CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - DANNY
I stare at him for a second then look over at Christine to make sure this is acceptable to her. Her lips are making a pursed pout, like she’s considering things. Then she nods, closes her eyes, and lets her head fall back into the couch.
For a few moments I just stare at her throat. The way it’s stretched taut from the position of her head. How easily someone could hurt her. The many ways one could end things using a throat.
It’s sick.
Kinda.
But it reminds me of something I’d forgotten. The way one throat could change the lives of dozens of people. “Remember that time we took the polar bear trip?”
Christine lets out a chuckle.
Alec says, “Eish, man. Why do you have to bring that up?”
“Because Christine got sick, remember?” I turn to her and find her nodding. “Your throat was a mess, you were coughing so hard you bruised your ribs, and you lost your voice.”
“But she still made us stay in that god-forsaken cabin for six more days,” Alec says.
“Long enough for all of us to get sick,” I add. “By the last day, the entire camp had strep throat and the whole place was on lockdown. They wouldn’t let anyone leave until we’d all been on antibiotics for forty-eight hours, so we ended up staying two extra days.”
“And by that time the three of us were better.” Christine smiles. Then laughs. Because we made the most of those last two days.
“My mad, crazy girl,” Alec says, remembering how the trip ended.
“Hey,” Christine says. “I wanted to see some fucking bears, OK? And we paid a lot of money for that trip. It wasn’t my fault I got sick on the plane ride out there. So…” She shrugs.
“So you stole a fokken truck in the middle of the night, came and got us out of bed, and we went out alone.”
“Hey, I stole their rifles too,” Christine adds. Like this makes it so much less insane.
There were so many bears out that night. Dozens of them. And I’m pretty sure they thought the three of us were a tasty late-night snack.
“You were fearless,” Alec says. Now he’s got his eyes closed too. Head propped back against the couch. But he’s smiling as he remembers.
“You were always fearless,” I add. “No fucks to give about anything or anyone.”
“Not true. I gave all the fucks.”
“For us,” I say. “Sure. But not anything else.”
“Remember those three bears we saw going back?” Alec says.
And of course we do. Because it was two big ones bloody from fighting and a smaller one, pacing back and forth, watching them like it was upset.
“They were us,” Christine says.
I nod. Because they were. I don’t know jack shit about polar bears except you can’t trust them. Which pretty much makes them like most people, I guess.
But these three looked like they were up to something. Some secret plot was concocted, and it didn’t end well, so they were hashing it out.
“And we came up with that story about them,” I say.
“They stole the Crown Jewels.” Alec laughs, eyes still closed. Head still back. “And almost got caught because someone else didn’t do their job.”
“Fucking Eliza,” Christine says.
I’d forgotten that part. That Christine’s story about the fighting bears was about her and Eliza’s elaborate plan to steal the Crown Jewels.
“You liked her back then,” I say.
Which makes Christine open her eyes to stare at me. “Yeah, well, that was before…”
But she doesn’t finish.
Doesn’t need to. Everybody knows everything now.
“Anyway,” I say. “That’s when I fell in love in with you, Christine.”
She makes a face. “I was seventeen. It took you all those years to fall in love with me?”
“I mean, I loved you before that. But that night, out there in that truck, watching those bears. The way all of us just… played along with your silly game. And how it was you who did that. It was you who got Alec to laugh and have a good time even though he never wanted to take that trip in the first place. Not me. Wasn’t me who did that. You were the glue. You were the center of my universe. There was no version of Danny who existed without Christine and that night I realized it. I wanted you.”
By now Alec has his eyes open too and he’s staring at me. “Why didn’t you take her?”
“Because she wasn’t mine, she was ours. Our world was held together by very thin lines of varying degrees of love. Yours was always strong. Mine was new, and only for her, and hell, I have no idea what Christine was thinking that night. I just knew that if I tried to take her away from you we’d end up like those bears. Fighting until we were bloody. Christine pacing back and forth with worry.”
He closes his eyes again. Drops his head back. Weary look on his face. But then he smiles. “You always were a selfless bastard.”
“Not always,” I say, looking at Christine. “You made me this way.”
She gets up, walks over to me, plops down in my lap, wraps her arms around my neck, and sinks against my chest. “You made me this way too.”
Alec is watching us. Pained expression on his face. Jealousy? Maybe. But I think he’s just sad. I think he’s sad because he thought, for all these years, that Christine loved him just as much as she loved me. And right now, I think he has doubts about that.
Doubt. That’s what that expression says. Doubt that the sharing we’ve been doing with Christine was ever equal. Doubt that we will ever work out the way he wants us to.
He has always thought that I was the one who wouldn’t go along and now he’s starting to realize that it was never really me holding things up.
It was her.
“So,” Alec says. He swallows hard, staring at me. “When did you start loving me?”
“The moment Christine shot you out in the woods.”
He sighs. Long. Loud. Resigned. “Pretty recent then, eh?”
I nod. “Yup. Took me a while, I guess. But I knew in that moment that there was no us without you.”