by Penny Reid
Tuesday night’s crying was cathartic, necessary, and I’d embraced it. But I didn’t want to cry now. I didn’t want to show weakness to someone who, by his own admission, cared more about who my family was than who I was as a person.
I kept thinking, I knew it! I knew he would make me cry! Stupid Kaitlyn. Stupid passion. Stupid trust. Stupid jerk-face Martin Sandeke.
I turned away from him before he could see my face crumble. I needed to hide. The desire was brutal. Thus, I tried to bolt for the cabin below deck, with my ultimate goal one of the two closets. But, somehow detecting my intentions, Martin had other plans. I listened to his chair hastily scrape against the deck, his quick steps circle the table.
He was hot on my heels as I descended the stairs and he intercepted me before I could grab for the handle of the closet door.
Martin gripped my shoulders and he turned me to face him.
“Let me go!”
“Christ, Kaitlyn. Calm down for a minute. You wanted me to defend myself, so listen.”
“I hate you!” I yelled this, but I didn’t really mean it. Besides feeling wonderfully dramatic and perfect in the moment, I wanted to hurt him. Because I was hurting.
“No, you don’t. You’re falling in love with me.” He looked stunned by my outburst, but sounded almost pleased by it, like my reaction was part of some big plan, a game of strategy he’d been playing.
Damn it all, he was such a bully. I knew this, but I must have forgotten it someplace between his mouth and his hands and his eyes and his words.
I responded to this accusation through clenched teeth, sounding not at all convincing. “No, I’m not.”
I fought his grip and pushed against his granite chest. Of course this did nothing but make him change his hold so I couldn’t continue hitting him.
“Listen to me, Kaitlyn. Just—would you listen?”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.
Even though you don’t feel calm doesn’t mean you can’t be calm.
I stilled. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see him. I needed to distance myself. I needed to either reason or bluff my way through this. My urge to cry dissipated as I thought through my action plan.
I would…I would just freeze him out. I could do that. I’d been doing it for months before he found me in that science cabinet and everything went to hell.
I cleared my throat, testing the steadiness of my vocal chords. “I changed my mind. I’m not interested. I don’t care.”
He laughed at this, though it sounded completely frustrated. “Shutting me out, are you? How convenient that you’re able to just turn your feelings off so easily.”
I kept my eyes shut and repeated over and over, even though you don’t feel calm doesn’t mean you can’t be calm.
I had no reason to answer him, so I didn’t. I just pretended he wasn’t there. Eventually he’d have to let me go. When I was eleven, I spent seven hours in a closet waiting for a babysitter to leave. I didn’t like her because she cheated at Monopoly.
Martin hadn’t cheated at Monopoly, but he did just admit that he was using me because of who my family was. In some sick way it made sense. By his own admission, college was one large-scale job interview of his classmates for the future Martin Sandeke conglomerate. Why wouldn’t he also be interviewing girls for the role of girlfriend?
In the game of life this made him one of my least favorite people. He was manipulating me. The very thing he detested in others. He knew I was falling in love with him. He knew. Was I the first girl he was going to test? Martin Sandeke’s Girlfriend 1.0?
“You are so stubborn.” Now he sounded upset. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
I didn’t. Instead I built the case against him in my mind. Everything he’d said and done became damning evidence and I felt myself grow numb.
“Fine. We’ll do it this way.”
Martin’s hold changed, and he was walking me backward. The high mattress of the cabin’s double bed hit my bottom and before I quite understood what was happening, he lifted me into his arms and placed me on the bed.
I did open my eyes then, scrambling away from him to the far corner of the mattress. I glared at him, hoped to communicate that I would kill him dead if he touched me with intent to arouse.
He seemed to understand the silent threat because he lifted his hands up and said, “I’m not going to touch you, not if you don’t want me to. I’m just going to sit here, on this side. But you have to promise me that you won’t cover your face or close your eyes again. I need you to see me when I say this. And I need to see you.”
I said nothing. I wasn’t going to make him any promises.
He paused, indulging himself in a moment to examine my face. At length, he said, “You’re so good at that. You’ll have to teach me how to do that, hide in plain sight. It’s a handy skill.” These words were surprisingly bitter, approaching the intersection of sarcasm and spite.
I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs, and said nothing. Though I got the distinct impression he was stalling. I briefly wondered why, but then became irritated with myself for my curiosity. I shouldn’t care.
He sat on the edge of the bed in the opposite corner, facing me. His features were hard, verging on resentful.
Abruptly, he released a breath and with it the words, “I’m in love with you, Kaitlyn.”
I said nothing, but I did flinch. As silent seconds ticked by, feelings welled within me, ballooning past the numbness, and I could barely contain it. I felt like I was being stretched beyond my capacity, my chest tight and heavy, my stomach intermittently twisting and pitching. I was dizzy.
As well, I found I couldn’t quite hold the enormity of his gaze paired with his admission, so earnestly spoken. I believed him and I couldn’t quite handle this truth, so I removed my eyes from his and swallowed. It didn’t help. I was shaking.
