Devil You Know

by Max Henry

“I didn’t think about that.”

  “Did you call the cops? Tell them he’s in breach of his conditions?”

  “Not yet,” she murmurs. “I figured I’d bring it up with the Family Relations Officer next week.”

  “Next week?” I scoff. “And what if he tries to get at you again before then, huh? What then?”

  Her eyes snap to mine, and the rage around her is palpable. “I’m scared, Malice. I’m fucking shit scared that he could reach me. But what choice did I have?”

  “Why didn't you tell me you were scared? Why didn’t you ask me to go with you?”

  “You were busy.” She points to the house. “Besides, we haven’t exactly been best buddies of late.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, and reach for her. “You feel uncomfortable about anything, you tell me.”

  She stares at me, and no words are needed to express her sentiment. I made her feel uncomfortable.

  “Fuck, Jane. I’m not like him.”

  “It does my head in, you know? At least with Dylan I knew I should hate him, but with you, I hate myself for not hating you. I can’t even bring myself to dislike you. You made me so mad by keeping what you do from me, and yet I want to stay with you. Why?”

  This woman tests my resolve. “I don’t know why. I want to say it’s because I need you, because I want you here too, but I know that’s not the answer.”

  Again, she looks at me, blank.

  Maybe I should stop pussyfooting around and dive in this hole I’m digging, feet first. “I told you I’m a fuck up.” What else is there to say to her? I’ve screwed up. I made her feel too uncomfortable to approach me when I’m supposed to be there for her. She’s stronger without me here clouding her future. “I never promised you a white picket fence with me, Jane. What you see is what you get.”

  “That’s it.” She frowns. “You don’t let me see all of you; only what you think I need to know. It’s up to you to show me the rest. Don’t keep any more secrets from me.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “Why not?” she cries out, her hands flailing. “What makes you think it’s better to hide stuff from me? How do you think that makes me feel? I’m here, trying like a fool to help you see the answer, and all you do is shut me out. Why?”

  Fuck it all. All I had to do was respect her enough not to hurt her, and I couldn’t do that.

  I don’t deserve any more chances.

  “I tried to do this thing between us right, Jane. I really did. I used to think I had all the answers; that I knew how best to protect your feelings, make you trust me, earn your respect. But fuck, woman, you test me. You show me how fuckin’ wrong I am, and I hate it. I hate knowing I’ve been wrong all these years, that I’ve hurt people, that I’ve fucked it all up . . . again. I just . . . I can’t do this any more.”

  “So, you want to add quitter to that list then, huh?” Her mood shifts, and her disappointment is as clear as a slap in the face. “I had you pegged as more of a fighter, Malice. Nothing comes easy, and you of all people should know that. Hell, look at me.” She sweeps her hands along the length of herself. “I’m living proof that fixing the wrongs in your life is fucking hard. And you’re evidence that it can be worth it.”

  “Maybe for you, but I don’t see it that way. They say what you put out into the universe you get back ten-fold. Well, we all know how much shit I put out there. What do you think I keep getting back? I’m no good for you.”

  “Says who?” she bites out.

  “Me.”

  “And you’d be the expert because . . .”

  “Because I just am, okay?” I snap.

  “We’ve all got vices,” she murmurs. “Nobody is perfect.”

  It doesn’t matter. Nothing that happened to me, no excuses for my choices in life give me the right to play with her feelings the way I do. She thinks that I’m her fucking prize, that I’m the one who’ll make her happy for the rest of her life. She’s wrong. My inability to accept what’s wrong in my life and have the kahunas to fix it is hurting her. All I do is cause her pain, and if I can’t see myself sorting my own demons out any time soon, then she deserves peace.

  She deserves someone who will give her what she deserves. Someone who will make her happy every day, all day—not just when things happen to work out that way. I need to stop wasting her time.

  “Once the funeral is planned, and everyone leaves, I’ll go back to my place in town,” I tell her. “You need this house. I have my own.”

