Come Alive (23 page)

“And I don’t get how this relates to sleeping with
another man. Are you trying to tell me that – ” he glanced down at my
side, staring daggers at the scar just underneath my t-shirt. “That he asked?
And you
told
him?”

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He knew it was
painful, but he wanted to take some of that pain away.”

“Well, this just keeps getting better. Are you
– this guy, David, do you have . .
. ?
”

My breath caught as I waited for his question. I
didn’t know how I would tell him the truth, but if he asked, I would do it. I
would find the strength to tell him that what David and I had had wasn’t just
physical.

But instead he shook his head and looked away.
“Never mind.”

“Never mind?” I asked.

“It hurts that you would share something like that
with him, but you didn’t with me.”

“I know. And I am so, so sorry.”

“You say there were problems between us, but I didn’t
see them. I thought, like a fool, that we were happy.”

“We are happy. But it doesn’t change the fact that
everything is moving too fast for me, and I want to slow down.”

“Well, this is certainly one way to slow things
down.”

I tried to hide the relief in my sigh. “So can we? At
least until we sort all of this out?”

He
was quiet for a long time. “It’s like you’ve put this . . . void in my chest.
As if something’s gone missing, something that’s supposed to go right here.” His
hand clapped over his heart. My breath caught audibly, and he turned his head
to me. “Emptiness. Blackness. That’s how this feels.”

Tears
burned in my eyes, but I blinked them back. “I understand,” I whispered.

“How
could you understand?” he asked simply.

Because I, too, had lost something.
And
sometimes I thought my hollow chest might collapse from the weight of my grief.

He
looked away again. “None of this is fair. I don’t know what I did wrong, that
you’re saying and doing these things to me.”

~

Our
conversations continued that way throughout the weekend. I thought I might
suffocate from the apartment’s stale air, but consistent rain kept us indoors.
Hours passed as I stared out the grey window, waiting for the next stream of
questions. We were in his courtroom now, and I was on the stand.

He
wanted to know how David and I had ended up in a hotel room the second time. And
whether or not I had spent the night afterward. Reliving the details cheapened
the experience. It made everything seem so dirty, when it had actually been its
own kind of beautiful.

He
continued to remind me that it wasn’t fair, that he didn’t deserve it, that he hadn’t
done anything wrong. All things I accepted with an apology. He threatened to go
see David.

It
was easy for us to forget during working hours; we had no choice. But as soon
as he picked me up, our masks came off. After the first couple nights, I didn’t
think things could get worse, but as his shock wore off, he became more upset. I
did my best to make things right by answering his every question and playing
the role of honest and transparent wife.

He
invited me back to bed on Tuesday. It was what I had wanted until he said the
words aloud. I wasn’t ready, so I told him so. ‘
How are
you
not ready?
’
he had asked.

As
weeks went by, his questions became more creative, more intrusive. But I felt
that I owed him the truth, no matter how hard it was for both of us. I wasn’t
sure what I feared more: that he might ask about my feelings for David, or that
he might not. The question never came. I didn’t know if it was because it never
occurred to him – or because he was afraid of the answer.

CHAPTER 23

ONE SOGGY,
WINTRY MORNING in November, Bill came to the couch not long after sunrise. Deep
sleep had eluded me lately, so I woke easily when the cushion dipped under his
weight. He looked as puffy and tired as I felt, but his eyes narrowed on me. He
stuck his hand between my legs.

I
flinched and began to protest. His gaze was unnervingly fastened on me as he tugged
gently on my underwear. “If you can do it with him,” he said quietly, “you can
do it with me.”

I
didn’t know what he meant by that. I thought about his words as I searched his
face. It wasn’t until he stripped and climbed on top of me that I realized what
he was after.

I
swallowed. “He didn’t.”

He
exhaled with closed eyes. He was positioned over me, but somehow not touching
me. “I need this. I think. I’m revolted, but I also want you. Bad.” He dropped
his head into my shoulder. “I want you,” he repeated, kissing my neck.

“We’re
not in the right place.”

He
dropped his weight on me, and I thought I felt his shoulders heave. “I want to
come inside you,” he said in a watery voice.

“Not
this way,” I said. “What if I was to get pregnant?”

He
drew back and looked at me with red eyes. “And that would be so bad,” he
whispered.

“I
don’t want to bring a child into the world like this. I know you don’t either.”

“Please,”
he said, kissing my cheek and putting his hand back between my legs.

I
grabbed it. “I’m not ready.”

I
could see him thinking, fighting his need. He sat back on his calves, still
hard, and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Am I crazy to want you?
I fantasize about it, but I don’t want to want you.”

