Headline
Message text
CHAPTER 7. FIGHT IT OUT.
I took one last gulp of bourbon.
Liquid courage, they called it. God, I needed it. At least I wasn't shaking anymore.
It was 3 p. m. Ms. Marie would be here in less than an hour with the kids. Her son was asleep--or passed out--or maybe something worse--on the floor of the den. I'd covered him with a blanket and tucked a pillow under his head. He was snoring lightly.
I'd stolen a kiss from his sweet lips before stepping away. I felt like a thief for doing it, but I didn't care. Those were my kisses. They were mine, fuck it all.
He had lost his mind.
Yes, I had done him wrong. I had betrayed him. I had tortured him. I had, very possibly, assaulted him into madness.
I would pay. I wanted to pay. I would gladly pay for the rest of my life--any way he wanted.
I just had to show him how good my punishment would be -- for him. I swore to God he was going to live every guy's wet dream life from that day on.
I was friends with all the hot girls in this town. They all looked up to me for some reason--some weird, absurd reason--and they all lusted after my husband, sometimes quite openly. Always had. Now he could have them. He could fuck every last one of them.
And I would kneel and clean his cock after every single one.
He could have the whole bed to himself now. I'd sleep in a dog bed on the ground next to him.
He could have both sides of the closet. I would happily live out of two dresser drawers.
I'd eat live insects on command. I was losing my mind too.
"These are all stupid fucking ideas, Carrie. You stupid whore."
I looked over at where Danny lay sleeping. Did I say that out loud? I couldn't even tell anymore.
3:10. Jesus. Fuck me.
"What did you just spend the last ten minutes doing, you moron?"
I grabbed the phone. It was what it was. I needed time.
"Hello, Ms. Marie, hi!"
"Hey sweetie, I'm not running late, am I? We're just at the park down the street. I'll have them over in a little bit."
"Actually, Ms. Marie, I have... sort of a big favor to ask. And I'm really sorry."
"What's wrong, sweetie? Everything okay? You sound... panicked."
"I'll be honest. I am panicked. Danny and I just had a fight. A big one. He got really mad at me. Mad enough that he said he needed to lie down and take a nap."
"A nap? Danny? How mad? I don't think I've seen Danny mad since he was a teenager. Is he okay? Is he sick?"
"I don't think he's sick. We just had a spat. But he got really mad. I must've pushed his buttons all wrong somehow."
Marie was silent for a beat too long. She wasn't buying it. Had she ever really trusted me?
"Well... do you want me to keep the babies longer? Give you time to make it up to him? Go finish that nap with him, maybe?"
"I wish. Oh God, I so wish. But no. I think he's more mad than that. I'd love a bit more time to... argue it out, you know? Not go to bed angry. I hate putting this on you, but... any chance you could keep them longer? Or take them to my mom's if that's easier?"
"I can keep them. That's no problem. I'll just take them home with me, make dinner, and we'll watch a movie. They can spend the night--I've got pajamas, toothbrushes. I don't need anything. Give you all night to get Danny's hard head straight."
"I really, really appreciate it, Ms. Marie. You're a lifesaver. Are you sure you don't want me to call my mom and have her help out?"
"I can call Donna myself, Carrie. Don't be silly. You worry about that man of yours and get him straightened out. Or send him to me if he's still being a pain in the ass--I'll knock some sense into him. But I'm sure you can handle it. You always have. He can't be mad at you for too long."
"Thank you. And yes, of course--call Mom if you need her. I'll leave it to you."
"God bless you, sweetheart. Don't worry about a thing. Kyle and I are going to have a blast with the babies tonight. You do your thing."
So that was that. I had the whole night. Now what?
SHADOWS.
"Was that Mom?"
Fuck me. He was already awake, and I had no plan.
"Yeah," I said. "She was really sweet. I told her we had a spat and she offered to keep the babies tonight so we wouldn't have to go to bed angry."
It felt absurd, saying that out loud. A spat. Like we were normal people having a normal fight about laundry.
Get your head in the game, Carrie. This is life and death here.
"Look, Carrie," he said, sitting up slowly, rubbing his face. "I'm sorry I lost my grip there for a while. I need to keep it under control so we can figure out a way through this mess."
He looked down. "And I'm sorry I fell asleep on your carpet. That was pathetic."
My carpet?
I walked toward him, making huge time-out gestures with my hands, like a panicked basketball coach in the final seconds.
