Whatever It Takes (4 page)

“Just clean skin,” he explained, placing a small kiss at my temple.  “I hate when girls wear perfume.  Smelling like fruit or flowers is unnatural.  I just like clean smells.”

I laughed and told him, “I was just thinking you smell like clean towels.  That’s my favorite smell in the world.”

“Well I think we just may be made for each other, Emma Harrison.”  He took my hand and picked up my heels that he had discarded in the sand.  “Two people who love good music and clean scents.”

When it was time to say goodnight Mike, Diane, Gavin, and I chatted for a few minutes in the parking lot.  Gavin had driven Mike in his car and when it came time to actually leaving, Gavin asked if he could drive me home. 

Diane looked at me with concern and started to say that she and Mike would drop me off, but I stopped her.  I knew she was worried that I’d be anxious being driven in a car by someone I didn’t know very well but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Gavin just yet.

I wasn’t much of a car person but I could tell Gavin’s sleek, black ride was expensive.  He opened the door for me and I slid into soft leather, the scent of clean, new car filling my nostrils. 
Hmm, more with the clean smells,
I smiled to myself.

I felt unusually at ease while Gavin started the car and asked where he was headed to, but as soon as the car left the parking lot and we were on the highway the familiar panic set in.  Knots formed in my stomach and sweat broke on my brow.

I cursed myself and my stupid issues then.  I was sure that as soon as Gavin learned of my problems with control he’d be totally turned off.  Saying a silent prayer in my head that I would calm down, I breathed as deeply as I could and knotted my fingers so tightly in my lap my knuckles turned white.  It didn’t take long for Gavin to notice.

“You look nervous,” he stated, eyeing me sideways before returning his attention to the road. 

“Do I?” I tried to laugh as I asked but it sounded as phony as it was.

“Does my driving scare you?  I’m not speeding or anything.”  Just to be sure he lifted his hand and pointed so I could see the speedometer.

“It’s not that, Gavin,” I started.  “I just-”  Ugh, how could I tell him this without sounding like a total freak? 

“What is it, Emma?  Tell me.”

“I have this thing.  Some people might say it’s a phobia, I say it’s not so much that I have a  phobia but a need to be in control of certain things.  It’s probably as a result of having to take care of so much when I was young but not being the one in control makes me extremely anxious and that includes driving in a car.”  I gave the entire explanation so quickly I didn’t take a breath and now had to inhale quickly and loudly.  After a few deep breaths, I asked, “Do you think I’m crazy now?”

Gavin laughed and reached over to take my hand.  My fingers curled around his and I liked the way our intertwined hands looked. 

“No, I do not think you’re crazy at all,” he said with a smile.  “I can totally understand the need for control.”  He started moving his thumb on the back of my hand in small, soothing circles.  The touch was relaxing and yet made my stomach clench for a whole new reason.  “I assure you, Emma, I am a very cautious driver, but if it would make you feel better, I’ll let you drive the rest of the way to your apartment.”

Just the thought that he would be so generous and understanding almost brought tears to my eyes.  My previous boyfriends often complained about me usually having to drive or were impatient with my anxiety if they were driving.  Here Gavin was, on our first official date and he was already offering to do whatever I needed to make me more comfortable.  It would seem like such a small gesture to someone else but to me, that alone was meant so much.

“No,” I told him, squeezing his hand in thanks.  “It’s okay.  Keep driving, I’ll be fine.”

He nodded, still looking straight ahead at the road in front of us but he didn’t remove his hand from mine in my lap and he didn’t stop stroking me with his thumb.  It wasn’t but a moment later that I felt totally at ease in his car.

5

Gavin

Present day

I was sitting on our living room sofa once again, choosing to stay out there rather than sleep in our bed without Emma.  I hadn’t bothered to change from my shorts and t-shirt from the party and after Emma had gone to bed I just sat on the couch, thinking about what I had done and what was going to happen to us.  I had been dozing on and off, not really sleeping but not quite fully awake either as my thoughts churned.  I had my head thrown back, resting on the top of the cushion, my face turned up towards the ceiling when I heard the sound of bare feet hit the wooden floor of the living room.

