t sure exactly what could’ve made Julia call him frantically. But it was safe to assume it was the same reason I had found him drunk the night before.

  “I’m sorry, I was sleeping,” Derek was saying. He paused for a second before adding, “Of course I was going to call you, but it was a rough night for me as well.”

  Turning off the sink water, I continued to listen. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It was a big mistake to hire him to investigate, but he came highly recommended….I had no idea he would turn out to be fame and money hungry.”

  I couldn’t quite piece together what they were talking about, but I could gather he was likely referring to the private investigator working on Emily’s case. Like I had told his mother, Derek didn’t talk to me about the investigation. I had no idea if the man had made any progress on solving the murder. But by the sounds of Derek’s conversation with Julia, he had done something to betray them.

  “Yes, Pamela and Taylor tried to kill the story, but nothing worked. They ran it anyway.” He let out a frustrated breath. “Of course I know it’s all lies. And this isn’t the type of press I wanted for her case. But the truth will come out and this will all blow over.” After a long minute, he finally said, “Listen, I’ll make some more calls this morning, including to my attorney. Let me call you back.”

  I waited in the bathroom, knowing the source of my hesitation. I felt like I was back to the first night I stayed at his house. Like being here felt irrevocably wrong. Derek would tell me what had happened, but I had a really awful feeling about his confession.

  “Alyssa,” he called to me and I took a steadying breath, trying to harness the steel I knew was finally there. I predicted a deep hurt coming, knowing in my bones whatever Derek had to tell me would change us forever.

  “Hi,” I managed, exiting the bathroom. Instead of moving to his position near the bed, I pressed my back into the wall.

  He massaged his temples before speaking. “What a fucking mess, Alyssa. I really screwed up and now I feel like I’m dragging you into it. You shouldn’t have had to deal with me last night.”

  He should know the reason why I dealt with him, but we both pretended the reason wasn’t obvious. “Don’t apologize, Derek, I chose to stay.”

  “Thank you for that,” he said and the way he stared at me made me feel like I was the only one in his thoughts and heart. But the truth was, the sensation would always be temporary. “A gossip television show ran a story last night about Emily.”

  Nodding, I didn’t meet his heavy stare. He continued, although I actually wished the words died in his throat. “The investigator I hired obviously hasn’t been doing any investigating and only conjuring up lies about Emily…lies about me. The police had similar theories at the start, but the evidence was never there.”

  “What were the theories?” I asked for his benefit, not for mine. Anyone with internet access could find out what theories were floating around about Emily Hill.

  He sighed before speaking again. “That Emily was…cheating on me. That she was with someone else and he had something to do with her death. The information was never released publicly by the police department because of course it’s unsubstantiated. And now the private investigator ran his mouth and shared the same nonsense. He’s claiming he found evidence Emily was sleeping with one of her interior design clients.” His jaw was tense, his eyes hard and angry. “And now the Hills are furious with me because instead of actually solving Emily’s murder, this investigator just dredged up a bunch of lies about their daughter.”

  I couldn’t speak. Because I would open my mouth to say the absolute wrong thing. Silence was safe. Silence allowed me to remain a good person. Because I had two paths in front of me. I could lie to him—I could continue to let him remain in a cyclone of his own denial. Or I could speak the truth and let my beliefs turn me into a monster.

  “What is it?” he asked, noting my silence, picking up on the feelings I was unintentionally sending out into the atmosphere. Everything felt amplified in the room.

  “Nothing, Derek,” I whispered.

  “Alyssa, you can never keep your feelings hidden from me. You want to say something, but you’re holding back.”

  I forced my eyes down to the floor. “Derek, I already knew the police believed Emily was being unfaithful.”

  “You read about it online?”

  “Yes,” I managed in a choked whisper. “Your mother…she didn’t tell me outright about what the police believed happen, but she alluded enough I went looking after our dinner with your parents. None of the police records were made public, but I guess there were some anonymous sources from the department that went to the press.”

  I heard him move closer to me. His fingers were purposeful as they lifted my chin to face him. “You didn’t have to look online; you could’ve asked me. I’ll never lie to you, Alyssa. I would’ve told you the police and now this investigator are going down the wrong path and I’m scared her murderer will never be found because of it.”

  I closed my eyes because I had to ask him a question that would only cause him pain. “How do you know it’s not true?”