He cleared his throat, politely ignoring my turmoil, and said, “Who your family is, it’s a part of you. Just like my family—all their fucked-up spite and bullshit—is also a part of me. We’ve been shaped by them but they don’t define us. I’m not them. I don’t have to be like them. You’re not your illustrious ancestors. You don’t have to be like them. You can be whoever you want. Our families couldn’t be more different, but—because of who your family is—you understand what it means to have…expectations. To have people prejudge you or want to use you for who they are, what they’ve done, and what they have. That’s what I meant when I said who your family is has a great deal to do with why you’re very attractive girlfriend material.”
I slid just my eyes to his. They were stinging and I felt like crying. I was overwhelmed but I was unable to keep from surveying him to discern the veracity of his words. He appeared to be completely sincere and I felt the gravity of his blue-green gaze to my bones.
Before I could catch myself, I blurted, “So you like me because I can empathize with you?”
“No…yes, that’s definitely part of it, but…” His frustration was a tangible thing, curling around his strong body and filling the air with tension. “I like you because you are Kaitlyn—genuine, beautiful, brilliant, amazing Kaitlyn—not because you’re Kaitlyn Parker. And I’m in love with you because I can’t help myself.”
Oh well…barnacles.
That struck me right in the feels.
I knocked my feels on their collective swooning asses for a moment because I needed to focus on the real issue. “But, upstairs you were trying to make me think you were using me. Why make it sound like you were just using me?”
He leaned forward, but made no move to advance closer, his voice rising with every word. “Because you’re so controlled all the time. I ask you to move in with me and you make a pro/con list, as though we’d be just roommates, but make no reference to what you feel for me, like it doesn’t factor. I’m in love with you and I have no idea what you feel for me, if you feel anything at all!”
“How can you say
that? How can you even think it? Who was upstairs yesterday giving you a hug and trying to comfort you after your wicked stepmother showed up?”
“You. You were upstairs.” His tone held a hard edge, ripe with unhappiness. “But you would have done that for anyone; you would have tried to make things right for any random person. I don’t want to be just anyone to you.”
I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t believe him. “Then who has been on this boat with you since yesterday morning? Who was all up in your junk yesterday afternoon? And who woke up naked, tangled up with you this morning in this bed? You are not any random person to me! I’ve never done anything with anyone before! I’ve never let anyone so close. And these things, all these things we’ve been doing, and not just the physical stuff, the sharing of…of myself, of our dreams and our fears, this means something to me. None of this has been done lightly.”
“I needed to be sure.”
I hoped I was misunderstanding him somehow, because the alternative was completely cray-cray.
“So, help me understand this. Earlier, on the deck, just now…you misled me as some kind of test? To see if I’d be upset?”
“Yes.” He nodded, looking unrepentant.
My brain was going to explode.
“That’s messed up, Martin. You know this is a sore spot for me, if not the sorest spot. Your need for certainty does not matter more than my feelings. You don’t purposefully hurt people you care about. You can’t do that. That’s not allowed!”
He flinched and abruptly stood, turned away, like he couldn’t stand looking at me with the knowledge that he’d hurt me. He tugged his fingers though his hair and sighed, stalking back and forth from one side of the cabin to the other.
“I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t think I could hurt you. I didn’t expect you to freak out like you did. You never freak out about anything. I just wanted to see how you would react. I wanted to see if I mattered.”
“Well, looks like you have your answer. You matter. Happy now?”
“No. I’m the opposite of happy,” he yelled back, then exhaled like he was out of steam. His gaze moved over me with such raw longing that I couldn’t stand looking at him anymore. I closed my eyes and I covered my face.
A moment later I heard something crash followed by, “Goddammit!”
I jumped at the sound and blasphemy, but kept my face buried. I was all mixed up and not one thought or feeling seemed to rise to the top.
“Kaitlyn, will you look at me?”
I gathered a fortifying breath then peeked at him between my fingers. It was the best I could do.
He was now glaring at me, likely irritated by the hands still covering my face.
Then he broke the stony silence. “I’m sorry,” he said, then waited like he expected me to respond in a certain way, like we were following some script I hadn’t been given. He growled impatiently, “So?”
“So what?”
“So, am I forgiven?”
My hands dropped from my face in my shocked outrage. “No!”
“What?” He was surprised.
How can he possibly be surprised?! Gah!
“What you did was not okay. You just purposefully hurt me as some dysfunctional litmus test.” I scrambled off the bed and pointed at him, then waved my finger through the air to indicate his entire body. My face was screwed up in anger. “You’re not forgiven, mister. Not by a long shot.”
He turned and fell back on the bed. He groaned. He covered his face with his hands then rubbed furiously. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do and I’ll do it.”
“Lots of begging,” I blurted and crossed my arms. Now I was pacing the cabin. My mind was a jumble. He was either a sociopath or just really clueless about basic human decency.
He chuckled. It only sounded half frustrated. “I don’t know how to beg.”
“Figure it out.”
He removed his hands from his face and lifted his head, his eyes trailing up then down my body. “You don’t want me to beg because you know I’m not going to beg. You want something else.”
