Close to You

by B. M. Sandy

  It led me to you. My heart sped into overdrive, my throat thickening. It led me to you. It was true, wasn’t it? My world came into sharp focus, and I knew in that moment that whatever Iain and I had, it was real. It wasn’t just for fun, it wasn’t temporary, it wasn’t something we could walk away from unscathed.

  Instinct told me to walk away anyway. Surely being this close to him was dangerous and reckless? Despite how happy he made me feel, I still did have Brandon to worry about. I glanced at Iain, eyes scanning his handsome face. I couldn’t walk away. Not now, not when everything felt so sweet, so real.

  “It led us to each other,” I said, smiling at him.

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  We were coming up to an Old Navy, the sidewalk crowded in front of it. Iain raised his eyebrows at me, as if in question. I nodded, resigned that this was a place as good as any. At least it was within my budget.

  Inside, there were several sections devoted to dresses. I pulled out a couple practical looking black dresses, giving them a cursory glance before deciding to try them on. Iain shuffled behind me, hands in his pockets, looking sorely out of place.

  “Is it safe to say this isn’t your favorite place?” I asked him, sticking my tongue out. He laughed, glancing around the store, then looking back at me.

  “Can’t say I’ve ever been in here before. But I think you’d look great in those.” He licked his lips, his expression darkening. “Or nothing at all.”

  I blushed, swatting at his arm. “Don’t be bad.” He pretended to look chagrined, and I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Let’s see where I can try these on.”

  I made my way to the middle of the store, finding the fitting rooms. I gestured at Iain to wait and went into the only empty one, removing my clothes and slipping into the first dress, a black long-sleeved number fitted at the waist. I turned around, looking at my reflection to see my backside, wincing at my pale legs.

  “How’s it looking in there?” Iain asked from outside the door. I smoothed the front of the dress and opened up, doing a lame little curtsy in the doorway.

  “What do you think?”

  He nodded in appreciation, his eyes dancing down my front. “Very nice. Now turn around.”

  Shyly, I spun around, letting him admire that too, before turning back toward him, the hem of my dress dancing around my knees.

  “I’ll be cold wearing this,” I complained.

  “You look sexy in it. And you wouldn’t be cold with a coat and… what are those things? That cover up your legs?” He was gesturing vaguely toward my own, and I giggled.

  “You mean tights?”

  “Yeah! Tights. And boots, or something. I don’t know.”

  “Right. While you figure out the intricacies of the female wardrobe, I’m gonna try on the next dress.” I shut the door, smiling and shaking my head. I pulled off the dress I was wearing and tugged on the next one, also black, but with tiny pink flowers scattered across it. It was sleeveless, and my arms were chilled.

  I opened the door once I got the thing zipped up all the way and looked expectantly at Iain.

  “Well?” I prompted. “Does this also pass the Iain Test?”

  “Hmm.” He stepped forward, reaching out to touch my bare shoulders, his hands warm. His thumbs caressed the place where the material met my skin, and my eyelashes fluttered from the intensity of such a simple touch. “Yes, I’d say I like this one, too.”

  His words were soft, barely audible over the loud music and shuffle of the store. But everything else shrunk, disappeared. I stared at him, my heart picking up its pace, heavily aware of every breath I took, of every time I blinked.

  And just like that, it was over. He dropped his hands, an easy smile spreading over his face. As if he had no idea at all what had just happened.

  “Which one are you gonna get?” he asked.

  In the end, I got them both, along with two pairs of tights and a new pair of boots, black ones with a small heel. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bought anything for myself that was just to have. All the shopping I did when I got here had been things I’d needed: warm clothes for winter, toiletries because I didn’t have any. Everything I owned was a product of necessity.

  I looked down at the clothes in my basket. Buying these things was breaking the barrier I’d created. How did I feel about that?

  The line moved forward, and I along with it, clutching the clothes to my chest. Iain’s hand rested on the small of my back, a gesture I was becoming familiar with.

  “What are you doing tonight?” I asked him. “Working on your case again?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m getting closer to finishing it off.”

  “What’s it like? Catching people in the act?”

  Iain looked momentarily surprised by my question. “I guess… it’s thrilling, in a way, as terrible as that sounds. To ‘solve’ a case, there’s a sense of accomplishment. But it also sucks. I’ve brought the evidence people have asked for and then they break down from it. Knowing someone is cheating, that’s one thing. But seeing it?” He shook his head, his eyes downcast. “Seeing it makes it real.”

  “Yeah. I can see how that’s hard.” The line moved forward again.

  “Sometimes….” he trailed off, his voice faltering. I turned my head, meeting his eyes, urging him on. “Sometimes, I wish I could do something that meant something. Something that mattered.”

  “You do,” I told him. He didn’t look convinced. “You’re helping people see the truth, aren’t you?”

  “I guess I wish I could do something that didn’t feel so… dirty.”

  “I happen to like when you’re dirty,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows at him. Iain grinned, the tension seeming to slip right off of him.

  He leaned in, his lips grazing my ear as he said, “Then come over tonight. Stay with me. I’ll be more than happy to show you dirty.”

