Resist (Songs of Submission #6)(31)

“It is. But even he’s capable of doing good things. He was the one who rescued Rachel from the car and put her into a facility.”

She leaned back as if stunned. “Why?”

“She was about to blackmail him. She was going to expose that he had been with her when she was sixteen. You don’t blackmail J. Declan Drazen. He doesn’t appreciate it, let’s say.”

“Why didn’t he just let her die?”

“I don’t know. He has a thing about not shitting where you eat, so if he thought she was within his circle, he wouldn’t have hurt her. But he was secretive. We found out everything about the accident the hard way. When I went to him about it, he literally laughed. I found out I was driving when some reporter came sniffing around, probably this guy.” I tapped the envelope. “I found out she was alive right after that. It was, let’s say, overwhelming.”

“You felt like a fly caught in a web.”

She’d captured that feeling exactly. What she didn’t capture was the feeling that if I got free of it, I’d be less human for letting go of the grief and guilt. It was mine. I owned it. If I unburdened myself, what would I become? An animal who stopped caring about the things I’d done? I couldn’t allow that. My shame was made me a moral person, even if it crippled me emotionally.

She snapped up the envelope and pressed it to my chest. “You should read this.”

“I don’t need to.”

“It says you were soaked in salt water. Has it occurred to you that you rescued her?”

“I dove in, but I was too drunk to rescue anyone,” I said. “Probably nearly drowned myself.”

“They got your medical records. The skin on your hands was totally f**ked up. You were banged to shit. Like you wrestled with the ocean pulling someone out of it.”

I remembered that. In my sequestered hospital room, my mother had been at my side, smelling of whiskey, and she claimed ignorance about that and everything. Dad spoke to me after, describing Rachel’s death by drowning, the body’s absence, the car “she stole” floating into the Pacific with the tide. He’d get me another. Not to worry.

I’d been so shredded about Rachel, I’d paid no mind to my bruises or the skin missing from my hands. I figured that in my blacked-out stupor, I’d fallen. Repeatedly.

Maybe Monica was right. Maybe I hadn’t been such a passive player. Or maybe it didn’t matter anymore, because Monica’s big brown eyes looked at me for answers as if I had any. She looked at me as if she was on a starting block, waiting to win the race to forgiveness. I could tell her anything. I could tell her I’d strangled Rachel and buried the body, and she’d forgive me. God damn. I had done something truly evil in letting the woman love me.

“We ruined her family,” I said. “Not that it was worth much.”

“You know, I think—”

I didn’t let her finish. “Jessica’s family, too. My father put hers in his grave. And when I married her, she was cut off. Then she became this thing that tries to squeeze me.”

“Jonathan, listen—”

“And Kevin. I mean douchebag, yes. I had my chance to hit him on the head with a cinderblock, but that somehow wasn’t permanent enough. I needed him wiped off the map of Los Angeles. So I had his warrants checked at the border. I needed his career with you to be over, so I made sure the last page of the commercial invoice was missing.”

The look of shock on her face, the feel of her limbs tightening made me want to reassure her at the same time as it strengthened my resolve. “I mean, look at you. You’re surprised. You can’t believe I’d do something like that, right? You knew it was true, but you can’t believe it. Say it.”

“I believe it.” Her voice was soft and low, as if she was telling herself more than me.

“And you still love me? Because you believe in my innate goodness?”

She rolled off my lap and sat next to me, looking into the empty, diagonal street. “You hurt me too, when you did that. With the invoice. Any box could have been held up. I might not have been able to figure it out.”

“I didn’t care. Don’t you get it? I wanted to possess you, and I didn’t want Kevin in my way. And you love me, Monica? Do you still love me? Are you that naïve?”

“I still love you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Look what I’ve done to you already. You’re stealing things and drugging me. What are you turning into?”

“You’re turning into a dick.”

“I’m not turning into anything. What I am now, I’ve always been. I can’t believe you can hear this story and sit there as if it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” She pulled her knees up to her chin, a defensive posture if I ever saw one. “Did you want me to judge you?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Don’t martyr yourself to me.”

“Jesus Christ! What is wrong with you?”

“Your decency is endearing, but it’s already dying.” I stood up, my course of action set. I felt that tightness in my chest again but ignored it. “At least with Jessica, she knew what she was getting, and she could handle it. I can’t say the same for you.”

That hurt her, as it was meant to. The urge to gather her in my arms and say I was sorry was overwhelming. I had a moment where I could have done that, explained it all away, but that would be an act of a cowardice. I refused to allow another woman to be ruined because of me.