Crawl (2 page)

“Before The Dog, you needed me… well, you needed something, anyway. Once you had that mutt to comfort you those nights I was away, you didn’t need me anymore.”

“Colt, that’s bull—”

“Is it? You were filling a hole.” His anger came rushing back. “Replacing me with a fucking dog!”

He slapped the steering wheel.

She jumped.

He was sobbing now.

“You didn’t
need
me. What was I supposed to do? She was there. There, goddammit.
There
!”

Juliet steeled herself against the new Colton, this Colton filled with undue rage. She would not let him make this about her failures, because she was not the one who’d failed.

“You fucked her because you wanted her. It had nothing to do with me.”

“Exactly.” He loosed a sigh that sounded full of relief. “It had
nothing
to do with you.”

She twisted in her seat, trying to find a position of power that didn’t exist inside a hatchback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t sleep with her because I don’t love you. I didn’t sleep with her because you weren’t there for me, or because I was upset with you for not putting out enough, or whatever other excuse your brain has dug up. I fucked her because she was there, Julie. Vicky was
available
. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. I slept with Vicky because I was bored and you weren’t around.”

“And where exactly was I, Colt?”

“Most nights? With your dog.”

Rivers of ice ran down her back. Was he actually getting to her? Could he have possibly found the one argument that made his infidelity acceptable? She didn’t even like that fucking animal. Did he honestly believe she’d been too enamored with The Dog to give Colton the attention he deserved? Then again, she wasn’t sure Colton actually deserved her constant attention. He paid the bills, but she wasn’t some pre-suffragette kitchen-bound homemaker who knelt at the command of her mister. She was a free woman who returned what she received. Love for affection. Anger for rage. Silence for betrayal. That was the base of it, wasn’t it? It all came down to a betrayal, a breaking of vows. A promise destroyed under the weight of two people entwined on a couch, writhing against one another, moaning and groaning, and singing each other’s names.

All Juliet had wanted was to surprise Colton with a quiet dinner at home. She’d made the excuse that she had some errands to run, that she would be a few hours out about town, and he’d said that was fine because he needed to run to the office for something. Colton called Vicky to watch The Dog. Juliet had left the dog sitter and her husband alone, thinking Colton was going to leave as well.

His car being in the driveway when she returned caused Juliet’s stomach to roil. She tried to will the bad feeling away, assuring herself that he’d simply beaten her home. But she hadn’t been gone that long. He couldn’t have made it to the office and back in the time she’d been gone. Which left one possibility: he’d never left. Her subconscious suggesting subterfuge, Juliet parked across the street, knowing deep down something was amiss. She shuffled over the asphalt, feet never really leaving the street. Stumbled onto the grass and up the porch steps, her keys tinkling together, far too heavy in her extended hand. The knob swallowed her offering, turned, and the door floated inward. Sounds flooded over her, nasty words and expulsions of orgasmic glee. She slammed the door, silencing the cadence of the lovers on the couch. Juliet braced herself against the door frame of the entrance to the living room, lifting her head to see the naked bitch scrabbling for her clothes, and Colton, sweating and panting, trying to cover his massive erection. The thing bobbed under its own weight below a tuft of curly brown hair, looking intent on impaling someone. Or ripping them in two. Juliet saw it, dismembered and twitching, on the floor of the kitchen beside a bloody butcher’s knife. And that’s what made her move. Out through the front door, down the steps, across the grass, into the street, and behind the wheel. She screamed the entire way. Because she was scared. Because she was terrified of the violence she wanted to see done to her husband. To her beloved Colton. Tires squealed as she rocketed away. Sobs wracked her while she fled. The sky opened up and sent torrents down to wash it all away. To wash her away.

And to think, poor Colton felt neglected.

Now, Juliet gripped the sides of her seat, fighting back the building rage that threatened to bubble forth from her.

In a voice not much more than a whisper, she said, “Don’t… just
don’t
. Keep on and you
will
end up losing me, Colton… if you haven’t lost me already. If you try to make this about me again, I will get out at the next stop, walk to the nearest bus station, and take a Greyhound the rest of the way to my mother’s. So I suggest you stop talking, unless the subject is the weather or some inane sports trivia you seem to be so fond of. Are we understood?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His face said he understood perfectly. Gone was the dejected, rejected hubby’s countenance. Now, Juliet looked upon a scolded child, one that knew what he’d done and figured he’d better accept his punishment before Mommy went and fetched the belt.

Their old friend Silence returned, and they crossed into Georgia smothered by his presence.

2.

Juliet first noticed the ’50s model Mercury coupe with the JXSAVES license plate fifty miles south of Columbus on I-75. Colton was coasting at a steady eighty-five miles per hour, weaving in and out of slower traffic, and cursing now and then at the latest errant douchebag he considered unfit for America’s highways and byways. They were making damn good time, and Juliet wasn’t sure if it was Colton’s normal impatience or his desire to be rid of her because of their last conversation.

The Mercury, black as pitch but streaked with reflections from their Subaru’s headlights, maintained the same speed as Colton, two car lengths ahead of them.