“Em?” I said, squinting in the dark.  The only light on was the one glowing from above the stove in the kitchen behind me.

“Yeah,” she whispered.  “I need a drink.”

She poured herself a glass of orange juice from the kitchen and then joined me back in the living room, sitting at the other end of the dark, leather sectional.

“What are you doing on the couch?” she asked me before taking three greedy gulps from the glass.

I shrugged.  “I didn’t want to sleep in our bed without you.”

She snorted.  “But a month ago you wanted to sleep in a hotel bed with another woman.  You’re funny, Gavin, you know that?”   She let out a half-assed laugh that turned into a giggle.  Before I knew it she was full out belly laughing and then, just as quickly, she was hanging her head and crying into her juice.

I moved to take the glass out of her hand and set it on the coffee table before kneeling at her feet.  I grabbed both of her hands in mine.

“Emma, please.  Don’t cry,” I begged.  God, it killed me when she cried, even more so when I was the cause.  “I am so sorry, so fucking sorry for what I did.  I don’t deserve your forgiveness but I swear, if you can try to forgive me I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you, I swear it.”

She leaned forward and rested her chin on my shoulder and I wrapped her in my arms.  “Why?” she cried in my ear.  “Why, Gavin? I don’t understand.  I thought we were happy.  Wasn’t I enough for you?”  Her whole body shook with sobs.

“Of course you are, baby.  You’re everything to me,” I said, and I wasn’t lying.  Emma was my world.  Since the day I met her, I had been crazy about her.  I loved how strong she was, something she didn’t give herself nearly enough credit for.  She had always thought her OCD and need for control were things that I just put up with.  They weren’t.  I loved her even for that.  I thought it was adorable how she kept things so neat and organized in our home.  It made life easier that way, anyhow.  I also loved that when she was anxious I was able to calm her.  It made me feel like her hero in someway.  That even though she was a tough woman there was a vulnerable side to her and she needed me to protect her from that.

And so I pulled back and took her face in both of my hands.  “This had nothing to do with you, you have to believe that.  This wasn’t about anything you’ve done or didn’t do.  It was only about me and my fucked up need to... to... I don’t know.  I just know that it meant nothing and it will never happen again.”    

The words I used to try to soothe her seemed to have the opposite effect.  She grew angry and pushed me away, standing from the couch.

“You were the one I could brag to all my friends about!”  she screamed at me.  She screamed so loud she winced as it burned her throat.  Still, she continued, “about how wonderful you are!  How you’re kind, and handsome, and helpful, and smart, and successful!  How you were sweet and loving and made me feel like I was luckiest girl in the world!  And you destroyed all that!  All of it!  In one fucking night you threw everything you were and everything we had out the fucking window and now you’re telling me it was over something that didn’t mean anything?”  She was in my face now, somehow towering over me though I was several inches taller than her.  “How could you do this to us?  How?”  Suddenly, her hand flew out in front of her and she slapped me across my face.  The noise of it echoed throughout the room.  As hard as she’d hit me, it didn’t seem to abate her anger.

“How?” she screamed and slapped me again.  “How?!”  Her hand connected with my face one more time and I felt like my skin had split, the sting was so bad.  I didn’t care though.  Let her beat me to a pulp if it would make her feel better.  I knew though that no matter how angry she was, she’d only feel guilty about it in the morning.  When she made one more feeble attempt to raise her hand to me again, I caught her by her wrist this time and pulled her into my arms and crushed her to my chest.

“No,” she cried and made a weak attempt to push me away but my arms were too strong.  “No, let me go.  Let me go.”

I bent my head and whispered in her ear.  “No, Emma.  I’m not letting you go.  I’ll never let you go.”

