Tansy
Luke Bryan is excellent packing music. He’s telling me about the time that he lost his girl as I fold brown paper around my dishes. I took advantage of Cai running out for lunch and drinks as a chance to crank the country. She’s not super fond, though she tolerates the songs of betrayal with a faintly amused smile—and I think I caught her humming a Florida Georgia Line song under her breath a few days ago, though she denies it. Vehemently.
There’s not much to pack, since I never really got around to really unpacking, so Cai and I figure we’ll be done by the end of the weekend. Imogene is coming later in the afternoon, once she’s done with the baby shower she’s at. The extra set of hands will help. The moving truck arrives Monday morning, and I want everything absolutely ready to go. The less I need the movers to do, the more money I save. The more money I save, the bigger a down payment I have for a house in Salmon. If I play my cards right, I should be able to keep my mortgage far under a grand.
When there’s a knock on my apartment’s front door, I don’t even bother to turn around. It’s got to be Cai. “Come in!” I call, then put the paper-wrapped plate in a box.
“This is cute,” says a voice that I’ve often thought about but not actually heard in months.
I spin. The sheaf of paper drops from my numb fingers and swirls around my ankles.
Jody’s cut her hair pixie short. I wish it looked awful on her, but it doesn’t. It makes the stark ridges of her cheekbones look even more wickedly sharp. She fingers the lights strung on my miniature Christmas tree. Cai gave me the shotgun shell strand almost six weeks ago as an early Christmas present.
“You always did like kitsch,” Jody says dryly. “I think it’s the diner-loving redneck in you.”
I want to rush her and snatch my tree into a hug. Jody only decorated for holidays when it was color coordinated and tasteful. I don’t even like her looking at my adorably Charlie Brown–esque tree. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve taken you off my insurance policies. You’re no longer my beneficiary.”
“So?”
“I thought you’d like to know.”
I think she might be implying that I’m a money-grubbing whore. Or something. I fold my arms over my chest and cup my elbows. I don’t remember what it feels like to breathe. “Okay. That’s set, then.”
“I just need you to sign this.” She pulls a folded pack of papers from the Tory Burch purse dangling from her shoulder. When she smooths them out on the table, they’re a thin sheaf of legal papers.
“No.”
“You haven’t even asked what it is.” The coldness she’s giving off used to be the kind that froze me and made my blood thicken like ice floe.
“You can leave it, and I’ll have my lawyer look at it.”
“It’s a quit claim on my condo.” She narrows her eyes. “You can’t possibly think you have any claim on it.”
“You’re the one who brought me papers to sign.” I swallow. My voice is shaking, making mince of my hard-sounding words. “I think that means that you’re worried I do have a claim.”
“It’s always been mine.”
“You made that more than clear. You never let me be comfortable there.” Jody had gone house hunting on her own. I didn’t even see it before she made an offer. I never picked paint, never picked furniture. I was an eternal guest in my own home. Except . . . “It’s because I paid most of your down payment, isn’t it?”
“That was a loan, and it was repaid by letting you live with me rent-free.”
The money had come when Grandpa Harold died. I hadn’t thought of it much because it was all wrapped up in the time that he died and when I quit my public school job. Jody let me stay with her free of charge until I started at Woodbridge. She’d just asked me for a loan. “I was your girlfriend.”
“You were.” She comes closer, and suddenly even having the dining room table between us isn’t enough. “I miss you, Tansy.”
“Don’t say that.” I hate that my voice goes up. I hate that I jump back.
“It’s true.”
“I don’t care.”
She’s close enough to touch me. She grabs my shoulder. Her fingers are ice, which makes me shudder, but even that doesn’t make her let go. She drops to her knees.
“Take me back, Tansy. Please. I miss you.” She ends on a sob, and her face looks as if it should be crying—her mouth turned down and her forehead wrinkled up—but there’s absolutely nothing in her eyes. They’re dry. I knew she loved that condo, but this is crazy excessive, even for her.
“Let go of me!”
She loops a hand around my knee and with the other reaches for my hand. I yank away hard enough that I stumble. My elbow smashes a box, and it clatters. I catch the small of my back against the edge of the kitchen counter.
She’s saying my name, over and over, and she keeps fucking reaching for me, saying, “Please!”
I kick. It’s barely more than a flail. I miss. “Go away!”
She throws herself back, exaggerated shock written on her face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Don’t come near me.” I’m half-standing, half-leaning against the counter. My grip is the only thing keeping me from falling. I refuse to go down. My flip-flops skitter across the tile. “Get the fuck away from me.”
She holds both hands up as if she’s the victim here, as if she’s showing me how harmless she is. “I’d never hurt you.”