  His fingers retracted before he answered. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

  “From what I read, from what your mom hinted at…I don’t know, Derek. I guess I don’t understand how certain you can be she wasn’t having an affair.”

  He blew out an angry breath. My eyes opened as he took a step back from me. “Because I simply know. She wasn’t that kind of person. She was good to me, she loved me, and she never once gave me any kind of sign she was with someone else.”

  I swallowed hard. “But the police said she had sex before her death. She had sex when you were across the country. And there were no signs of struggle, no physical evidence of rape.”

  His eyes filled with disgust—my words were betraying him. “She was raped. Just because she didn’t fight, didn’t mean it was consensual. She could’ve been scared, threatened, who knows the reasons…”

  “But didn’t they find text messages on a burner phone in her car? And when they traced it, the number was also to a prepaid phone?”

  He couldn’t contain his anger for a second longer. “What the fuck is this, Alyssa? You watch a few episodes of Dateline and now you’re a homicide detective.”

  I recoiled at his words. His heartlessness wasn’t intentional, which made it worse somehow. I wished his emotions were something to be controlled, contained long enough to let me in. He just didn’t know how not to be in love with Emily.

  “I should go,” I said, because I needed to leave before I made a decision I’d probably regret. My heart was telling me I had to end this thing with him. His hurt was too big, too insurmountable. If I stayed, he would only destroy me. And the heartbreak with Jake was survivable. I wasn’t even convinced I could breathe without Derek.

  “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that everything feels sort of fucked up right now. And maybe it would be easier on you if Emily was unfaithful, but that’s not the truth. I feel like the more people say some lover killed her, the less likely the truth will come out.” He looked haunted as he stared at me. “I get weird letters sometimes, fan letters that feel dangerous. I have this horrible gut feeling that a fan of mine killed her to get back at me for some imagined slight.”

  Chilled by his expression, I could tell he was deadly serious. Not only did he grieve Emily, but he blamed himself for her death. He was twisted enough to think he was somehow responsible. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his face beseeching. “That’s why I told you to take my car and I was looking into alarms for your apartment. I was only trying to keep you safe.”

  The admission proved he cared for me; he was concerned enough to make an effort to protect me against the imagined crazed fans he created as a way to avoid the truth. He was right. I wasn’t a detective. But my gut told me Emily hadn’t been as perfect as Derek needed her to
remain.

  I looked heavenward, praying he’d realize he couldn’t continue in this way. “How long do you plan to atone exactly? How are you absolved for crimes never committed?”

  “You knew how I felt before we met. You were the one who said that no one should give another person a timeline for grief. You said being with me was enough for you. And I’m not an asshole, I constantly think about your feelings. I took down the pictures of her weeks ago, Alyssa.”

  “Yes, I did say what you could give was enough for me, but maybe I’m starting to feel like you shouldn’t believe that’s good enough. Like if you cared you would want more for me.”

  “Just because I’m still mourning doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. The two things are not mutually exclusive.” His eyes were beseeching as he continued, “The way you left everything behind took a lot of strength, but I don’t understand why you can’t be brave when it comes to me.”

  And I had to know just how far he was gone. I had to confirm if we ever stood a chance. “Derek, I need to ask you something.”

  He looked tired, his shoulders slumped, his entire being broken. And I hated to hurt him more, but I had to be my advocate too. I had to stop putting everyone’s needs always in front of my own. “What do you need to ask me?”

  “Do you still write to Emily?” Before he could answer, I elaborated. “I know you don’t send the messages to my phone, but do you still write them?”

  By his silence, I received my answer. Loving him was careless. Pretending Emily didn’t exist was a foolish mistake on my part. I assigned myself too much importance in his life. Like just because we were a couple, he didn’t need her any longer. There would always be the three of us in the relationship.

  “What do you say to her?” I asked quietly.

  “You were never meant to read any of the messages in the first place. I told you they were private,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

  “Yes, of course I didn’t mean to read the messages, but you know I did anyway. But I thought…Derek, if you’ve been sending Emily the same kind of messages all this time we’ve been together, then I can’t be with you any longer.” I started to blink, my eyes filling with tears. I was a complete fool. For weeks, I’d been waiting for the perfect moment to tell him I loved him and he was probably sending his dead fiancée the same kind of proclamations as before. I don’t know how to do this without you anymore.