“Fuck,” Vic muttered, removing his hand from my knee. He ran both hands through his hair, looking pained.
I lowered my voice. “Yeah, pretty much.” I shrugged. “Hey,” I said, “maybe it’s not your fault. Maybe I just have atrocious taste in men. Okay, that kind of came out wrong. What I’m trying to say is maybe I bring out the worst in men. Like, Dean used to be normal and then he met me. And, I mean you have a wife, so you must be doing something right.” I laughed bitterly, realizing how ludicrous everything was. “Oh my God. You have a wife and I’m out on a date with you. Fuck. My. Life. Seriously, what am I doing? I’m at a fancy restaurant with someone’s husband with his come in my dress.” I laughed bitterly. “My mom would be so proud.”
Vic looked at me with his piercing eyes. They were so beautiful; my favorite thing about him, undoubtedly. His eyes were like concentrated pieces of him; all of his strength, his candor, his vulnerability, his compassion, and his ruthlessness condensed into two, almond shaped, black holes.
“Stop!” I screamed at him, surprised even by my outburst.
“Stop what?” Vic asked, shocked. His normal authoritative air was gone. He wasn’t trying to control me anymore; in fact, he looked like a kicked puppy.
“Looking at me with those eyes,” I said. If I was ever going to get over him, he needed to stop sucking me in with that gaze.
“They’re just my eyes,” Vic replied, nonplussed.
“Well, stop it,” I muttered.
Vic sighed. “I’ll take you home, Lennox.”
We didn’t speak on the ride back. There was no sexual tension—it was just awkward. I was sad, depressed even. My perfect man was . . . not perfect, at all. He was a killer.
When we arrived at my door, Vic asked me what was wrong. I swear, I don’t understand how someone can be so smart and yet so fucking dense. I really wanted to punch him in the face. Then, as he nursed his black eye, I could say to him: “Oh, what’s wrong?” Perhaps then, he would understand a semblance of my frustration.
I didn’t feel like giving him a play-by-play of our conversation at the restaurant. So instead, I said,
“Nothing, other than the fact that Dean is lying dead in the ground somewhere.” Oh, and you’re a complete dickhead killer who I’m head over heels in love with and the fact that I can’t be with you is tearing my heart up inside and I think I’m going to die of heartbreak. I looked it up on the Internet; it is possible to actually die of a broken heart. But I didn’t say that.
“Better in the ground than in your pussy,” Vic responded icily.
I clamped my jaw shut, too stunned to say anything. Well, fuck you too, buddy!
“Sorry, Lennox.” Vic ran his fingers through his hair. He’d done it so much in the past hour that it was uncharacteristically in disarray. “I just . . . fuck! I told you that you and I wouldn’t be a good idea.”
I glared at him. “Well, congratulations Mr. Hindsight. Would you like me to go back in time and give you a fucking medal?” I slammed my door in his face, not wanting to hear his response. His excuse was like a murderer saying, “I told you I was gonna murder you if you kept hanging around me.” Uh, okay . . . that doesn’t justify your actions. You are still a murderer, Vic. And, you are still a dick.
Fuck.
I’m so pissed I got myself into this mess.
I saw my dad’s beaming face, before I even parked my car. Despite all the unanswered emails and unreturned phone calls he still loved me. It was a miracle.
“What the hell happened, Lennox? I nearly put out a missing person’s report.”
I swallowed hard at his question. What do I say? Now that it was all over and I wasn’t worried about his safety, I could tell him the truth. I could tell him that Dean had threatened me and my family. I almost did, too, the words were coming out of my throat, but they caught on my tongue.
Vic. Vic Wall. If I told my dad what happened, it would inevitably lead to Vic and the murder of Dean.
Oh God.
All of the neat little boxes I had made in my brain were becoming undone. The murder. Vic. Dean’s murder and Vic. Dean lying dead somewhere in an unmarked grave. Blood. My mother lying in a grave. My mother’s suicide; in a note, my mother telling me to be strong. No blood, just cold, gray skin . . .
I shook my head and managed a smile. “Nothing, dad,” I said. “There are no adequate excuses for what I did.”
He frowned, clearly not happy with my way of avoiding telling him what happened. After a long pause, wherein neither my dad nor I gave in, my dad finally said,
“Well, come on then. You’ll catch a cold!”—I started to get my bags—“No, I’ll get the bags. Go on inside and to your room.”
My dad was never really one for showing his emotions, or letting others show their emotions either. After my mom died, all emotions ceased to exist entirely. Any problems we might have had disappeared along with emotions. My depression didn’t exist. My suicide attempt never happened. To my dad, it was easier to never talk about it and move on. He was an expert in compartmentalizing. So the fact that he could ignore his daughter’s months’ long absence really wasn’t that shocking to me.
I can remember a very distinct conversation my dad and I had had while I was hospitalized after my suicide attempt. The gashes on my arms were still very fresh, and occasionally they would bleed through the gauze and bandages. Yet every meeting my dad and I had, we would never acknowledge where I was. We would talk about his work and my school (never mentioning that I wasn’t there). We would talk about my favorite TV shows. We would eat lunch and discuss its highs and lows. Never mentioning that the TV was hooked against a hospital wall and that the the lunch came from a hospital cafeteria.