“You raped me.” I push myself up and stand. My back aches so damn bad. I don’t let any of it show. “On the couch. You hurt me and you raped me and it wasn’t the only time.”
“That’s . . . That wasn’t . . .” She stands up.
God, she’s taller than me and this kitchen is so small. All the air is gone, because I can’t seem to breathe. I’m trying though. I’m learning how to breathe. “It was. It was you, making sure you had power over me. But you know what, Jody? You don’t. You’ll never have power over me again.”
“You fucking bitch,” she snarls, and it’s as if there’s a beast who’s been lurking under her pretty face that finally claws its way free. Her mouth is twisted. Her eyes are dark. There’s a dull red flush across her cheeks. Her hands clench and open. “You fucking white trashy country cunt. Fucking mountain people. You’re lucky that I ever paid attention to you in the first place.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, as if my hands aren’t shaking and my stomach isn’t threatening me with vomit. “Then why were you the one on your knees begging me to take you back?”
She snaps. Lunges for me. I duck, but there are boxes in the way. She grabs my wrist and pulls and I don’t freeze—I grab something out of the open box beside me. It’s wrapped in paper but it’s hard, and I smash it against the side of Jody’s face, then again. One more time as she comes closer instead of going away.
The third time I hit her, the thing I’m holding crashes against her nose. Both crumple. I think I must have been holding a glass, because it loses parts of itself and something sharp slices my finger.
But Jody claps both hands to her face and howls. Blood spurts from between her fingers. “Help me.”
“Fuck no.” I stand. My hand doesn’t hurt. I wonder if it will later. Or tomorrow. Everything’s kind of blurry right now. “Get out. Get out of my house. Get out of my life.”
“I need help.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“And I’ll tell them you assaulted me!” I think I’d be more scared if her words weren’t a mushed-up nasal mess.
“You’re the one in my house.”
“And she’s got me too.” Cai stands in the doorway, a six-pack dangling from her fingertips. “I’ll back her up.”
Cai’s tank top shows off the way her shoulders and arms are covered in tattoos. Her dark eyes are blazing. Her mouth is set in a flat line. She is so fierce that Jody looks like a baby in comparison.
And I’m just as fierce as her. My shoulders are back and my chin is up. “Get out,” I tell Jody. Once upon a time, all I wanted in the world was to go away. It was the only way I could save myself. Now I have a life worth saving, and it’s Jody’s turn to go away. “I know your bosses. I know your family. I’ll Facebook message every single one of your friends and tell them how you raped me. Unless you leave right now.”
“Don’t do this,” Jody says, but her eyes are so wide that I can see the white around the color.
“Don’t push me.”
Her mouth opens, then closes.
And then she leaves. Breaks and runs, pushing past Cai and battering shoulders. Cai isn’t shaken though. She stands firm until the door slams behind Jody, and then she drops the beer. It crashes and foams, but I have Cai’s arms around me and I suddenly realize I’m crying.
I break into sobs, but it doesn’t feel like the other times I’ve cried about this. “I’m safe,” I say, “I’m safe.”
“You are.” Cai’s hands coast over my back. I think she’s holding me in and making sure I’m all right. I can’t seem to get close enough to her. I fist her tank top at her waist and push my face against her neck. “I’ve got you.”
“She raped me.” I say the words against her skin. My hand hurts, and yet I’ve never felt more alive in my life. I’m so free. Jody doesn’t own even a little bit of me anymore, not even the parts that hide in the dark. “The last night. Other times. She was . . . she was . . .”
“She was a fucking cunt.”
I burst into laughter. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I know it.” She’s practically growling. “Jesus, Tansy. You’re so brave. I was so goddamn scared when I saw the car downstairs, and you’d already beaten the shit out of her. I can’t believe how brave you are.”
“I’m not. I’m so weak.”
She holds both sides of my face and makes me look her in the eyes. “You are brave. It’s why I love you. You’re still soft, that’s what makes all the parts of you. That’s why you’re so amazing.”
I have no words. Tears spill over my cheeks, and I think they’re washing me clean. I kiss Cai. She kisses me back.
I don’t know where we can go from here. Cai and I live two different lives, and I need to go home to Idaho. It’s where I’m supposed to be. But I know that no matter what, I’m better for having Cai in my life.
I used to think that I knew love, but that was just desperation and loneliness and dependence. This is new. This is strong.
I’m the one who’s grown. I’m the one who’s done the work to build myself up from the tiny speck I used to be—but Cai has held my hand through the whole process. And I love her. I love her more than I ever would have thought possible.
I don’t know what my world is going to look like without her.