Colton slapped the steering wheel. “Speed up or slow down, man, make up your mind.”

“If he’s upsetting you that bad, why not just pass him in the slow lane?” Juliet asked, studying her recent manicure and pretending as if she was not interested in this dick-measuring contest by automobile.

“It’s the principle of the matter. He needs to get the hell out of my way.”

“We need to see about getting you some anger management classes when I get back.”

In the ensuing quiet, such an awkward thing it was, Juliet looked over at her husband. He would glance her way then back to the road, a glimmer of boyish hope in his eye and a smile crinkling the corners of his rectangle of a mouth. She hadn’t a clue why such an affect should be gracing his face.

“What?” she asked.

“You said,
when you get back
.”

“Don’t read too much into it, Colt. I’m just carrying on friendly conversation.”

“But you didn’t say
if
. You said when. That counts for something. It means you can still see us together.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Just drive.”

Colton turned on his blinker and drifted over into the slow lane. The Mercury did the same. Juliet sat up straighter in her seat and peered through the windshield at the teardrop-shaped coupe. The Subaru’s headlights bounced off tinted windows, making Juliet squint. Though the Mercury’s brake lights never came on, they were gaining on the dark car. She could now see the bumper sticker that had been placed an inch to the right of the vanity plate.

I DO NOT

The entire thing, plate and all, read: JXSAVES … I DO NOT

A chill molested her guts. Colton cursed under his breath and swerved into the fast lane once more. He gunned the V6 under the hood. They shot forward, leaving the Merc in their rearview.

“Did you catch his plate?” Juliet asked.

“Yep. I saw that sticker, too. Typical Bible Belt bullshit is all. He’ll be in our dust in no time.”

And Colton was right. Juliet watched as the Merc’s headlights dwindled, going from blazing orbs to subtle balls of medium-tone light, then down to pinpricks—like cat’s eyes seen in the darkness under a porch. The ice in her stomach subsided and her mind drifted away from JXSAVES … I DO NOT

Five minutes elapsed before Juliet glanced over at the speedometer. The Subaru was pushing a hundred.

She said, “You might want to calm it down before we get pulled over.”

“I’m keeping up with the flow of traffic.”

She surveyed the dark, empty highway rushing by outside her window.

“Colt, you
are
the flow of traffic.”

“Stop worrying so much. Everyone goes this fast out here. This isn’t my first radio.”

“
Rodeo
.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Just slow down. Please.”

Colton loosed an exaggerated sigh and the car rocked forward as he decelerated.

“Better?”

She read the speed on the dash: seventy-five. “Fine.”

“You remember,” Colton said, “how I used to drive out here every weekend to pick you up. Phenix City to Warner Robins, every Friday like clockwork, and I never once complained.”

“How chivalrous of you.”

“I’d just graduated, and I was going to be some big shot architect. You were still living with your mother, and working part-time at Target.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“For six months, I never once let you down. I even came that time I had strep. You were mad because you insisted I was going to get you sick. You wouldn’t kiss me. I’d come all that way, and you wouldn’t even hug me.”

“Do you blame me?” She decided to settle into the memories. It was a welcome reprieve from the dark times behind them.

“Naw,” he chuckled, “I don’t blame you one bit. I remember what you wore that night, too. A yellow turtleneck and a pair of acid wash jeans. I didn’t think they even made acid wash
anything
anymore. But there you were, a closet full of eighties relics. I’m surprised you didn’t have your bangs swooshed up, and held in place with a gallon of Aqua Net.”

“I was going to, but you were sick. You wouldn’t have been able to handle my full-on epicosity.”

“Epicosity? Is that a word?”

“It is now. Phone Merriam-Webster and tell ’em I have a last minute addition.”

“We went to see a movie that night. You remember what it was?”

“Do you?”

“Yep.
Dawn of the Dead
, the first remake in, like, forever, that didn’t suck monkey balls.”

Juliet allowed a smile to grace her lips. “You didn’t want to go because you loved the original so much. Kept on saying they were only going to ruin Romero’s classic. I told you no one could ever ruin the original because it would always be what it was. It’s frozen in time, golden… untouchable.”

Colton laughed. “I
really
didn’t want to see that movie.”

“But you went anyway. Sick and all. Even when I wouldn’t kiss you, you went.”

“I did it because I loved you.” His tone grew somber. “And I still love you, Julie. I would go to the end of the earth for you.”

His words brought back the anger. It had never really left, not really. It had only hid in the shadows cast by fond recollections.

“Just don’t sleep with anyone on the way there.”

“Julie, please, I’m trying here.”

“Then maybe you should
stop
trying.” And, just like that, they were back on track. “I know you’re hearkening back to the early days of
The Colt and Julie Show
, but I don’t need that right now. I need space. I need you to not be around me for a while. Because the more I think about the good times, the more I think about that skank scampering across the carpet, trying to find her damn clothes.”

“Can I do anything? I’m feeling kinda helpless here.”

“No, Colt, you did enough.”