Crawl(2)

When Colton had brought up the idea of Juliet accompanying him on his trips out of town instead of staying home with The Dog, she’d jumped at the chance. Boarding The Dog proved troublesome. The Dog had anxiety issues, and covered the back seat in vomit, urine, and feces during simple trips to the corner store. Trips to the kennel, which was over ten miles away, were most definitely not going to happen without the need of professional interior car care. Colton refused to buy The Dog Zoloft or Valium, so Juliet hired a dog sitter for those times when they’d be gone for extended periods.

It was only supposed to be the one time, after which they’d give The Dog to a proper shelter and be done with the whole mess. But Colton changed his mind when they got back, insisting that it would be cruel, that a shelter would no doubt put The Dog to sleep within a week’s time and then he and Juliet would both have some poor animal’s blood on their hands. At least that’s what Colton had told her. Truth was, he didn’t want to lose Vicky.

And to think, if Colton had simply offered Juliet the chance to go with him on work trips in the first place, she’d never have asked for the dog and Colton wouldn’t have been caught with his cock in the cookie jar.

The Dog had been boarded for the trip to her mother’s. The Subaru still smelled of canine evacuations.

Macklemore came over the radio, singing “Same Love.” She reached down and spun the volume higher. The song took her away from that gas station, away from that state, that world. She floated behind her eyes, riding waves of bass drums and trumpets, legato lyrics and melodic piano. Juliet melted into her seat, and was numb. Not happy, simply fluid, for the first time in weeks. Months. Ever. She’d felt so much so long ago that everything else since then seemed dumbed down and unreal. She was crying. She didn’t care. Needed the release. Her heart felt heavy, liquid, pumping in time with the music.

Their wedding day flickered across the screen of her mind. Her twirling in a pink dress, looking princess-like and carefree. Colton in his purple tux (she’d fought hard for that one) spun his bride across the dance floor to the tune of “Forever and Ever, Amen.” Their family and friends would say later that she seemed to float, that she was an angel, that she’d never looked so radiant and brilliant; her eyes had been full up with fireworks, perpetually exploding. Colton had been so handsome, a manicured five o’clock shadow darkening his chiseled face. The flat slope of his Stonehenge nose had been transformed; that one, subtle ugliness she had once cringed over was now a quality unique to him. Juliet’s mother had a horrible wine-colored birthmark that stretched from left cheek to collarbone, and Juliet used to wonder how Mom had ever snagged Dad. Now she knew. It was time. It was love. Both things combined created a bubble, a funhouse mirror effect, but instead of warping beauty, it hid blights, highlighted the good, elevated the positive. His schnoz disappeared for a while. Now it was back, and she hated Colton for allowing its return.

Colton slid into the car again, started the engine, and pulled out of the BP station. When they were back on the interstate, she glanced over at him, at his slab of a nose, and shivered. How cold she had become—Frosty the Snow Bitch tooling across eastern Alabama in a silver Subaru hatchback, accompanied by Stonehenge himself. Itself. Whatever.

Frosty the snow bitch? No, she wouldn’t do that. There was no need to call herself names. Colton had screwed the pooch (well, the pooch sitter, anyway) and spoiled everything. Damn him. How had she ever loved—?

Do not finish that thought, young lady. You’re angry. You finish that sentence and all this, all nine years of it, is over. Shut up and stare at your nail polish or something.

“Are you going to talk to me?” Colton asked.

Juliet was so shocked by his sudden question that it took her several seconds to respond.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“This. You and me. Why you’re leaving.”

“Oh,” she said shortly, “you mean you cheating on me. Gotcha.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, blanching the knuckles.

Juliet laughed mirthlessly. “You have no right to get angry here.”

She returned to the view scrolling past her window. The silhouettes of trees whizzed by, highlighted only by the backsplash of a red warning light atop a tower somewhere in the distance. Juliet tried to assure herself that she didn’t feel like throwing open her door and spilling out onto the tarmac simply to get away from the current topic of conversation.

“I’m not angry,” Colton said. “I’m frustrated. You said we’d work this out. That you wanted to work this out.”

“I do want to work this out,” she said, without looking at him. “It’s just too new. I need time. That’s why I’m visiting my mother. But, of course, I’ve already told you all this multiple times. Perhaps if my name were Vicky you’d give enough of a shit to actually listen to me.”

“She didn’t matter to me.”

“Right. You were just screwing her.”

“That’s low.”

She reared on him. “I’m low? Are you kidding me? You’ve got some nerve. Seriously.”

He flinched under her words.

“How are we going to rise above this if you can’t let it go?” he asked.

“We don’t have to rise above it. I have to forgive you. Right now, you’re not making that very easy. You messed up, Colt. Not me. If I do forgive you, it will be on my terms.”