You Love Me

by Caroline Kepnes

  HE FUCKED YOUR BEST FRIEND AND THAT IS WRONG THE END.

  You blow your nose into his flannel and your marriage is ugly, unhygienic. “Okay, Phil… Look, I can’t be a hypocrite. I’m not perfect either.”

  He pulls away, slightly, and I zoom in, slightly. Your empathy is your own worst enemy right now. And he knows it. Don’t you see that?

  “What do you mean you’re not perfect?” he says. “Is there something I should know about? Someone I should know about?”

  He’s not crying anymore. He can fuck your best friend and demand immediate forgiveness but you say one tiny thing about your own life and he shuts down on you. Opposites attract. But opposites destroy.

  “God, no,” you say. “I only meant that I should have figured this out sooner.”

  You’re not a very good liar and you can’t compare our relationship to what he did to you.

  He grabs a Ulysses saltshaker and throws it at a cabinet—broken! Broken as the clock on the ferry!—and he exits stage left screaming at you, calling you all kinds of names. He’s in the living room stomping back and forth—what a big strong man!—and he says he always knew you’d do this to him and you want to know how he can say that after what you just found out about him and he spits at you.

  “You’re a fucking tramp. Look at the way you dress.”

  “The way I dress? I wear a skirt so I’m asking for it? Do you really wanna go there right now?”

  “Do you see other women around here wearing skirts?”

  “Fuck you, Phil.”

  That’s more like it and he growls. “Who is it?”

  “Well,” you say. “I’ll tell you this much. It’s not your best friend.”

  He grabs a ceramic Brontë sister doll and throws it at a picture frame—BAM—and he wants to know who it is. “I told you. I deserve the same honesty, Emmy.”

  “Do you hear yourself, Phil? You didn’t tell me anything. I’m the one who confronted you. And I’m trying to be compassionate. I’m trying to be reasonable.”

  “Who the fuck is it? Is he here? Do I know the bastard?”

  “That’s your question? Do I know the bastard? Oh Phil, I just… That’s all you care about. If you know him. I tell you that I have feelings for another man and you don’t want to know what I’m missing… you just want to know if you can talk about him on your fucking show. And the answer is no, by the way. Unlike you, he doesn’t air his grievances five nights a week. Unlike you, he reads.”

  That was for me! An Easter egg just for me and I’m off-camera but I’m on the only screen that matters, the one in your head. “Yes! You go, Mary Kay!”

  Phil kicks at the carpet like a bull in a pen. “Who is he, Mary Kay? Who’s your fucking boyfriend?”

  “This isn’t about my boyfriend and this isn’t about Melanda either. This is supposed to be about us. About me.”

  You called me your boyfriend and I pop a little more popcorn into my mouth and Phil picks up another tchotchke but this time he doesn’t throw it. Hopefully it will break in his hand and he won’t be able to play guitar anymore. You’re tense. You’re walking in circles. And then you stop. “Hello.”

  He says nothing.

  You slap your thighs. It’s so over. “So that’s it? You’re gonna shut down and act like nothing happened?”

  “Well, that’s me, Emmy. You hide in your books. I play my guitar.”

  “Oh right. Shame on me because I like to read. Shame on me for wishing I had the kind of husband who wanted to go to the meadow with me and curl up in the bunkers with our books.”

  “That was high school.”

  “So was your fucking music.”

  Down goes another tchotchke and I love this show. You do too. You clap your hands. Disgusted golf claps. “Well done,” you say. “More for me to clean up. Tell me, were you off with Melanda when I was reading and being stupid enough to believe that you were writing your fucking ‘songs’?”

  Phil huffs and he puffs. Literally, he’s lighting a cigarette. “It’s always the same,” he says. “You wanna hide from life and I wanna live it.”

  You gawk at him as well you fucking should. “Oh, that’s rich, Phil. Really, really rich. So I suppose you’re the hero because you’re the writer. You humiliated me with your fucking songs and you fuck my best friend and somehow that’s okay because oh right! Phil is an artist!”

  This is it, the end of your marriage, and I pump my fist in the air. “You tell him, Mary Kay!”

