Katie
I stare down at the hotel phone where it sits, the receiver still warm from being pressed between my ear and shoulder.
“Holy shite.”
Perhaps those shots of whiskey two days ago were reckless and stupid, but being totally impulsive—even for just a brief speck of time—may have inspired an epiphany. After my training session at the academy this morning, I made a phone call to a ladies’ fashion boutique in the East Village and made an appointment to stop by with some purse samples. Surely I’m going mad, cold-calling some fancy New York shop without a proper introduction or electronic communication beforehand, but it would appear, however, my accent is something of a commodity in the States. Brilliant. I’m not going to split hairs.
Not now when I’m gagging for something good to happen. I need something. My morning was filled with tortured glances from Jack across the firing range and I can’t sit down, stand up or focus in the wake of them.
I woke up an hour before Jack yesterday morning—Monday—my bladder screaming at me, my head pounding from the whiskey and tears I’d finally let fall after he passed out. When he jackknifed on the bed beside me, shouting my name—KATIE!—they threatened to begin coursing down my cheeks all over again, but I managed to lay there quietly while Jack retrieved the handcuff key and set me free. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands as I left, neither one of us able to find an appropriate goodbye.
That’s what I reckoned it was, anyway. Goodbye.
His shadowed eyes said anything but goodbye this morning, though. The apology in them was blatant, but I already lost two days to wallowing over what happened in the bar. I can’t spare any more time wondering if I acted harshly. If he misses me in the fierce, rather dramatic way I can’t seem to stop missing him.
Or if he’s all right.
He didn’t seem all right after all those drinks. It was as though the Jack I’d come to know had gone into hiding. Stopped trying. Or he’d been catapulted back to day one when we met and sex was all he could offer me. In lieu of words. Honesty. But . . . when he left me Sunday morning, that wasn’t the case. Did something happen? Whatever the opposite of closure is, that’s what I’ve got. I can’t help but think I missed something important.
Pushing up from the desk, I cross with a purposeful step to my suitcase of handbags and unzip it to reveal the rainbow contents. My trip is fast approaching its end and I have yet to cross a major item off my adventure list. Selling a bag. Will that actually change today?
This afternoon is about something very important I need to prove to myself. I have free will. I have dreams. They don’t coincide with my father’s—not anymore—but they’re important nonetheless. Allowing something I love as much as crafting bags to be inconsequential would mean letting myself down and I won’t do that. Jack sidetracked me for a while, but he’s no longer absorbing all my focus. Or he shouldn’t be, rather. Maybe getting out and doing something positive for myself will distract me from thoughts of him.
Where will I find a distraction from thinking of Jack back in Dublin? The sights and sounds of the Olympic arena infiltrate, the feel of the rifle bag on my shoulder, but I shake them off. That’s not a decision for today.
Refocusing on my bags, Jack’s voice drifts from the ether into my ears, pausing my reach for a blue clutch in midair. I’ll buy all of them right now. Just give me a couple hours to sing on the subway.
“Dammit, Jack,” I whisper, forcing measured breaths. Choosing carefully as possible with the specter of Jack in the room, I withdraw a navy blue handbag, white-and-cream, plus a clutch with some creative gold stitching on the front. I place them carefully in the small tote bag I saved from knickers shopping the other day and leave the room. Hoping it will temporarily clear my head of an unrelenting pirate smile, I quiz the front desk clerk about how to catch the new Second Avenue subway downtown and twenty minutes later, find myself climbing aboveground at the Houston stop.
“Now for the hard part,” I murmur, checking my written directions. The current of brisk-paced New Yorkers tangles around me, but I finally get moving in the direction of the shop. It’s up ahead with a smart, subtle red awning and with mere, tension-riddled moments to go, I review my goals. Do I want them to make a large order for bags? No, of course not. I don’t have near enough inventory to fulfill a massive order. Even thinking about such an outcome is getting well ahead of myself. What I’m hoping for is the following: some sort of confirmation that I’m not chasing some silly dream of being a part-time handbag designer when I’m not up to par. If I could only convince the owner to test them with her clients, I would be happy. A baby step.
