Push(77)

“He’s in jail, and I’m not bailing him out, that’s for damn sure,” Ricky says. “I thought you should know just in case he tries to get in touch with you somehow or if the cops call you about the whole thing.” Why would the cops call me?
“Yeah. Thanks,” I say. It is the first time I’ve said “thanks” to Ricky in at least ten years. The word burns my tongue.
After I hang up I stare at David in disbelief. When I repeat the entire conversation, he seems completely unruffled. I thought he might be upset that Ricky called me. And that I answered the phone.
“How do you feel about all that?” he says.
“I feel confused as f*cking hell. This is so messed up. I thought Evan had cleaned himself up. I mean, he used to be a great kid. I know Michael is responsible for changing that, but, Jesus, I can’t believe that Evan would be capable of something like this. Michael must have really f*cked him over.”
I am quiet for a minute, and David starts rubbing my shoulders as I sit down on the edge of my bed.
“It might make me seem like a bad person, but, in a way, I don’t really care about why it happened,” I continue. “The bottom line is that Michael is gone, and I can’t help feeling happy as shit about that. I do feel bad, though, that it came to this for Evan, you know? Shit must have been really bad for him.” I decide not to think about this anymore. I tell myself that I don’t care what happens to Evan. If he did this, he deserves whatever he gets. I’m not putting any more energy into thinking about it. None.



chapter Thirty-Four

Lucia

I am standing on this bridge listening to David’s fists smack against Robbie’s body. It isn’t even a fair fight. David is beyond pissed off, and he is beating the living daylights out of Robbie. I want to run away. But if I do, Robbie will never forgive me, and David will hunt me down. Robbie is on the ground now, and David is straddling him, punching his face over and over. It is a mashed-up, bloody mess. I hear Robbie’s breath gurgling and watch his hands move up to try to block David’s fists. My own hands are on David’s backpack, trying desperately to pull him away. I am screaming for him to cut it the f*ck out, but it’s fruitless because he’s far stronger than I am. This is the first time I have ever seen David lose control.
David found out about me and Robbie yesterday evening. I was supposed to meet David at his apartment before my photography class, but Robbie stopped me on my way up the stairs and invited me to come to his place first. He lives two floors below David.
The trouble is that sex with Robbie is hard to resist. I’ve been f*cking him for months now—for nearly as long as I have been seeing David. Robbie doesn’t want a relationship; he just wants to screw. But David, he wants more than sex. I think he wants love. I’ve tried to tell him that love is never going to come from me because I’m not interested in all the bullshit that goes with it. David never seems to hear me when I tell him that love is for pussies.
Robbie and I were in his living room. He had me bent over the back of his couch when David opened the door. I must have been too loud. The look on David’s face was pretty damned crazy. I thought for a second that he was going to come in and beat us both to a bloody pulp right then and there. But instead, he shut the door and walked out of the building. It was a display of godlike self-control, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, even from him. When Robbie finished, we both went over to the window and saw that David’s car was gone. We knew that we were going to suffer for David’s humiliation. I just never thought Robbie would suffer quite like this.
David and I met six months ago at one of my photography shows. He was building a display unit for someone who was exhibiting in the same gallery. My work is a bit unconventional, and I guess that’s what inspired David to approach me that day. I was securing one of the frames to the wall when he asked me what type of weapon was in the picture. I knew from his question that he didn’t know jack about guns. Who doesn’t recognize a Colt Python .357 Magnum when they see one? He asked me if it was a .38 Special, and I nearly laughed at him. We spent the rest of the evening looking at my pictures and talking about the guns and how I staged the shots. David said his favorite was the image of my antique blunderbuss pistol resting in a pile of colorful smart phones.
When the show was finally set-up, David took me out for coffee, and I told him about how my entire childhood revolved around my father and his gun collection. My mother left us soon after I was born, and when I was nineteen, my father died because a semiautomatic rifle slam fired as his friend was loading the chamber and my dad was setting the target. It never should have happened. And now I have all of my father’s guns but not my father. He raised me to be respectful of his weapons and to appreciate their beauty. When I decided to become a photographer, I knew exactly what my subject would be.
From the day we met, David was flirtatious and funny. When I wasn’t talking about my work, we were swapping stories about past jobs and our childhoods. David was the one who introduced me to Robbie a week or so after we met. Robbie likes guns, too, and David brought him to the show to see my work. Two weeks later, Robbie and I shared our first f*ck in the bathroom of his apartment. He was having a party, and David and I were invited. One thing led to another, and while David was outside smoking a cigarette, Robbie was lifting me up on to his sink and sticking his dick into me. It became a game for us. We would find a time and a place for a quick screw, and then I would go back to being David’s sort-of girlfriend.