“I guess you’ll just have to keep apologizing until I’m ready to forgive you.”
“What was I supposed to do? It’s Thursday. We leave on Saturday morning. I only have one more day.”
I waved my arms through the air and may have resembled a bird struggling to fly. I appealed to any shred of sanity within him. “You could have just asked me, you fucking asshole jerk-face!”
Whoa!
My brain was shocked by the curse words and how good and necessary they felt given the circumstance. Perhaps cussing had its time and place…
Martin looked surprised as well, but instead of focusing on my foul language, he said, “I tried to do that.”
“Really? I don’t remember you saying at any point today,” I lowered my voice to mimic his, “ ‘Hey, so, I love you. Are you in love with me?’ ”
He sat up and stared at me, then shocked the hell out of me by actually saying, “I love you, Kaitlyn. Are you in love with me?”
CHAPTER 9
Organic and Biological Chemistry
We’d reached a stalemate after our big fight. I couldn’t answer his question. He wouldn’t let me hide in the closet.
But we’d also reached a ceasefire, which was a very good thing because we were at least ten miles from the island and were utterly alone, with each other, for the rest of the day.
As such, things became strained, but also exceedingly polite. We went back above deck, ate lunch in relative silence. I cleared the dishes while he washed them. Please and Thank you were used in excess. But not You’re welcome. For some reason, through an odd silent accord, we’d both agreed that You’re welcome was off limits. Instead I’d say, No problem. Or he’d say, My pleasure.
Strained politeness became complete silence as he focused on fishing—actually holding the pole!—and I laid a towel on the platform of the bow and pretended to read my book. Instead, I thought about the nuttiness of the last few days and hours and what I was going to do about it all.
It was weird being with Martin and not talking to him. Therefore, when the sun approached the horizon and Martin asked if I wanted to head to the cottage and meet up with Eric and Sam, or stay on the boat for the night, I surprised both him and me when I responded that I wanted to stay on the boat. I also asked that he call Sam and Eric and let them know our plans.
Even though we’d been gone since Wednesday morning, I didn’t want to go to the cottage when he and I weren’t on more than polite speaking terms. Tomorrow was our last day. There was too much left unsaid. Regardless of whether we returned as friends or as more than friends, I wanted us to be in a good place.
Martin needed a friend. He needed a safe place. I wasn’t in love with him…or maybe I am…or maybe I’m falling in love with him… I don’t know! Gah!
But he mattered to me. Once the urge to hide in the closet passed, I was determined we not abandon what we’d started. I wanted to see it through.
When he learned I wanted to stay the night on the boat, Martin’s mood shifted. He became less stoically polite and more actually polite.
He touched base with Eric via a satellite phone and I spoke to Sam for about three minutes, just long enough to assure her I was perfectly fine and I’d see her tomorrow in the afternoon.
Then he asked if I wanted to go for a swim, and I said yes. So we did. I did my best to ignore his body, because it still put me in a state of duress and gave me lusty pants, and he did an admirable job of keeping his hands to himself.
I made a salad and he made sashimi for dinner from a second yellowfin tuna he’d caught during the day. I was super impressed he knew how to make sashimi from whole tuna until I realized it was just cutting up the pretty part of the fish. I’m lying. I was still impressed. He was really good with his knife.
I praised his fishing and fish-cutting prowess. As well, we found a topic that was perfectly safe to discuss - our chemistry assignment. Therefore,
after dinner we spread out the chemistry text, my notes, divvied up the tabulations and analyses, and set to work.
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, mark this day on the calendar of your life. Martin Sandeke helped with the tabulations and analyses.
If anything says, I’m sorry I hurt you earlier by making you think I was using you for your family because it didn’t occur to me to just ask how you felt about me, helping with laboratory tabulations and analyses will do the trick.
Of course, it helped that he could do the work in a fraction of the time it took me. Then, maybe as a peace offering or maybe because he found himself enjoying the task, Martin offered to finish my portion of the tabulations. I let him.
I stretched as I stood and glanced at the half moon in the sky and the gathering clouds. It looked like it was going to rain.
I cleared the table and did the dinner dishes while he finished our lab work. While rinsing suds off the plates I was struck by a peculiar sensation of melancholy and mourning.
Tomorrow was our last day.
It was hard to believe that Martin had found me hiding in a science cabinet just last week. It felt like a lifetime ago. And yet, the week had flown by. Everything was different. I was different. I wondered how it was possible to live one’s life, week in and week out, with nothing of consequence occurring.
But then suddenly, over the course of seven days, my entire world shifted. Just seven days that could have been like any other seven days.
This really was relationship boot camp. Through this fight—or whatever it was we were in—I’d learned more about Martin, understood him better than I had during the first six days of the trip combined.
1. He was damaged in ways I might never understand.
2. He was used to getting what he wanted—whether that be information or acquiescence—through manipulation.
3. He was in love with me, or at least he thought he was.
4. He was willing to learn from his mistakes.
5. He didn’t want to repeat his mistakes.
6. He feared rejection.