The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(84)

“All right. Fine. Your fight with Daisy is your fight with Daisy. What about me, Fish?”

“What about you? What the hell do we have left to talk about?”

“You’re done with me? Pardon me sounding like a jilted woman but I thought I meant something to you.”

He did. Will’s friendship had no price. But Will was the open door back to Daisy. Now he was a dangerous liability.

Both of them had to go.

Erik hardened every soft and compassionate thing in his heart. He erased the previous version of events. He rewound, took it back. Back to the beginning, where Will was no innocent bystander. And he rewrote the past into a story he could live with.

“I’m done,” he said. “I was done when you f*cked James and brought all this shit down. It all goes back to you and him. None of th—”

“No,” Will said. “No, you are not saying this.”

“—would have happened if you picked a goddamn persuasion and stuck to it. If you hadn’t strung him along like a toy and then threw him aside. You’re no better than David.”

“Don’t you put this on me, Fish.”

“You brought it down, Will,” Erik said. “He came into the theater looking for you.”

“You are f*cking unbelievable,” Will said.

“I’m done being one of your goddamn casualties. And no wonder you’re on Daisy’s side—you cheated on Lucky and got away with it. I’m telling you, I’m done. I’m through with her. I’m through with both of you.”

A long exhale in his ear. “Well. I won’t take up any more of your time.”

“Don’t. And don’t f*cking call me anymore.”

“Believe me, you miserable bitch, I won’t,” Will said. “But let me say one last thing, Fish. Actually it’s something you said once, allow me to paraphrase.”

“What?”

“You can’t breathe without her.”

He hung up.

Watch me, Erik thought. And he threw the phone across the room.



*



He had told his mother, in the most general of terms, what had happened at school—Daisy had left him for David. Christine was shocked and sympathetic. She took his side. Daisy’s endless phoning confused her. Undoubtedly she sensed she didn’t know the whole story. But she stayed supportive and tactful and gave her son his space. She worried. She was his mother. She couldn’t not be concerned about Erik’s shadowed eyes and the handsome face becoming more and more gaunt. He worked long, arduous hours at a handful of jobs, doing anything and everything to stay distracted and tired. And still she heard him pacing in the night, the jingle of Lena’s collar following wherever he went.

Christine worried, but she had never coddled him before. He was a man now. He didn’t need her to sort it out. He would take it apart and put it back together again. He had let down and cried to her only a few times. Most nights she merely stayed up with him and his inconsolable melancholy. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted her presence. So she brewed a lot of tea and sat close by.

Yet Christine herself was heading into a new phase of her life. She had a man—Fred had been a constant companion for five years by then. Fred was getting ready to retire. Christine wanted to sell the house, downsize into a condo with Fred until Pete was out of school, then possibly move down to Key West.

“What’s your plan, honey,” she asked one December evening. “What do you want to do?”

Erik, whose plans went to D, minimum, had started to think about it himself. “I think I want to get into a community theater,” he said. “Working tech in a place like the Walnut Street down in Philly—it appeals to me.”

“Will you go back to Pennsylvania?”

“No. It’s… No, I’m done there. I know I have to get my degree. I should be able to transfer my credits to one of the SUNY schools and finish it in a semester, a year at the most.”

“You did get into Fredonia. And Geneseo,” she said.

“I’m thinking Geneseo. It’s a great town, and there’s the Geneseo Playhouse. It’s got a great reputation. Maybe I could do an internship there or something.” He looked over at his mother and smiled. “Don’t stay here for me, Mom. I’ll be all right. I can coach basketball, I can tend bar, I can do construction. I’ll put something together.”

“You always do.” Christine put her hand on his cheek, caressed his rough face. “My heart’s broken for you, honey. I’m so sorry it ended up like this.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand. “I’m sorry about the necklace, Mom,” he whispered. “I looked everywhere. I don’t know what happened to it.”

“I know,” she said, her hand sliding down his arm and squeezing his wrist. “You didn’t lose it on purpose.”

He put his head in his palm, pulling at his hair. He didn’t understand how precious legacies were carelessly lost while the token of a killer stayed safe in your pocket. Nothing made sense. Nothing held still. Nothing behaved the way he expected it to.

“These things happen, Erik.”

He didn’t know if she meant the necklace or Daisy. Maybe she meant his father.

He didn’t ask.