“It’s
normal to feel confused.”

“You
told me you screwed him without a condom.”

“I
did, but . . . he pulled out.”

“It
took me years to get you to do that with me.”

“I’m
sorry.”

“Sorry
that you did it or sorry that you told me?”

I
looked away, seeing no way that answering the question would help anything.

“It’s
lucky you didn’t catch something,” he continued, “knowing that filthy piece of
shit.”

I
nodded, remembering the embarrassing ordeal of Bill marching me to the
gynecologist to get tested. But deep down I knew that David wouldn’t put
himself or me in that position. It had never occurred to me that he might,
because I trusted him.

“Is
this because of him?” Bill was asking. “Is that why you won’t have sex with
me?”

“No,”
I said, taken aback.

“But
you’re still there. What do you need to get over him?”

“Nothing,”
I said emphatically. “It’s over.”

“I
just don’t think I believe that.”

My
nostrils flared. “I’ve been completely open with you. I let you read my
e-mails, my text messages. I tell you where I am all the time. This will never
work if you don’t even try to trust me.”

 
“It’s going to be a
long
time before we get back there.” He went to the bedroom and
shut the door. I knew he wasn’t coming back, so I turned on my side and closed
my eyes until it was time to get up for work.

~

There was
ringing. I blinked. How long had my desk phone been ringing? Bill was the only
person Jenny would patch through without notification. I wasn’t surprised; he
called frequently these days. Still, I braced myself. He had only dropped me at
work an hour earlier.

“It’s me,” he said before I even spoke. The two
somber words were enough to remind me that I was the source of his constant pain.
“They’re sending me to take depositions in St. Louis for the rest of the week.”

“No,” I objected. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Well, you don’t really get a say in what I do
right now.”

“I’m serious. I’m putting my foot down. You can
tell the Specters that I won’t let you. We need to spend this time together.”

“It’s been over a month, and you won’t even
sleep next to me.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. We can’t be apart
right now.”

“What, are you worried I’ll revenge fuck someone
else?”

The receiver slipped from my hand, but I caught
it before it hit the ground. My mouth, however, hung open through the silence
that followed.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “I didn’t
mean that. I would never . . .”

“I just think you should stay,” I said gently.
“You have to stay.”

“Honestly, I could use some time alone.”

“Then I’ll go to Gretchen’s for a few nights. You
can have the place to yourself.”

“I can’t say no, you know that. I leave
tonight.” There was a hesitation on the line. “Look, I meant what I said before.
I don’t think we can move forward if you’re still talking to him.”

“I’m not, you have to believe me.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t. What do you need to end
this? Closure?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing to end.”

He sighed. “
Liv
,
please. Your demeanor hasn’t changed, which leads me to believe there’s still
something going on.”

“I don’t understand what you want me to do,” I
said, although I feared that I did.

“While I’m gone, end this for good. I don’t care
how. If you e-mail him, CC me. If you go see him, take Gretchen with you. It’s
not an excuse for a last hook up.”

“I refuse to play this game.”

“It’s no game,” he said calmly. “I have to know
that this won’t happen again. You still haven’t said anything to Lucy, have you?”

“No, but at some point we have to – ”

“I won’t be made a fool in front of my friends –
or my family for that matter. Nobody else needs to know about what you did, end
of story.”

“Okay,” I relented.

“I have to go. I’ll call you from the airport.”

I
was still staring at the phone long after he hung up. There wasn’t anything
going on. But he was right not to trust me. Late nights were my time with
David. As I fell asleep and as I dreamed, he was there. I swam in his brown
eyes, pressed my cheek against his stubble or touched his hair. His hair
– I could not forget the way his hair felt in my hands; so shiny and smooth
like the obsidian rock it resembled. The pain was still acute, like a knife
wound, but at night it was soothed by the memories.

~

The empty
apartment I came home to wasn’t much different than it had been the past month.
There had been
an emptiness
there since the morning of
my confession.

I
flipped on all the lights, suddenly not wanting to be alone. I turned the
television on. It was always on ESPN, the only channel Bill watched, and the
barking sounds of some sporting event were comforting.

I
sat in front of it with a bowl of Cheerios, scooping them onto my spoon and
then watching them slide off the tip, back into the milk. I looked at the call
history of my cell phone. Several missed calls from Lucy, unreturned. One from
my mother – a conversation so heinous to even
think
of that I hid the phone under the nearest pillow.

But
even from under there, she judged me. Her insecurity was almost something I
could touch as a child. She was so convinced that my father was cheating on her
that he might as well have been. It ate away at her. If she ever found out what
I’d done, she would surely disown me. So be it, I thought. I wouldn’t take it
back for all the love she’d always denied me.