  “And as we all know, artists are gifted. And they need things to write about so I guess I should just bow my head and stock the fridge because music comes first in this house! Never mind me, never mind oh I don’t know… never mind loyalty.” You are trembling now. “She was my best friend. She was like my sister. She was Nomi’s aunt… and you wrecked it. All of it.”

  He flicks ashes on a dirty plate. “Yeah,” he says. “Well, that’s one thing the three of us have in common. We deal with you, Emmy. And being in it with you… well, that’s the loneliest kinda lonely there is. Ask Melanda. Ask Nomi. They’ll back me up all night long, babe.”

  You march up to him and slap his face and I want to give this show a thousand stars and Phil just shakes his big fat head. He reaches for your hand. You let him hold it and he starts to cry—fake news, fake tears—and he’s groping you and he’s all apologies and he says he didn’t mean it—yes he did—and he’s begging you to forgive him and over and over he says the same thing: “I never wrote a song about her, Em. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  That’s a lie—he sent me the song—and you know that sorry doesn’t cut it but the man is a performer. He’s a good crier. You rub your forehead. You know this man doesn’t understand you and how could he? You’re staring through your glass doors and you’ve wasted the bulk of your life with this artist. You want a new life. A life with me. You said it at Hitchcocks. I didn’t think someone like you existed. I am your fresh start. Me.

  Tell him, Mary Kay. Tell him you love me.

  Tell him you would be happier in the Nirvana meadow in the tall grass with the one you love, being innocent with me, forever young, forever old, feeding our hungry souls with words, with stories. Tell him you’ve outgrown him and that you can’t go on pretending that any of this fits. Tell him that you wanted it to work for Nomi’s sake, but now you have this friendless unfiltered daughter who wants to read about teenage serial killers and you see the light.

  You walk away from him. It’s a step. Literally, metaphorically. You are even closer to the window.

  Tell him, Mary Kay. Tell him that he was the love of your young life, that you don’t hate him. You wanted to be on a pedestal and tell him that what hurts the most isn’t that he cheated with Melanda, but that deep down you don’t really care because of how you feel about me, the partner you want, the lover you deserve. Me.

  Phil walks to the CD player—you live in the nineties, in the past—and he digs around and he finds what he wants and he plays what he wants and it’s Jeff Fucking Buckley’s voice and it’s Leonard Cohen’s words.

  “Hallelujah.”

  This is not where we were headed and he cups your face in his hands. “I need you.”

  “Phil…”

  “I miss you.”

  This is why we should have had a full-on fucking affair. He’s getting to you. You want me but I’m here and he’s there. His hands move along your body and you close your eyes and from your lips he draws a kiss and you don’t really care for your rat, do ya? He habitually abuses you with his own lyrics and now he seduces you with Cohen’s, whispering in your ear about faith and there you are, letting him croon a better man’s words as he slides his hand under your skirt.

  I clench the bag of popcorn. He is a boa and he unzips your slutty skirt and tightens his grip on your neck and he tells you that you’re a bad girl and he bites your ear and he shreds your tights and somehow he has six hands, eight hands. Your shirt is off and his jeans hit the floor and he’s inside of you—he break
s your throne and pulls your hair—and you moan as if you want that, as if you like that. You pretend to finish—there is no way you liked that—and he lifts you up like the pipe-smoking captain to your legless mermaid. That was our Normal Norman Rockwell painting at the pub and now you’re in it with him, in the cage of his arms, your marriage. He lights another cigarette and he spoons you on the sofa and his ashes hit your tits. You wince and he kisses the places where he burnt you and you do not go together. We do. He puts his butt out in your half-empty cup of coffee and he strokes your Murakami with his nicotine-stained hand, callused fingers. “All right,” he says. “Are you gonna call Layla or do you want me to?”

  You laugh like that was funny and you sigh. “Oh come on, Phil. We both know that you’re not gonna call. Can you do tomorrow at one?”

  He squeezes you in a way I never have, with his arms and his legs. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Emmy. You’re my girl. I’d die without you. You know that, right?”

  You’re gonna let him fuck you again—you’re the second set of teeth—and I turn off my TV but I still see him—the thorns hide in the wreath—and spicy kernels tickle my throat. I choke and up comes all that indigestible popcorn, shooting out of my mouth, and I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath.

