The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(19)
“Yeah, when you were drunk.” She laughs, a hollow sound. I wrap my hand around the back of her head.
“It wasn’t because of that.”
“It was.” She pulls away a little, and her eyes lift to meet mine; they’re suspicious, almost angry. “You were drunk like, all the time, and I was—” she laughs— “clueless. You would go out on the Strip and play that stupid—sorry, it was stupid—poker. Do those awful fights. And you would lock yourself up in that second bedroom with your laptop.” Her eyes glimmer. “I did things wrong, I know. And I was pushy. I was stupid, I had no idea what I should do for you. You wouldn’t talk to me, and I thought crazy sex would cure you.”
My cock twitches in response to those words, or maybe just her nearness. Holding her to my side, I guide her to the couch and urge her to sit down. I crouch on the floor in front of her—and hope she’ll get the message that I’m sending.
“What?” She wipes her face and sniffles as she looks at me with searching eyes. “I guess it’s my turn now, to be the drunken idiot. Do you remember that stuff you used to do? I hope I don’t remember this.” I wince, and she nods behind me. “You can go now. Get up off the floor. You’re not a floor type… Just be gone.”
I shake my head. I try to think of what to tell her: older, unknown Marley, with her aching eyes and broken heart and braided hands. “You were right to worry. I know I always said that you were nagging and you were driving me away, that I wasn’t…” I swallow. I can’t say the next two words: “a drunk.” I suck back a breath, and then I’m on my feet. My face and eyes feel so hot, it’s alarming. I turn my back to her, and I feel like I always did. It’s unbelievable, some kind of spell, some kind of fucking time warp.
I can’t look at Marley. My loyal girl with the searching eyes and dumb persistence. She loved me blindly, unrelentingly, enthusiastically. I would lock myself up in our guestroom with a cache of liquor and a death wish. Marley would pound down the door and yell at me and try to make me mad or upset, anything so I’d come out and talk to her. And I was such a fucking dick. I was such a fucking piggish asshole. I took advantage of her systematically, just like…an addict.
“It wasn’t mutual,” she says now to my back, in tired tones. “I get that, Gabe. I had a thing for you the second you moved here in ninth grade.” She gives a hollow laugh. “That night we married on the class trip? You want to hear a dumb confession?”
I turn around and look at her, and Marley stands up, arms spread wide. “I wasn’t really that drunk. You were drunk. You could barely put one shoe in front of the other, but I had only had a few drinks. When you pulled me into the chapel with you, I was thrilled. I had no one waiting for me. I had no one. We might have been the same age, but to me you were… You seemed so manly and grown up.” She wipes a tear that’s trickled down her cheek. “My mom was a bitch to me. I had a dead dad. I just wanted someone, you know? When we were like ‘oh God, we’re married,’ I…fucking wanted it. Anyway, I think it’s obvious, I should find a different place to live now.” She inhales deeply, has the fortitude to smile at me. “I don’t like feeling stupid. Doctor,” she says, with her fragile, shaky mouth.
“I can’t believe that you’re a doctor, Marley. Dr. Roberts.” I see my words hit her face, and I shake my head, laughing although it’s not the least bit funny. “Not like that. I didn’t mean it like that.” I step closer to her; Mar holds up a hand.
“It’s okay,” she says softly.
“No. I was a fucking lousy husband. Vegas, class trip wedding having nothing to do with it. We got married, I said ‘let’s give this thing a go,’ but I couldn’t put my money where my mouth was. I didn’t know a fucking thing about even a girlfriend.” I swallow—hard, and make my gaze meet hers. “Mar, you know about my dad. You’re from this town…”
She doesn’t move a muscle. In that instant, memories burn me: these same solemn brown eyes on a careful, young girl, trying not to hurt me more.
“I was an alcoholic—just like him. Still am,” I say through razor blades in my throat. “I fell off the fucking wagon back in May.” I rub my sweaty palms over my pantslegs. “It was me,” I manage. “It was my fault that you left. I get why you did, Mar. I was a fucking mess, and you were twenty years old.”
I step closer to her. “Listen,” I rasp, shaking my head. “You weren’t a failure, and you shouldn’t feel anything when you see me except proud of yourself. You were loyal and good and—” I laugh hoarsely— “unwisely persistent. Marley, you did nothing wrong except you probably should have left me out there sooner. You left and I went to AA.” Marley leaving was my so-called rock bottom. “It’s what prompted me to write The Secret World of Others.” I swallow hard and give her my pathetic version of a gift. “That’s why he—the alien, Burner—goes all through the desert looking for the water that he thought he saw, that he remembered smelling. And he dies before he finds it. He had had a glimpse of something nourishing, that he needed to live.”
I feel the room closing around me as I look at her, my eyes holding onto Marley’s like a life raft. “I had to make it a tragedy. It was all I was capable of writing. But you were the water.”