Bait (Wake, #1)(90)

The night went on and on.

Finally, we went to the hotel and Grant put me to bed. He took care of me.

“Thank you,” I said as he pulled my shoes off and pulled the covers up over my dress.

“You're welcome Mrs. Kelly.”

Then I puked.

We flew to St. Bart’s the next afternoon. I was well and truly hung-over and Grant was delicate with me. I wore my sunglasses and admittedly was zero fun.

When we arrived on the island I'd asked him if we could rest up the first night and he agreed. It was the first night of our honeymoon, the second day of my marriage, and I would have given anything to be anywhere else.

“I'm sorry, Grant. This can't be that much fun for you,” I told him on the second day we were there.

“It's okay. I just want you to feel better. Maybe we can do some stuff tomorrow. Go out. See the island a little. Maybe do some snorkeling or something. To be honest, it's been kind of nice not doing anything.” He sat at the opposite end of the couch and rubbed my feet as I lay there watching television.

“Okay. I'll be better tomorrow. I promise.” Then I pretended to fall asleep until I actually did.

The next morning, I woke up and felt much better everywhere except in my chest. I expected the pain that had taken up residence there wasn't from overindulging at our party.

I decided to take a walk and clear my mind. Get my head straight.

I wrote Grant a note letting him know where I'd gone, grabbed the hotel’s stationery and pen, and left.

My crazy mind concocted this crazy notion that if I wrote everything down and threw it into the ocean that I could let it go. I think some old tribe somewhere used to do that with dead people. They'd set them free. That was my plan.

I desperately needed to do that the memories of Casey and the part of my heart he lived in. I kept replaying over and over the things that he'd said to me before the wedding.

He told me that he loved me. He told me that I was his. Deep down, I knew that was the truth. But, why hadn’t he told me sooner? Why hadn’t he offered permanent before? He told me he got me, so surely he should have known that was what I wanted all along.

I sat there on the sand, popping all of the stupid fake nails off my fingers. My nails weren’t pretty, but at least they weren’t fake.

I thought about the word fake and how it applied not only to the nails I wore, but the wife I already was. I didn’t want to be a fake wife. A fake anything.

Clarity came to me on the beach as I wrestled cheap acrylics and bit at dried glue.

Then I wrote. I wrote everything that I hadn't ever let myself admit. Pen to paper my secrets leaked out.

I must have been gone for hours. When I returned to the room, Grant was getting out of the shower. He was attractive and fit. He looked every bit the put-together, perfectly groomed, and shaved blond man who I'd known for so long.

“So you're feeling better then, Betty?” he asked and I could have died. Had he literally just called me Betty? I didn't know what to do.

I laughed, and said, “What?”

I stuffed the letter that I didn't have the heart to throw into the ocean, into an envelope and then into the front compartment of my luggage, while I waited for him to clarify or prove that I really had lost my mind.

“Betty. You signed the note this morning with Betty. Is that something new?” He grinned.

“Oh, that,” I said. I'd signed a letter to my husband with a pet name I used with him. That was a new low for me. “I was playing around. You know. Seeing if you were paying attention.” I acquiesced.

He sauntered toward me with nothing on but a towel.

“Well, I like it. Betty. I think it suits you.”

Every time he said it my body reacted. Some twisted sensory thing misfiring inside my libido.

“You don't have to call me that. It was just a joke.” I felt embarrassed, and honestly it felt so wrong.

“I could call you Mrs. Kelly,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck.

“Well, I am Mrs. Kelly,” I told him. “So, maybe we try out Betty while we're here.” It was so immoral, but hearing it made nerves react and my blood flow like it hadn't in so very long.

“Betty it is then,” he said.

We made love and he called me Betty throughout. I would deal with the shame of it later. At the moment, I was enjoying the memory.

When he said it as he came, surprisingly I did too. I didn't have to fake it. I just had to fake who gave it to me.

I didn't pretend to be Betty. I was her. My brand of wrong started with imagining he was Casey and ended with me biting my cheek to keep from letting Grant know.

In the mornings, before Grant woke up, I'd go into the town. I'd shop around and it was nice. Grant did a lot of work after he woke up on most days, so he barely noticed I wasn't there. I bought two bronze ships that reminded me of Casey and me. Always passing, never headed in the same direction. That was the problem. We never had the same goal.

In an island off the coast of somewhere sunny, I changed my direction.

Everything was all wrong. Up was down. Left was right. Only a few days before, I'd made vows to this man. And on the beach one morning, I made vows to myself to undo them.

I had but one goal. If it wasn’t too late.





Monday, May 25, 2009