We stayed standing with her crying into my shirt until she sagged against me with fatigue.   I lifted her into my arms and sat on the couch, keeping her tucked into my lap.  I smoothed her hair and rubbed her back until she was fast asleep.

6 

Emma

Seven Years Ago

Gavin and I wandered around the gallery hand-in-hand, studying and admiring the artwork adorning the walls.  Well, he was admiring.  I was criticizing.

We were well into our fourth month of dating and were attending an art exhibit in the city.  The artist was some young girl who was a friend of a friend of Gavin’s or something and he had been given an invitation to the event.  I wasn’t that thrilled about being there, not really into art myself, but Gavin had seemed pretty excited about it so I went along.  I tried to see the same beauty in the paintings that he did but the abstract figures and messy lines did not appeal to me at all.  They just looked like one big mess.

“You like this?” I asked incredulously, pointing at what, to me, looked like a three-year-old’s attempt at a paint by numbers.  The lines were squiggly and half of the figure she had tried to paint seemed to be missing color in some places. 

“Sure I like it,” he insisted, looking appreciatively at the painting.  “The artist is obviously inspired by Fauvism and Matisse is one of my favorite artists.  I love his use of colors and how he presents a somewhat skewed vision of reality.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I laughed.

“Fauve means ‘wild beast’ in French,” Gavin explained while we mingled throughout the crowd to view other pieces.  “Matisse and a few other twentieth-century painters were known as
les Fauves
because they ignored the rules of modern art.  They chose to use bold colors  and strokes rather than try to make their art realistic.  When they took their work to Paris they were laughed at by critics and so they rented their own gallery.  I think I like their “fuck you” attitude more than their art but still, it’s phenomenal work.”

“Are you sure you aren’t gay?” I teased.  It earned me a nasty look and a swat on my behind.

As we moved on to yet another painting, Gavin stopped short and dropped my hand.  His eyes were locked on someone or something across the room.

“What’s up?”  I asked, craning my neck over the crowd to see what or whom he was looking at. 

Without even a glance in my direction, he put his drink down and asked if I would excuse him for a minute.

I watched as he worked his way through a mass of people and over to a tall woman with shiny black hair and red, red lips.  He touched her elbow and she turned towards him and her face lit up in a pleased surprise.  They embraced quickly and started a conversation.  I had no idea who the woman was but watching them made me extremely uncomfortable.  She kept her hand on his arm as they spoke and I had a suspicious feeling she was a former girlfriend of his.  Gavin turned and gestured towards me and smiled while his friend waved a hand at me.  I smiled and waved back but they made no sign to move over to me and so I stood there a minute longer watching them talk before the awkwardness I felt forced me to move.  I took the last sip of my champagne and set the flute down on a passing tray and walked over to another painting.  I stared at it as the anxiety started to build.  I was in a crowded room by myself and I didn’t know anyone.  Having Gavin at my side was one thing, but on my own, I didn’t know who might talk to me and suddenly I felt very out of control and scared.  If I had been in a place where I was comfortable, say, the library at the college where I worked, I’d have been fine to be on my own with strangers.  But here, at an art gallery in the city, I was completely out of my element. 

Gavin knew this, he knew how uncomfortable being here made me and he had promised not to leave my side the entire night.  Now it had been over five minutes and he was still talking to the raven-haired girl.  Anger started mixing in with my anxiety and that made for a dangerous cocktail.  I needed to get out of there.

I talked myself out of fleeing immediately and busied myself over near a table that held brochures about the artist.  I pretended to read them while I counted the seconds in my head.  Surely no one would try to talk to me if I appeared to be reading, right? 

When I finally reached six hundred I gave up and put the brochure down.  I was out of here.  Gavin had left me on my own for more than fifteen minutes.  Furious, I made my way to the exit, glancing one more time to see Gavin and his friend still together.  They looked like they were having a heated discussion now but I didn’t care.  I was getting the hell out of there.