Designed

by Alicia Renee Kline

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had promised myself I would tell him one day. I took promises seriously, even when made in confidence in my own head.

  “Do you really want to know?” I asked shakily.

  He nodded. “More than anything.”

  I shook my head. “Not here. Somewhere private.”

  My stomach rolled as he took my hand and led me out of the ballroom, down the hallway and out the first exit door we found. He mistook my shivering for being cold when it was more due to nerves rather than the chill in the late August air. Either way, he broke contact long enough to shrug out of his tuxedo jacket and drape it over my shoulders. I pushed my arms through the over-long sleeves, offered up my hand once more, and let him lead the way.

  We ended up at his car, my old car, however you wanted to look at it. He unlocked the passenger door of the Civic first, helping me inside before going around to the driver’s side and climbing in.

  “It’s a shame that you weren’t in my father’s good graces at the end,” I said, hopelessly stalling for time. “You could have been driving my Mercedes instead.”

  “I wouldn’t have taken it. In fact, I probably would have bought it off him and given it back to you. I prefer this. It reminds me of you. You never were the Mercedes type anyway. If you were, certainly you’d be driving one again. I know you’d be able to afford it if you really wanted to.”

  I nodded, just to confirm his suspicions.

  “So instead you keep the car with all the memories. You know, the thought of my brother leaning against the back of it, handcuffed, while the cops search his pockets and find his stash of drugs. And being impounded and having to pay out the nose to get it back. All the good times.”

  “Actually, I think of you and your ponytail swinging around your face as you laughed. Whatever perfume or body wash you used to use. A stereotypical cheerleader representation, I know. But you were in high school when you drove this. And I was so in love.”

  “Me, too.”

  “So why would what your brother did ruin us? Was it what your father said that night? About you being high maintenance and me not being the one who could support you?”

  I winced. That depiction had always bothered me. My father was such a tool to say something like that right in front of Chris. So what if he’d suspected it throughout our relationship - that my father considered him the starter boyfriend and nothing more? Just a passing phase? Good enough to be his son’s best friend but not his daughter’s love?

  “No, it wasn’t that at all.” I shook my head violently.

  “What then? Were you being so pig-headed about proclaiming your independence that you would rather break up with me than accept my help?”

  “Not entirely,” I hedged, “though that didn’t help. You acted like you wanted me to shut my mouth and stay at my parents’. I wasn’t going to leave Matthew high and dry like that and I certainly wasn’t going to sneak around to see my own brother. Someone had to help him, to take charge.”

  “I know. And after I got over the initial shock of you telling off your dad, I would have come around. I was helping you, wasn’t I?”

  “Reluctantly, at best. You and Matthew were pretty peeved at me. Don’t think I didn’t notice. But if I wouldn’t have stepped up, you would have had to do it all. And I really shudder to think how the house would have turned out then.”

  I flashed him a grin, which he returned briefly before going back to being deadly serious.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  I took a deep breath, willing myself to make the big reveal. Quick and painless, I told myself, just like ripping off a Band-Aid. Whoever had made that shit up needed to be shot. This wasn’t going to be either.

  “That night that Matthew got arrested,” I began, staring down at my lap, “he wasn’t the only one to do something stupid. We did, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  At least I’d gotten the “we” part in first so he wouldn’t jump to some horrid conclusion about me cheating on him. I wondered if he was going back in history to think about what exactly I was referring to.

  “The last time we were, you know, together,” I fumbled, losing my grasp on the English language completely, “I got pregnant.”

  Instinctively, I wrapped my arms about myself, wanting to shrink into a tiny ball. I didn’t know what to expect - part of me was afraid he’d lash out at me in anger. But I was met instead with silence. I squeezed my eyes shut, then forced them to open again. I turned to face him, only to find him staring at me, completely blindsided. Whatever explanation he’d been expecting, that wasn’t it.

  It hurt too much to look at him that way. To see so many things flash in those eyes: comprehension, questions, grief, more questions. So I turned my attention instead to the passenger side window, my monologue given to my former car.

  I told him everything. Once the initial fear of dropping the bombshell had diminished, I found the words tumbling out of my mouth. It was therapeutic, in a way, to finally share this with someone. I was so tired emotionally of holding this inside for so long that there was a relief in coming clean. A giant weight was being lifted from my shoulders, being passed over to him to effectively crush him.

  Even if he hated me afterward, I knew I had finally done the right thing.

  Through it all, he remained quiet. He never said a word, though at some point he grabbed my hand and I let him. Our fingers were laced so tightly together that my knuckles were white. We were holding onto each other for dear life. Either that or he was squeezing my hand in lieu of choking me. I couldn’t say I didn’t deserve it.

  I dried tears I didn’t know I had shed and settled back in my seat, preparing for the aftermath. It was a long time coming. The interior of the car seemed to close around us as I waited for him to say something, anything. I knew it was a lot to digest; I wasn’t about to push him. So I shook instead, even while he still had a death grip on me.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said eventually. It could have been ten minutes or a couple hours later.

  I nodded mutely, not completely sure of what he meant.

