DITW 13-13: Happy Walks and Shade

The room spun. The cruelty astounded him. He recoiled, aghast, devastated. Kimmy had lured him close so she could sink a fatal blade into his heart. He backed away from her, bewildered, stunned, the whole world pulled out from under him, snatched by an unseen magician’s hand. Kimmy pursued him, her face twisted in mock confusion. When she saw he was speechless, she said, “What is it? Why are you...?”

He covered his hands over his face. “Kimmy, you...”

Kimmy’s hands went around his wrists. “Josh, wait, it’s not . . . It’s not...”

His hands came away, and he studied her face, looking in her eyes to see behind this bewildered facade, knowing malevolence burned behind them. He could barely speak, his throat constricted. He finished her denial: “It’s not his?”

Her hands fell from his wrists and she now she spoke in a hushed tone. “It’s not.”

“Kimmy, oh my god,” he said, retreating further, sliding off the bed, grabbing his towel, hating his nakedness, hating the weakness that had followed his wife’s lure, putting his dick inside her because it shut his brain off when he did.

She called after him, but he was headed to the closet, needing to be clad in the armor of underwear and jeans and flannel. He’d never felt more vulnerable in his life. She pleaded, and he turned, saw her on the bed, covering her own nudity, legs together, on her knees, arm over her breasts. She said, “I’m on the pill.”

He grunted and reeled, fleeing into the closet and putting on underwear, his dick flinging the stringy wet conjured by his wife’s extreme indecency. Hypnotizing him into fucking her when he should know better. Underwear, then jeans, throwing a T-shirt on . . . Kimmy was in the doorway now, wrapped in the robe she kept in the bathroom. She said it again, told him she was on the pill as if he hadn’t heard her the first time.

“Get out of the closet, please,” he said, pulling a sweatshirt over his head, feeling trapped with her blocking the door.

“Josh, you’re acting crazy. I don’t think you know—”

He had the sweatshirt on now, tugging it to his waist, head popping out of the hood. “You weren’t on the pill at fucking Tiffany’s, were you?” That shut her up. He said, “I know you weren’t.”

“Josh, I wouldn’t be happy about being pregnant if I thought it wasn’t yours.”

“Yeah, you would,” he said. “You’d do it to trick me. You’d do it to get away with it.”

Kimmy’s brow lowered in anger, and now she wasn’t so sweet or pleading, saying, “Be careful what you’re saying, Josh.”

“Or what? You’ll have an affair with my high school bully? Get pregnant?”

Kimmy saw she couldn’t argue the point, and seeing acceptance in her posture uplifted him, amplified his righteousness. As she leaned on the doorframe and put a hand to her temple, he moved closer, saying, “At the very best, Kimmy, why the fuck would you tell me you’re pregnant on the day I watched Devlin Stone fuck you? Why would you forever link those two things?”

Her hand dropped to her side, and she sighed, speaking with her eyes closed, saying, “Josh, we’re going to have a baby. We’re going to have our family.”

He said, “Maybe I didn’t plant it deep enough. Maybe if you give birth it’s because it’s Devlin’s.” He tried to step past her, but she clung to him.

“Don’t be crazy, Josh. You’re taking this the wrong way. Don’t leave, don’t take off on me.”

“Why not?” He said, “I’m a coward, remember? It’s the thing I’m good at,” and pushed her off of him, storming out of the closet and into their bedroom.

Kimmy followed, pleading again, “Please, Josh, please don’t leave me. Stay and talk, hear me out.”

He’d hated referring to himself as a coward, had only said it to hurt her, make her feel bad for ever calling him one. He paused, hand on the bedroom door, dropping his chin down, knowing every ion in his body wanted to escape Kimmy’s electromagnetic force. The closer she came, the greater the force, and the greater pain loaded onto his heart. In that paused moment of time he could picture Devlin’s baby growing inside the woman he loved, and the woman he loved liking that it was Devlin’s baby, and the two of them laughing behind his back. He recoiled when she touched him.

She said, “I know, okay? I know how it sounds. I didn’t think how it would sound before I . . . I’m selfish. Okay? I know I’m selfish. I felt so great a minute ago, so glad we were in bed together, I wanted to tell you something good, something that would make you happy.”

“You’re insane,” he said. “You’re crazy.”

“Josh, I love you.” Her smooth brow knit into a furrow. “How can you say that? I love you.”

He still looked down at his hand on the door lever. “If it’s Devlin’s will you get rid of it?”

She said, “It’s not Devlin’s. Don’t be ridiculous.”

He scoffed at her brazenness, looking at her now. “Will you get rid of it?”

“It? It’s our baby, Josh.”

“And if it’s Devlin’s...?”

“It’s not,” she said, jaw clenching.

“You’re kidding me. One hundred percent sure. You expect me to what? Raise my bully’s baby with you?”

“Josh, stop saying that,” she said, slouching, putting up her hands on either side of her head like she wanted to cover her ears. “Please, please . . . I’m talking about our baby.”

He said, “You’re talking about a baby,” cold, detached.

