Undertow

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  “What?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “This was a good day,” I reply, my voice hushed, containing all the things I want to say in its place.

  “It was the best day I’ve had in a long time,” he replies. Neither of us move.

  “Are you going to the party on the beach tonight?” I ask.

  He looks at me, unblinking. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  I nod, trying and failing to hide my reaction.

  “But I might as well,” he says with a small smile, watching my face. I don’t just smile. I glow, and when he sees it, he does too.

  CHAPTER 34

  I put on music. I dance while I shower, while I dry my hair, while I moisturize and put on mascara. I put on my too-short sundress. I bounce down the steps when my friends walk up.

  “Someone’s in a good mood!” shouts Heather, raising high a cup full of something I’m certain violates our state’s open container laws. There are at least a hundred people at the beach when we arrive, and most of them appear to be in line for the keg.

  “Nate’s here,” says Heather, under her breath. I follow her eyes and find him, across the way, in khaki cargo shorts and a tee-shirt that isn’t tight but is certainly fitted enough to document how good he looks when his shirt comes off. I’ve never actually failed to notice how good-looking he is, but watching him from afar, in a new setting, makes my pulse erratic.

  “Goddamn, he’s hot,” moans Kendall. “I can’t believe you never slept with him.” I don’t correct her.

  He watches as I approach, his face serious. “You’re stunning,” he breathes. “You know that, right?”

  I blush and shrug, as pleased as I am uncomfortable. “I’m glad you came,” I tell him.

  “So are you allowed to dance when your boyfriend is out of town?” he challenges.

  “I’m allowed to do whatever I want,” I say back, perhaps more saucily than I intended. He raises a brow.

  “Okay, maybe not whatever I want,” I laugh. “But I’m allowed to dance.”

  He grabs my hand and pulls me into the sea of swaying bodies on the left-hand side of the fire pit. His hands rest on my hips as we dance, and he tugs me into him.

  The way Nate dances, the way I dance when I’m with him, is something Ethan wouldn’t be happy about. But after a day spent brushing up against him, wanting him, catching the way he looks at me again and again, this doesn’t feel inappropriate at all. It feels inevitable.

  We move in sync with each other, with the music, the movement and our proximity ensuring that this is something we shouldn’t be doing it in public. But our anonymity from earlier has carried over in our minds, if not in reality. I forget that we can be seen, and that I can’t be seen like this. He’s so close that I can feel his breath on my face as we move, that when he looks down he can see straight into my dress. And he repeatedly looks down. The crowd surges around us, and we push closer, his shirt brushing my collarbone, his hands tightening around my hips. I look up at him and watch his face change – suddenly hesitant, his mouth softening. I’m only on my first beer, but I feel drugged in a way. I shift into him, meeting his eye and for once not looking away. He leans in just as I am yanked backward.

  “What the fuck, Maura?” yells Jordan, glaring at me and Nate as if we were just screwing right in the middle of the dance floor. And I guess we weren’t that far off from it.

  “Why are you here?” I seethe, more angry than guilty.

  “The better question is why you’re dirty dancing with your ex the minute your boyfriend is out of town!” he yells.

  I hate him for being a hypocrite. I hate him even more for interrupting us.

  “I think my dancing is a lot more respectable than what you did with my roommate a few weeks ago, you cheating prick!” I shout back, shoving him away from me.

  He blanches, his face growing still and shocked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says stonily.

  “Bullshit, Jordan! How long have you been cheating on Mia?” I shout.

  He grabs my arm again, looking around him in surprise. “Jesus fucking Christ, Maura, keep it down.”

  “You want me to keep it down? Don’t come over here fucking moralizing to me when you’re the loser who can’t keep it in his pants,” I hiss. He lets go of my arm with a shove that sends me toppling back into Nate, and storms off.

  “What was that?” Nate asks at my ear, still holding onto me.

  “Exactly what it sounded like,” I sigh, my anger drained.