I
took a bite of cereal and swallowed. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume
of the game up to a deafening level. The ceiling shook as the upstairs
neighbors banged on their floor. My jaw clenched; my nostrils flared. I
launched the bowl across the room, finding comfort in the way it shattered
against the wall, splattering it with milk. “How could you, David?” I screamed
into the apartment. Hot tears spilled over my cheeks.
But
God, how I fucking missed him.

I
planted myself face down on the couch and cried into a pillow. I didn’t even
care about the Oak Park house or why he’d done it. I just wanted more, more
anything. More of his touch, more of his eyes on me, more rides in his car,
more fucking, more walks,
more
reflections.

I
didn’t know how to go on without him. I compressed the pillow in my grip and
cried harder. Did he ever care or was it all just a game? Even through my
anger, I knew the answer: there was no faking what we’d had. The force we’d
given in to was one thing. But he’d purposely driven a knife through my
marriage by buying that house. That was a side of David I didn’t know. It was
the same David from the masquerade ball.
The type of man who
slept with women for sport, stringing them along until he didn’t need them
anymore.

“It’s
too much,” I insisted, biting into the pillow. Bill had my love and respect,
but he no longer had my heart. I’d left it in David’s office, at his feet, and
I didn’t care if I ever saw it again. I didn’t deserve it. I deserved to cry,
deserved to
die
right here in this
black hole, on this horrible, shit-colored couch, because of what I’d done.
And because I would do it again.
I had fallen from a strong,
capable woman into a weak, piddling mess, and I hated myself.

“David,”
I begged. “David, David.”
How could I
have risked everything for you? How could I have ruined a life for you? And how
can Bill and I ever be happy again in my black hole?

Clenched into a ball on the couch, I admitted
that it was because I needed David.
That there was something
stronger than the two of us, forcing us together.
We’d made mistakes,
we’d made decisions that could never be changed – but we belonged
together. And now I would have to live the rest of my life knowing that I was
separated from the person I was supposed to be with. And knowing that as much
as he had pushed me away that night, I had pushed him back.

It wasn’t something that could be remedied
– the damage was done. People didn’t just leave their husbands on a hunch
that they’d met their soul mate. I realized that that was never an option, no
matter what David had thought. He and I were destined to be together, but
destiny had torn us apart.

~

When my
phone rang from under the now damp pillow, I almost sent it in the direction of
the cereal bowl to shut it up. But instead, I extracted it and, sniffling,
answered.

“Now
is not a good time,” I told Gretchen.

“Bill
called me.”

“What?
What did he say?”

“He
asked me, in a very clipped tone, to keep an eye on you while he’s gone.”

“I’m
sorry,” I said. “He shouldn’t be involving you. You’re the only person who
knows though. What did you say?”

“I
told him to fuck off.”

I
smiled barely. “No you didn’t.”

“No,
I didn’t, but only because you need me around right now. What the hell is he
thinking? Are you really going to see David?”

“Of
course not. You know it’s really over. But I can’t tell Bill about the house.
He would flip.”

Her
tone changed. “Maybe you
should
go
see David.”

I
sighed. “No. I just can’t.”

“Are
you all right, really? I can tell that you’re crying.”

“I’m
– ” I stopped before the word ‘fine’ left my mouth. I wasn’t fine, not in
the least. “No. I’m dying, Gretchen. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I’ve
never felt anything like this in my life.” There was dead silence on the line,
and eventually, I continued. “I’m so hurt and angry.
At David,
at myself.
At Bill.”

“Bill?”

“I
need him now, and he needs me. But he left. Without him here, all I can think
about is David. I feel,” I paused when my voice cracked, “like I’m slipping,
and there’s nothing to grab onto.”

“I’m
worried about you,” she said fervently. “I’m coming over.”

“No,”
I insisted. “You don’t have to.”

“I
will be there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up.

I
fell immediately back into my couch. When she arrived, she let herself in, looking
concerned as she peeled her trench coat away. She ran a hand over my hair with
sadness in her eyes. She wiped the spoiled milk from the floor and the walls.
She turned off the television and helped me into my pajamas. I wanted to stay
on the couch, but she forced me into the bed I’d come to fear. She held me as I
cried myself to sleep, shaking for David like an addict.

~

It’s only a shadow, but it is as real as the
bones in my body. If I stop moving
–
if I look behind me
–
it
will consume me. But it’s already here, inside me, waiting. It’s been waiting
;
waiting to pounce, waiting for the end.