"Danny, you are scaring me. Why would you say my carpet? That's our carpet. Our den. Our home. Please Danny -- stop that. You have every right to be angry and every right to punish me and torture me. But I need you to know that's not my carpet. I know it's a small thing. But I feel like I have hurt you so much, some of the things you are saying don't make sense to me."
"I feel like I don't belong here, Carrie. I guess that's why it comes out that way. I feel like I'm on borrowed time in this house, in this life."
I should have had more bourbon.
"Danny. Tell me exactly what you mean by that. When you say you are on borrowed time here. Borrowed from whom? Who is going to make you leave here?"
"Carrie. Stop it. I already explained it you. Don't make me do it again and again. I've spelled it out. This mess, it ends in either celibacy for both of us, cuckolding for me, or divorce. I don't think any of those options sounds good, but divorce is the only really viable one."
"We will never -- and I mean never -- try cuckolding again. That was the dumbest fucking idea ever and it's all my fault. But it's done. Why do you still believe I would ever want that, after everything that has happened?"
"Did you not see the video, Carrie? I know you saw it."
"I did see it. So what? So Tyson and I had good sex. It's over. I had a good time in Vancouver. Remember? It was nice. It was expensive. We are never going back. No big deal. You think I'm going to ask for a divorce if we don't go back to Vancouver once a year? Are you crazy Danny?"
"Don't gaslight me, Carrie. It's obviously not the same. I saw it. You are going to need it again. And soon. You almost went with him that night. Right after getting fucked for two and a half hours, you almost left on a date with him. This is after you saw what it did to me, and it still took you five seconds of hesitation to decide."
I looked down on the floor. It was disgusting. Why had I fucking hesitated like that?
"So yeah, no. I don't but the Vancouver comparison at all. And I don't appreciate you still trying to bullshit me."
"I can live without it Danny. I can live without whatever last night was. I can't live without you. I know that. Fuck, you know that. Right?"
"I don't know anything anymore Carrie. I know it's been hard for you in the past. But you were a little girl back then. You have kids now. You are going to have to make it work either way."
I was holding hysteria at bay by a hair by then. I sat down and tried to breathe. I had to stop losing it every few minutes. While many people thought of me as an over-the-top drama queen, that had never been Danny's opinion. He had always treated my tears as a crisis. He'd always consoled me, softened his stand, compromised.
Yeah, it sounds like it was manipulative, but it had worked for us. Up until a week ago, nobody would have said our marriage didn't work. It was the marriage everyone envied. And part of that marriage was that he treated me like a woman and I treated him like a man. If he frowned, that meant something to me. I acted like it mattered. I didn't go complain about him to my friends, I didn't belittle him, I didn't call him a grump. If he was not happy, I wasn't happy, and I fixed it.
In return, if I cried, he acted like it mattered too. He didn't roll his eyes, he didn't tell me to grow up. He acted like I was his queen and my tears mattered.
But now, that was all gone. Over the course of a week I had destroyed the sacred premise of our marriage and now my tears were manipulative, hysterical, cheap. And I had ignored his silence, his unhappiness, his warnings. It was fair. But it was a huge loss.
Still it was what it was, and now I needed to hold it together.
"Danny, I have something really important to say and I need to say it all in one set. And I need to know you heard me."
He nodded and sat back down. "Okay."
"I'm going to propose an idea to you. It's not a trick. It's not a trap. It's just a framework. I want to know if three things can all be true at the same time--or if, by definition, one of them has to cancel the others out. I need you to hold space for that question, even if the answer's painful. Can you do that?"
He nodded. "I understand."
"Okay," I said, slowly. "Here's what I want you to consider: First, that I love you. I have always loved you. You are my soulmate and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Second, that up until recently, you and I have had amazing sex for fifteen years. And third, that last night, I had extraordinary sex with someone else. A stranger, even."
He blinked. I held my breath.
"I'm not asking if you believe any of that," I added. "Just... in theory. Can those three things all be true at once?"
He looked down at the floor. Thought about it. "It depends, Carrie. It's not really a yes-or-no question."
"Yes, it is," I said quietly. "I know it's hard. But it's still yes or no. Is it possible?"
He nodded slowly. "It's possible. So I guess that means yes."
Pause.
"But not for us."
I closed my eyes.
"I was there," he said. "I was there for the sex you kindly call amazing. And I was there for the night you call extraordinary. And those two things don't belong in the same universe."
