Crazy Thing Called Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  Nothing charming about his dad right now.

  “Everyone in the neighborhood knows you’ve been saving money for the rep league.”

  “I already gave the money to Coach.”

  That made his father pause. But then he stepped into Billy’s room anyway.

  “What are you doing?” Billy asked. “I told you there’s no money!”

  “What about this shit, though?” His dad grabbed Billy’s hockey bag and tore open the zipper. “This equipment costs money, it’s probably worth something.”

  Hurt and rage and his own fucking uselessness bubbled up and he knew better, he really did, he’d been taught at a pretty young age to just stay out of his dad’s way when he was like this, but he couldn’t let anything happen to his hockey gear.

  It was his. All his. The only thing in his life that meant anything.

  “Don’t touch that!” he cried and jerked his bag sideways. His sticks clattered down from where they’d been propped against the wall and hit his father in the head.

  The smile vanished from his dad’s face, and quick like a rattlesnake he reached out and cuffed Billy hard on the side of his head. It hit against the door frame, but Billy didn’t let go of the bag.

  Which didn’t stop his father from ripping open the zipper the rest of the way and taking out Billy’s skates.

  “What are these worth?” he asked. “Christ, this stuff stinks.”

  “Don’t—” He grabbed the skates by the blades but his dad jerked them away, slicing open Billy’s hands. He’d just had the blades sharpened and they were like knives.

  Billy reached for them again, but his father smacked him backward, holding the skates in front of Billy’s face like a switchblade.

  “Listen, you little shit, my money bought this stuff—”

  “No, it didn’t. I bought those skates. They’re mine!”

  His dad leaned in closer, the cool metal of the blade touching Billy’s face, the corner of his lip. Fear prickled all along his back, his hairline. Billy tried to back up, but he was pressed tight against the door frame.

  “You think you’re a big man, huh?” He pressed the skate against Billy’s mouth until the metal touched his teeth. Billy forced himself not to wet his pants. “Some kind of hockey star? Well, let me tell you, son, you’re a Wilkins. Which means you ain’t shit.”

  “Leave him alone!”

  Out of nowhere, his mom cannonballed into her husband, shoving him sideways, just as Billy jerked his head.

  For a moment he felt nothing. His father just stared at him, his face white with horror. And then he dropped the skate and ran.

  His mother started screaming.

  Pain exploded across his face. It hurt, his mouth, his face, it hurt so much he wanted to climb out of his skin. He wanted to die.

  “Mom!” he tried to scream, but his mouth didn’t work and blood sprayed the white wall.

  Holy shit, he thought as he slipped down the door frame.

  There was a thud. Someone screaming.

  The world throbbed in time to the pain. And he curled into a ball on the floor. In his blood. He was all alone.

  Oh shit. Oh God. Please. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was bad. He needed to call an ambulance. He tried to brace himself to stand, to go find the phone, but he slipped in the blood, his head light.

  “I called the police,” a voice said, high and thready and panicked.

  He looked sideways and saw Maddy.

  Maddy.

  Those copper eyes were wide with panic and fear but she was there.

  “It’s … it’s okay.” She stepped closer. Crouched down.

  “I’m sorry,” he tried to say. The black edges of the world were creeping in and he lost himself, but then he felt her hand, warm and real.

  And he grabbed on tight.

  Don’t let go, was his very last thought before he passed out.

  Billy didn’t remember the drive home—they could have ended up on the moon, for all the attention he paid to the road. Luckily his subconscious remembered where he lived.

  Charlie fell asleep in the car, which Becky seemed to think was a sign of the end of the world.

  “He won’t sleep tonight,” she muttered as Billy carried the sleeping boy into the guest room of his house.

  Billy put Charlie down on the bed and stood up, facing Becky.

  “I swear …” he whispered, smiling a little because she looked so … new. So pretty. Her hair had dried into big pretty curls around her face. She looked somehow older and younger at the same time. Wise and vulnerable. A girl walking into womanhood. It made his throat feel tight with a certain nostalgia and affection. “… I don’t even recognize you.”

  She frowned at him, her scowl utterly familiar. What was it about him that made the women in his life so angry? So furious with him?

  “Ah,” he said, trying to make a joke of it all, when there was nothing funny about a single thing in his life. “There’s the angry girl I know.”

  He walked past her and curbed the instinct to put his hand on her head. Never so keenly had he felt the lack of touch in his life.

  He collapsed onto his couch, his head back on the headrest. He felt empty. Like if they drove back to the studio, there would be a trail of his blood and guts along the roads and highway. His still-beating heart in Maddy’s hand.

  What do I do now? he thought. How do I get over this? He wished the season wasn’t so far away. He’d even be happy to play in the minor leagues, if it would start right at this moment.

  He didn’t want to fight. For the first time in his life, he was mad and angry and he didn’t want to put his fist through a wall.

  Maybe he’d take the kids on a fishing trip. The thought lifted some of the pressure in his chest.

  “Hey?”

  He looked up to see Becky in the doorway, her sleeves pulled down over her hands. Her lips totally ravaged, which was usually a precursor to her running away or doing something equally drastic.