  She swallows, hard. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It’s what you need.” I stand, and walk away from her. “You don’t need me.”

  Perhaps happily-ever-after isn’t the ending my story will get, but there’s no reason why I should stop it being hers.

  I’VE DONE it; I’ve gone and proved I’m not worth the trouble. I pushed him until he didn’t have the answer. I gave him the door, and he walked through it.

  In the end, I got what I wanted, didn’t I? I got my reason why he couldn’t be the perfect solution to my shitty life. I pushed, and pushed, and pushed until he snapped, until he found a reason why we would never work out.

  I proved that I'm not worth being loved—that I’m not enough.

  Who the hell was I kidding, anyway? In what universe would I ever work out in a relationship with Malice? I'm surprised he didn't run screaming for the hills when he saw the truckload of baggage that accompanied me. Maybe this is simply his delayed reaction?

  But then, he said it himself. ‘Sometimes the people who understand the best, are those who’ve been there themselves.’

  All I did was try not to understand. I criticized him, and judged him without giving him a chance to tell me more. How could I not see that he may have a legitimate reason for still living this life? When the man who’d helped me had shown nothing but compassion and care, why would I then choose to think of him as cold-hearted, and callous?

  The fact he’s so affected by Tigger’s death should tell me all I need to know—the guy has a heart. He knows how to love.

  He's given me that love, and all I've done is ignore his cry for help.

  No wonder he thinks he’s not what I need. I made him think I need more.

  “Malice, wait!”

  He turns at the door to the house, and looks my way. The sadness, even from this distance, kills me.

  “Come back, please. Let’s talk about this.”

  He shakes his head. “No point, Jane. It’s over.”

  “It can’t be.”

  “It was never anything to begin with,” he replies. “We’ve been fooling ourselves long enough. You need what I can’t offer.”

  “And what’s that?” I ask, standing, and walking closer.

  “A bright future.” His eyes drop, and he heads into the house.

  I stand frozen in the driveway. This can’t be all there is to us. It just can’t.

  SHE STANDS at the door, watching me go, and I know she’s waiting for me to change my mind. But I won’t. I screwed this up the minute I fucking kissed her, tenfold when we fucked. I let my wants get the better of my needs, and I took things from her I had no right to have.

  And now she watches me go, like a puppy waiting for its master to come home before they've left.

  “Thanks again for the phone,” she says, holding the mobile I bought her up.

  I nod. The crazy woman tried to give it back to me, said it was mine, since I paid for it. When will she understand that everything I’ve given her, tangible or not, I never expected to get back? It was all hers to keep, to do with as she wished.

  Her stare burns into the side of my head as I start the pick-up, and put the window up. I throw my hand in a wave without looking back, and peel down that driveway as fast as the tires will let me without losing traction.

  The drive to town is slow, and laborious—filled with thoughts of her. There isn’t a song on the radio that manages to keep me distracted, and counting backwards from one hundred has no e
ffect. She’s there, haunting every breath I take, niggling away at my conscience like an invasive leech. Jane is my first thought in the morning, and my last care at night.

  The realization hits me like a slug with a steel bat.

  I love her.

  I shouldn’t have quit so easy.

  I am a quitter.

  But that’s what I do, isn’t it? I cut and run, I shut off, and I escape. Most would say it’s the coward’s way out, but I call it survival. Attachments cost lives, and attachments break me apart when they’re severed. Fuck, look at Tigger. Look at how bad that’s been fucking with my head this past week.

  I would do anything to wind back the hands of time, and ask him what’s wrong. To pester him until he caved, and asked for the help he obviously needed. But us guys, we’re dumb-asses like that. We shut off, and ignore the emotional, touchy-feely stuff. We shove our demons deep, and suffer while they rot our insides like a cancer.

  All in the name of saving face.

  Well, who looks like the idiot now?

  I love her.