I’m reaching for the door handle when a loud collection of notes goes off in my bag. It takes me a few breaths to realize my phone is ringing, since I’ve only been turning it on to make calls home to Dublin. But when I check the screen and see it’s my father, I answer right away, hoping nothing is the matter. My father is the one that called to tell me Sean had died and I still haven’t quite beaten the cold, polarizing trickle that hits me whenever he rings.
“How are you keeping, Da?”
“Fine and yourself?”
His jovial response makes me relax. “Grand.” I look down at the bag dangling from my fingers, cream, navy and white winking up at me. “Just out for a walk.”
I hear my mother fussing in the background, spoons clinking like they’re having an evening cup of tea. “Was something the matter?” I keep my tone light. “We only spoke this morning.”
“Are you sick of us from three thousand miles away?” My mom’s giggle is muffled, but I hear it and can’t help but smile. They’ve always been one another’s biggest fans when they’re not having a bickering session. “Sure, that must be some kind of record.”
“No, of course not.” I back up against the building to let a group of people pass. “I was only making sure nothing was the matter.”
“Fine enough.” There’s a long pause and I imagine him taking a long sip of his tea. “After we hung up this morning, I called over to the facility.”
“Why?” The sharp question is out of my mouth and snatched up by the wind before I realize I’ve spoken. The “facility” is a shorthand way of referring to the Irish Institute of Sport in Dublin, where I—along with dozens of Olympians—trained prior to Rio. “I mean, was there something going on or—”
“Nothing specific.” We’ve spent so much time together, I know when he’s testing me, deciding how much to say. Maybe the distance separating us is the reason he goes for broke. “They’ve announced the date for the Olympic trials. It’s a fair bit away, but you know how those years go by in a blink.”
Not for me. They dragged like sloths crossing the road. While stuck to glue traps. Silence passes while the foot traffic around me blurs into a carousel of colors. “Please, Da. Why are you telling me this?”
“They’re opening the facility to hopefuls in the coming months. You’ve upped the standard, Katie. Resting on our laurels isn’t an option if we want to be contenders come Tokyo. They’re going to throw everything they’ve got at us.” He rushes on before I can respond. “I know you were having misgivings about training again, but we don’t have to pack the schedule as tight this time around. You’ve got the job now. But we could work around it.”
That’s how it starts. Just a weekend at the range, here and there. Until cracks in my technique require more time, more fine-tuning. Before long, it’s a seven-day-a-week obsession with being the best. Neglecting everything else, particularly the outside world. And never once, not once, talking about why my father’s drive is at full volume. Sean. “I don’t want to work around it,” I say, louder than intended. “I’m done. We . . . we talked about it and I’m done.”
“At least take some time to have a think about it.” His hurt is tangible through the phone. “I didn’t realize training with me was such a hardship.”
“It’s not. I never said that.”
“It was implied.” His laughter is flat, a little desperate. “You know it means the world to me, Katie. I’ll go mad stuck in the house.”
My scream is internal but loud. Fingers tightening into a painful fist around my bag, I do a quick mental count to ten, visions of my father’s devastation after his son’s death passing by like a funeral procession behind my eyes. “I’m sorry.” I swallow hard. “I will. I’ll think about it.”
When we hang up a moment later, my hand lifts to open the dress shop door, but drops before it can close around the black metal. The future doesn’t seem as open as it did on the ride downtown. It doesn’t feel like mine. Maybe my future doesn’t belong solely to me. Am I being selfish wishing it did? Does it make me a bad daughter?
Looking down at my phone, I have a dizzying urge to call Jack, but I manage to push it aside, worried that in my state of mind I would use him for comfort and regret leading him on afterwards. Still, I imagine him walking beside me, keeping me tucked into his side and it manages to be just enough to keep me moving.
Nonetheless, I walk back to the train with the bags clutched to my chest, the weight on my shoulders growing heavier with each step.