  Phil isn’t Leonard Cohen and he isn’t Jeff Buckley but I’ve never moved in you the way he has, the way he does and it’s a cold and broken clock of a Hallelujah. I pour Woolite onto your favorite black sweater and I google “Layla” and “couples counseling” and “area code 206” and there she is in Poulsbo, your licensed sanity killer: Layla Twitchell. She’s your enabler, your enemy in plain sight, the woman who tries to save your marriage, the woman you pay to save your marriage. It’s tempting to get in the car and drive to Poulsbo and make Layla pay for her sin, but I’m not that guy anymore.

  I’m a good fucking guy and your rat is passed out in his chair. You took a shower—I didn’t put cameras in your bathroom, I don’t need to see that—and now you’re in bed reading your Murakami, closing the book, writing in your journal, going back to your book. You are like my jeans in the washing machine and you need me to pull you out of that chamber and end this vicious cycle and you look into the lens and I zoom in and our eyes meet. Fuck it. Tomorrow, I will ask you to join me in RIP Kurt’s Meadow and tomorrow you will say yes.

  23

  You are skipping lunch to go to Poulsbo to see the dentist—nice lie, Mary Kay—and I am on the way to Sawatdy to pick up beef and broccoli. I pull into the strip mall—even Bainbridge isn’t perfect—and the island is turning against us. There was a death in the family and the restaurant is closed and I drive to Sawan but oh that’s right. The family that owns Sawatdy owns Sawan and that’s the problem with an island. There is no beef, no broccoli, and I can’t get it out of my fucking head.

  I keep picturing you with that rat. You let him rip off your tights. You let him cum inside of you. But you don’t know that I know about that and good guys move forward. I won’t let one moment of weakness between you and your manipulative ball and chain get in the way of our family. I drive to Starbucks. I buy two lattes, one for you and one for me—Be the change you want to see in the world—and I blast Sam Cooke. Positive Joe! I drive to the library—remember when I thought I was moving to a walker’s paradise?—and I barge into the library with a big fat smile on my face, as if you didn’t permanently ruin Jeff Fucking Buckley for me.

  I knock on your door. You look up and you don’t invite me in. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I did a mobile order and I got two by mistake. You want?”

  You gulp. You want. “You should see if Ann wants that. She’s downstairs.”

  I smile at you. “By the Red Bed?”

  You do not smile at me. Too much. “Joe…”

  “Sorry,” I say. “It was just a joke.”

  You look so sad, and I bet Layla is on Phil’s side—maybe she’s fucking him too!—and you are getting it from all angles. Come on, Mary Kay. I know you’re in hell. Open up to me. Tell me about your no-good, very bad week. Tell me about Melanda. Tell me about Phil. Tell me about Layla. But you don’t. You just tell me that you’re so busy right now. Bullshit.

  But I remain positive. Rosie Joe the Riveter. “So I might head up to the meadow and read.” You gulp and that was too much and too little. “Or who knows? Maybe I’ll finally go check out Fort Ward.”

  “You should do that.”

  “You wanna join?”

  You look at Eddie Vedder and then you look at the clock. “You should head out early before it gets too dark. And the meadow’s probably a better idea. It’s closer.”

  I inch closer. Closer. “Maybe you should cut out early and hit up the meadow. I can cover for you if that helps…”

  “Joe…” Dot. Dot. Dot. “That sounds nice and I know we…” You can’t even finish the sentence. You just exhale. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  I catch your eye, which is no easy thing, the way you’re trying so hard to avoid me. “You know where to find me.”

  You nod. “Have a good time up there.”

  I walk out of your office and you know where I’m going and it’s my job to go there. But then I hear laughter in History. The hairs on my neck stand up. It’s Oliver and he sees me and I see him and he’s talking to a Mothball, as if he’s a resident, as if he’s allowed to check out books.

  The Mothball distracts him—thank you, Mothball—and I get in my car and I drive to the forest because you said it.

  It’s Closer.

  I am on foot. Oliver wants an update and I snap a picture of the sign—Barn or House—and send it to him. Oliver is placated, for now, and I post my Barn or House photo on Instagram and twenty seconds later there it is.