  And what have I done? Systematically pushed her away, and pulled her close, over and over, like a damn tide. The woman must have sea legs from all the too-ing, and fro-ing I've done.

  Thinking of her out there, alone, makes me want to turn the damn pick-up around and drive like a maniac until I can touch her, feel her, reassure her that she will be okay. But why? Who am I actually reassuring?

  Me.

  I'm playing out my own fears through her. I'm making it a struggle to love me to know that I'm worth it. I'm being fucking selfish, and unfair. And this is why I need to stay my course, and give her space. Jane needs air to breath, room to move. She needs to work it out for herself, without my suffocating influence and my selfish desires.

  She needs to come to me.

  I have to know she wants me despite all the shit I’ve dropped on her—not because I pestered her until she felt cornered.

  My house looms like a foreboding sign of misery as I pull up and park. The dark exterior and shaded porch seem to reflect the way I feel returning here. When I left, I honestly thought that I’d never return; that I’d find another place to live.

  With Jane.

  One more pipedream to add to the list of disappointments in my life.

  I step out, and shut the door to the prickle of my senses. Chills trace a lazy line up the back of my neck, and I turn slowly to scout the area. It doesn’t take me long to see the problem.

  Him.

  Her dumb-fuck husband stands at their front door, watching me with his hands thrown casually in his pockets. We stare off for probably seconds, but it feels an eternity. The hate the man emits is heavy, even from this distance. I can only imagine what it was like for Jane, being in the same house as the asshole, day in, day out.

  Suffocating.

  My gut churns, and rage slips through my veins like a familiar drug. All the thoughts I’ve had about this guy, about what coward treats their wife like he did, about what kind of an end he deserves, culminate at seeing him there—watching.

  “Satisfied yet?” I shout over to him.

  He lunges forward, and strides down their front path with such haste that my fists clench at my sides.

  “I guess you are,” he spits.

  I wave a hand at the empty car. “Does it fucking look like it, asshole?”

  He pauses at the waist-high fence, his jaw ticking. “Tell me, she good in bed for you? Because she was always a cold, lifeless fuck when I had her.”

  Anger pulses so intense I can feel my temples swell with each beat of my heart. “You’ll stop there if you know what’s good for you.”

  He laughs. Fucking laughs. “Got ya by the balls, hasn’t she?” The asshole throws his hands to his hips as though he thoroughly enjoys the conversation. “Don’t worry, buddy, the attraction wears off after a while.”

  “I’m not your buddy, asshole,” I seethe.

  His humor turns to a cruel smirk. I shiver at the thought of Jane facing this. “Yeah. And she ain’t your wife.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call her yours, either. What kind of fucked up cunt treats his missus like that, huh? You dropped as a baby or something? Mommy not pay you enough attention?”

  The bastard vaults the fence, and I widen my stance in preparation.

  “You think you’re some hot shit, huh?” he hollers, advancing. “Think you can take my fucking wife, and I’ll leave you alone?” He swings a fist toward my face. “Think again,” he yells.

  I duck, but the wanker’s knuckles graze my cheekbone. My foot swings out as I crouch, and I tangle in his legs. He stumbles, but rights himself to take another swing. This time around I’m tuned into his moves better, and I miss the hit entirely, swinging one to his gut. He groans, doubles, and lunges forward, taking me down with a shoulder to the hip.

  We crash to the ground, and the sting of ripped flesh pierces my elbows. Dylan is on me, sitting over my hips as he lays blow after blow into my head. I push back my immediate anger, the urge to retaliate with no thought or regard for what the effect will be. Instead I close my eyes, and shield my head best I can while I regroup.

  He’s still battering like the crazed man he is when I reopen my eyes, and put my plan to action. A fist flies toward the right side of my face, and I dodge at the last second. He howls as he connects with the driveway, and while his hand is down, I pin it between my head, and shoulder. I tip my hips to the right, and as he falls off balance, I wrap my leg around his body.

  Within seconds I have him under me, shouting for submission.

