a ribbon of annoyance—like Edie had skipped out on the confrontation by killing herself. I’d been so over her, how she was always making me feel like a charity case, like the one who had to be fixed. And then she’d disappeared.
She’d died dramatically, too, still a magnet for attention, with coverage of her death all over the blogosphere. Canonized, deified, the exact fucking week I’d planned to finally put an end to the toxic relationship. And so I’d left. I’d stopped talking to them all. And everyone thought it was because I was racked with grief—which I was—but it was also a convenient excuse to get the hell away.
I leaned back and felt my pulse thumping in my neck. I’d never put it together like this before—never allowed myself to see Edie’s death in this light.
These were sick, stupid, childish thoughts. I poured myself a glass of water and swallowed them all.
I checked the time: 10:12; not late. So, before I could think too hard about it, I texted Michael and asked what he was up to.
My phone chimed a few minutes later. “Working late. What about you?”
Stupid noncommittal text. Obviously, Michael, I’m alone and bored and wanting you to want to see me.
“Just got home from dinner. Feel like watching a movie when you’re done?”
He waited six minutes to answer, just long enough for me to pee again and wander around and burn holes into the screen with my eyes.
“Sure. I’ll text you when I’m heading out.”
Forty minutes later, I hadn’t heard back from him. I checked in, hating myself for it. He said he could leave in fifteen and was that too late? I waited four entire minutes, the longest I could hold out, and then answered: “No, it’s fine, come over when you can.”
Chapter 3
Michael showed up a little before midnight, handsome and smooth. Four months we’d been sleeping together, occasionally with dinner or another sufficiently datelike activity beforehand; I knew I was too old to put up with this, but the thought of seeking out something more fulfilling made me so, so tired. We settled onto the couch and he was as witty and charming as ever, quick to steer the conversation to himself when it was clear I was feeling sullen. Sometimes this annoyed me; right now, it felt like warm relief, chatter I could wrap myself in like a blanket. Eventually I stood to make us tea and he suggested we turn in instead.
* * *
I was in the woods behind Uncle Bob’s farm, steadying a pistol in my hands, clicking through my pre-fire checklist: fighter’s stance, hand throttled high on the grip, thumb curled down for strength, trigger hooked inside the joint. I knew Edie was behind me, watching, and I was furious with her, anger streaming into my forehead and hands, a primal, frenzied, out-of-control urge to hurt. It occurred to me that Edie didn’t know not to step out in front, and then it happened: She was picking through the trees, treading over roots, headed straight into my crosshairs. I closed my left eye and took aim, and the recoil shook me awake.
I lay still, heart racing, something eager and carnal still pulsing through my veins. I slowed my breathing, beating down a flare of bewilderment and shame, then willed my brain to delete the dream from my memory. Michael, next to me, was snoring.
Hours later, he woke me up by kissing my neck, a gentle, urgent move that always roused me. I swam up to the surface, blinking the wool from my eyes. Then Michael was there, solid and warm and sour-breathed, and I pulled myself awake enough to kiss him, hard.
Almost as soon as he came, he slid back on the bed and gently pushed my hips flat, working his tongue against me. He was good about this in an unsexy, pragmatic way—tit for tat, keeping us in a tie. At first I didn’t think it would work, my mind suddenly cluttered with flashes of the dream, but I forced them aside, listening hard to my own deepening breath. Afterward he kissed my belly and wandered off, naked, to toss the condom and drink water and stretch his long arms; then he climbed back into bed.
“What are you thinking about?” He exhaled it as I nudged my head onto his chest, and I felt rather than heard the words. The lover’s laziest question.