  “You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” he explained, even though his words only confused me more.

  “I wouldn’t be,” I said stupidly, “I’m sure that Gracie’s heading up a wild after party.”

  Not like I was in a festive mood anymore, but he didn’t need to know that. I felt more like running home and taking a scalding hot shower, slumping down against the walls until the water turned ice cold, but I wasn’t about to share.

  “Okay, I shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  “Fair enough.”

  What exactly was I agreeing to? I had no clue. As stupid as it would sound to ask, I knew I had to. So I did.

  “We should go back to my place and just talk. I’ll drive.”

  Me following behind him in my truck was obviously not going to be an option. I had the feeling that he wasn’t ready to let me out of his sight. I didn’t want to fight him on that, nor did I know where he lived, either. It would just be easier not to argue on both accounts. But first, there was something that I needed to do.

  “I was supposed to be part of the clean up crew,” I admitted. “I need to tell Gracie that I’m bowing out. And get my stuff.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  I nodded. That settled, we walked back into the hotel, where the true festivities were just about to begin. Chris’s arm found its way over my shoulders and I leaned into him, totally exhausted. I was certain that I looked a mess, but I didn’t care.

  As Matthew had indicated earlier, he and Lauren had ducked out of their own party already or at least they were nowhere to be found. Gracie had taken over as the center of attention, standing up at the DJ booth and flirting shamelessly with the entertainment. She had a glass of wine pressed in her hand, her other arm slung over the poor guy’s shoulder. To her credit, he looked entranced by her.

  “There you are!” she s
aid a little too loudly as I crossed the ballroom. “Come over here. He’s going to give me a lesson.”

  “Sure he is,” I said with a smirk. Maybe on my way out I should find Will and ask him to move the short leash over to her.

  She wasn’t three sheets to the wind enough not to pick up on the context clues. She always surprised me by being perceptive, no matter what the occasion. Instantly, she made a mental note of the fact that I was wearing a tuxedo jacket over my dress. Her eyes swung over to the exit, finding what she was looking for when she spotted Chris holding my bag, which we’d already stopped by the room to retrieve.

  “I’m going to head out,” I said unnecessarily.

  She nodded.

  “Would you close up? I’m leaving my truck here; you can load it up with stuff and I’ll come back for it in the morning.”

  She took the keys to the Trailblazer that I dangled in front of her.

  “This is a spare set,” I told her, babbling now. “You’re spending the night at Lauren’s, right?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Well, if we don’t meet up before you head down to Indy, just leave them on her kitchen counter. I’ve got a key to her house; I’ll pick them up later.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re sure you’re fine doing this?”

  Gracie still seemed slightly shocked at the fact that I was ditching my responsibilities for Chris. If that wasn’t an about face, I didn’t know what was. “Yeah. Go have fun.”

  Better of her to think that we were going to have wild, passionate sex with one another rather than what it was we were about to do. I wasn’t even sure that I knew what the night held for us, but I doubted it included the extracurricular activities she was imagining. Somehow I didn’t think that fun would be part of the equation.

  Instead of coming up with a response that would have sparked a series of rapid fire questions, I patted her on the shoulder and offered a pithy “be careful” in closing. She giggled hysterically and smacked my arm a little harder than she intended. I discreetly rubbed at it as I turned to go. She didn’t wait behind to watch us exit; she high-tailed it back to the DJ booth instead. After all, he was only here for a limited time.

  “All set?” Chris asked.

  I nodded, and we said nothing more on our way back out to the car. Again, he opened the passenger door for me, then deposited my bag in the backseat prior to getting in himself. The silence continued the whole way to his house. Fortunately, that wasn’t a long ride.

  We pulled up to a bungalow in what used to be a suburb of Fort Wayne, now annexed into the city proper. The houses here were older - maybe from the early 1940s or so - and small. Not quite a historic section of town, but creeping towards it solely by default. It was a purely unremarkable neighborhood. I supposed this meant the rents were cheap. I scolded myself immediately after thinking that. Maybe I was a little materialistic.

  At any rate, we traveled down the long driveway to the detached one car garage, gravel crunching under the tires. He parked the car inside the structure while I noticed that it was a tight fit, even for a Civic. There was barely enough clearance to open the car doors fully, but he managed to walk his way around and open the door for me. He extended his hand to help me up from my seat. I grabbed on and didn’t let go right away, testing the waters. My fingers remained clasped in his, even as he took my bag from the backseat and slung it over his shoulder.

  It was late, well past midnight, and every sound that we made was intensified by the quietness of our surroundings. The car doors closing, the garage door creaking shut, the click of my heels once we reached the sidewalk; everything felt amplified.

  “Watch your step,” he cautioned once we reached the back stairs to his home. His voice was soft, but he might as well have been screaming in my ear. I jumped just the same. The concrete steps were steep, and navigating them in heels would have been treacherous even without the overwhelming nervousness creeping in.

