The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(94)

“I’d never touched it before senior year. But after the shooting I started doing it. We all did. Coke and ecstasy.”

“Daisy too?”

“Yes. Her and I. Will and Lucky. We got it from David. We were getting high all the time.”

Diane’s chin rose and fell. “I see. Let’s table that for another day. Right now I’m just confused about the situation. You went to his apartment looking to score.”

“Fine, put it that way. Yes.”

“Why did you go upstairs? To his bedroom?”

“Because,” Erik said. “I got to his apartment and the door was open. And he did have coke that day. It was left on the coffee table. It was just out, in the middle of the living room. And I immediately thought something was wrong. David would never… He was reckless but he wasn’t stupid. I put some magazines over the mirror to hide it. I tied up the baggie and went upstairs with it. I thought something had happened to him.”

“I see. And you went upstairs and you saw he was in bed.”

He saw the bared upper half of David’s body emerging from the sheets, his arms and back tensed and ropy with muscle. The unmistakable rhythm and groove of his hips. A girl’s hand at the back of his head, pale against his dark hair

“Funny,” Erik said absently. “When I was about six, I got up in the middle of one night and walked in on my parents having sex.” He trailed off, staring at the wall. “I don’t know why that just popped into my head.”

“Push it a little,” Diane murmured.

“I guess,” he said, both pushing and pulling at the two unrelated images. “There’s watching porn, and seeing sex in the movies, but when you actually see it in front of your face, you walk in on the human, unstaged act of…” He laughed a little. “When you’re a kid it’s sort of horrifying. When you’re an adult, there’s something ridiculous about it. When I saw David banging this chick, I almost laughed. But in a friendly, almost affectionate way. I could tease him about it later. Nicely done, Dave, perfect ten for technique.”

“But it wasn’t some chick.”

“He was on top of her. I didn’t see who it was. But then…”

David had rolled, tumbling to his back, pulling the girl on top of him. He had been smiling. Erik saw the flash of his teeth in the dimness. An open-mouthed grin of gasping delight. David was happy, which was such a rare thing to witness. The girl’s body glided on top of his and her eyes slid past the door, then doubled back. She pushed the tangle of hair out of her face.

And then the slow-motion nuclear explosion, a mushroom cloud of disbelief, and the skies opening up to rain down death. Because it was Daisy in David’s bed. Daisy sliding on top of David, making him smile like that. Naked, tousled Daisy staring at Erik, who stared back. The staring. Their way of drawing together into a private universe. Now they stared as their universe blew itself to smithereens.

“Do you think it had been going on for some time?” Diane asked.

Erik shook his head, mouth open. “I never saw it coming. I had no suspicions. None. She and I were barely having any sex but we were still so close… I never imagined she would go sleep with someone else.”

“The shock must have been indescribable.”

“David,” he said, spitting the name on the rug. “I knew I couldn’t trust him, I knew he would f*ck me over in the end. Son of a bitch only wanted what he couldn’t have and if he couldn’t have it, he’d steal it.”

“You assume he stole her?”

Erik looked at her. “What?”

“You seem convinced he seduced Daisy. Not the other way around.”

He closed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter who seduced whom,” he whispered. “She had my heart. I gave her my soul. I helped her after she was shot. I held her head when she was throwing up. I helped her to the bathroom, in and out of the shower. I was there when she woke up screaming. I gave her every single thing in me and then she f*cked David and don’t ask me how it felt, Diane. I know you’re going to. Just don’t.”

Diane was silent.

Erik opened his eyes. “She ruined everything.”

Diane glanced at her watch. “We have to stop now.”

“Yes,” Erik said. “We do.”



*



One night he dreamed of his father, and called him by name.

Byron.

Erik was out in a golden boat on a lake, reeling in fish after golden fish. Calling out Byron with every catch, calling to his father, who stood on the shore, waving. Erik let go his rod and reel, cupped hands and yelled over the water, Who do I look like?

And his father called back, You look like me.

Erik woke up. Calmly came out of sleep. The dream had been gentle. Uncomplicated. He lay in bed, his fingers tracing his collarbone where the chain had once hung. Staring into the dark corner of his little room, his mind was far away, walking the galleries of his life’s museum, where he touched memories long abandoned.

They were there.

They were delicate, light things, like feathers, wafting away if he grabbed too hard at them. But they were there. Sensory and tactile. Blocks of scrap wood to play with. The rhythm and ring of hammers. The smoky whine of the power saw. The smell of sawdust and paint as a forest playground emerged in Erik and Peter’s bedroom.