Love Is Strange (I Know... #2) (16 page)

And I didn't answer.

Chapter Twelve

E
lliot's death made the local news in Texas and my mother called the day after Detective Marshall paid me a visit. I was in bed and the bedroom was dark even though the sun had already come up. The curtains were still pulled shut. I lay on my side, staring at the corner of the wall. That day was kind of a blur, as were the days after it. I felt like I couldn't get up or move or think. It didn't feel like there was a point. I closed my eyes and I could pretend that I was back in my old bedroom and Elliot was there next to me, his chest bare and the sheet riding low on his hips. I could pretend that nothing had changed and that no time had passed. I stretched my hand out for him, brushing my fingers against the pillow instead of his face. But I wished it was his skin. I wished I could touch him again.

I felt like I had betrayed myself. He was such a close part of me, I was sure I would be able to feel his presence. I would be able to know if he was gone. But I couldn't sense it. He'd died alone and I'd had no idea. I didn't have a clue and I didn't know what it meant. Maybe I didn't love him as much as I thought I had. If I'd really loved him, I should've gone looking for him. I should've gone anywhere to find him. But I'd been so stubborn. I'd been so angry at him that I'd tried to pretend that I didn't love him anymore. I'd tried to pretend that he didn't mean anything to me and I'd let him go. Because of my stubbornness, he'd died in a horrible way without knowing how much he meant to me. Without knowing how important he was.

He died without me.

“Joan,” Mitch said, his voice soft and close to my ear. I could feel his weight behind me on the bed. “You need to stop this,” he said. “It's not good for you.” I didn't answer him because I couldn't. My mouth felt sewn shut. He didn't talk for awhile and I wasn't sure if he'd left or not. I felt the weight of a hand on my hip and I closed my eyes again, pretending it was Elliot. If I slept, I could dream of him. If I kept my eyes closed and the lights dim, I could pretend nothing had changed and no time was passing.

“Blanche is on the phone,” Mitch said, his voice cutting through the ether. He patted my hip and then pressed the back of his hand to my cheek. I could feel the cold metal of his wedding band on my skin. I shook my head because I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wanted them to go away, all of them. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to think. I didn't want to act or put on a show for someone else's comfort. I didn't have it in me. If Elliot wasn't in the world, I didn't want to be either. “She's worried about you,” my husband said, like that meant something. Everybody was worried all the time. It didn't mean anything. “Who's Elliot Pritchard?” he asked and I finally snapped into something. It wasn't life, but it was something.

“Don't say his name,” I croaked.

“Will you talk to her? Please talk to her,” he said, sweeping my hair off of my forehead. I held up my hand for the phone, wondering what else my mother had told him. I doubt she'd told him the whole story, but I couldn't be sure. Once she started talking, she wouldn't stop, especially if she was worried about me.

“Momma,” I said, swallowing to soothe my ragged throat.

“Joan, what is going on?” her voice cut through the haze and I didn't like it. I wanted to be hazy. I wanted to be out of it. I didn't want to be in reality anymore but my mother was a splash of cold reality on my face. “Mitch says you've been in bed for days.”

“What did you tell him?” I said, digging my free hand into the pillow, my fingers like claws.

“What did I tell who? Joanie, baby, I saw that that bastard died. Me and daddy saw it on the nightly news,” she said. “That bastard died and I didn't want to crowd you, but I'm glad. I'm glad he's dead, baby.” I didn't reply, just let her words wash over me. I stared at the curtains and the fabric fluttered, lightly. “Come back to Dallas. Come for a few days. Me and daddy and the boys, we'll all have a good time.”

“I can't, momma,” I said. I couldn't imagine getting out of that bed. I couldn't imagine going back out into the world, with its harsh sounds and smells and people. “I'm fine.”

“You're not fine. Mitch says you're not eating, you're sleeping all day. You're scaring everybody.”

“Who's everybody?”

“Everybody that cares about you,” she said, her tone so pleading that it hurt. I pulled the phone away from my ear and tossed it away from me. I couldn't handle it anymore. I didn't want to handle her pain or her concern. I could hear her voice, crackling through the phone, but I ignored it. Mitch reached for it, leaning over me and scooping it up.

