Things We Do in the Dark(100)

Paris hasn’t had the wind physically knocked out of her since she was a child, but this feels almost the same. An emotional gut punch, right to the diaphragm, and now she can’t breathe.

There was a sci-fi action movie she and Drew had rented a long time ago called Timecop, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. It’s set in the future, where a cop is sent back to the past via time travel to prevent something bad from happening. She can’t remember the specific details of the plot now, but she does remember that the younger version of Jean-Claude cannot in any way touch the older version of Jean-Claude, or they’ll both explode into nothing, like a supernova. There was a line that was quoted throughout: The same matter cannot occupy the same space.

Joey Reyes and Paris Peralta cannot both be here. And yet, looking at Drew through the glass of her back patio doors, this is exactly what’s happening. Her mind flies through the possibilities of what she should do next.

Option one: She can pretend she’s not Joey and insist she doesn’t know this man. As stupid as it was, this was always her plan if she ever found herself confronted with her past. If you deny something over and over again, and for long enough, people might eventually believe you. It works for politicians. Bonus: You might even convince yourself it’s the truth.

Option two: She can call the police, say she has a stalker, and have him arrested for trespassing.

Option three: She can kill him.

But it’s too late for any of those. Drew is looking right at her, and she at him, and she knows that the mindfuck of the situation has got to be written all over her face. Maybe if she’d known he was coming, she would have had time to prepare, to practice her reaction. But that’s exactly why he didn’t call first, or text, or send an email. He needed her reaction to prove she was Joey. He needed to make sure she wouldn’t run.

The past is melding with the present. The truth is mixing with the lies. This is a supernova.

“Joey, I didn’t come all this way to fuck up your life,” Drew says through the glass. “If I was going to do that, I would have just called the cops. Come on, open the door.”

She stares at him, unable to move, feeling her mind trying to disconnect, trying to not be here.

“Joey, please,” he says again. “I came all this way. I just want to talk to you.” He glances up at the dark sky. “And it’s starting to rain.”

Even now, nineteen years since she last heard his voice, Drew sounds maddeningly, infuriatingly reasonable.

She reaches forward and turns the deadbolt, and then reaches up to flip the security latch. She steps back as Drew pulls open the door and steps into the kitchen. He takes off his ball cap, shakes off the moisture, and then puts it back on.

He looks around. He takes in the kitchen, the food simmering on the stove, the kitchen table where she was wrapping lumpia, and then his gaze is back on her. She realizes then that the red insignia on his hat is a dinosaur claw shaped like a basketball. A Toronto Raptors hat. Because it’s Drew Malcolm. From Toronto.

“Do you think you could put down the cleaver?” he asks.

Paris opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. She’s imagined this moment a thousand times, of course, in various scenarios, this one included, but now that it’s actually happening, it feels nothing like she expected.

“You’re scaring me right now,” Drew says. “You have this look on your face, and I can’t tell whether you’re going to kill me or ask me if I’m hungry.”

“I’m scaring you?” she says, incredulous.

“Joey.” Drew’s voice softens into a gentler tone. “It’s me. I came here straight from the airport. I didn’t come all this way to hurt you, I promise. I just needed to see for myself that you’re really alive. And here you are. Alive. And you should know that despite everything, I’m really glad that you are.”

“What do you want, Drew?” she asks.

She hates the way her voice sounds, small and timid. It’s like she’s nineteen again, hoping to find a place to stay, armed only with a duffel bag and the cash she stole from Maple Sound, facing Drew in that shitty little basement apartment kitchen with the checkerboard floors, crossing her fingers that he’ll see past his preconceived notions since it’s clear he knew who she was. Only now, it’s Drew standing in her decidedly not-shitty kitchen, and she’s still hoping he’ll see past everything he thinks he knows and allow her to explain.

Drew steps forward slowly, his hands up. When he’s a couple of steps away from her, he reaches forward and carefully takes the cleaver out of her hands, and places it in the sink. He then lets out a sigh of relief. As if he actually thinks she might have whacked him with it.

In fairness, she did consider it for a split second. But that’s because he surprised her, and she was panicking.

“You faked your death?” Drew says. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

She looks up at him. He looks down at her. She forgot how tall he is. There are specks of rain on his glasses. She doesn’t know what to say, other than to apologize. If their positions were reversed, she would be angry as hell, too. And in this moment, standing in front of him, his body less than two feet away from hers, she suddenly can’t remember why she did it, why she ran, why she ran away from Toronto, why she ran away from him.