I was shaking my head no.
"You don't want to accept it to my face, Carrie, but I was there. After seeing you and Tyson make love, I can't... the one does invalidate the other. What I saw... extraordinary doesn't begin to describe what you and Tyson shared last night. It was... something entirely different."
He looked pale. Sick. He pushed himself up and bolted out of the room.
I don't know what I was trying to do, but I tried to follow him. And for the first time in 17 years, he yelled at me.
"GIVE ME SOME ROOM!"
I froze in place, and the next thing I heard was the bathroom door slam shut.
It had been a long time since Danny had raised his voice at me like that. That memory hit me like a wave. It had been years since I had thought about Ronnie White.
We were in middle school. The All-County basketball game: St. Vincent's vs. St. Mary's, our cross-county rivals. I was assistant captain of the cheerleading squad. The gym was electric. The rivalry extended beyond the court--to the cheerleaders, the students in the stands, even the parents.
Neither my parents nor the Millers were there because neither of us were playing--Danny was just in the stands, cheering us on. He never played basketball. He was already a two-sport star and on track for a wrestling scholarship. The coaches didn't want to risk him. He was the pride of St. Vincent's, and the trophies were piling up.
Ronnie White was our 8th-grade star player. His legend only grew that night. In the final seconds, down by four, he made two huge plays--a behind-the-back assist, a steal--and then, after a timeout, he hit a three-pointer from so far back the gym gasped. The bench cleared. Fans rushed the court. Ronnie was the center of it all, swarmed and celebrated.
He'd always been into me. I knew that. Everyone did. I flirted back sometimes--the way girls do when they feel untouchable. When you're spoken for, it feels harmless.
When I approached him after the game, I was smiling. Cheering. Caught in the moment. He pulled me into a hug, leaned in like he was going to say something, and I leaned in too, not sure why. But we ended up frozen in that moment, faces right up to each other.
And then I kissed him.
It was meant to be a peck on the lips although for the life of me I could never understand what I meant to do by doing that. It was already so stupid. But he made it much worse because he kissed me back--on the lips--and I didn't stop it. Maybe five seconds. Then he let me go, sort of, but kept his hands around my waist as we kept moving toward the hallway by the locker rooms.
I didn't dare look for Danny. I knew--I knew--he'd seen. I just kept smiling and cheering, hoping I was wrong.
Ronnie tried to guide me all the way to the boys' locker room. He said, "Come on, Carrie," like I was just going to follow. Was he hoping to kiss me again?
That's when I saw Danny, waiting for us at the end of the walkway.
The whole thing happened so fast. Ronnie was the bigger kid, but Danny was the star wrestler. It was never a fair fight, so Danny would never get to even be proud of the outcome. It was just ugly. They didn't taunt each other at all. They just went at each other, and 20 seconds later, Danny was on top, pounding Ronnie over and over.
I screamed at him to stop, but it was like I wasn't even there.
It took two grown men to pull Danny off.
I had nightmares for months. Nightmares where no one stopped him. Where he killed Ronnie with his bare hands. Where we were both sentenced to death because I was guilty too. I'd wake up screaming, strapped to an electric chair next to Danny, both of us convulsing together.
And that was just the start.
Danny got detention for the rest of the year. Nearly lost wrestling. Nearly got kicked out of school.
And me?
I became that girl. The girl who kissed the Black kid. The girl who "cheated" on the golden boy. The whispers were vicious, cruel, constant.
Danny and I had just the one fight, a week later. He didn't even want to fight. He just wanted me to go away, but I couldn't let him go. If it had been up to him, he would have just ghosted me before ghosting was a thing.
So in order to force a conversation, I stood by his front lawn for what felt like hours, day after day, waiting for him. When he finally came outside, I begged him to listen. He was patient at first, just repeating over and over that I was too much trouble, that he needed to focus on high school now, that he couldn't trust me anymore. He said he was sorry -- but I was just not worth the worry or the distraction.
I kept begging. He lost his temper at some point when I wouldn't let him end the conversation. He said we were bothering the neighbors, that this was pointless, embarrassing.
When I started really losing it, he finally raised his voice.
"THAT'S ENOUGH CARRIE! IT'S OVER! IT'S OVER! GO HOME!"
Then his front door slammed. I collapsed on the ground then and it took both Ms. Marie and my mom (I guess someone had called her to come get me) to get me off the ground and take me home. And that was the end. After that, my mom wouldn't let me go over there.
