Drowning Instinct(53)
Author: Ilsa J. Bick

So I said, not meekly, trying to be as grown-up about it as I could: ―Can I ask you a question?‖

―Always.‖ Was there relief in his voice? Had he been afraid to say anything more?

I took a deep breath. My lips were dry and my tongue didn‘t want to unknot, but I had to know. ―Did you sleep with Danielle?‖

c

Okay, I got a news flash for you, Bob. I am not brain-dead and never have been.

Did it occur to me that Danielle‘s, well, jealousy wasn‘t only because I‘d gotten the TA position and she hadn‘t? Duh.

But there were things I kept coming back to, David Melman being the primary reason why I didn‘t think Mitch and Danielle had ever been together. Danielle and David had been a couple for over a year, since David was a sophomore and Danielle was a freshman.

Now, was it true that Mitch was friendly to everyone? Yes. Were people always coming to him with their problems? Ditto. Could Danielle have a huge problem she might‘ve spilled, hoping Mitch could help? Well, maybe so. After a psych ward, not only can one crazy pick out another in a crowd, but the broken ones can, too. Honestly, Mitch and I were so careful, there was no way anyone knew. But Danielle had sensed something, and I thought that could only happen if she was a lot closer to Mitch than I knew.

Here‘s what kept flashing before my eyes: the image of Mr. Connolly jamming his finger into Mitch‘s chest; Mr. Connolly shoving Mitch—and the way Mitch stood there and took it.

Like, maybe, he deserved it.

d

Mitch said, ―Is that what you think?‖

―I don‘t want it to be true,‖ I said. ―But I want you to tell me the truth. I‘m old enough for that, too.‖

―I know that.‖ He darted a glance my way. His skin was gray-green in the lights from the dash and his eyes were glittery black, like polished obsidian. ―No, I didn‘t, Jenna.

I was never even tempted. You‘re . . . you‘re the only one, ever.‖

―But there‘s something.‖

―Yes. But . . . damn it. Jenna, honey, I can‘t tell you what that is.‖

―Why not?‖

―Would you want me telling other kids about you, your mom, your father? What you‘ve told me, you‘ve said in confidence. Even if we weren‘t lovers, you trust me. It‘s the same for Danielle, sweetheart. She‘s dealing with a lot. I haven‘t been there for her the way I used to, and she‘s hurt and that‘s really my problem, not yours.‖

Lovers. I wasn‘t prepared for how that little word made me feel. Breathless, I guess, and a little afraid, too. Like the word was almost a promise. I was Mitch‘s lover; I was someone no one else had ever been. ―Can you at least tell me what her father said?‖

He hesitated for only a moment. ―He told me to mind my own business,‖ he said, then added ruefully, ―and that she‘s too young to know what she wants.‖

e

The CD clicked off. The wipers thumped. The snow was falling fast, sheeting like a heavy rain through which the truck‘s headlights cored a cold, bright tunnel. Maybe the snow was a good thing, though, because it gave Mitch someplace else to look and, I think, made it easier for him to do what he did next.

Mitch said, so softly I almost didn‘t catch it, ―I haven‘t told you everything, though.

About Kathy and me.‖

My insides went still. I wanted to say that he hadn‘t really told me anything because I had been so careful not to ask. Kathy was a black hole whose event horizon would kill us.

But, somehow, I found the words. ―It‘s about the baby, isn‘t it?‖

He said nothing for a moment, but I felt his surprise. ―I‘d forgotten about that picture,‖ he said.

―Is her dad really sick?‖

―With cancer? Yes. I wouldn‘t lie about that. It would be too awful. But he‘s not so sick that she needs to stay.‖

―So why is she? Is it because of the baby?‖

―Yes and no.‖ He went quiet for so long I thought he might not say anything else.

Then he sighed. ―The first time Kathy got pregnant, she also got very . . . depressed. I missed it. I chalked up her moodiness and all that to, you know, what happens when you‘re pregnant. I just didn‘t understand what I was looking at. I didn‘t even find out until a lot later that she had a history of depression. Been in a hospital, suicide attempts with pills, the whole nine yards. Anyway, she relapsed. Pills again, and she slit her wrists. Insurance, I guess. She‘s alive only because all the blood scared her and she called her mother.‖

―Where were you?‖

―Away.‖ He gave a bleak laugh. ―Diving. I told you I gave that up when my dad yanked me out of Stanford, but that‘s not entirely true. Kathy and I argued about it a lot.

We‘re . . . opposites, but sometimes you only really find out things like that when it‘s too late. I was mad at my family, and I got married too fast, too young, on the rebound, and for spite when you get right down to it. Anyway, I wanted to move, take our chances, go to grad school.‖ He sighed again. ―Try to salvage something. But Kathy wasn‘t having any of that. She lost that first baby—miscarried right in the emergency room—and then getting pregnant again, having another baby, was all she could think about. She‘d decided it was my fault, too, for not being there. Never mind that it was the pills that did it.‖

―Did you want another baby?‖

―No. I hadn‘t wanted the first one, but I felt so guilty. Getting married was my idea; I rushed us into it. Letting go of what I‘d wanted to be made me feel so . . . empty.‖ He bunched a fist over his chest. ―Like everything I‘d ever been, every dream, was gone and now there was only this hole. I tried to fill it with all the things that are supposed to make you happy: a wife, a house, a job. Don‘t get me wrong. I‘m not an ass**le. I did love Kathy, but sometimes I wonder if I used her as a kind of distraction so I wouldn‘t dwell on what I‘d lost. Anyway, after I realized my mistake, I wasn‘t brave enough to undo it and then all I could do was keep running in place, trying to fix us. And now, finding out that she was ill, I was so scared she‘d try again that I couldn‘t say no even though I didn‘t see how she could handle herself much less a child. Know what her answer was to that?‖

―What?‖

―For me to quit teaching, be with her 24-7. But I couldn‘t do it. Teaching was the last thing that was truly mine. At school, I could be closer to what I always thought of as the real me, and now she wanted that, too. I felt like . . . Jenna, it was like drowning in slow-motion. Our lives were contracting, collapsing. And then she got pregnant again. I‘m not blaming her for that.‖ He paused then said, wryly, ―Obviously, I helped.‖