The hands near her ears went to her mouth, and he could see her eyes swell with tears. It didn’t make him feel good, but he would never fall for her trickery again. His own eyes began to tear in sympathy, knowing she wasn’t faking the misery he saw now. They’d suffered in the spring, each of them in their own way. A pregnancy would mean something incredible to her, but she’d betrayed him and lost his trust. “You can lie some more, tell me there’s no way it’s Devlin’s, but I won’t believe you. I just won’t.”

“I’m not trying to,” she said, voice a thin whisper, tears rolling on her cheeks now.

“I know you’re going to go to work tomorrow with Devlin. I know you’re pregnant now. What do you want me to do, stand by your side and let you make a fool out of me?”

“Josh, don’t say that. You’re not a fool—”

“Not anymore,” he said and levered the door. Kimmy stopped him with a hand on his arm. He regarded her. Her eyes had taken on an expression of horror.

She said, “I don’t want to be superstitious...”

“But what?”

“Don’t” she said, shaking her head, lips slimming.

“Don’t what? Leave you? You want me to stay and let you destroy me?”

“The negativity,” she said. “It’s bad. It’s a bad start.”

He scoffed again. “A bad start? What if I’m not even a part of it?”

“You are,” she pleaded, nails digging through his sweatshirt into his bicep. “You’re all of it.”

“Look in my eyes and tell me something,” he said.

Kimmy’s sniveling eyes met his, knowing he would say something that would hurt her. More tears; her cheeks had reddened. He asked it anyway. “Tell me there’s not a single chance it’s Devlin’s. Lie to my face one more time.”

Her hand dropped, and she said, “It’s yours.”

Cruelty came to him easier now, and he said, “Do you even want it to be?” Kimmy’s look of unambiguous anguish was exquisite, and he enjoyed it for only a fraction of a second before he felt shame and guilt. Still, he yanked open the door and left. The further he marched down the hall, the more he hoped she would pursue him. He stopped at the kitchen, turned back, disheartened to see she hadn’t.

He held fists to his cheeks, pressing knuckles into the hollows, staring with madness into the kitchen, feeling his insides tearing apart. Remorse loomed the strongest; remorse for the direction he’d allowed their relationship to take. Despair over where his relationship should be. His toes curled the edge of demise’s precipice. A premonition swelled inside him that if he departed there would be nothing when he returned. Kimmy had just told him she was pregnant. Had just told him they would have a baby...

But even that simple recollection turned his stomach. Not his. Not his. He stomped past the kitchen to the apartment door, but stopped again, face twisting up in the cold paralysis of indecision. Wanting to harm Kimmy but wanting to console her. Console her for the harshness of his words, wanting to console her because she might be pregnant with his child. And they’d suffered before.

When he turned to the kitchen, Kimmy was there. Beautiful in her bathrobe and her clinging hair, sadness in her eyes. Kimmy could lie and betray, but she was no thespian. She could only portray the cold. The tears, the grief, the misery were all real.

She said, “I cared. You don’t know how much I cared. You don’t know how much hurt I saved you from. I wanted this for you, but I wanted it in your own time. Devlin’s too stupid to care. Devlin ruined it.”

“You can’t stop talking about him,” he said, words of anger, but spoken in quiet monotone, both of them stating harsh things and wanting them to be heard enough to squelch the emotion that would have them tearing each other to shreds. “You’re obsessed with him.”

“You are too, Josh,” she whispered.

“No. I’m not. It’s you.” He met her eyes. “You force me to think about him every day. Every day, Kimmy.” Her lips pinched closed, and she looked down. He said, “Every day since Tiffany’s party Devlin Stone is in my head. Because of what you did. Don’t you see it? You brought this on me. On us.”

He watched as her face contorted, biting her own lips, shaking her head. She said, “Devlin’s a fool. He thinks he can start his own thing, thinks he has what it takes. He doesn’t see what he has. Doesn’t see how it works. He wants to make his mark, impress his daddy, but he has no idea what he’s doing.”

“You are obsessed with him, Kimmy. He’s all you can talk about.”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “I talk about him because he’s in my way.”

“You think I want revenge? I don’t. I want this to be over—fuck, I want it to never have happened, but...”

Kimmy crossed her arms, eyes soft and expression open.

He dipped his chin and exhaled. “You’re going to go to work tomorrow. You’re going to have your baby. Even if it’s Devlin’s.”

She showed him an expression of restrained denial, hating that she had to allow him to state something she didn’t believe. But her actions had made this moment; her betrayal had carved it from a solid block of marble. There was nothing she could say.

He looked up at the ceiling. “You know, everything you’ve done to me, I can’t believe I’m not screaming and ranting and raving like a lunatic. I wanted to throw everything you own out the window. Now look at me. Leaving again with my tail between my legs. I’m your coward, remember?”

She rolled her eyes up and shook her head, more tears coming.

“I’m no coward, Kimmy. I’d fight for you to the end. I’d fight to the death for you. Problem is you’re the villain. You’re the enemy. You’re the one who wants to destroy me.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, voice quivering. “I want you to stay.”

He nodded, but looked away. “I think that would be the worst thing I could do.”

She covered her mouth and squeezed tears from her eyes.

He grabbed his car keys and left without saying goodbye.