He didn't speak to me again for over a year.
I wrote letters. Left notes. Waited by the pool. By the park. Nothing.
I cried every night. I begged my mom to explain it to me. I kept asking the same question: Why? Why did I kiss Ronnie? Why did I throw away the one boy who made me feel whole? She didn't have an answer. No one did.
Danny started dating Jenna Peterson the first week of high school.
I was stuck finishing the world's loneliest 8th grade. My grades cratered. I quit cheerleading and volleyball. I started smoking behind the old gym, got into trouble with the wrong crowd. Fought with everyone who actually cared about me.
Ronnie did show up once. I screamed at him. Called him a creep. Blamed him for everything. Told him I hated him. Not my proudest moment. He transferred schools a year later. I never saw him again.
By sophomore year, Danny and I were back together, but we never mentioned Ronnie again. Never brought it up. Never asked for an explanation. And I loved him for that. So deeply.
But now, I wonder if that was a mistake. Because it feels a little bit like history repeating itself. Except this time, it's much worse. This time, I knew exactly what I was doing. No excuses.
And the only person who ever truly saw me--who forgave me without asking questions--was now behind that bathroom door, sick at the very memory of what I had become.
BATHROOM MIRROR. (DANNY'S VOICE)
I was on my knees when it came up again. Second time. Maybe third. I wasn't counting anymore. Just dry heaves now. Violent. Wrenching.
My body trying to purge something that wasn't even in my stomach. Something buried deeper than food. Deeper than thought.
The tile burned cold into my forearms. My jaw hurt. My ribs ached from clenching. My throat was raw, like I'd screamed myself hoarse even though I hadn't made a sound.
Then I reached for the sink. Pulled myself up. And there I was.
Not me. Not the man Carrie married. Something else. Something twisted and hollow. My face was blotchy--red and pale in patches. My eyes looked like bruises.
"Fuck," I said, barely a whisper. My voice cracked on it. Weak.
I splashed water on my face. Again. Again. Left the faucet running just to hear something, to keep from falling all the way inward.
But the loop had already started. Had been going for hours. It was automatic now.
Frame by frame. Her voice. Her moaning. Her laughing. Not performative. Not staged.
It was joy. It was need. It was him.
I gripped the edge of the sink until the porcelain groaned.
Every time I tried to focus on something else, even for a heartbeat, my brain yanked me back like punishment. I bent again, thought I might puke again, but there was nothing left. Just that bitter taste of acid and bile and failure.
The failure had a shape. A face. His face.
The way she held him at the end. Whispered to him like he was her secret. Her home. The way she wrapped her legs around him like she was his.
Not just sex. Not just a kink. It looked like... love.
I blinked, hard. The mirror wavered. I barely recognized the man in it.
Get it together.
That voice again. The one that sometimes helped. But it was drowned out by the others.
You're going to lose everything.
She's going back to him.
You'll never touch her again.
You were never enough.
She was faking it with you.
You watched it happen.
You let it happen.
You are a cuckold. A joke.
And underneath all of it, another voice. Quieter. Older.
You knew what she was, once. You just forgot.
You forgave her too easily.
She chose him back then, too.
The thought made me stagger. God. Seventh grade. Ronnie White. That gym hallway. How had I buried that so deep, for so long?
I thought I had made peace with it. I thought we had moved past it. I thought love and marriage and babies had overwritten it. But now? Now it felt like the same story, just told with more teeth.
Different man. Same ache.
The same sick, helpless feeling in my chest. The one that told me, again, I was watching her want someone else--and I wasn't enough to stop it.
I leaned over the sink again. Spat into the drain. My throat burned. My hands pressed into my temples.
I felt disgusting. Not just because of her. Because I still loved her.
Because some twisted part of me still wanted her. Still missed her.
That was the part I couldn't forgive. I wanted to unlove her. I wanted to go back in time and beg my younger self to walk away. At thirteen. At seventeen. At nineteen.
But I couldn't. I never could. Even though she was always trouble. Too much trouble.
I wiped my mouth with the towel. Turned off the water.
Looked at myself again. Just a wreck of a man. A husband betrayed. A boy reliving a humiliation that had never really gone away.
I stood straighter. Took one more breath. And stepped toward the door.
You need to log in so that our AI can start recommending suitable works that you will definitely like.
There are no comments yet - be the first to add one!
Add new comment