  Color rushed to my face. We were next in line, and a cashier called us over. I hurried up to the counter and set my items down, digging into my bag for my wallet. She rang me up, giving me the total, and I counted out the bills to pay.

  Iain took my bag for me and we walked out of the store. He grabbed my hand and we made our way in the direction we came from, the cold wind blowing eagerly against our faces.

  “I’ll come over tonight,” I said after we’d taken a few steps. “After the open house.”

  He smiled. It transformed his entire face, lighting it up, and my heart skipped a beat. “I’d like that.”

  We walked back to my building, Iain’s hand in mine the entire time. As we approached the door, we stopped walking and he released my hand.

  “I’m going to the hospital again today,” he said.

  “Really? That’s great, Iain.”

  “Yeah.” He was quiet after that, his eyes downcast, and I reached out to touch his face with my gloved hand, bringing his gaze toward me.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” I told him. “I know it doesn’t feel that way, but you are.”

  He looked momentarily pained but then nodded. “I know that.” He leaned in, kissing me softly. When he drew back, he said, “I can’t wait to see you tonight. I hope you have a good time at the art show.”

  It seemed like he was changing the subject, but I didn’t want to push him. I wished I could invite him to the open house; I would very much like having him there, but I didn’t feel it was appropriate to assume that he could come when Evan’s invitation was only for me. I nodded, grinning, thinking about all the things we could do tonight, the thoughts warming me up and speeding my heart.

  It felt so normal, making plans, kissing in public. He was so close to me, his eyes on mine, still holding my shopping bag, his cheeks pink from the cold. On the outside, nobody would have ever guessed how we had come together. I marveled at that, at how Brandon could have been the reason I was able to have something so perfect. It was ironic, in the best way.

  We parted ways, and I made my way up to Shannon’s apa
rtment. I was excited for tonight.

  But most of all, for the first time in years, I was hopeful.

  Chapter 27.

  Iain

  On the way to the hospital, my phone rang. It was my client, Roger, calling to check up on my progress.

  I didn’t like to give out too many details while in the middle of a case. I learned the hard way that the more a client knew about how things were going, the more likely they were to spoil it - fishy behavior from them could throw their spouses right off, fucking up their habits, making it impossible for me to land them.

  “Everything’s going fine. I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I have what you hired me for.”

  “They said you were the best. It’s been three days. Isn’t that enough for you to get everything?”

  This guy was out of control. I sighed, turning it into a cough halfway through so he wouldn’t hear my frustration.

  “Three days isn’t very long in a case like this, Mr. Deloid. It can take up to a month, especially if she limits her activities to a certain day or two of the week.”

  “But she’s out all the time. She’s out right now for fuck’s sake. Where are you?”

  Jesus, this guy was too much. I ground my teeth, forcing myself to regulate my breathing.

  “Mr. Deloid, I promise that I’ll let you know as soon as I have what you hired me for.” I paused, waiting for him to interject, but he didn’t. “I always deliver on that promise. Always.”

  He hung up and I shook my head, pocketing my phone.

  It wasn’t uncommon for spouses to get this way. It was just something that came along with the territory, with the job. And, if I thought he was being ridiculous now, it was only a prelude for what was to come. I thought of my earlier statement to Michele: Seeing it makes it real. There was no question that seeing photos of his wife being fucked by another man, while what he suspected all along, would completely shatter his world. I was prepared for that.

  My conversation with Michele at the store opened up my eyes to something I’d been teetering on but refusing to fully realize: I was doing something that I had no passion for. I had been, for the last four years, gliding through case after case, taking pictures of terrible people doing terrible things. I was, in some ways, a force of destruction; I ruined families, homes, marriages. I had never before thought of it in that way until now.

  I’d taken photos of people in the most intimate situations possible, only shaking my head with disgust. How much I’d judged them, these men and women who crawled into bed with someone else, throwing away everything they had at home. How much I’d hated and scorned cheaters, knowing that I would have given anything at one time to save my own relationship, to turn back time and be a better man for my fiancée. She’d thrown us away, but at least I had the balls to admit that some of it was my fault, too. I hadn’t been there for her.

  I’d judged these people, somehow thinking I was better than them, that I was in the better place. But really, I was just a dick with a camera, shattering lives.

  It paid the bills, but was that what I wanted for the rest of my life? Michele didn’t seem to dwell on the fact that I could have just as easily turned her over to Brandon, that I could have completely altered the course of her life. I could have handed her to the very man she was running from with good cause. All because he waved money in my face and fed me a sob story. How many others have been the same? How many other women have I busted cheating on abusive husbands?

  Had I known it was a possibility? Sure. In an arbitrary way, anything was a possibility. But what would I have done if I had known it to be fact?

  Would I have taken the case? Would I have taken the photos, only to knowingly hand them to an abuser?

  My mind recoiled in horror. Of course I wouldn’t have. But taking these cases, wasn’t that taking a risk that I was doing just that?

  Now that I’d thought that, I couldn’t unthink it. It was driving me fucking crazy - the thought that I could have been the reason someone got hurt. It made me feel physically sick, and I stopped walking, right in the middle of the sidewalk, clutching at my stomach like a child.

