Friday, June 4, 2010
NOTHING.
She hadn’t called me all afternoon. She’d been busy, and I didn’t want to bother her. I tried to be cool and not let my overactive imagination wander. But it was getting to me.
I sat in her parents’ driveway, watching the minutes tick by on the clock in my rental car.
She was only five fucking minutes late. No reason for alarm.
Then it was ten.
I stirred uncomfortably. Looked at my phone. It read the same time as the dashboard and I saw I had not erroneously missed any calls from her.
What is it about time, and waiting for someone that causes minutes to stretch into years? I stayed calm, but my senses were watching for her in every capacity. A call. Headlights on the street. The sound of her voice.
Her family’s party wasn’t until the next day, but the wide, paved driveway to their house was full of vehicles.
Fifteen minutes.
Twenty minutes.
If anyone saw me sitting out there, I feared they’d wonder who I was and what I was doing.
I checked my fucking phone again, then said, “Fuck it,” and decided to text.
Me: Everything okay? I’m in front of your parents’ house.
I waited five more minutes. Still nothing.
I did a search on my phone to find Grant’s address. When I found it and was just about to turn over the ignition, I saw the front porch light turn on and their door open.
Reggie stepped outside so I got out of the car, thankfully having already met that brother before. I was glad it was him. We met halfway up the cement sidewalk.
“Hey, Casey. It’s good to see you,” he said in greeting, holding a hand out for me to shake. I extended mine to him, noticing the tremble in my fingers. My body felt weird, but I pushed it aside. I was being foolish.
He smiled and seemed friendly enough.
Was I expecting them to hate me? In some ways, maybe I was. I was the other man. The home-wrecker. I just hoped they also saw me as the man Blake loved and someone who she deemed worthy of this whole mess.
“Hi, it’s good to see you, too.”
He looked past me to the car and asked, “Are you here with Blake? I don’t see her.”
“I was meeting her here. I think she’s running late.” I looked at my watch.
Thirty-six motherfucking minutes.
“Actually, she’s about a half hour late and she’s not replying to my messages.”
He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and swiped it open. “Let me see if I can get her to answer,” he said.
I liked Reggie.
He was definitely a dude I didn’t want to piss off. He was even bigger, more bulked up than the first times we’d met. That one warning look he’d given me at the airport in Chicago, was enough for me to make sure I stayed on his good side.
I watched as he held the phone to his ear and waited. My heart began to race even more. Faintly, hearing her phone ring though the speaker on his phone.
Something wasn’t right.
She would have called.
I was going to Grant’s. Now.
“You know what, I think I’m gonna go look for her. Make sure she’s okay.”
As soon as I said that, the expression on his face asked me a million questions, but he only spoke two. “Why wouldn’t she be okay? Do you know where she is?” Her older brother’s voice changed from the casual friendly tone he’d just used, to one that wasn’t friendly at all.
“She told me she was running by Grant’s place. She said that he finally agreed to sign the divorce papers.” I didn’t feel like sticking around any longer. I needed to get to her. My instincts were unmistakably telling me, fast wasn’t fast enough. “I’m going over there.”
“Wait,” Reggie said. But I wasn’t going to. Hopefully, he saw it as me being concerned and not crazy, but at that moment I didn’t really care. And I was kind of crazy.
“Sorry, Reggie, I’m not waiting. I won’t cause any trouble, I just need to know she’s all right.” I was already headed back to the car. The beginning symptoms of panic and adrenaline setting alight my system.
“I’m going, too,” I heard from right behind me. And when I got to the driver’s side and opened the door, it was almost like déjà vu—looking at the stern brotherly face over the roof of the car.
“If you’re concerned, then I’m concerned. She’s my sister.” That was all he needed to say.
As I drove, Reggie instructed where to turn. Of course, I already knew, but I let him continue telling me anyway. It was too much of an effort to tell him to stop and my mind was elsewhere, running through the many nightmarish possibilities I hoped were just an overreaction on my part.