  “Come on,” he says, pulling me away from the crowd. He refills our beers and leads me over to a log.

  “Now tell me,” he says.

  I summarize the situation, beginning and ending with Mia’s unhappiness, how withdrawn she’s grown since Catherine was born.

  “Why does she stay with him?” he asks, aghast. “She’s young. She’s what, 24? She has her whole life ahead of her.”

  “They’ve only been married for two years, Nate. They had 400 people at their wedding. Everyone knows them. There were four different baby showers held for her. She can’t leave.”

  “Of course she can leave!” he exclaims. “That’s complete bullshit and you know it.”

  I shake my head. “No it’s not. Her parents and my parents go way back. They’re all in the same circle. Them splitting would be a disaster. We have all the same friends. They’ll be spending holidays together when they’re in their 90s. It would be awful.”

  “You know what?” he says. “This whole thing you’ve got going on at home is ridiculously fucked up. I listen to you and it’s like England in the 1600s or something. She doesn’t have to stay in Charlotte. She can go anywhere.”

  “But she won’t,” I say decisively, and as I say it, I know that this is why I haven’t spoken to Mia about it. Not out of loyalty to Jordan, but because I knew it wouldn’t change her outcome in any way.

  “Is that what you want?” he asks harshly, his anger taking me by surprise.

  My eyes open wide. “Of course not. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t make him stop.”

  “No, not what you want for her, Maura. What you want for you. Because that’s where you’re headed with Ethan and you know it. Your families act like you’re engaged and you allow it.”

  “I can’t stop it!” I exclaim, throwing up my hands. “They do what they want no matter what I say.”

  “You could stop it, but you won’t,” he hisses. “You don’t even want to be with that guy and yet here you are! One day you’re going to find yourself married to him and you’re not even going to know how it happened. But I’ll tell you how it’s going to happen: he’ll ask, and you won’t want to upset everyone and hurt his feelings and it’s so comfortable that it seems like a decent idea and before you know it you’ve fucking agreed.”

  I stand up with tears pooling in my eyes, inexplicably hurt.

  “That’s not going to happen!” I argue, swiping at my eyes angrily, with the back of my hand.

  “It’s already happening, Maura!” he shouts, standing to face me. “Name one thing that’s happened this summer that indicates otherwise!”

  My anger at him and what he has said is irrational and misplaced. I know it, even as I react, even as I tell him to fuck off, even as I stomp away to find my friends.

  My regular crowd stands hovered around Jordan. I’ve recovered myself enough by the time I find them that they don’t seem to notice anything is amiss. Either that or they’re too drunk to care.

  “Where’s your wife?” I ask Sammy, with unnecessary acidity. He looks at me in surprise.

  “Home with the baby.”

  “Of course she is,” I reply, looking back and forth from him to Jordan. “The two of you have a pretty sweet deal, don’t you?”

  “Shut it, Maura,” says Jordan, with a warning glance.

  “You need a drink, girlfriend!” shouts Heather, dragging me toward the keg.

  A drink is probably the last thing I need. I’m usually a happy
drunk, but somehow the night and my mood have headed in an irreparably unhappy direction. I take a drink anyway, because I’m certainly not improving my mood by not drinking.

  I no longer see Nate. I’m sure he’s moved on, working that devious grin on some girl who can barely stop herself from undressing at the sight of him, and it makes me sick. I don’t understand my own volatility around him. Was there a single thing he said that wasn’t true?

  I had him all to myself and I lost him. And for what? Because he was absolutely right about how ridiculous my family is and what outcome I’m heading toward? I’ve lost him again and it’s entirely my fault.

  The hand that wraps around my hip brings me out of my thoughts and my distress. He stands at my back. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, against my ear. “I should have let it go.”

  I want to weep with relief as I turn to face him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I reply. “You were right. I was mad because you were right.”

