Shark Out of Water (Grab Your Pole, #3)

by Jenn Cooksey

  When my feet touched solid ground I thought about kissing the dirt, but he still wasn’t looking at me and his words only drove home the impact of just how much I’d hurt him. It was unintentional, but still. I’d convinced myself that it was his fault; that he’d been the one to turn his back on me, but in reality, it was me doing the backstabbing, just like he said. And now it’s time for me to make it “clearly” obvious that he’ll never have to worry about me doing it again so instead of kissing the ground, I walked over to him and said, “Oh Jesus, Tristan…I—I didn’t have a fuckin’ clue, but, come on, I’m your best fucking friend! We shared our goddamned blood for Christ’s sake! I might tell you you’re being a fuckin’ jackass or get pissed at you, but you have to know you can tell me anything!”

  When he turned to look at me, the tears were back in his eyes and with them, so were regret, pain and sorrow. Only this time, he wasn’t feeling pain and sorrow over anything that had to do with him or us. He was expressing it all for me and I didn’t understand why. Not at first anyway…

  “I do know that…now. But…you don’t always tell me everything either.”

  His words broke over me as if he’d hit me over the head with an enormous crystal vase that left me struggling to comprehend what he meant. Seconds later, when it dawned on me, it felt like someone had literally reached inside my chest and made a fist around my heart, viciously and unmercifully squeezing the life out of it, and I started gasping for breath with all the unresolved hurt and torrential anger over the death of my unborn child suffocating me as it savagely and relentlessly surged through me…

  Getting down & dirty ~ Tristan

  When Jeff came back riding the unicorn I was prepared to hear him out only because I thought he needed to talk. And yes, I was gonna put my hurt and anger over his abandonment of me aside because even with all of that, eighteen years of friendship doesn’t just go away and if he needs to talk about what happened in December, you’re goddamned guaranteed I’m gonna listen. Plus, he laid a lot on the line by getting on that horse when he’s uncomfortable in the extreme riding without any tack and knowing that my horse wasn’t gonna make it all that safe. He was proving that he trusts me. And I wanted to show him he could. But then he immediately started in on me and I realized he didn’t wanna talk about their baby or him. He was expecting me to trust him and, well, abandonment and trust don’t really go hand in hand, so, I fought him.

  But, Jeff was right.

  He knew I needed to get everything I’d bottled up inside of me out before it killed me. It wouldn’t have literally caused me to die, but, I was spiraling. Fast. I, the person I am, was about to vanish. And even as flawed and fucked up as I am, I don’t wanna disappear. He might not have been the one to pull me out of the ocean and literally save my life, but he still saved me.

  And now it’s my turn to throw him a line…

  I wasn’t gonna bring it up, but then I thought about how and why I ran from my baby. It’s almost like my process. I’m what you might call a mercurial personality, someone who tends to be erratic and temperamental. However, I’m also very often decisive and immovable. It’s a tricky mix and I know this about myself, and I accept it. So, for me, balancing a personality of unwavering capriciousness makes for a lot of mental turbulence and I navigate through it quite often without problem. But, I don’t handle emotional turmoil well. I avoid it at all costs and twelve days ago, I paid an inordinate sum by running from and not even acknowledging my emotions until I was teetering on the edge of becoming a bedlamite.

  Jeff doesn’t have the same issue with emotions that I do.

  Emotionally, Jeff and I are very similar and we’re typically very staid individuals. We just handle our emotions in completely different ways. He’s both highly dedicated and determined, yes, but he’s steady. He finds almost everything amusing and the things he doesn’t find a joke in, he just deals with and moves on. However, he’s also a bit of a snob and he deplores vulnerability. He views it as an imperfection so he relies on his sadomasochistic sense of humor—because really, that’s what it is—to fend off unwanted emotional entanglements or battles that might expose him. Unless, of course, you’re Kate and if you’re her, he’ll do anything under the sun to prove himself to you. He’d even ride the unicorn down the length of the football field during a game wearing nothing but a pink tutu while waving a beribboned flag that reads “I ♥ Being Emasculated” if she wanted him to. Lucky for Jeff, she doesn’t ask him to prove himself very often.

  So in thinking about how I run away and how he hides behind humor, it occurred to me that he couldn’t do either of those things when Kate miscarried his baby. There isn’t a single goddamned fucking thing about that that’s funny, and seriously, where the fuck can you run? He’d wanna be strong and in control for Kate so I bet he didn’t allow himself to truly grieve, which means he hasn’t dealt with the loss…he hasn’t moved on. And subconsciously, he knows it. And the only way for him to do that is if I can get him to acknowledge the nightmare he desperately needs to wake up from, openly and out loud. Which is gonna be seriously hard for me to do because the nightmare he’s experienced is one of my worst and it’s a long standing one at that. I’m prepared to go to great lengths to ensure I never have to feel what he’s gone through or what he’s still feeling but the thing is, I absolutely cannot tell him anything about that. He won’t understand for one thing, but there’s also the chance that at some point in the not so distant future, he’ll blame himself or regret opening up to me.

