You Love Me(You #3)(130)

This is the part of the game where you kill the enemy and the screen changes colors and the enemy is reborn stronger, faster. She says she’s not stupid. She knows Melanda’s gone for good and I tell her it’s not like that. “You’ve been through a lot and if your mother knew… if she knew that Seamus… that he raped you.”

“Jesus, will you let it go? We broke up. It’s over. And then the idiot went and got himself killed hunting. Honestly, it’s not the biggest surprise in the world… He was so depressed about being dumped, he was in no state of mind to be off in the woods, going off about what he was gonna do to you…”

The Centipede is staring at me, slowing down and daring me to move into defensive mode. I am not stupid. I am quiet. Does she know what he did to me? Does she know what Oliver did to him?

She crosses her arms again. “Don’t look at me like that. I know he was spiraling. And he got so pissy about you…”

He didn’t get pissy. He tried to murder me. She’s on her feet—the Centipede has feet—and she pulls at my pillow and I hold on to my pillow and she picks up her bottomless can of spiked seltzer, a drink designed to appeal to children, to make them feel older than they are.

I tell her she has the wrong idea and this game isn’t for me because even when I win, I lose. The game gets harder. She appreciates me for holding out, waiting for her to graduate, buying time for us and I can’t beat the Centipede, can I? She takes the pillow out of my hands and hugs me and I am numb. Game Over. I think fast. Hard.

Let her hug me. She won’t tell you about this. In four days, she’ll get on a plane and go to New York and become obsessed with some Dr. Nicky professor type and you don’t need to know about this Feud. Shortus is dead. Revenge is impossible and Cedar Cove damaged your brain too. You didn’t see it either—you were worried about your husband and there are only so many worries a heart can bear—and I would never judge you for that. I have to let her say what she needs to say so that she can move the fuck on, so that we can move the fuck on.

I grab her shoulders. We are close now, so close that I can actually see the innocence in her eyes—she really does love me—and I have been where she is. I have loved people who didn’t love me back and I tell her this will hurt—Jude Law in Closer—and my voice is firm.

“I don’t love you, Nomi. And that’s okay because you don’t love me.”

Her teeth chatter inside of her mouth and her shoulders tremble beneath my hands and the hardest thing about a Centipede is that a Centipede is always moving. That’s the nightmare of the game. I stay with her as I fire my bullets because I wish any woman who broke my heart had been so kind with me, willing to be here for me as I realize that I am not loved. My hands are still on her shoulders when you burst into the room. You kick off your shoes and slip into your cozy socks. “All right,” you say. “You win, Buster. I’m home.”





51





It’s been a few minutes since you walked in on every mother’s worst nightmare and the Centipede is curled up in a ball on the sofa and she is screaming—He went after me—and you are screaming—I can’t take this—and you are in the game too now but your control pad is compromised because this is too fucking much. You defend me—Nomi, why are you saying this?—and you defend her—Joe, don’t say anything right now—and I abide and the Centipede cries and you cross your arms. “Okay,” you say. “Everyone needs to take it down a notch.”

The Centipede looks up at you like she wants to be hugged and you don’t hug your daughter. You don’t run to the sofa and hold her. You don’t believe her and you don’t know about Shortus and I can’t be the one to tell you that she’s projecting and she’s in a bad place right now—I don’t love her and she knows it—and she wants you to hate me and you don’t want to hate me and she picks up her can of spiked seltzer but the well has finally run dry. She slams the can on the table.

“Mom,” she says. “Can we please leave already?”

There is only one player in the game and it’s you. You fold your arms. “Nomi, honey, please stop crying. We’re not leaving this house. Not like this.”

There’s a foolproof way to make anyone cry: Tell them to stop. She’s bawling again now and I say your name and you growl at me—I said stay out of it—and then you growl at her. “Why the hell are you doing this? Why do you make things up?”

“Making this up? Mom, I forgot my phone and I came home and you saw him trying to kiss me. Are you blind?”

Your heart is beating so fast that I can feel it in my heart and your nostrils flare like RIP Melanda’s and you say it again. “Nomi, why are you making this up?”

She rubs her eyes. Part Meerkat. Part Centipede. “Mom. He kissed me.”

“I didn’t!”

You don’t look at me. You look at her. “Nomi…”

“Wow,” she says. “You believe him. Nice, Mom. Real nice.”

You tell her that you believe you. You trust your gut and you don’t think I would do that—I wouldn’t, but Seamus did, and your child needs you but you don’t know what I know—and you are blaming the victim, warning her about the danger of making false accusations and she springs off the sofa and the Meerkat is possessed by a barefoot Centipede. She throws her empty can at the wall and calls you a sicko because what kind of woman believes her fucking boy toy over her daughter? You storm by me and I don’t exist. Not right now. This is your Family Feud and I am powerless, locked out of the arcade, and you lash out at her. “Do not speak to me like that. We have to be honest.”