  He sat up, marshaling himself to focus on Becky.

  “What’s up?” he asked, hoping whatever she was planning would be a good distraction but wouldn’t get anyone hurt.

  “I … I had an idea.”

  “Does it involve stealing my car?”

  “No.”

  “Then shoot.”

  “Gina—the lady that cut my hair—was saying there’s this boarding school right outside of Dallas. Her niece or something goes there.”

  His whole body went still, like those moments before sliding into the boards, both braced and relaxed, waiting for the hit.

  “Boarding school,” he said, just to be clear.

  “Yeah, you know, where kids live at the school they go to. Maybe … maybe you could send me there.”

  It wasn’t personal, he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. She was scared and alone, but right now, beaten and battered, it still hurt. It still felt like rejection.

  “Do you want to go there?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?”

  “I … I don’t want to feel shitty every day for being here. For being a problem.”

  “You’re not a problem!”

  She turned sideways, touching her fist against the wall, the oak wainscoting. “You don’t have to lie,” she whispered.

  Billy rubbed his scar, looked out on his backyard, shining and sparkly from the recent rain. “We’re family,” he said.

  “So?”

  He cleared his throat and decided this was just his day for letting it all out. The words he didn’t want to spill, the vulnerability he didn’t want to show—he couldn’t hide it anymore.

  Maybe being a family meant not pretending. If that was the case, if it would help, he’d show this girl his heart.

  “Maddy had a great family growing up. A mom who made dinner and made sure Maddy did her homework, and a dad who worked really hard to make sure they had food on the table and they could go to Dairy Queen every Sunday night. I used to be s
o jealous of that.”

  She was silent, tracing a circle in the wood.

  “My mom tried, but she was a mess. My dad was never around, and when he was …” He got caught for a moment in the memory of the pain and the blood, the screaming, the escape route over the porch. Maybe he’d tell her that story later, when she was older. “Well, let’s just say there weren’t any trips to Dairy Queen. Janice and Denise … I’m not sure they cared. Not like I did. Maybe when we were all young we wanted to be a family, but after a while they seemed to think how we were, how awful our house was, was normal. But I still wanted it. I still wanted a family.” He waited for her to look at him. Outside, birds flew, clouds broke apart and scattered to mist. Finally, quickly, she glanced sideways, her eyes meeting his and then sliding away.

  He recognized that look so well. Like a kicked dog, searching for a little kindness.

  “And I still do. I want a family. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” She stared at a spot on the carpet, three inches from the front of his feet. Closer, but not close enough. He could feel her yearning, as painful and unbelievable as his. “Please, Becky … please just look at me.”

  Finally, she did. Her blue eyes swimming with tears, huge and liquid. “If you really want to go to boarding school, we’ll do it. I’ll send you wherever you want to go, Lord knows you’ve earned a shot at being happy. And I have enough money for you to do whatever you want. But I am really hoping you might be happy here. With me.”

  She sniffed. Lifted one wrist to rub at her eye.

  And suddenly they were in one of those moments that could change everything. For him. For her. It was a line in the sand and someone had to be brave enough to cross it.

  Despite being gutted by the woman he loved, he was suddenly that someone. Brave enough for the two of them.

  He climbed to his feet, taking his time crossing the carpet, feeling like he was a hundred years old, hurt and wounded but somehow hopeful all the same.

  His arms were loose by his sides and she had plenty of time to run, to dodge him, but she stood there, shaking. Tears dropping off her nose onto her sweatshirt. Careful, aware of how fragile she was, how fragile the moment was, he touched her back. She flinched but didn’t run, and he rode it out. Waited patiently for her to relax into the contact. Just his hand gently resting there.

  And when that seemed okay, he carefully, slowly, pulled her sideways into his chest. Her shoulder at his sternum, his hand at her elbow.

  “I want you to stay,” he said, and he felt her drawn so tight he was worried she might snap. Might break into a thousand pieces at his feet.

  She coughed. Or something. And then another. Her head bent over, her hands clenched into fists at her stomach, and he realized she wasn’t coughing, she was sobbing. Nearly bent double, she was crying her heart out.

  “I want you to stay,” he said again and she turned sideways, putting her arms around his waist. Sobbing against his shirt.

  Yeah, he thought, patting her back, holding her close, letting her cry—probably all things that hadn’t happened to her in years.

  This is right.

  The only thing that might make it more right was having Charlie awake. And Maddy here. A real family. The only family he would ever dream of wanting.

  But some things just weren’t meant to be.

  Maddy closed the door to her condo behind her and in the darkness she shrank back against the wood. For three years this place had been her sanctuary. Three years.

  Ivory tower. Fine. Yes. He was right about that.

  But why was it wrong? Why was it wrong to be safe? To create a place for herself that was hers and hers alone. Why was that intrinsically bad?

  Just who the fuck was he to judge her?

  And the fact that she felt lonely? The fact that she stood here, in the dark and shadows of her own life, and felt like a sliver of a person, a quarter of who she’d been, as if the last few years had sucked something vital and real and important out of her. Maybe that was just growing up. Maybe that was divorce.