  His eyes are locked on mine, and in them I see something that hasn’t been there all summer – a sort of urgency replacing his uncertainty. He grabs my hips and backs into the crowd, away from my friends, into the middle of a throng of people dancing, where we might be less likely to gain attention.

  He pulls me tight against him, his hips grinding against mine as we dance. It is as close to having sex with him as I can be without actually having sex with him. It’s more erotic than a single moment I’ve ever spent with Ethan.

  Our argument should have made us distant to each other, but instead it has gone the other way. He pulls at me, again and again, as if he can’t get close enough. There is something desperate in me now, something that wants to beg him for other things. I look up at him, and he meets my eye, unflinching. He pulls my chin up, glancing at my mouth before he looks back at me. My mouth parts, and he slowly lowers his own. I feel the heat of him, the softness of his lips, and for only a second there is no haste, as if it’s merely an experiment.

  If it was an experiment, it’s an exploding one. Within three seconds there is no uncertainty, nothing tentative or gentle in our actions. His mouth is relentless, demanding. We stop dancing entirely. Anyone can see us, can tell Ethan, and I don’t care. My hands go around his neck, and I sink into the feel of him, stunned by how much I’ve missed this, this familiar thing that I crave like I’ve never craved anything before.

  He groans against my mouth, pulling me away from the fire to where the light is dim. “God I’ve missed you, Maura,” he whispers, his mouth fervent against mine. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  It’s as if I’ve been ill for so long that I forgot what it was to be well, and in this moment I suddenly remember. His kisses grow harder and more demanding. I arch into him, press against him and feel how ready he is. We keep moving, our bodies attached the entire way until the sound of the music is distant and we are in complete darkness.

  There’s an urgency in both of us, as if this can’t possibly happen fast enough, as if the entire day, the entire summer, has been foreplay.

  “Get on your back,” he says roughly. I drop immediately and he follows, sliding his hands along my thighs, lifting my dress as moves forward to hover above me. His hands are everywhere, on my hips, in my hair, on my thighs, until finally his fingers glide between my legs.

  “Nate,” I cry, arching into his hand.

  “I need to be inside of you,” he says, almost apologetically, the words a plea.

  “Yes,” I groan, unzipping his shorts, moving him toward me. This feels as necessary as oxygen, like a hand reaching into the pool to save me from drowning. Just before he slides inside of me he looks in my eyes, frantic and needy, confirming that this is what I want.

  “Please,” I beg. He pushes hard then, groaning once he’s all the way in, and it takes me by surprise, the almost painful fullness of it. I gasp and he stops moving.

  “Are you okay?” he asks between gritted teeth.

  “Yes,” I breathe, my hands already pulling him toward me, demanding that he continue. He responds, and his thrusts grow fast and hard at my urging, his mouth against my lips, against my breasts.

  “Maura,” he growls, and I am building, building, unable to slow myself down or slow him. I cry out as I clench around him. He buries his mouth in my neck as we both come, clinging to each other.

  I hold on to him tightly, my whole body shaking with the impact of it. I don’t want him to leave me. I want to cling to him, hold him here in any way I can. I try to savor the last seconds of him inside of me, the feeling of being clasp against him, even as I realize I can’t keep him. Already I’m remembering that I shouldn’t be here, that this can’t last. I look up at the stars and feel every single thing that has happened to keep us apart for five years, that kept us from this, and that will keep us apart again. I cry, silently, but he feels the tears against his face, still buried in my neck, and pulls back in alarm.

  “Oh God, Maura, I’m sorry,” he says. “Did I hurt you? Did you not want … ?”

  I shake my head. “I’m fine,” I whisper. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

  He still looks worried as he slips out of me. “This shouldn’t have happened like this,” he says, looking chagrined. “I shouldn’t have … I wasn’t thinking.”

  If he’d slapped me it couldn’t take me more by surprise than this – his immediate, unmitigated regret.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” he says again as he tries to find his clothes. “After the whole day together, I just got carried away.”