  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was gonna be, though. Well, not the part about getting him to open up anyway. I didn’t have to push him or even actually tell him I knew; it took him less than three seconds to comprehend what I meant about not telling me everything. However, it was like I’d put my fist straight through his gut and his reaction to that understanding had a rebound effect that straight up made me barf. I’m not even kidding, the instant awareness washed over him, he started to struggle for breath and then, he literally crumpled to the ground on his hands and knees, sobbing in pure agony. Seeing him become completely incapacitated by that soul crushing grief made the puke start its ascent up my throat so I had to swallow and choke it back down because I didn’t wanna spew it all over my best friend. The whole scene also made me almost get back on my horse and head for the hills for the rest of eternity. But I didn’t do what my impulsive side told me to do. I dug deep down and found a place of strength, of single-minded determination, and did what I knew he would do for me if I was ever in his place…

  I held him.

  I got down in the dirt that was fast becoming mud, making myself a place of unconditional solace for him, and as he wailed, I shed more of my own tears and mourned the death of his child with him.

  I have no clue how many minutes we sat there in the rain, but as we cried together and he gained enough control to talk, he explained why they never said anything as the jumping off point in his grieving process. He told me they were actually planning on telling us all that they were pregnant but they wanted to wait until they’d made it past twelve weeks. Yeah, he used the plural “we” in reference to the pregnancy, like he was carrying the baby too, and yeah, I have yet another crack in my heart. I swear to God I’m gonna have to use duct tape or something to hold it together in one piece after today and the rest of the shit I’m putting it through.

  Anyway, then all that crap with their parents happened so they chose to put off telling anyone, but once they found out their parents supported them, they decided on Kate’s birthday dinner as the date to tell the rest of us. Actually, from what he said, I guess Kate was about to tell Camie right before the accident happened and for a short time, Kate blamed herself for losing the baby because of that. Like I thought, he sucked it up for her and poured himself into seeing that she healed, and it helped that their parents were behind them and talking to my dad that night helped him to realize that all hope wasn’t lost, but, he’s still been struggling. Through talking it
out I came to understand that the car accident hadn’t just taken the life of their unborn baby; it’d left Jeff with a parting gift of despair.

  That goddamned fucking car accident…

  Looking back, I knew before then but I just hadn’t really admitted it to myself yet. The accident was the lightbulb moment for me. It was incandescent as well as bloody. Honestly, there has to be better ways to consciously realize you’ve fallen completely in love with someone and that you’d rather die before seeing any harm come to them.

  Pete and I both thought Kate had been killed and no way in hell were we gonna let Jeff see her like that so we held onto him like his life depended on it, because in truth, it probably would’ve. Of course that was after my own heart had started beating again, after I saw that Camie was alive. Bleeding, but alive. When we found out Kate was okay and we let Jeff go, I let my training and instincts take over, but emotionally, I was totally freaking out. I looked under the Camaro and knew right away that the passenger was dead. I also saw that the driver was unconscious and alive but I knew there wasn’t anything I could actually do there. Then I checked on the driver of the Oldsmobile and found that the kid was fine. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t hurt. He was standing next to the car on his cell phone telling someone what’d happened and when he started laughing about it, I unleashed my temper a smidge but instead of throwing him down on the hood of his goddamned wreck of a car and beating the shit out of him, I broke his phone in half and then walked away. All of that only took maybe three minutes, but it was enough for my paralyzing fear to abate enough for me to pull myself together so that I could take care of Camie without blubbering like an idiot over the relief I felt that I hadn’t lost her.

  At least I didn’t let my mind-numbing fear surface and prevent me from getting her to the hospital two and a half weeks later when I came even closer to losing her. Nope, that time I was in cruise control right up until I threw my car into park at the entrance to the emergency room…then I lost it.

  Anyway, later that evening, when my suspicions about Kate being pregnant and then losing the baby were confirmed, I began to earnestly formulate a plan that would protect me from ever having to go through what my best friends were facing, even though I was prepared to be there for them to do whatever they needed and whenever they needed me to do it. I just didn’t know what sitting on the sidelines in support of them would actually be like. And let me tell you, when we got back to the stables and Jeff pulled his wallet out and asked if I wanted to see a sonogram picture, it took all of my control to not shout in terror, “Are you out of your fucking mind?! Not no, but FUCK NO!!” Instead I said of course and swallowing pure panic, I forced myself to actually look at it too. He called the baby “Peanut” but I think it looked more like a lima bean, which actually made him laugh a little when I let that slip. I also made myself participate in the conversation by asking some of the obligatory questions like whether the accident had done any permanent damage to Kate’s body. He said it hadn’t and I won the internal battle to not cringe away from him or even ask him why on earth they’d wanna chance going through it again when he told me the plan was to graduate and get married and then they’d focus on having children. I mean, yeah, that’s the socially accepted way to do things, but Jesus, if I were either one of them, I’d never have sex again.

  Yep, I feel that strongly about it.

