In the Stillness

by Andrea Randall

  “Jesus Christ, Natalie, what was that?” He kneels in front of me, a look of concern on his face I’ve only seen once before.

  “A dream . . . nightmare . . . did I say anything?” I realize tears are still streaking down my face. I can’t stop them.

  “You were screaming for Ryker to stop.” Eric’s face twists awkwardly when he says Ryker’s name.

  I nod and swallow, petitioning my nerves to stop vibrating and my heart to return to normal.

  “Weird . . .” is all I can manage. There’s no way I can possibly explain that nightmare to Eric without telling him I ran into Ryker. Without telling him that the guilt I carry for ruining Ryker’s life still makes it hard to breathe some days.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  Do I fucking appear to be okay?

  I nod. “I just need a shower and a drink.” I chuckle more for myself than him. “We’re still on for tonight, right?”

  “Right. Are you sure you’re all right? I was just heading out to help finish moving the offices, but I’ll stay—”

  “No, go. It’s good.”

  The last thing I need is Eric in my face while I try to process what the hell just went haywire with my subconscious.

  Eric lets out a sigh that’s clearly one of relief more than resignation before he kisses me on the cheek. I flinch a little—but maybe it was internal because he doesn’t seem to notice—and he’s out the door.

  With a sigh of my own, I land face down on my pillow and moan sobs that stretch from my dream—sobs that feel like they’re from the beginning of time—until I find myself dry-heaving in the bathroom with a razor in my hand.

  I choose a new spot this time. One I’ve never used before. The inner arm, a few inches from my armpit. Goosebumps of anticipation spring throughout my scalp as I close my eyes and bring the blade to my skin. The moment of contact floods me with relief from the hell that was that nightmare. The second pass is for the family I’m about to break up. Ashamed that I’m going to force a little boy who’s going deaf into living in two different homes, I keep cutting. For him. For me. For ruining lives.

  Apparently, I’m good at that.

  Two hours later, I’m pulled together enough to meet Tosha for a drink before I have to face Eric and his colleagues, when I hear his cell phone ring in the kitchen.

  Great. He left it here.

  I call Tosha.

  “Hey, I’ll be a few minutes late. I’m going to run by Eric’s office and give him his cell. He left it on the counter.”

  “Oh, fuck him.” I can tell she’s mentally flipping him off.

  “Well, the thing dings with emails and shit every five seconds. It’s annoying. I’m not meeting up with him for a few hours anyway, and if I decide to bail on him I’ll need him to have his phone.”

  “Good point. Hurry your ass up.”

  “Judie’s, right?”

  “Of course. I’ll have a martini waiting.”

  “Make it extra strong. I’ll explain later.” I have to tell Tosha about the dream. We used to analyze our dreams all the time in college. Well, until mine became really scary and I stopped telling her about them.

  As I drive through campus, I decide to call my parents to check in on the boys.

  “Hello?” My dad’s voice sounds light and playful.

  “Hey Dad, just calling to check on my little men.”

  “Boys, you wanna talk to mommy?”

  They cheer their response and it hits me—I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to talk to Oliver on the phone. Then what? Skype? What did people do before Skype?

  My dad puts the phone on speaker. “Hi Mommy!” they shout in unison.

  “Are you guys having fun?” I force a cheery tone despite the hippopotamus sitting on my throat.

  “Yes!” They spill into a rant about the fun things they’ve done and cool things they’ve eaten. They sound happy and I have to remind myself, that’s the most important thing right now.

  Until I tell them Mommy and Daddy will no longer be living together. Which I can’t do until Eric acknowledges that’s what’s happening.

  Sigh . . .

  I say my goodbyes to them and my parents as I pull into the lot in front of Eric’s building. I see his car, and I’m glad he didn’t switch buildings when he switched offices or I’d be screwed.