  She felt righteous about that for a few moments, righteous enough to kick off her shoes and turn on the lights.

  But it was somehow worse in the light. As if the starkness of her condo was reflective of how stark her life was. Pictures of guests on her wall? That didn’t seem right. No matter how famous, or how great the picture. Because it wasn’t love.

  “Stop it,” she cried. “Stop it.” She yanked off her earrings and tossed them in the bowl on the pink table in her hallway. She’d work out. That’s what she needed. It had been a few days, what with the drama of the kids and Billy, and she was simply missing the endorphins of a good sweaty workout.

  But in her bedroom the recumbent bike looked like a torture device.

  A run?

  Rain pounded against the windows.

  No. No. Not this.

  The dark edges of depression crept in. That crippling melancholy that had kept her in bed for weeks after she and Billy had broken up the first time was coming back tenfold. Darker. Thicker.

  She rejected the depression. The idea of it. He wasn’t going to have that power over her anymore. Never again.

  Knowing a surefire way of reminding herself that editing Billy from her life was the right thing to do, she picked up her phone and called her mother.

  “Honey!” her mom cried upon answering and Maddy fell backward onto her bed. “How are you?”

  Surprisingly, Maddy found herself swallowing back tears, waiting until the pain in her throat and behind her eyes passed so she could talk.

  “I’m good, Mom,” she said, happy for all that voice training that allowed her to sound normal. “How are you?”

  “Good. I’m good. Well, Paige and I lost at bridge today, but you can’t win them all, can you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You don’t sound okay, do you have a cold?”

  I’m so bad, Mom. I’m so scared and so in love and … unhappy. Deeply, terribly unhappy, and I can’t pretend I’m not anymore. I can’t pretend that being Maddy Cornish is satisfying. I can’t keep living like this.

  The words were a scream in her throat. The same scream she’d been holding in for fourteen years. But letting it out … oh, she couldn’t imagine the power of that scream. How it would change her life. How she’d never be able to look at herself in the mirror again if she released it.

  It had been bad enough telling Billy she loved him. Close enough to hitting some terrible dark spot of no return.

  She opened her mouth to tell her mother that Billy had been on the show. That he was back in Maddy’s life, but suddenly she couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to listen to her mother’s old poison about him. And she really didn’t want to think about what that meant.

  “Are you happy, Mom?” she asked, instead, rolling onto her side and pulling the duvet up over her body.

  “Sure. I mean, I wish you were closer. I wish your father were still alive, but yeah, I’m happy.”

  How does that feel? she wondered.

  “I’m glad, Mom,” she said.

  Tears leaking silently from the corners of her eyes, she made the right noises about weather and bridge games and taking a trip down there in the winter. Maybe for a week this time, she was owed some vacation.

  “Honey,” Mom said. “You really don’t sound like you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine,” she lied, the words, like so much of her life, a candy coating over something very, very rotten.

  Having pulled herself back from the brink, Maddy decided that if her life was unhappy, it was her own damn fault, and she threw herself into the revamp of the show.

  Who the hell was Billy to tell her what mattered? She’d show him a fight.

  Every day for a week she woke up thinking it would get better, that the thoughts of Billy and the kids would fade and the pain would ease. But every day it was there, like glass just under her skin.

  And every day she tried to get past that pain with work. It had been the r
ight medicine once, but it wasn’t working anymore.

  Empty, she thought, as she lined up guests and story ideas.

  I don’t give a shit, she thought as she listened to theme music options and discussed brand marketing.

  Ruth slapped her notebook against the conference room table and everyone jumped. “Clear out,” she said to Sabine and the rest of the crew, who were all in there working on the last of the presentation they were going to give to Richard the next day.

  Maddy pulled together her stuff and started to stand.

  “Not you, Madelyn,” Ruth said and Maddy sat back down and waited for everyone else to clear out.

  “What the hell is going on with you, Maddy?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ruth leaned back in her chair. She was wearing a red sweater today, her black-on-black theme seemed to have been derailed over the past week. Color looked good on her.

  “You’re a liar, Maddy. And up until now you’ve been pretty convincing. But today, I can see right through you.”

  “I’m not a liar!” she cried, appalled at the notion.

  “Please, we both are. In fact, I’ll reveal a lie I’ve been telling for three years.” She threw her arms out, as if throwing something away. “I don’t want to move to New York. I don’t want a network job.”

  So that explained the red sweater. “Really?”

  “Really. I like it here. And now that we’re working on the new format, I have no desire to go anywhere. Here’s another piece of honesty for you.” She leaned across the table, suddenly razor sharp, suddenly more present than Maddy had ever seen her. She was sparkling with purpose. Confronted with all that energy, Maddy felt like a burnt-out lightbulb. “If you don’t get your head out of your ass, this show is going to flop. And flop hard. You want to host a show like this, then you need to connect, Maddy.”

  “I connect.” Her protest sounded stupid. Weak.

  “Bullshit, and you know it. We need you to really connect, and the person you are right now, this shell, I don’t think she can do it.”

  Maddy wished she could deny it. Wished she could be outraged. But part of her knew Ruth was right.