The Goode Fight

by Seth King

All of the sudden my heart feels ten sizes too big – even I hadn’t remembered that.

  Something catches my eye, and I glance down and see the fifth Harry Potter book lying on his floorboard.

  “You read Harry Potter?”

  “Is that a serious question? Harry’s my man. I’ve read the whole series three times.”

  “Oh really?” I ask, and then suddenly it strikes me how truly little we know about each other. I try not to dwell on it- we have time for all that. “I’m a big Potter nerd myself,” I continue. “Which house do you think you’d be in? I’ve been told I’m a Ravenclaw.”

  His grip on the wheel tightens. “Gryffindor or Slytherin. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.”

  I stare down at the floor. “You’re a Gryffindor, Stellan,” I say quietly without looking up. “I wish you’d realize that.”

  “We’ll see what happens in the end,” he murmurs, and I shiver as I realize just how loaded that statement was.

  “And are you ever going to tell me about your writing?” I ask him in an attempt to lighten the mood. For some reason his jaw tenses.

  “Soon. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  I want to ask more, but I am cut short when I notice a set of blinding headlights heading straight towards us from the wrong side of the road.

  “Fuck!” Stellan yells as he swerves to the left at the last minute, the other car careening probably six inches past his door. I scream as we hit the grass and skid to a stop.

  “Goddamn!” he shouts again as he looks back, the veins in his forehead popping. The other car stops and turns their interior lights on, and I see the driver pull out a map.

  “Oh, that’s great,” Stellan snarls. He reaches down and undoes his seatbelt with a jerking motion, and I am sure he’s about to jump out and beat their windows in. “Almost driving into another car so you can look at a fucking map! Awesome. You could’ve killed Taylor! Goddamn mother-”

  He stops and looks over at me, and I realize I must look completely terrified. I rearrange my features so I won’t alarm him.

  “Mother’s Day,” he finishes.

  “What?”

  “Mother’s Day,” he repeats as he looks forward, puts the car back in gear, and starts down the road again. “I was just reminding myself that Mother’s Day is in six months or so, and I need to start looking for the perfect present.”

  “Stellan,” I say in disbelief. “You controlled your temper. You stopped yourself.”

  “Don’t you remember what I told you the night we met?” he asks as he throws a quick smile over at me. “You’re my Xanax. I used to feel red all the time, but you make me feel…blue. Cool, calm, collected. I look at you and I see what I need to be. You’re changing me, in so many ways.” He holds his hands up. “And look- my fingernails are growing out. I stopped biting them.”

  “Well you’re kind of changing me, too,” I say quietly, awed by the deep place our conversation has suddenly gone. “In the opposite way. I used to feel…I don’t know, blue, but you make me feel red. Before I just kind of existed, but you make me feel alive. You make me feel…pretty, and wanted, and vibrant, and all that cheesy stuff. I used to be afraid that if I showed people the real me, they’d reject me, but I revealed my true self to you, and you actually made me like that person. And hey,” I say sheepishly as I show him my hand with its nails bitten almost to the quick, “for what it’s worth, I started biting mine.”

  He takes my hand, kisses the back of it, and smiles. “I’m sorry. I know I’m a handful. And you are wanted. A little too much, and by a little too many people, which is exactly my problem, actually.”

  The air turns awkward all of a sudden. “Listen, Stellan, I-”

  “Don’t apologize,” he says curtly. “I’m the one who should be apologizing, for being so rough with you after I found out. But like I said, I understand why you kissed him, even though it made me mad. I’m not stupid, and I know you need things that I’m not giving you. Yet.”

  I tremble at the last word and look out the window again, keeping my hand in his. Drama aside, I’m enjoying this moment so much I almost forget that it’s about to be shattered by what I have to tell him. He gets off the highway and goes down a wooded street for a few minutes, then turns from the pavement onto a dirt road and tells me to close my eyes. For whatever crazy reason, I do. Where are we going? Am I going to be found rotting in a ditch in three weeks? Why am I such an idiot for this boy?