“Hang up,” I whispered, but he didn't listen. He got off the bed and I heard him speaking to her in hushed, harried tones, but I couldn't make out the words. I didn't care anymore. “Get out,” I said but he didn't listen. I sat up and pulled my nightgown over my head. It smelled like me, too much. But the bed smelled like me too, now. I couldn't smell Mitch at all. I tossed the thin fabric aside and tossed aside the blankets, too. I sat there, waiting for his reaction as he turned to look at me. He was speaking low into the phone, low enough that I couldn't hear, even in the quiet room. “Hang up,” I repeated. He caught my eyes and dropped them to look at my nakedness.

“I'll call you back, Blanche,” he said quickly. Then he slid his phone into his pocket and stared at me like I'd grown two heads.

“What did she tell you?” I asked.

“Why don't you tell me?” he said, keeping his distance. “I want to know what's going on with you.” I held out my arms and spread open my legs.

“Nothing's going on,” I lied, and I knew he knew I was lying. There was no denying that I wasn't acting myself. I wasn't acting like the woman he'd married. “Do you want to fuck?”

“Jesus, Jo,” he said, scowling. He wasn't happy with me. If he had his way, I would snap out of it and go back to being the woman I was before the doorbell had rung and Detective Marshall had shown up. Maybe I would go back to that woman, I mused. Or maybe I would jump out of the window. He walked to me, but ignored my outstretched arms. He grabbed the blankets and threw them over my nakedness. “Your mother wants to hop on a plane and fly up here. I told her that it wasn't necessary. Was I wrong?”

“I don't care,” I said, laying back on the pillows and throwing my arms above my head.

“Was I wrong, Jo?” he asked, leaning over me, planting his hands on either side of my ribs and looking me right in the face. “Why are you shutting me out like this?” I reached up and slid my hands under his T-shirt. If I closed my eyes I could pretend. Mitch was lean and wiry, not as muscled and chiseled as Elliot, but I could pretend. I just felt a deep need to be with him, I realized, as I raised my knees and tried to pull him down on top of me. I wanted to be filled, to be taken, to be pushed into the mattress and held down. I needed someone to take control, to force me to submit. That's the only way I would be able to function again, I thought. It had always worked before.

But my husband didn't want to play along.

I clawed and shoved at him, trying to make him react to me in the way I wanted. He grabbed my wrists, tightly and painfully, and shoved them away but I didn't stop. I didn't stop coming for him. “Goddammit,” he hissed, when I cupped his bulge through his jeans and squeezed. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you inside me,” I said, because I didn't feel like sugar-coating it. I could've finessed it, but I didn't have any finessing left in me. “I want you to be rough. I want to be your whore.”

“I don't get this,” he said, grabbing my wrists again, harder this time, and flinging them away from him. “I don't know why you're doing this.”

“It's not about you,” I said, harshly, and I realized my mistake instantly. He pulled away, sliding off the bed and standing. He stared down at me with hurt and angry eyes. He was trying to make it better for me but I wasn't going to let him. I needed to wallow in it. And even though I was wet and aching just from the thought of him, it wasn't him. He wasn't who I needed. No matter how much I tried to make him into the man I needed, he wasn't. He was just a man when I needed a devil. I rolled over and pressed my face against the pillow. I heard him leave the room and I didn't care. I didn't care if he ever came back again. For the first time since I'd heard about Elliot, I felt my eyes tearing up.

I didn't stop it.

I let it out.

I let myself mourn.

*****

It took another two days before the loneliness and the silence got to be too much.

I woke up in the middle of the night. The room was pitch black and there was a chill in the air and I tried to unconsciously move closer to Mitch in bed only to find that he wasn't there. I threw the blankets off and set my feet on the floor. My nipples hardened and goosebumps broke out over my bare skin as I stood. My hair hung limply over my shoulders as I walked to the door. I grabbed my thin robe off of the hook and slipped it on. I didn't bother belting it as I wandered out into the dark hallway in search of my husband.