  Putting the car in park, I press my head back into the headrest for a moment, still trying to get that nightmare out of my mind. Ryker looked happy when I saw him at Atkins. And healthy. And we hugged. Still, I can’t escape the shiver that comes from hearing the gunshot inside the nightmare as I open the door and head for Eric’s building.

  I make my way to Eric’s old office first, since I’m not sure where his new one is. I figure if someone else is in there they can point me in the direction of where to go. Walking up the stairs, thanks to the broken elevator, I’m thankful for the lack of military girlfriends in my path, unlike the last time I was in here. With any luck there won’t be any crying coeds in his office since school’s done. Rounding the corner to his office, I’m glad to hear Eric’s voice for a second before it goes silent like he’s on the phone—this means I don’t have to go on a scavenger hunt for him.

  I nearly trip through his doorway when I find him standing in front of a woman sitting on his desk. It’s not so much that I’m surprised to see them there; it’s more about the fact that her legs are wrapped around his calves, and their tongues are in each other’s mouths as he holds the back of her neck that causes me to drop his phone and watch the screen shatter into a million pieces.

  Chapter 26

  The sound of a four-hundred dollar phone hitting the floor is the only thing that pries Eric away from the mouth of the woman sitting on his desk . . . with her legs around him. I’m temporarily satisfied by the look of sheer horror that plasters itself on both of their faces as it registers they’ve been caught. By the last person either of them should want to be caught by. Eric’s wife. The fact that I don’t want to be his wife has little bearing on the technicality that I still am, and he was holding her neck as he kissed her with what looked like more passion than he’s ever given me.

  I don’t look at the woman. She doesn’t matter. Eric wishes I would look at her, I know he does. That way he’d get a break from the look I’m giving him.

  I speak first. “You left your phone at home.”

  I slide his destroyed phone toward him with my foot. When it hits his, I turn on my heels and walk carefully down the hallway as my heart pounds through my ears and bile swirls in my stomach.

  “Natalie, wait!” Eric’s steps are uneven as he chases after me.

  Um. No.

  I don’t turn around. “Stay the fuck away from me, Eric,” I pull a calm voice from the recesses of betrayal.

  He has the audacity to grab my upper arm as I open the door to head down the stairs.

  “Please, Natalie . . .”

  I stop and study the bastard fingers pressing into my skin before slowly meeting his gaze. The rage boiling inside me is frightening.

  “What are you going to tell me? What could you possibly have to say? That this was the first time? That I just happened to walk in the first time you ever kissed her? That looked a little cozy for a first kiss. Though, I can’t remember that far back since my last first kiss was with you.”

  He opens his mouth, but I put up my hand.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  In exasperation, he runs his hands through his hair and opens and closes his mouth a few times to try to say something. It doesn’t work.

  “That long, huh? Let me ask you this,” I finally let the door to the stairwell close as I cross my arms in front of me, “why? Why would you string me along—string our family along—while you were off fucking someone else—”

  Eric cuts me off. “We didn’t have sex, Natalie.”

  “Ha!” I can’t control the clinically hysterical laughter. “You expect me to start taking you at your w
ord? At least tell me you used protecti—you know what? It doesn’t matter, I’ll still have to get tested.” I tilt my chin in the direction of his office before giving him a disgusted once-over. “I hope she was worth it.” I push the door open and race down the stairs.

  I’m briefly concerned that he’ll chase me, but let’s be honest, he wouldn’t dare. I’m three nanoseconds away from causing a huge scene and he must sense it. He wisely stays secured on the other side of the fire door.

  Driving with student-driver cautiousness, I navigate myself off of campus and take a left to head up Amity Street. Divine intervention has opened a parking spot directly in front of Judie’s, so I slide into it and turn off the car before crumbling into a sobbing mess. No matter how I’ve felt about Eric over the last several months, I never dreamt of having an affair. I would never do that to him. To us. To our family. I should be thrilled that his actions give me a glaring pass to leave without guilt, instead I just feel dirty. Used. Rejected.