  “Open up,” he says after a minute or two. “We’re here.”

  I open my eyes and gasp, because we’re parked on a lot above one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen- the lake at the park where we’d had that Miley Cyrus incident the other day. It’s a perfect, brisk night, the moon one or two nights away from being full, the reflections of the puffy grey clouds smiling back from the glassy surface of the black water.

  “It’s our park,” he says expectantly. “You like it?”

  “It’s perfect,” I breathe. A beautiful night and Stellan by my side- now I know I’m really in Eden. If only I didn’t have to kick us out of it soon by telling him about Caitlin and possibly ruining everything.

  “Good. I brought a blanket. Want to sit down with some wine and look up at the sky?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Stellan Goode, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.”

  “I wish,” he laughs. “Come on.”

  I climb out of the car, and after he lays out the blanket he grabs a plastic bag and sits down beside me.

  “Yep, looks like we’re right on time,” he says as he glances down at his Rolex.

  “For what?”

  He smiles over at me. “Look up at the sky.”

  Confused, I crane my head up and look around until I see it- the eclipse. A dark shadow is starting to move over the moon, and I squeal with excitement and lean back to watch the bright orb slowly become hidden until finally the sky turns totally black. I clap my hands together.

  “Stellan- I can’t believe it. You remembered how I always wanted to see an eclipse.”

  “Of course I did,” he smiles. “I heard them mention it on the news the other day, and I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance. Did you like it?”

  As a slice of the moon becomes exposed again, signaling the approaching end of the eclipse, I look over at him and feel my face turn serious. “I love it.”

  Our eyes catch for a moment before he turns and grabs the bag he brought. “Here- I brought a bottle of your favorite drink.”

  “Aw, you got some Blue Moon?”

  “No, silly, it’s pink wine. Cara told me you loved it; I Facebook messaged her and asked her what you preferred.”

  Of course she did, I think as I stare down at the bottle of my least favorite drink in the world. It was the first thing I ever got drunk on, and to this day it absolutely disgusts me. It was a disaster: I was fifteen and sleeping over at Cara’s, and since her parents were out for the night we stole a bottle from the kitchen and drank it on the trampoline. It tasted sweet and we could barely taste the alcohol, so we finished the whole bottle- and thirty minutes later we were both puking our brains out all over her guest bathroom. Of course Cara told him I like it, as she knows full well that even the smell of it makes me convulse with disgust.

  A bolt of terror runs through me as I wonder what else she might have told him.

  “Thanks,” I say finally. “I love it, but I want you to drink it first.”

  After he gives me a strange look, he pours himself a glass.

  “Yes, yes,” I say as he drinks, tipping the glass for him. “Keep going. Feel free to drink the whole thing, if you want.”

  “But I’ve gotta save some for you,” he laughs as he wipes his chin. “What’s the deal with you two, anyway? You guys alright?”

  “I don’t know,” I sigh. “Things are…weird right now. We got into a fight last night and I accidentally ended up calling her a cunt donkey.”

  “Well that’s very sweet of you.
And let me guess why you’re fighting- she doesn’t like me. She’s observant enough to see that I’m trouble, unlike you.”

  “No, no, it’s not that,” I say quickly, wary of making him think he’s messing up my life, even if he is a little. I don’t need him thinking he has yet another reason to walk away. “Our problems have nothing to do with you, Stellan. We’ve had underlying issues for years, and for whatever reason they only rose to the surface just recently. There’s a lot of stuff nobody knows about her except me, and sometimes I wonder why I even help her cover all that up when she treats me like she does. I don’t know; it’s weird.”

  “Well I hope it works out,” he says. His tone is sincere, but his eyes tell me he’s growing bored with my girl drama. “Now let’s talk about what I really brought you here for.”