  And then I can only be stunned by my own stupidity. He has slept with more women than I can count in two months’ time and I just added myself to the list. With no protection, either, but that’s secondary to everything else at the moment. I would laugh at myself if I weren’t crying so hard. I really thought, for half a second, that I was special to him. Maybe he thought I was too, only to discover his mistake before he’d even pulled out. Even if what happened years ago wasn’t what it appeared, it feels now that history is repeating itself.

  And then there’s Ethan. I just cheated on my boyfriend for a guy who’s apologizing before he’s even zipped up his pants. “I cheated,” I whisper in horror, more to myself than to him, my voice breaking. “I cheated on Ethan.”

  He pauses. “I won’t tell anyone,” he says tersely.

  I shake my head. It’s not enough. “I’ll still know I did it,” I say quietly.

  He stands, buttoning his shorts, and finds my panties and throws them into my lap.

  “I’m sorry, Maura. It shouldn’t have happened. There’s not much more I can say beyond that,” he says icily, as if we are strangers.

  I can’t believe he’s doing this to me. I can’t believe I’ve done this to Ethan.

  “You want to go back to the party?” he asks gruffly.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I say without meeting his eye.

  He pauses for just a second, just enough time for me to realize how badly I want him to tell me that this meant something. And then he walks away, blending into the darkness before the breath has caught in my throat.

  I somehow get home, leaden with a sadness so heavy and pervasive I can barely move.

  CHAPTER 35

  I wake, I remember. And then I am flooded by guilt, and by hopelessness. There is a sense that I’ve made a fatal error, though the world looks unchanged when I open my eyes. I am still going to Michigan in the fall. I still am not with Nate, nor will I ever be. Nothing has changed, so why does it feel as if there is no point in getting out of bed at all, not now, not ever?

  I know I will have to break up with Ethan — Heather and Kendall probably saw me leave with Nate, or took an educated guess as to our sudden disappearance; even if they didn’t, I can’t go through my life feeling like I’m harboring a secret that might blow up in my face. But I also can’t tarnish Elise’s wedding with all the distress and drama our breakup will create. Which means I will have to spend the next week pretending I’ve done nothin
g wrong while barely able to look Ethan in the eye.

  When Heather calls I consider not answering, and then change my mind. If I’m going to need her to keep her mouth shut for a week, she’d better know it sooner rather than later.

  “Hey,” I say cautiously.

  “Hey,” she says, slowly, expectantly. I assume she’s waiting for me to confess, but I say nothing. “You left early.”

  “It was just kind of a bad night.” If she knows I wish she’d just say so.

  “I saw Nate later but he didn’t know where you were.”

  “Was he with a girl?” I ask.

  She laughs. “He’s always with a girl.” I want to fold in on myself, as if I’ve been stabbed. Not even for one night was I enough for him.

  “Things got a little crazy at the party,” she tells me.

  I’m barely listening. I can’t believe he was with someone else so soon after me.

  “I’m just going to come out and say it,” she says, and my heart starts beating harder. “Kendall got super drunk and I think she…she left with Jordan.”

  I groan.

  “You can’t tell them I told you,” she warns.

  Poor Mia. I never thought, when he married her, that I’d feel like this – like she was the one who got a raw deal, who’d married down. But now I do. Some people peak when they’re older – they pull together a career and a family and build it all into something strong and beautiful. But Jordan is not one of those people. Jordan peaked in high school, or maybe college, when he was popular and good-looking and everyone wanted him. I’d always assumed that life was a race that he just had a huge head start on. But now I see he was just farther along on a much shorter track. He will spend his entire life trying to get back to being the person who was ahead, who was best, not realizing that the minute you start looking backward you’ve lost the race entirely.

  I can’t face anyone. Not Nate, not Jordan, not my friends. I stay in bed. It’s so unusual that by 10 a.m. my grandmother has come to check on me. “If you throw up in that bed you’ll be washing the sheets yourself,” she snaps.