  “Let me go, you fucking little punk!”

  “Tell me you’ll leave Jane alone,” I demand.

  “Fuck off.”

  I twist his arm in the bar I have it in, and he howls in pain.

  “All right.”

  “All right, what?”

  “I’ll leave her alone.”

  “Or what?” I test him.

  “How the fuck would I know, you asshole?”

  He screams as my weight crushes his arm between us. I lean down to get right in the fucker’s face.

  “You’ve got no idea who you’re messing with. You fucking touch her, so much as breathe the same air, and I’ll be back here with a few mates to give you the worst day of your pathetic little life.”

  “Fucking look forward to it,” Dylan says as I let off. He springs up, and scowls at me. “Can’t imagine a little fucker like you could do it on your own, anyway.” He leaps the fence again, marches up the path, and turns to give me a last glare before he goes inside.

  The guy’s an idiot. He’s fucking suicidal if he thinks he can get away with harassing Jane again.

  I shake my head, and flex my aching neck side-to-side. Forgoing the bite to eat I had planned, I jump back in the pick-up, and reverse out the driveway with a squeal of rubber. I can always get food when I stop for gas.

  Right now, I need to clear my mind.

  ROCCO ROLLS in his sleep, and ends up with all four feet sticking out at awkward angles—two in my face. I rub his belly, and watch as drizzle begins to build on the glass of the French doors.

  Malice left, and as much as the thought makes me cringe at my own cliché, he took my heart with him. The house is empty, and too quiet. Way too quiet. I’ve walked past the picture of him and his friends a dozen times or more, trying to convince myself that I didn’t do it simply to see his face again.

  I’ve cried, I’ve yelled in anger, and I’ve sobbed at my own pathetic life. I’m twenty-seven years old, for fuck’s sake. I’m supposed to be in my prime, not here, sitting on my own, crying because I screwed yet another thing up. I have no friends, I have no husband, and as of this moment, I have no plans for the future. I don’t have a job.

  Like so many times before, I’m left wondering if I need a future. Should I quit while I’m ahead? Is there any point in carrying on this charade?

  My eyes drift to Rocco, sleeping soundly beside me. He’s the only thing
stopping me from ending it all, from pulling the plug on this miserable fucking existence of mine. The thought that he would become a stray, a pound dog, executed because he’s not a cute puppy for somebody to take home, sickens me.

  I couldn’t do that to him.

  No, I am stronger. I can see how ridiculous and weak this train of thought is. Why do something as stupid as harm myself when the idea of my future should thrill me? Why am I looking back and crying over what I no longer have, when I should be looking forward and growing excited at what I could have?

  It’s time to start thinking positive, to kill those negative thoughts that drag me down. I can see them for what they are; I simply need to learn how to ignore them. Maybe this would be a good discussion to have in my next counseling session?

  I thumb through my phone, ready to make a note when its message chime startles me from my task. Rocco lifts his head, his tired eyes blinking as he looks for the source of the noise.

  “You’re fine, buddy,” I say, and drag the notification bar down.

  Unknown Number.

  It could be Malice. But then again, it could be some random wrong number. After all, I never used it to call or text him. I never saved his number.

  I wonder if he did that on purpose?

  Who’s to say that he’s thinking of me? He was the one who wanted to leave, so surely he would then be the one who is most at ease with the idea. Besides, I have no clue what his life was like before me. Maybe there’s some girl he’s been missing out on this past month that he’s gone to see? Does he have a woman waiting for him to come back to her? And why does that thought leave me so heart-broken?

  So ready to vomit?

  I stare at the display again, and punch the button before I chicken out completely. The message comes up, and there’s no way I can stop myself from reading it now.

  Hey Jane,

  I just wanted to check you’re okay.

  Why? Is he not?

  Thanks, I’m doing fine.

  I type back.

  Can I call you?

  His immediate response takes me by surprise. I hesitate, my thumb wavering between the Y and N. I settle on S.

  Sure.