  He takes another swig of the wine and then grimaces, growing nervous. As I watch him he reaches into the bag that produced the wine and pulls out a large red apple. He takes it and holds it in front of his face, making two things happen in me at the same time: a hot flame ignite in my belly, and panic rise in my throat. This is finally it, the moment I’ve been waiting for, and yet I can’t go through with it. Because I have to tell him about Caitlin first and get his side of the story. I have to be sure he won’t hurt me.

  I sit up straighter and swallow hard. It’s now or never. Sure, I’m alone with him in a forest, miles away from anyone, and if something goes wrong and he gets mad, I’m screwed.

  But if things go right, and it wasn’t his fault, then I’m gonna get screwed, in the other sense, under a beautiful starry sky on a perfect night by the guy I love.

  “Taylor,” he begins, “I know I only took one bite out of the apple the first night we met, but I wanted to tell you that tonight, I’m ready to eat the whole-”

  I hold up a hand. “I have to tell you something, too,” I interrupt as my stomach plummets and my forehead becomes sweaty. He goes silent, and as his shoulders tense he sets the apple down.

  “Yes?”

  “I…I don’t even know how to begin,” I say. “I was on Google, and one thing led to another, and I…I kind of found out about that girl.”

  I brace myself for his reaction. He freezes, his eyes wide and his knuckles white. Is he going to hit me? Is he going to turn and run?

  After the longest few moments of my life, he finally sets his glass down and looks over at me.

  “You know about Marisa?”

  “What?” I ask. “Who’s Marisa?”

  “The woman who lives with me.”

  “You live with a woman?” I ask, completely thrown.

  “Yeah, the nanny who raised me- I thought that’s who you’re talking about. After my brother died my dad hired a woman to come into the country from the Dominican Republic and be my ‘nanny,’ aka my parent figure. That’s why I’m fluent in Spanish- that’s what I speak at home with her. When I graduated high school, though, he basically kicked her out, since he didn’t need her anymore. She had no money and no job skills and was about to be deported, so I hired her to move in with me and be my nanny again. I pay her a salary out of my trust fund, but if I get cut off I’ll have to fire her and she’ll be pushed out onto the street with nowhere to go. That’s why I need help changing my dad’s mind.”

  He sighs. “And that’s where I was the other day, helping her. Every few years we have to redo her paperwork to keep her legally working in this country, and I had to drive to South Carolina to meet her relative who lives there and get a reference to put into her file saying she’s a good citizen and all that. If I told you about the trip, you’d know about the whole living situation, and I just didn’t want to go there yet. I thought you’d find the whole thing…I don’t know, odd.”

  I put my hand on my heart, unable to stop myself. “Stellan, you support another human being?”

  He frowns at the ground.

  “I knew you’d think it was strange, that’s why I never told you. She’s older, and not exactly my type, but I know you’d be weirded out by the fact that I technically still have a live-in nanny at this age.”

  “No, Stellan, I think that’s amazing. I have no problem with that.” I feel closer than ever to telling him my secret, the person I’ve been hiding, but I can’t. I’m a coward. So I take a deep breath.

  “I wasn’t talking about her, Stellan. I was talking about…someone else.”

  He freezes. I simply stare at him, completely unsure of how to broach this subject. What in the hell would I say?

  Oh, yeah, by the way, I Googled you like a psycho and found out that you killed your ex-girlfriend during rough sex and almost got a life sentence for it. Wanna pass me some wine?

  “I don’t know how to say this,” I begin again. “I got curious about your past because you’re so cagey about it, and someone said something about a rumor, and one thing led to another, and I…I found out about Caitlin.”

  I look over and watch as his eyes fill with absolute shock, then horror, then sadness, then heartbreak. Finally he drops his shoulders in defeat, and for a reason I will never understand, he stands up and starts walking away.

  “Well I guess it was nice knowing you,” he says, his eyes teary and his face screwed up like his heart just broke in half. I’ve never wanted to hold him in my arms and soothe him more than I do right now. “I should’ve figured you’d find out eventually. I don’t even know why I tried to make this work. Guess I should start applying to other schools right now and save myself some time. I don’t know why I even tried.”