  @LadyMaryKay Likes your photo and she can’t wait to join you in the meadow.

  I hike up the hill and I wait for you in the tall grass and the light in the sky won’t last forever. I hear noises. Humans. I pull on my sweater and no. It isn’t you. It’s my neighbor and your frenemy Nancy and her entire extended fecal-eyed family and they brought their large yellow Lab and she’s charging me and I let her kiss me.

  “Flowerbed,” I say. “How you doing, girl?”

  Flowerbed slobbers all over me—she knows I’m good—and I let her give me sloppy kisses. It’s an open display of affection and positive thinking is easier when there’s a dog wagging its tail for you. I know you’re on your way. You love me, you do. But then Papa calls—Flowerbed!—and he wants the dog to leave me and I want you to leave Phil and this whole fucking island is against us.

  Flowerbed disobeys—good girl—and she wags her tail even more, smiling at me, as if she knew I needed a pick-me-up. “Good girl,” I say. “Very good girl.”

  But now Master “Papa” Doofus is stomping up to us in his Columbia pullover and his man-leggings and his Timberlands. He blocks what’s left of the sun and he doesn’t smile or say he recognizes me from the neighborhood, even though he fucking does. His fecal-eyed family members are whispering about me, as if it’s so sad and grotesque to be alone up here. They should do the decent thing and wave hello, fuck you, and you should do the decent thing and show the fuck up already. He whistles at Flowerbed and she obeys her doofus master even though she likes me better, even though she wants a new life with me and possessive, overbearing men like him and Phil ruin everything.

  My phone buzzes. Is it you? No. It’s just another bossy man—fucking Oliver—and I buy him another present on 1stdibs. It’s been sixty-three minutes since you liked my photo and the fecal-eyed baby is crying and Nancy is clapping her hands—Let’s get a move on—and it was bad when they were here but it’s worse now that they’re packing it in.

  My phone buzzes—serotonin surge, is it you?—but it’s just Oliver. I text you a picture of the meadow—fuck it—and you don’t write back and you’re not going to write back and I can’t do this anymore, Mary Kay.

  I pick up my blanke
t and walk—it’s just me and the trees—and I stop and stare at that sign that offers everyone a choice because it is impossible to walk on two paths at once. Barn. House. I am the barn, the home of all that is natural and you choose the house, prefab, phony. You’re like Flowerbed, programmed to obey your “master.” I know it now. And I know what I have to do.

  * * *

  An hour later, I am in my driveway, staring into the trunk of my car.

  It’s time for me to run. Your best friend is dead. You fucked your husband. I talk more to Oliver than I do to you, the woman I love, and I deserve better, Mary Kay. I don’t want you to be some woman who gets off on being treated like shit but that’s what you are, and it’s like Dr. Nicky says on his blog, like Melanda said to you. When people show you who they are, it is your job to pay attention.

  My phone buzzes, but it’s different this time. I don’t get that burst of serotonin—my brain is too smart—and I trudge back inside for one last bag. I check my phone and I was right. It’s not you. It’s never going to be you. It’s Oliver, hitting me up about another “antique” on 1stdibs. I drop my reusable tote bag on my muddy floor—this is why rich people have mudrooms—and I bid on taxidermy for Minka, for Oliver and he doesn’t thank me. He just asks if I ponied up for expedited delivery and sends me a picture from the house on Rockaway that he moved into—Now THIS is a view Goldberg—and he’s right. You can see Seattle from Rockaway and I can’t see shit from my house and you love me but it means nothing if you won’t act on it. I tell Oliver that I’m heading for Seattle because I’m too creeped out to be in this house and he says to keep my notifications on and text him my new address when I’m settled.

  Fucker.

  I fill the food bowls for my kittens—practically cats—and I don’t feel good about leaving them, but the side door is ajar. They’ll find their way.

  I pick up the last box, the one that hurts the most—tights you left in the trash can at work, a cardigan that carries your scent—and I carry the box outside. A woman in a Cooley Hardware pullover is walking her dog, glaring at me without saying hello—oh, Bainbridge, lighten up—and I pop my trunk and drop the box.