  He unlocked the back door, quickly flipping on the light switch just inside for my benefit before allowing me to pass through. When I entered, I stood abruptly in his kitchen, entirely from another era. While some would call it quaint, I called it a project waiting to happen. Too bad it was a rental. The bathroom was directly ahead of me, resembling more of a closet than a space to de-stress and relax. Obviously no room for a jetted tub in there. To my left was the rest of the home - a large living room area that extended the length of the house. Off of that space were two bedrooms.

  “I’d give you a tour,” he joked, “but you’ve pretty much seen it all.”

  I blushed, embarrassed that he’d caught me doing the once-over. I couldn’t help it; it was an inherent personality trait of mine. Already my mind was coming up with ideas, paint colors, fabrics. Interior design was a sickness, really.

  He walked past me, placing my bag on the floor of the bathroom. I watched him intently, wondering what he was up to.

  “I figured you’d want to take a shower,” he explained, shrugging. “You don’t sleep in full hair and makeup now, do you?”

  “No,” I said softly, again feeling heat rise to my cheeks.

  Why, oh why, had I not thought of this before? It wasn’t like I’d really thought we would sit and reminisce in our wedding gear. But the thought hadn’t occurred to me that I had only brought with me a pair of cutoff shorts and a tank top. I hadn’t been thinking overnight stay when I’d left the house. But I supposed I’d have to make due with what I had.

  “So have at it.”

  “Fine.”

  I knew he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d be insulted if I came out thirty seconds later in the clothes I’d worn to the hotel. He was being hospitable and I was going to accept it even if doing so made me uncomfortable. So I strode past him into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.

  It would feel good to get washed up, I reasoned as I set to work plucking the bobby pins out of my hair. I dropped them into a pile on the sink and turned on the shower, letting the water heat up as I stripped off my bridesmaid’s gown. I had the hanger with me in my bag, so I carefully placed the dress on it and hung it up on the doorknob. Most of the flowing skirt pooled on the floor, but it was better than just throwing it into a heap.

  I was also at his mercy as far as toiletries. I’d fully expected to be sleeping in my own bed tonight, so I’d have to use what was there. I did a mental check and found what I needed: a towel folded over the rack, his shampoo and soap in the tiny shower stall. I’d been in worse situations, definitely.

  The water pressure left much to be desired, which I realized as soon as I attempted to rinse said shampoo out of my mass of hair. I was working through the strands with my fingers, coaxing the soap out, when I heard the knock at the door.

  “Blake?” he called from the other side.

  “Yeah?” I said, my voice cracking.

  I heard the door push open. Instinctively, I covered my breasts with my arms, pressing my legs together as tightly as they could go. Even with the opaque shower curtain between us, I still had this irrational fear of him walking in on me and seeing everything. Stupid, because he’d seen everything before anyway. Idiotic, because I’d completely bared my soul to him earlier tonight. If there was anyone I shouldn’t be afraid of seeing me in this position, it was this man. But yet I huddled in his shower, naked and self-conscious.

  “I brought you a couple clean towels.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Nothing more was said and the sound of the door sliding shut informed me that I was alone. I began to breathe normally again and hurried up with the rest of my shower. Figuring that I had done as good as I was going to get with what I had, I turned off the water and pulled back the curtain.

  True to his word, he’d left me two towels perched on the closed toilet seat. But that wasn’t all. Neatly folded on top of the towels was one of his old Red Wings t-shirts, a faded garment that had seen better days. He apparently expected me to sleep in it, picking up
on the notion that I wouldn’t have brought anything suitable to wear to bed.

  The tiny gesture brought tears to my eyes, which I blinked back. I dried myself off and slid into the shirt. It grazed me mid-thigh, which I figured was good enough. I pulled back on my thong and wrapped my hair up in the second towel. Before opening the door, I grabbed the comb I’d brought with me. We could talk while I combed out my hair. Otherwise, it would be a tangled knot in the morning.

  He was seated on the couch in the living room, staring ahead at the black television screen on the opposite wall. He’d changed out of his tuxedo and into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. The floorboards creaked as I approached, shifting his focus to me. The look on his face was unreadable as his eyes traveled up and down the length of my frame. For once, I wished I wasn’t quite so tall; his inspection wouldn’t have taken so long if I was petite like Lauren.

  Not knowing what else to do, I stood in front of him and began to towel dry my hair. Was I waiting for him to invite me to sit next to him? Was I trying to drive him crazy by seductively squeezing the excess water from my hair while wearing only his shirt? I wished I knew.

  Chris stared at me, the kind of staring that someone does when they would rather not be caught. I felt his eyes on me, memorizing me, the person that reminded him of his girlfriend from long ago with a few alterations. I pretended not to notice, averting my eyes to the floor. When the towel was wetter than my hair, I stalked back into the bathroom to deposit it in the hamper.

  So far things were going well. He didn’t want to be alone, but he was going to spend the night being catatonic. Great.

  Mustering all the courage I had, I walked over to him once more. He hadn’t moved a muscle. I cleared my throat to get his attention, then held my comb out in a silent question. He took it from me after a moment’s hesitation and I sat cross-legged in front of him on the floor. I rested my back against the threadbare couch, my body shielded in between his legs.