Jack
How did I go from the master of random hookups to a stalker in less than two weeks?
I’m sitting in the lobby of Katie’s hotel trying to pinpoint the exact moment my DNA was swapped for someone else’s, but it’s not helping. Fuck no, it’s only making things worse. Because a revolving door of scenes from the last two weeks are having a goddamn party behind my eyelids, which are swollen from lack of sleep. Katie telling me about her brother, glowing in the morning sunlight, taking a picture of the recruits for her Instagram, peeling off her dress, beaming up at the waiter, swaying across from me on the subway.
I’m wrecked. Since I took up my post on a bench in the hotel lobby an hour ago, two people have asked me if I’m okay. I can’t even remember if I answered them or just stared into space like some lobotomized creature from a horror film. The fact that my hands are shaking doesn’t help, I’m sure. They won’t stop and I’m too exhausted to push them into my pockets, so screw it. Here they are, everyone. Proof I have a sickness.
Somehow I’ve managed to stay off the bottle since Katie bailed yesterday morning. No, sorry, since Katie was released yesterday morning. Knowing I would see her at the academy helped me cross the mile marker to this morning, but it turns out, seeing Katie and not speaking to her or touching her was almost worse than staying away. I’m craving a drink so bad, the pressure in my chest is growing unbearable. As soon as I take a sip, that tightening knot in my chest will loosen, so the temptation is huge. Every city block in Manhattan seems to have a bar. I passed a good dozen on the way here. They’re everywhere.
Where is Katie? Logically, I know she’s not upstairs with someone else, but the lack of sleep and alcohol is doing funny things to my common sense. Like telling it to go fuck itself. If she’s met someone or agreed to a date, I’m going to rip this place to shreds. I know it like I know my own name.
I suck in a long breath and push it out, forcing myself to calm down. Causing a scene is not why I’m here, but in order to accomplish what I came for, I need to see Katie. God, I just want to see her so bad without the academy walls surrounding us.
When she finally walks into the lobby, I swear my mind is playing tricks on me. But, no . . . no, the closer she gets, I can smell mint and need rains down on me like a waterfall. Not need for sex, although it’s right there under the surface. This need is for contact, though. Being close. Absorbing her truth and honesty. Reminding myself at one time she thought I could be more than the academy’s resident slacker with vodka on his breath.
“Jack,” Katie breathes, slowing to a stop five feet from where I’m standing. “What are you doing here?”
Trying to be near you any way I can. “I, uh . . .” I stand and finally manage to bury my hands in my pockets, but I can’t tell anymore if they’re shaking from alcohol or Katie withdrawals. Around me, the lobby seems to animate after moving in slow motion for an hour. Like she brought it to life. My fingernails dig into my palms to stop from reaching out to brush her hair back. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. There’s something I need to say.”
She doesn’t come any closer, but I sense she’s wishing for escape. “Whatever it is . . . maybe you could let it go for now?”
There’s a hint of a plea in her voice and for the first time since she walked in, I notice her eyes are red, her lips patterned with teeth marks. “What’s wrong?” I move forwards without thinking. “You’ve been upset. Did something happen to you?”
“No.”
“Katie.”
“I promise,” she whispers, holding my gaze. “I’m fine.”
My feet move all by themselves, carrying me closer like she’s a force of gravity. “That makes one of us.”
“I can’t do this now.” Misery ripples across her expression. “I’m trying really hard to ignore how rotten I feel and I can’t do that when you’re looming.”
And shit, I am looming. I’m right up in her space, trying to inhale her, with no memory of coming so close. I start to back up a pace, but blue leather peeks out at me from the bag she’s holding, grabbing my attention. Right away, I recognize the purses and a rock sinks in my stomach. Oh Jesus Christ. This is what torture feels like. Not being able to scoop her up into my arms, carry her upstairs and let her cry into my neck. Being stripped of that right. “Ah, honey. What happened with your purses?” She gathers the bag to her chest, but doesn’t answer. I can tell she’s reluctant about sharing what happened with me, but those denim eyes track up to mine like she can’t help but seek comfort and fuck, my heart kick starts with a sense of purpose. “Strike one doesn’t mean you’re out, Katie. They’re amazing. You can see . . .” I tamp down the impulse to kiss her forehead. “You can look at those purses and see how much thought went into them. Someone is going to bite or I’ll walk down Broadway in a fucking dress.”
