Chapter 17: Skylar

Sky,

Guess what?

I’M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!

I bet you’re scratching your head right now, wondering if I’m cut out to be a mother. I wouldn’t blame you for that. But after I got over the initial shock, I realized that I really want this baby really bad. Mitch is super excited too. We couldn’t be happier.

Oh, BTW, don’t tell Mom and Dad.

You know Mom; she’d probably fly over here and try to convince me to come home. But I know what’s best for me and being here with Mitch is what’s best. He’s going to make an excellent dad.

Love you!!!!

-Jo Beth

I shut my laptop and shut my eyes. Jo Beth was pregnant. The news felt like waking up and looking outside on an unkind, sleety morning, knowing I’d spend my day all cold and wet. As it was, I should try to appreciate the orangey autumnal weather. It was still warm outside, yet in the mountains, September can burn out quickly. Soon enough it would be winter and I was silly to squander the opportunity for fresh air and sunshine. But on this beautiful Friday afternoon I sat inside, feeling flat and uninspired.

My freshman year at Vista College had begun. I’d gotten through orientation and the first week of classes. And while I was grateful for my athletic scholarship and to be living in Jo Beth’s condo, coming home to an empty silence every evening made my heart heavy. I knew it was unfair to blame Jo Beth for this. But instead of emailing her back, I got out Turn of the Screw, which was the first bit of reading required for my British Lit course.

I splayed out on the living room couch, my eyes creeping towards the window and its view of the Rockies. I would force myself to stay inside and read, but I cared little for the characters, Miles and Flora. Creepy children are such a literary cliché and even if Henry James was the first to use the device, it still seemed overrated. Besides, a confusing ending doesn’t add to a novel’s depth, just to its frustration level.

When I heard a knock, I dropped my book and jolted up, grateful for the distraction. I looked through the front door’s peephole to see Gavin standing there.

“Wanna go for a hike?” he said, the moment I opened the door.

“Yeah, okay, let me get my shoes.”

I went towards my front closet and he followed, letting himself inside. “How was your day?”

“Fine. Jo Beth is pregnant.”

I was turned away from him, searching for my Merrells, so I didn’t see his reaction but heard him say “Wow.”

“Yeah. Don’t tell my Mom.”

“Okay.” Gavin leaned against the wall in my entryway while I laced up. I saw him crease his brow and glance up at the ceiling, concentrating hard. “Is this good news?”

“What do you think?”

“That you’re worried?”

He rotated his head down and to the side, so that our gazes met. Somehow, his dark brown eyes voiced all the unspoken words between us. But I’d elaborate anyway. “She sounded way too chipper in her email,” I told him. “She’s trying too hard to be happy.”

“She’s probably really scared.”

“Yeah… I mean, she’s having Mitch’s baby, and she’ll be stuck up in Portillo, away from a hospital, away from her family and friends, except for Magda, who I can’t stand…”

“Why can’t you stand Magda?”

I finished tying my boot and stood up straight. “I don’t trust her. Jo Beth doesn’t trust her either. I think she only stays friends with her because of Mitch. The whole thing is just disturbing, so yeah, I’m definitely worried.”

He reached out his hand. “Then come with me,” he said. “Some fresh air and exercise will make you feel better.”

I felt a smile warm my face. “I want to climb up rocks.”

He smiled back. “Then we’ll climb up rocks.”

Gavin was right about fresh air and exercise. Hiking cleared out all the gunk clogging my heart and brain. Later, we ordered a pizza and sat on my patio, drinking from a bottle of wine that Jo Beth had left behind in her pantry.

“You know who else I don’t like,” I said, as if our conversation from before had been going on for hours. “I don’t like Mitch.”

Gavin washed down his pizza crust with a swig of wine. “I thought you said he was nice.”

“Oh, he’s nice. Too nice. The guy wants to be everything to everyone. He’s one of those.” Gavin laughed and I turned indignant. “What’s so funny?”

“How would you know, Skylar?”

“What do you mean?”

He cleared his throat. “You talk like you’re familiar with all sorts of men, like you can classify them or something, when really your experience is pretty limited.”

Blood rushed to my cheeks. I hated how embarrassed I felt, knowing that Gavin understood me in ways that I didn’t want to be understood. On some subjects, it’s better to remain a mystery. I stood, scraping my patio chair against the pavement. “Time for you to go, Gavin.”

“Oh, come on.” He held his glass of wine in one hand and a new slice of pizza in the other. “I’m still eating.”

I felt like Scarlet O’Hara, dismissing one of her beaus on an irrational whim, but I grabbed away both his pizza and his wine. “You’re done.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m sure you’re very experienced.”

The laughter in his voice only further incited me. “You think you know me so well, but you have no idea. Maybe I’ve been with all sorts of guys. Just because I won’t give it up for you, doesn’t mean there haven’t been others.”

His face fell and I knew that I’d hurt him. Good.

“Fine, I’ll go,” he said.

Gavin stormed out, barely remembering to grab his keys. I didn’t have time to change my mind, to apologize, to tell him that I was wrong and he was right.

Was that regret breathing down my neck? Yet, in the emptiness of the condo I felt none of the restlessness I’d felt this afternoon. I went inside, retrieved my laptop, and came back out onto the patio where I set up my computer on the wobbly metal table that went with the chairs. I would enjoy the rest of the wine and pizza out here while I did some writing. I’d probably suffered from post-traumatic writer’s stress after the Neal Morgan/Facebook poetry incident, but I hadn’t stopped writing altogether. In fact, I’d switched from poetry to novels: a gothic romance, to be more specific. I was letting the Brontë sisters inspire me.

I looked back over my most recent scene, where the romantic tension between the main characters had begun to sizzle.

Patrick looked up as I came close “You needed something?” he asked.

“Yes, I wish to put in my notice.”

“Mary, where will you go?”

“That is none of your concern,” I said.

He did not speak, but I noticed the restless twitch of his arm and a swift, erratic blinking of his eyes. Otherwise, neither his face nor body betrayed emotion. “I can’t keep you here,” he stated solemnly. “If you wish to go, then go you shall.”

My voice was strangled with unshed tears. “It’s not what I wish but what I must do.”

I stopped typing and took a sip of wine. Gavin was right. I knew nothing about men. When it came to how they thought, responded, and loved, I was flying in the dark. Yet for me, writing was a form of wish fulfillment, so I resumed.

He closed his eyes as if praying. A moment later when he raised his gaze, it was with such love and longing that my breath escaped me. I had to be in his arms. He enfolded me into a rough embrace. We kissed and…

I sighed. And what?

I couldn’t let my novel become a typical, bodice-ripper romance. It needed depth. Right now, it was little more than a superficial Jane Eyre knock-off.

We kissed and I pulled the small pocket knife that I’d hidden in the folds of my dress. In one swift motion, I plunged it into his neck. Patrick floundered like a fish, choking on his blood, on his confusion, on his fear. Betrayal etched across his face as he muttered his very last word.

“Why?”

I realized that I had no answer for Patrick. There was no legitimate reason for why Mary would kill him and yet she just had. Maybe she was going all Heathcliff, thinking that the murdered do haunt their murderers. But why would Mary prefer a dead Patrick to a living one? I leaned back in my chair, letting my eyes roam away from my computer screen and up to the starry sky. It occurred to me that for every pinprick of light there could be a complete world full of living beings with wants and needs, just like how for every writer, there’s an infinite amount of possible characters who could take on a life of their own. By letting Mary kill, I’d also let her live, and even though I’d just created a blizzard-sized plot hole, I couldn’t press delete. It wasn’t my right.

Homicide was too satisfying to erase.