I found him on the couch in the living room, the TV still on and bathing the room in a pale blue glow. He was on his back, his hand thrown above his head and his legs crossed at the ankles, like he hadn't planned on falling asleep there. I studied his face. It was familiar but still strange. For the last few days, I'd been so focused on a ghost – trying to remember his touch, his face, his body. Mitch was right in front of me. I had always been a pragmatic sort. I didn't like to wallow in self-pity. If I had, I would've probably offed myself a long time ago. It would've been too much. I was lucky that I had learned how to survive. I'd learned how to make feelings small inside of me and lock them away.  I'd done it before; I could do it again.

I wasn't going to go down with the ship.

I slid on top of him, straddling him. I did it as gently as possible, not trying to wake him just yet. He was a heavy sleeper anyway. He barely budged as I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to his heartbeat. It thumped against me, the sound pinning me to the natural world. We were both alive. There was love between us and familiarity. That wasn't a small thing. It could be everything if I wanted it to be.

“Jo,” he whispered, his voice rough with sleep. I felt his hands slid into my hair and I hugged him close, letting his warm seep into me.

“I'm sorry,” I said, even though I wasn't. I had some shit to work through and I'd done it, but I wasn't sorry. I was only relieved that the grief had worked its way out of me. Or that it'd become manageable, anyway. I could move again. I could speak. I would be fine.

“You don't have to tell me what happened,” he said “Not yet. But don't do that to me ever again, Jo. I couldn't stand it.”

“I won't, baby,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to the spot right above his heart. Then I straightened up so that I could look down at him. His face was still in shadow, the flickering blue of the TV making it difficult to see his features. “Do you want to know who he was?” He stared up at me, running his hands up my thighs slowly. I knew he wanted to know. I knew he wanted to know the whole story. I swallowed hard, wondering if I was going to be able to tell it. It wouldn't be the whole story, of course. Just the talking points, the ones available in the public record. But I forced myself, because I had to. It would be the final test. Elliot was dead now. I didn't have to keep his secrets anymore.

“Who was he?” Mitch asked. I slid my fingers around his wrist and dragged his hand up to my breast, moving aside the fabric of the robe. I ran his fingers across the raised scar there.

“This is him,” I said. “And the ones on my legs and my ribs and my wrists. Everywhere.” Mitch didn't say anything. He just stared up at me but I saw his face harden as he figured it out. “He was the first one, anyway,” I said. “The one who made me like this.”

“What does that mean?”

“He kidnapped me. He raped me. He hurt people.” I let his hand go and he let it drop to my thigh again. “He was a bad man.”

“Blanche told me,” Mitch said, swallowing. I saw his Adam's apple jump under his skin. Then he sat up and brought his face close to mine. “She told me what that piece of shit did to you.”

“I figured she did.” I shrugged lightly and the robe slipped off my shoulder.

“She wants you to go back to a therapist,” he said. “Or back to Dallas.”

“I'm not going back,” I said. “I've dealt with it. It's in the past now.”

“It's not, Jo,” he shook his head. “Don't you see that?”

“He's dead.” It was hard to say it out loud, but I managed. I told myself this was the last time I would ever have to talk about him. I told myself this was the last time anything about him would cross my lips. I'd said all that I was going to say.

“So that's it?” He tightened his hands into fists and I knew it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to go beat someone up, kick someone's ass. He wanted to get revenge for me, to defend my honor. But there was no one to beat. There was no one to get revenge on. I'd robbed him of that. I'd also hoodwinked him into marrying a stranger. He was realizing that he didn't really know who I was. He was thinking of all the other things I'd never told him. He was thinking of all the other men who'd come before him and how they'd fucked me and fucked me up.

“This is why I didn't tell you,” I said.

“Goddammit, Joan,” he hissed and I did the only thing I knew how to do. I kissed him. For a second, I was afraid he wouldn't kiss me back. But then he pulled me close and our mouths clashed together, like a fight. He shoved my robe off and I pulled his T-shirt over his head. He pushed me down onto the couch. We'd never fucked on the big, custom, expensive sectional couch my parents had bought us for a wedding present, I realized. There was always a first time for everything. It was soft and the leather was cold against my back. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and arched my back as he lowered himself over me. I needed it, I realized. I needed him inside of me. I needed to be close to someone again.