Stir Me (16 page)

"Luke? Are you there?"

"Yeah."

"I know I don't have any legal standing, but I want it. It was a long time ago, but it felt like home."

"When did it feel like home? When you were fucking my father or when you tried to kill yourself in our bed?"

She sighs. "It's not just where I tried. It's where I survived. And before that, we were happy. I was happy."

"When were we happy? Because most of what I remember is a crock of shit. Since you were fucking my father for, what, two years? Three?"

"Luke..."

I feel dizzy, like the air rushed out of my lungs all at once. Samantha wants this house. I knew she'd want it eventually. I promised it to her. I expected to give it away.

But that was before Alyssa. Before we kissed here, before we spent long, tired mornings here, before we started to make a life here.

"It's my house," I say.

"Can we not fight over it?"

"You didn't want it when you dumped me."

"Please." She's pleading. "I have enough to buy out your half and throw in a little extra for the interest. I don't want to go back to some sterile apartment complex."

"So find another house. This is my home now. Mine and Alyssa's."

"Luke..."

"You don't even know if you'll work on the Westside. What if you get a job in Pasadena?" I lean against the wall to stay upright. She can't take this away from me. From us.

"It's always been mine," she says. "Edward wanted me to have it."

"Fuck you."

"Luke, I didn't mean it like that--"

"He was my father."

"I know."

"He was my father a long time before he was your boyfriend."

"I know."

"Do you fucking know? Because every time you bring him up you act like you're the only person who ever cared about him."

"Luke..."

I dig my fingers into the phone. "I dealt with him my whole fucking life. I was there, at my mom's funeral when he refused to cry. I don't care if you loved him. I don't care if he hurt you when he rejected you. He was my father."

"I didn't mean that."

"You think it's your house just because your boyfriend fronted the down payment?"

"He told me--"

"You know what he told me?" Anger seethes through me. I usually fight it back, but not this time. "He told me that he was happy for me. Happy I finally got my life together. I had everything. A business, an ambitious fiancée, and now I'd finally have a home. It was the first time he'd said something nice to me since before my mom died."

"I'm sorry." It's not earnest. It's not "I'm sorry for your pain." It's "I'm sorry you're such a fuck-up."

"He wasn't just the asshole you were fucking behind my back. He was my father."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Did you ever love me or did you just want to get closer to him?" The room is spinning way, way too fast. I shouldn't push Samantha like this, not two weeks after a suicide attempt, but she's trying to take away my home.

"Of course," she says.

"When?"

"I always loved you. I just wasn't in love with you."

"Don't bullshit me with clichés or I'll never speak to you again."

"The first year," she says. "You were so sweet to me. You treated me so well. But after a while, you were different. Farther away."

"So it's my fault you were fucking him?"

"No," she says. "But he was so smart and successful, and he made me feel safe. It only got serious once I started working with him. All those late nights and work dinners." Her voice gets lower. "At first, we only talked about you."

"I asked you to marry me well after you started working with him."

"I know."

"Why did you see yes?"

"Because I wanted to love you. I wanted it so badly. I didn't want to be with Edward. I didn't want to be in love with him."

She takes a sharp breath, but right now I don't care how she feels. Her words are a knife in my chest.

"Luke, I'm sorry," she says. "I wish I could apologize enough."

"Then stop trying to take my house."

"I earned it." She sighs. "He was ashamed to be with me. He was the one who always talked me out of breaking up with you. I wanted to end it. I wanted to stop stringing you along, but he was worried about you. And about his reputation. About how it would look. Even when I offered to keep our relationship a secret for a while, to leave the firm, he wouldn't do it. He didn't want to look like some asshole who stole his son's girlfriend."

"You could have told me," I say. "I could have used the mercy."

"I'm a coward." Her voice breaks. "I tried to tell you at the hospital. I'm a pathetic coward. I was ruining your life then, and I'm ruining it now. You should stop talking to me. Keep the house. I don't need it. I won't need anything."

"Sam, don't--"

"I don't deserve your friendship," she says.

"That's not what I want."

"I'm sorry." She chokes back a sob. "I'm a bitch," she says. "I was such a bitch. You should stop talking to me. You should move on with your life, to some woman who will treat you better."

"No, Sam..."

"I'm sorry. No, you should have it. It's yours. He was your dad. You're entitled to it. Besides, you deserve the hush money more than I do."

"No," I say. "You need it."

It's not like I have a choice. I have to say yes. It's either I say yes, or I worry that this is the thing that will push her. That she'll do it again because there's this hole in her heart that's shaped like our house. It's either I say yes, or she hints that she's going to try to kill herself again.

She always puts me in this position. My only choices are do what Samantha wants or dare her to make due on her latest threat to attempt suicide.

How long have her requests been veiled threats?
Do this for me or else I'll be so miserable I'll give in to my suicidal impulses again. Come see me or I'll be so lonely. And I don't feel safe lonely. I don't know what I'll do... Please, Luke. Please, don't leave.

Another wave of dizziness hits me.

Samantha has me pinned. I'm not going to ignore her. I'm not going to sentence her to depression. I know she's manipulating me. She may know it too.

But I still have to help her.

I can hate it as much as I want. I'm not going to abandon her now.

I just hope Alyssa will understand.

I take a deep breath. This house means a lot to me, but only because it means a lot to Alyssa.

Samantha's breath slows, until she's calm. "I'm going to figure out exactly how much I owe you."

"I don't care about the money."

"I do. I already can't pay you back for how much you've helped me. I'm not going to be in debt for half a mortgage either."

"We can split it exactly."

"No. He put in for the down payment."

"Why don't you draft a contract? I'll start looking for a new place."

"Are you sure?"

I clench my fists. This is my best option. "He would have wanted you to have it."