Laughter tilts her eyes at the corners, but doesn’t leave her mouth. “I appreciate your confidence, but I didn’t even go far enough to get rejected.” Her shoulders bunch. “I guess you could say I chickened out.”
“You won’t next time. I won’t let you. Same way you didn’t let me chicken out of doing that demonstration.”
Warmth flares in her expression a split second before she shuts it down. And I curse myself for making the implication that I’ll have the privilege of helping her get through anything. My words put an invisible distance between us, impenetrable enough to make me panic. Panic about what, though? She’s not available to me anymore. It’s in the way she steps back, rolling her lips inwards, the picture of someone searching for a way out of an awkward encounter. “If there was something you wanted to say . . .”
“Yeah,” I say, pushing through the rust in my throat. “Yeah, I’ve already apologized for what happened at the bar Sunday night. There’s really nothing I can say that’s good enough. But I was too fucked up over you leaving in the morning to say I’m sorry for . . . the handcuffing, Katie. I should not have let you do that. I shouldn’t have been relieved when you did it.” My hands slide out of my pockets and I barely stop myself from reaching for her. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry I kept you somewhere you didn’t want to be.”
“I forgive you.” I swear she’s staring at me without breathing, like a mathematician trying to work out long division. “I’m sorry I drank that whiskey in front of you.”
“Don’t be,” I say louder than planned, stepping back into her space. Christ, I can’t help it. My heart misses being pressed up against hers. But she’ll run if I grab hold, so I stop short of embracing her. She needs to hear this. I need her to understand what I’m starting to realize myself. A reality check that has been a long time in coming. “I never thought about anyone but myself and my own bullshit before when I drank. You helped changed that. I see what my friends see now. What you see. And it’s . . . shit, Katie. I need to change.”
For a second, I think she’s going to cave. Her features are soft, her gravity inviting. She wants to give me another chance. But the elevator dinging behind me—or maybe a memory from Sunday night—seems to break her of the trance, jerking her back. “That’s good, Jack.” Like a whisper moving through the air, she goes past me. “I wish you the best of luck. You know I do.”
Needing to give her the same reassurance, even in the face of my disappointment, I hold the elevator open with a hand. “Next time. You’ll find someone who loves those purses.”
“Or you’ll wear a dress,” she murmurs. “Don’t forget that bit.”
Claws sink into my heart. “I won’t.”
“Bye, Jack.”
“Bye, Snaps.”
When the elevator door closes, I feel her moving farther and farther away. The lobby starts to move in slow motion around me again and the absence of Katie makes the cravings noticeable once again, my neck and chest tightening, my tongue dry. She’s right. She’s right to run away from this. Not only because I’m a reminder of her brother’s life being taken, but . . . it’s possible I need her too much. Katie was the one to show me my own reflection, but now that I know the image I project back to the world, my recovery has to be up to me.
Clarity hurts like a bitch right now, but it’s a cop-out to deep drowning memories at the bottom of a bottle. I don’t want to make excuses for myself anymore. I definitely don’t want to be seen as a liability to the people who care about me. Now that I’m conscious of what I’ve been doing, continuing the same way would be inexcusable.
Where the fuck do I start, though?
My sense memory kicks in and I recall the feeling of being in the firing range. The calm, collected process of aiming, focusing, feeling in control. If I could feel that sensation right now, if I could be assured of my own capabilities, it could get me through this one day. I’d worry about tomorrow when the sun came up again.
I snag my cell out of my pocket and dial Charlie.
“Hey, man.” Taking one last look at the elevator, I back towards the street. “You want to kill a couple hours at the range?”