  But he does too and he always has. His desire to have children with Kate has never been in question and I’ve always known he wouldn’t be the one to back me in this particular area; in fact, it’d be the exact opposite. I remember when we were in eighth grade and we found a kid who’d died while he was body surfing… I knew he was dead but I couldn’t just not do anything so I performed CPR on him for something like thirty minutes. Then I had to watch the kid’s mother hear the news… Later that night I told Jeff something I’d decided long before that day, that I never want to have kids. He was incredulous and we argued about it for a few minutes, but I let it go so it ended with him telling me that I’d change my mind someday. But here’s where my immovable decisiveness holds true…I haven’t. Falling in love with Camie and almost losing her twice just made my decision even more granite, so as things sit right now, even being apart from her the way I am, I really don’t see myself changing my mind before my birthday. But what Jeff’s response that night really told me is that although he should, he’ll never be able to understand so I’ve never brought it up again, because really, Jeff is one of the last people I should have to defend my choice and decision on this to.

  What it means to be ringside ~ Jeff

  By the time we were headed back to the cabin, we were both grateful that my Jeep has four-wheel drive. The stables are only about a mile from the house and Tristan walked it this afternoon, but when it rains like this, sloshing through the mud on foot can take more than an hour and even being in a vehicle can be treacherous at times. I got us back to the cabin and then checked my phone. Shit, three missed calls. I could’ve sworn I called Katy to tell her where I was going at one point, though. I mean, didn’t I? Well, obviously not or I wouldn’t be listening to her get increasingly worried with each voicemail…

  “Hey Trist? You’re stayin’ out here tonight, aren’t you?” I’m sure he is. He looks utterly thrashed and his car probably won’t make it on these back roads in the condition they’re in right now anyway.

  “Yeah. I don’t feel like goin’ back into town…I’m gonna call my mom and ask her to feed the girls for me, then I’m gonna take the longest fuckin’ shower the history of indoor plumbing has ever seen, and then I’m gonna curl up with my goddamned pillow and cram three nights of sleep into the next nine hours.”

  “You mind if I stay?”

  “Mm-mm…” He didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure he’s wondering why I wouldn’t wanna go home and be with Katy tonight.

  It’s not that I don’t wanna see her…far from it actually, but after everything he and I just went through, I don’t wanna cut and run. Knowing how he deals with—or rather, doesn’t deal with emotional upheaval and if I’m right about his feelings on not having children, then that was immensely difficult for him. What he just put himself through for me was this side of super human and even though I’m in a better place now, I know he really isn’t. Yes, our friendship is back on track, and yes, he got all of that shit out and he’s coping with it, but, he still needs me.

  My personal fight is over, it’s just gonna take some time for me to heal, but I will heal and I will move on. However, his battle is ongoing. He’s still out there, floundering. Knowing everything that I do now and acknowledging what a shitty friend I’ve been, I have to ask…what kind of friend would I be now if I didn’t suit up and join him? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m gonna fight his fight for him or anything like that, I mean he wouldn’t allow it even if I tried to throw a punch for him, but that’s not my job anyway. No, my job is to sit right on the other side of the ropes and be the coach.

  “Hey Katy.”

  “Oh my God! Where have you been?! The wind is crazy...a tree fell somewhere over by Melissa’s and the power just went out here too…I’ve been so worried about you!”

  “I’m really sorry I made you worry, but I’m fine, I’m gonna stay out at the lake tonight though.”

  “Oh! Well, okay…did you talk to him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And? How’d it go?”

  “It went…good? I mean, we didn’t kill each other.”

  “Did he tell you why he broke up with her?”

  “Um, not exactly…”

  “Well, did he tell you anything that explains his ridiculous behavior?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it really bad?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “……..”

  “Jeff, did you hear me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, I thought you cut ou—Oh my God…you can’t tell me, can you?”
r />   “Nope, but I can say that I love you more than anything in the world.”

  A coach who has to keep his mouth shut if he wants to keep his job...

  The devil you know ~ Tristan

  I took my shower and although I was intending to use every last drop of hot water, I had to cut it short. I kept having flashbacks to that outrageous shower Camie and I took. It was completely ridiculous and it was completely perfect. Yeah, I was still sorta dealing with the aftermath of her almost dying on the fuckin’ blue stage at school, but she was completely alive and she was completely mine. There wasn’t anything dramatic goin’ on, there wasn’t anything to be worried about…for that little bit, we were just us and we were together…laughing. So I’m sure you can imagine that I wasn’t one hundred percent thrilled when I came back downstairs to discover that Jeff wanted to talk some more. All I can say is that I’m so fucking relieved he was done needing to talk about his Lima Bean. Er…Peanut. Fuck it, they’re both legumes.

  “So, what’s your plan?” He asked as he handed me a sandwich and took the chair next to me in front of the glass wall where I was looking out at the storm on the lake.

  “The plan is to eat this and then get a decent night’s sleep for a change.”

  “Dude. That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  I sighed and then answered him honestly. “I don’t have one.”