The car handled well as I easily broke every speed limit on the way.
When we pulled up, nothing looked off. Her car was parked out front just as I suspected. Reggie wasted no time getting out of the car and didn’t bother waiting for me, though I was right behind him. Maybe he was feeding off my anxiety, but his pace told me he, too, was worried at that point.
A sound I never wanted to hear again leaked through the walls of the house, “Get up, you bitch!” Flashes of neon red lit my vision.
Reggie, being in front of me, saw what I’d feared through the window first.
Grant had hurt Blake, but I didn’t know how badly or what he’d done. And, honestly, that was just semantics. It was simple. He hurt her and I was about to kill him.
“You motherfucker!” Reggie roared, as he barged in through the thankfully unlocked door.
“What did you do?” Reggie yelled as he went to Blake on the ground close to the stairs. I couldn’t stop to look. I wanted to and everything in my body told me to, but since Reggie went to her first, I decided I’d deal with Grant.
I felt violent. Enraged. I wanted to hurt him. Needed to hurt him.
If it was bad, and since I couldn’t hear her say anything, I knew it was, I’d lose control. If I actually saw it, I wouldn’t stop until I killed him.
Why didn’t I come with her?
I hadn’t bothered looking in the window and therefore hadn’t seen what Reggie had seen. Upon entering the house and quickly scanning for information, I saw the table with candles and two empty glasses. A bottle of wine. Grant backing away from where I knew Blake was when Reggie came through the door. She was on the ground and she wasn’t making any sounds.
Don’t fucking look.
Reggie was already on the phone. “I need the police and an ambulance at 9335 Aloha St. Now!” The urgency with which he spoke said what I needed to know. He was with her and he’d take care of her. I needed to take care of the bastard who hurt her.
“What’s he doing?” mumbled Grant as he continued to back away. I stalked forward, trying to control myself. All the while, he was in my sights. My target.
Rage. I’d never experienced blinding rage, but hearing Reggie frantically call for help on Blake’s behalf… I pursued a retreating Grant. The spineless fucking coward.
“She fell,” he explained. His hands up in defense.
“She tripped on her dress. You can’t just barge in here,” he complained, taking more steps backward into the dining room. I saw blood seeping through his pants.
I refused to focus on the details Reggie was telling the emergency dispatcher.
I only saw Grant.
“What happened to your leg, Grant?” asked my voice, but I hadn’t planned to say anything. My thoughts and processes split, dividing into different roles. My mind controlled my mouth, while anger controlled my body.
He looked down at the side of his thigh and then back up at me. I was close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Goddammit!” screamed Reggie. “What the fuck did you do to my sister?”
“She’s my wife,” Grant said, with a hardened jaw. The cornered dog that he was began showing his teeth.
He had a lot of fucking nerve. I asked, even toned, “Your wife?” The motherfucker was about to get a lesson. “That’s where you’re wrong. She might have shared a wedding day with you, but she’s mine.” I was a flame-ready fuse and he was the match. If he struck me the wrong way, I was prepared to burn him to the fucking ground.
The distance between us closed and he leaned back over the table set for two. I pressed into him. Before I beat him to a pulp, I needed to know one thing.
“Where. Are. The. Divorce. Papers?” I demanded slowly and plainly, so the bastard would understand me. I wasn’t leaving until they were signed and he wasn’t leaving until I had them.
That was what she wanted. What she came for.
Then, he’d be going one of two places: Jail or the hospital. Preferably both.
Grant sneered at me with smugness and defiance. That didn’t suit me. My clenched hand met his gut. And then again in quick succession. The power coursing through me wasn’t even driving my swings full force. I’d held back. For now.
He tried to swing back, but I caught him with a left to his other side causing him to take a knee.
“Maybe you didn’t fucking hear me. Where are the goddamned papers you told her you’d sign?” I shouted in his ear as he hunched over. I grabbed his neck to bring him back up.
I heard sirens.
He still didn’t talk. I was done with his bullshit.