  Pounding on my passenger-side window pulls me away from the steering wheel. Tosha’s knocking like a crazy person. I unlock the door and she climbs in.

  “Natalie, what the fuck? What’s going on? Eric’s called me like fifty times in the last five minutes. He asked me if I’d seen you. What the hell?”

  Unbuckling my seatbelt, I lean over the center console and lay my head on her lap, still unable to form words.

  “Are the boys okay?” she asks as she runs her hands over my head.

  I nod. After a few minutes I sit up, take a deep breath, and tell her what I saw. Her eyes try to stay in their proper places as she lights a cigarette.

  “What a fucking prick.” She exhales and hands me the cigarette. “Do you know how long it’s been going on?”

  I shake my head. “Doesn’t really matter, though, does it?”

  She shakes hers. “Nope. So, I trust you’ll be staying at my place tonight?”

  “Yeah. I’ve gotta go home and get my stuff. Like, all of it. I’ll pack a bag and toss the rest in my storage unit.”

  She gets a small grin. “You still have that thing?”

  “Of course I do.”

  When Eric and I decided to move into his apartment, I took most of my furniture and a lot of my boxes of undergrad memories and put them in a storage unit to save for when we moved into a bigger place. A house. With our family. I’ve avoided sifting through boxes of the person I used to be, so I haven’t been there in a couple years. I just pay the bill every month and keep myself locked behind a garage door.

  “Do you want me to come with you in case he’s there?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you going to call your parents?”

  Christ.

  “Not yet,” I sigh, “the boys will be there for an entire week. I’m sure he’s smart enough not to call them, so I need to have a few days to sort some shit out. Let’s go.”

  Tosha stays in my car and we make the 45 second journey to the ugliest building on Amity Street, in my opinion. Eric’s car isn’t there, so Tosha and I work quickly to load all of my clothes and toiletries into as few garbage bags as possible. Despite my desire to give Eric the full brunt of my emotions, I’m praying he stays away from here until I’m gone. I know myself well enough to know I need time to cool down or I’ll likely make things worse.

  On our second trip from the car, Eric pulls in and follows us up the stairs. I’m doing my best to ignore him. Tosha goes into my bedroom ahead of me, stuffing sweaters into a bag.

  “Natalie, wait! Listen. What the hell are you doing?” Eric is inches behind me. He slams into me when I stop abruptly.

  “I’m leaving you,” I say as I turn around.

  He throws his arms in the air. “Just like that? That’s it?”

  “No,” I scoff, “not just like that. I left a long time ago, Eric. Now, I’m just bringing my body and my stuff.”

  Tosha sneaks past me with a bag in her hands, not making eye contact with Eric, when he grabs the bag from her.

  “Stop this, Natalie. Just take a breath—” He’s cut off when Tosha takes the bag back. “Jesus, Tosha, get the fuck out. This is none of your business.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Fearlessly, she squares off to him. “It most certainly is my business when my best friend of more than ten years is put at risk by her man-whore of a husband. You’re such a piece of shit, you know that?” She takes the bag back from him and storms toward the door.

  He calls after her. “Get the fuck out of my house, you nosy bitch!”

  “Don’t speak to her that way.” I spin for the bedroom, but he grabs my arm. “Let go of me, or I’ll start screaming for help.” I speak just slowly enough that he knows I’m serious.

  “Can’t we just talk about this, Natalie? You don’t even know—”

  “What?” I cut him off. “The facts? Got ‘em. The details? Don’t want ‘em. You toted me and the boys along for the last five years so you could look like the darling dad, dashing husband, and perfect doctoral student. My gosh, how does he do it? All along you’re fucking some coworker over your desk.” My voice cracks over the last sentence.