It's awful, but it's my best option.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Alyssa and I enjoy almost a week of normalcy. She spends every night at my place. We do nothing of consequence. We read by the pool or watch TV on the couch or play cards in the kitchen. It's a perfect picture of what our life together could be.

We touch and kiss and hug and fuck everywhere in the house. Now that I know I'm losing it, I want to mark every inch of it as ours. I make her come in every spot where such an act is conceivable--the breakfast table, the kitchen counters, the desk, the pool. Every floor and wall in that house must be ours.

Everything is easy until Friday night. She sits on the couch, her arms curled around a pillow, her attention on the floor.

She shakes her head. "I don't know if I can do the food challenge tomorrow."

"You can do it."

She looks at me for a while. "Are you sure you can handle it?"

"Yes."

"And you won't get upset if I start freaking out?"

"I promise."

"Or if I want to use you as a distraction."

"You'll be thoroughly distracted."

She bites her lip, digging her nails into the pillow. "Things are good right now. I don't want to ruin that."

"Things will stay good."

"What if you freak out?"

I sit next to her. "I won't."

Her eyes are glued to mine. Like she's studying me. "But what if it's too much and you lose all the respect you have for me?"

"Impossible."

She looks back at the floor. "Okay. We'll do it tomorrow. After dinner."

"You okay?"

She nods but her eyes stay on the floor. "I'm going to hang out in the spare room for a while."

She offers me a quick smile and recedes into the spare room, her room. Her room for another few weeks at least.

***

The morning is easy. We drink cup after cup of tea and coffee. We spend hours watching TV on the couch. We eat lunch in the backyard.

But something changes in the afternoon. Alyssa is a nervous wreck. She paces around the pool, her eyes on the concrete.

"How about a walk?" I offer.

She nods, but her attention stays on the ground. I'd love to grab her and pin her to the couch to thoroughly distract her, but that is only going to make things harder.

She collects her shoes and purse and we make our way to the marina. It's a nice day. Warm and sunny.

But Alyssa is obviously uncomfortable. She walks fast, clutching her purse like it's a lifesaver. I give her space. I'm going to do everything I can to make it easier.

She stops at a curve and presses her hands against the metal railings. Her gaze is on the water, but she's a million miles away.

"We can talk about it," I say.

She shakes her head and digs her hands into the railing. "No, we should probably pick up something to use." She motions to the shopping center a few blocks away.

"I can do it for you."

"No, I have to do it. Buy a box of cookies and only eat one." She turns her gaze to me, studying me.

She's watching for a sign I can't handle this.

"Let's do it."

I offer my hand. She nods, wiping her palms on her dress and wrapping her fingers around mine. She squeezes tight.

"You can do this," I say.

She nods. "Let's not talk about it too much."

I let her take the lead. We change our direction and move towards the store. It's a natural foods store, the kind of yippie place Samantha and her future Tesla-owning husband would love.

The automatic doors slide open and we step inside. Everything in the store is white and bright and the aisles are cramped. Alyssa wanders around the aisles, squeezing my hand tighter and tighter.

She stares at a shelf of chips like she doesn't understand it.

"Ally..."

"I'm fine." She turns quickly, moving to the next aisle. There's still a look of dread on her face. Like she's about to jump off a bridge.

"You sure?"

"The constant questions don't help."

She panicked last time. It was her thoughts tricking her and telling her she's a failure. I can't let her go down that road. Sure, I can't shrink myself and jump into her brain, but I can keep her attention here.

"You never told me which of your high school parts was your favorite," I say.

"You're so obvious."

"Still, not many high school students get to play two Shakespearean heroines."

She scans the next aisle, stopping at a row of cookies. "Abridged
Hamlet
cuts out all of Ophelia's best lines."

"Oh yeah?"

She turns her eyes towards me, shaking her head like I'm ridiculous. But she smiles. "There's this great exchange between her and Hamlet where he asks if he can lay in her lap and she says no. But he corrects himself--he means his head upon her lap."

"Yeah?"

"Without the oral sex jokes she's just Hamlet's crazy girlfriend. Kills herself for no reason." Her attention turns back to the shelf. She picks up a box of sugar cookies and hugs it to her chest. "Of course, Juliet isn't really any better. She also kills herself over her boyfriend."

"So it's
The Crucible
then?"

She nods. "Abigail is a badass bitch. She starts all kinds of shit." She laughs and her eyes find mine. "Thanks."

"No, thank you for the free British literature lesson."

"
The Crucible
is American."

"Two lessons in one. How could I get so lucky?"

She presses her hand against my chest, pushing gently. "You better watch what you say."

"I wouldn't want to insult a depressing play."

"Ha ha." She smiles.

A bit of tension releases. Then her eyes turn to the box of cookies in her hand and all the joy drops off her face.

"You want to get home?" I ask.

She nods.

She's white as a ghost at the checkout. And she stays quiet the entire walk back to my place. It's not until we're inside that she finally looks at me.

Her eyes are wide. Anxious. "This isn't going to be easy."

I nod.

"I might get upset. I might yell at you or try and run off. But it's not personal."

Her eyes connect with mine. She's still so scared, but I'm going to do whatever I can to help her.

"Do you want to talk about it at all?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Let's just do it."

"How does it work?"

"I eat the cookie. It sounds so simple, but it's not."

She's already starting to freak out. I can see it on her face. I reach for her, but she's receding further and further into herself.

"Ally, you need to try and stay here with me, okay?"

She nods. "I'll try."

She sits at the kitchen table, a serious look on her face. Those thoughts of hers are lying to her again, telling her she's a failure, telling her she's not good enough.

"I love you," I tell her. "No matter what."

I place the box on the table and sit across from her. She stares at it like it's something horrible.