My fist met his face with a force I hadn’t known I possessed. I felt his nose break, and immediately there was blood pouring from it.
It felt good.
You hurt her. I hurt you.
I still hadn’t allowed myself to look at Blake’s prone body on the floor. If I looked I’d kill him for sure.
“Where are they?” I repeated. He was bent at the waist holding his face.
“They’re in a drawer upstairs. I’ll get them. I’ll get them,” he wailed.
The sirens grew louder. If he didn’t sign them before the police arrived, then everything she came there for was for nothing. All she went through was for nothing.
Not on my watch, fucker.
I seized the back of his neck and squeezed with all my might. “I’m going up there with you and you’re not coming down unless they’re signed. Do you understand me?” I pulled him toward me and I turned around, with hopes of avoiding seeing what I knew was there.
But I failed.
My honeybee. My everything.
Reggie was hunched over her, rubbing her cheek. Her eyes were closed. Her tear-stained face looked like she was sleeping, but her legs were sprawled out and one of her arms was under her. There was blood under her head.
I staved off the urge to vomit from seeing her like that.
My precious fucking honeybee.
There wasn’t a thing I could do for her except finish what she’d come for. The ambulance was close. They would help her. I would help her too. I’d finish this fucking mess for us.
The sirens got closer.
“You’re okay,” he said softly to her. As we went to walk past, Reggie sprung so fast I thought he was going to hit me. In an instant he was in Grant’s face, one which I held straight ahead by his neck.
Reggie cocked an arm to swing and I yelled, “Reggie!” A hit like that from him would ensure Grant would be out cold and I needed him to make good on what he’d told her he would do. He saw it in my eyes. This was my fight. “Not yet.”
Reggie backed down, but latched onto the front of his shirt and said, almost savagely, “If she tells me you hurt her like this on purpose, I’m going to ruin you. And I’m going to love doing it.”
I thought I’d seen his business face, but I was way off. A vein throbbed in his forehead. Then he let him go, mumbling to himself, and we walked past them and up the stairs. There was blood on the wall and again, my gut lurched imagining what she’d been through.
I pointed at her brother as we climbed. “Don’t fucking leave her.”
No longer was I worried about him, he didn’t scare me nearly as bad as seeing her on the ground.
I surged forward, roughly pushing Grant up the stairs.
The sirens screamed through the air.
“Which room, asshole?”
When he didn’t answer me fast enough, I put applied more pressure to his neck. My white-knuckled fingers ached and my nails dug into his skin.
“There! On the right. Let me go and I’ll get them.”
The sirens stopped.
I rushed into the room and released him, shoving his worthless ass inside. I flipped on the switch. An office.
He wobbled over to his desk and opened the top drawer.
From downstairs I heard Reggie yell, “Hurry up!” to whoever had arrived. I saw red and blue lights reflecting off the houses from the office’s second-story window.
“You think you can just take whatever you want from people?” Grant sneered. “We were going to have a life. A good life.” I don’t know if the pussy bastard was crying, or if the punch to his nose made his eyes look like that. Red and crazy.
But when he lifted his arm from the drawer, there was no mistaking what I saw. A gun.
Little did he know, my give-a-fuck was downstairs with my girl.
“Fucking shoot me!” I yelled. “Do you think that’s going to fix anything? Go ahead. You’re pissed that your wife loves me? Go ahead. Do it.” I’d lost all rational thought.
“I want those papers, Grant. So you’ve got two fucking choices.” I wasn’t backing down. Gun or no gun. “Sign the fucking papers or shoot me. Because, you know what, either fucking way you lose, Grant. You lose. You don’t get her back. Just. Fucking. Do. Something!”
The revolver shook in his hand and I heard it click as he pulled the hammer back.
“Seattle PD. Drop. Your. Weapon!” boomed a man from behind me.
Grant’s eyes closed and his head fell back a little, an eerie smile spread across his face.
“You lose too, Casey.”
Then the gun fired.