  Eric grabs my shoulders. “You wouldn’t touch me unless I begged, Nata—”

  “No!” I scream. “Do not blame this on me. I’ve been horrifically depressed for the last year, and you think I’m just tired of being a mom. I have issues, Eric, and I’ve tried to ignore them to support some asshole who, as it turns out, didn’t give a shit about me.” I shake free from his hold. “If I wasn’t doing it for you then you man up and leave me before you start screwing someone else. It’s the least you can do. Instead you made me look like a fool and feel even worse. Excuse me. I’m leaving.” I grab the last of my things and clumsily carry them down the stairs

  I watch the fight slowly leave his face as he sits on the front stair and watches us drive away. Tosh and I pull away and drive to the storage unit. After a few wrong turns, I find my unit and shakily open the door.

  It’s rather lackluster, staring at the things that used to highlight who I was. A wing-backed chair I picked up at an antique store and put in here when I decided I didn’t want kids wiping things on it, and bookshelves and boxes of books that wouldn’t fit amongst the wall space Eric claimed as his. I never argued it. What would have been the point?

  I walk to the back to stack a few garbage bags of my winter clothes on top of some other clothes when I see it. A box labeled “Ryker.” I can’t pretend I wasn’t keeping my eye out for it, but now I’m unsure if I even want to touch it.

  “Whatcha looking at?” Tosha asks as she steps over a few boxes and meets me in the back.

  “Oh . . . you know . . . a box of Ryker’s letters from war.” I roll my eyes as I sardonically pour the words from my mouth.

  “Of course,” she deadpans. “Well, you can ignore those . . . or take them back to my place and we can get piss-drunk while reading about the last guy who deserved you.”

  Her words shock me. “What? I thought you hated Ryker.”

  She puts her arm around my waist. “No. I hate Eric. Always have. What I hated about Ryker was that he wasn’t getting help, and you were self-medicating with a razor blade. And that wasn’t even his fault, or yours. You two had something special—it’s the circumstances that were shitty.”

  Her revelation—opposite of what I’ve spent the last ten years thinking—has me reaching for the box.

  “We’re gonna need a huge bottle of vodka.” I brush past her and put the box in the back of her car.

  “I’ve got you covered.”

  “Did you ever think of getting rid of these?” Tosha asks as we neatly unpack the box forty-five minutes later.

  Pouring our vodka tonics, I don’t look up. “Not ever.”

  “Not even once?” She crooks her eyebrow.

  “Not even once.” I add a little more vodka to my glass.

  Despite everything that went down, I held on to those letters for dear life. They were the only things that reminded
me that the good times were real and the bad times were the nightmare, not the norm. I smuggled them home with me when my dad brought me home from the hospital, and begged him to put them somewhere my mom would never find them; she would have trashed them for sure. So, my dad hid them where he hid his cigars in the garage. I took them with me when I returned to school.

  “Does Eric know about them?”

  “Yeah. He knows they exist, but I told him I left them at home, in P-A . . .”

  Tosha and I drink loads of vodka while we sift through Ryker’s handwritten letters, sent to me from Afghanistan a thousand years ago. We pour over every single word; some funny, some sad, all full of the love he had for me. I think she switched to water, but an hour later I’m on my third drink when I pick up yet another letter.

  February 1, 2002

  Natalie,

  Pretty lame that I bailed before our first Valentine’s Day, huh? I hope this gets to you before then. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to call in the last few days. Hopefully we’ll have talked before you get this.

  Thank you for your letters. I know I say it every time, but they never get old. It feels like a lifetime ago that I was saying goodbye to you, even though it’s only been a little over two months. I’d ask how school is going, but I don’t really care. I just want to know how you are doing. Some of the guys have wives and girlfriends that seem to be falling apart. If you’re feeling like that, please talk to someone, Nat. Promise?

  God, I miss you.

  I love you so much, Natalie, and when I get home I’m going to keep loving you until you tell me to stop. But don’t, please. Don’t tell me to stop.

  I love you.

  With everything.

  ~ Ry

  Vodka burns my throat as I recall that he hated anyone else calling him Ry, but me. He signed every letter “Ry” like it was his way of sealing it with a kiss.