  I stand and put a hand on his arm.

  “Stellan, I don’t know what you’re doing. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

  He turns around, his eyes wide with bewilderment.

  “What? You’re not?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then…why else would you telling me this, Taylor? The reason I just thought you were talking about Marisa is because I always figured that if anyone ever found out about…the other thing, they’d never talk to me again, and you wouldn’t even be standing here in the first place.”

  I take a quick breath. “I’m telling you because I wanted to let you know that I decided I think there’s more to the story, and I still want to go to Nashville- if you prove my hunch correct.”

  “What?” he asks in disbelief. “What are you talking about? Taylor, the last girl I had sex with died. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Yes,” I tell him, in disbelief myself that I am saying this myself. “But I think there’s more that I don’t know, something that vindicates you. Because I know you’re not a monster. You’re not a Slytherin- you’re a Gryffindor.”

  His gaze falls. “Well, there is more. That whole thing was not how the media made it sound.”

  I stand taller, vindicated.

  “But you still need to be scared,” he adds, noting my reaction. “I’m still dangerous.”

  I hold my hand up, trying to will myself to believe what I am about to say.

  “I trust you, Stellan. I like you enough to…not to look past it, but to take it into account and move forward and try this. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Why, though? Why do you want to know the details of something so…terrible?”

  I look up at the moon. “So I can be with you without being afraid all the time. And another reason. This is a stupid question, but do you remember Michelle Branch, that singer who was pretty big in middle school?”

  “What? No. Why?”

  “Well, she had a song where she says something like, ‘please tell me, so I can finally see, where you go when you’re gone.’” I step closer. “I want to know where you go when you pull back from me, Stellan. I want to see it, I want to understand. And I want to help you get away from that place, to leave it behind and move forward, to figure out a way to put this in the past and start fresh. Together. I want to do this, no baggage, no secrets.”

  He shakes his head at me. “No offense, but what is wrong with you? You know the truth abo
ut the monster, and you’re not running and screaming for the hills? Are you sure you didn’t fall on your head as a child?”

  “I don’t think you’re a monster,” I repeat. “We’ve all done bad things in our past. Your bad thing just happened to have worse consequences than the rest of ours. I know it won’t happen again. I know that this thing between us has a chance of…you know, ending well.”

  I am not exactly used to talking about my mortality as casually as the weather, and it makes me shiver in the wind.

  “No,” he says desolately as he looks out at the lake. “I’m bad. I’m unlovable.”

  I try not to, but I can’t hold it in. My love for him, and my desire to save him, overrides all the other emotions I am feeling right now, and I gasp as I realize Stellan’s problem: he has never been loved. His parents emotionally abandoned him and his only girlfriend is dead, just like his brother. He’s spent his whole life alone. He’s probably never had a proper loving relationship with anyone in his life. What a sad, terrible existence to be so surrounded by death and loss and loneliness and abandonment. No wonder he has so many issues. All he needs is for someone to love him, and show that they will not leave him like everyone else has. That’s how I can save Stellan, I decide: all I have to do is love him. The hard, deep, unconditional kind of love. I know I can fix him- I know I can teach him how to permanently hit his Crazy Button and get past all this. It’s going to be hard, but he’s worth saving. Operation: Seduce Stellan has become Operation: Save Stellan, and judging by the look of complete devastation in his eyes, it looks like I’m in for the fight of my life.

  The thing is, I already do love him, regardless of everything. I know it in every cell of my body. But I’m not ready to tell him yet. I don’t want to scare him away. So I keep my terms vague and impersonal.

  “How could you say that?” I ask him. “So you made one mistake. You’re still the most lovable person I’ve ever met. Are you forgetting when you defended the disabled woman at the park? And saved me from practically being date-raped the night we met?”

  “No. All you’re pointing out is that I’m too violent.”