  Someone bumped into me, cursing, but I didn’t react. It was as if the world had been turned way down, a dial set on slow-motion. It was as if the last four years of my life had been something out of a film, something I had only been vaguely a part of. Had I really been doing this shit for four fucking years? Was this who I was, for real? Spying on people?

  Ruining lives?

  It wasn’t what I had wanted for myself. The day I got back from my deployment, I was optimistic, hopeful. I was ready to start again with Emily. But when I came home and she wasn’t there, and all I had to remember her by was a picture and a half-assed Dear John letter, it was like someone pushed the pause button on my life for a while.

  Someone else bumped into me, and I began to walk again, numbly, to the subway station.

  What could I do? I couldn’t just quit my job - I wouldn’t be able to survive more than a few months on my savings in this damned expensive city, and now I had Michele to think about. I wanted to be there for her – badly—and being unemployed and broke didn’t seem like the best way to do that.

  Erik’s question popped into my head again, persistent and loud. You like her, then?

  He’d said that it was simple. He blew off every complicated aspect of our relationship like it was just small print, not to be read, just skimmed over. But I wasn’t sure it was simple at all. Something inside me, something urgent and primal, told me that Brandon hadn’t gone away for good. That he was only biding his time.

  And then there was the sheer, simple fact that Michele was still technically married to him. She didn’t talk about Brandon much - not that I blamed her - but I knew that she would have to deal with him sooner or later. What did that mean for me?

  Either way, I wanted to be there for her in that way too. Even if it meant holding her hand all the way up to the judge to sign the papers. Even if it meant beating Brandon’s ass the second he looked at her funny.

  He hadn’t deserved her.

  I tried to imagine Michele young, freshly graduated from college, meeting a much older man, getting swept off her feet. She had been poised to fly, but he had only chained her down. Clipped her wings.

  The first time I saw her photo, I remember thinking that she was beautiful, and that she looked like an animal in a cage. I’d tried to push the thought away, but it had persisted.

  Something had told me that there was something weird with Brandon handing me that case, and I hadn’t trusted those instincts at first.

  Now I knew better.

  xxx

  There was nobody in my mother’s room when I arrived. The purple curtain with smiley faces was drawn halfway around her bed, a false attempt at cheer in such an unhappy place. She was asleep, so I took a chair close by the freezing window, relaxing against the stiff back.

  I studied her face, something I hadn’t allowed myself to do for very long the last time I was here. My eyes danced over her nose, her brow, her lips, all familiar to me, yet, at the same time, oddly foreign. Half a decade was a long time to go without speaking to someone. I let myself wonder, guilt-free, what her life had been like during all that time.

  According to Dad, she kept the brownstone I grew up in and quit her job at the temp agency. She now worked part-time at a local grocery store in the floral department, something my dad said she enjoyed. I couldn’t imagine my mom handling flowers for a living.

  I thought of my GI Joes. Did she even remember that? My memory felt oddly blank; I couldn’t remember what color her bathrobe was, or which Hot Wheels I had used as getaway cars. But I remembered the mildly bewildered look on my mother’s face. She hadn’t even thought twice about breaking my toy.

  Was it worth a lifetime of grudges?

  “Iain.”

  She was awake. I cleared my throat, and she did her best to sit up, but she struggled. Reflexively, I stood, walking over to her and
helping her, her body frail and shaking under my hands.

  “Mom.” After ensuring that she was secure, I took a step back. “How are you?”

  “I hurt like hell and they’re feeding me shit,” she said. It sounded an awful lot like something she would have said before, when she was still drinking. “But I can’t complain. The nurses are lovely.”

  That wasn’t something she would have said before, though. “Any news?” I asked.

  “You mean about my failing liver?”

  “Well… yeah.”

  She shook her head, her voice sad, defeated. “I drank too much. It’s too late for them to do anything.”

  To hear her say that she drank too much… I wasn’t ready for it. I pulled my chair over, sitting down, riveted.

  “When did you decide enough was enough?”

  She met my eye, then looked down at her hands, studying them. Her palms were red like they’d been burned.

  “After I blamed Emily’s miscarriage on you, I realized that I had become the worst possible version of myself. It took losing my only son to see that.” Her eyes were glistening, but I made no move to comfort her. I sat there, stoic, my hands on my knees. “I wish I could tell you that I had a reason I drank. I don’t. It was just something I did.”

  “There had to have been something that drew you to it,” I said.

  “Really, Iain… it was just something to do. I wasn’t drinking because of a bad marriage or a bad upbringing. At first it was wine at dinner. Then it turned into cracking a bottle open earlier and earlier… until I couldn’t function without any.” She swiped at her eyes, licking her dry lips. “I regret every day of my life that I spent drinking. If I could trade anything… anything at all, I would trade the memories I gave you for something good, something better.”

  My throat swelled at that. I tore my eyes away from her, and my focus landed on the IV machine behind the bed, the beeping low and steady. I wasn’t ready to think about my mother being someone more than who she was when she raised me. Even though I knew she’d been sober for five years, it was something far removed, something I had only imagined. Seeing her sober was so different than I imagined it would be.