The Way We Fall Page 5

  “Hey, handsome,” Tessa purrs as I open the top drawer of our dresser and pull out a pair of gray boxer briefs.

  “Hey, baby.”

  I shed the towel and toss it onto the chair by the window, then I pull on the boxers.

  “I don’t think you’re gonna need those tonight.”

  I turn around and she’s casting her best come-hither expression in my direction. I try to see Tessa the way I saw her three days ago, as my hot, blonde twenty-six-year-old wife. The woman who gave me a distraction from the painful memories when I thought they would consume me. But all I see when I look at her is two words flashing in bold letters: NOT RORY.

  I smile at Tessa and squint my eyes a bit to return her sexy glare. “Is that an invitation?”

  The words feel wrong and misshapen in my mouth. Like I’m rehearsing lines from a movie script.

  “Do you need an invitation?”

  She lays her phone down on the nightstand and I know there’s no getting out of this. A man can’t refuse sex the way a woman can. And, of course, I am only a man. I also have needs. I can’t save myself for Rory when there’s probably zero chance she’ll ever take me back.

  I push down my boxers and kick them off as I climb onto the bed. She giggles as I slide between her legs, placing my hands on each side of her head as I lean down to kiss her. She tastes like toothpaste and betrayal.

  I reach down and hastily pull off her panties and she yelps. “Hey! Take it easy, tiger.”

  Sliding my hand behind her nape, I pull her head to the side, exposing her neck, then I suck hard on her pale flesh. She pushes me back.

  “What are you doing? You’re gonna leave a mark.”

  “Sorry.” I push up on my hands and look down at her, trying to convey the hunger in my eyes. “Turn around.”

  She gazes into my eyes, trying to figure out what’s going on with me, but she decides not to question it. She flips over onto her belly and I wrap my arm around her middle to lift her up onto all fours.

  Doggy-style is a primal sex position. It’s the position we perfected as apes and we carried it with us when we became human. I think this is probably why so many women are opposed to it. When sex became less about procreation and more about emotional connection, women lost their love for doggy-style.

  Now women want to look into your eyes when you come. They want to imprint the image of their face in your memory at that climactic moment so you associate their visage with your ultimate desire. It’s all a psychological game.

  Tessa doesn’t like doggy-style, but she tolerates it because I like it. The worst part is that she’d be right in assuming I’m imagining someone else when I fuck her from behind.

  I slide the tip of my cock over her clit a few times to get her extra wet, then I glide into her. “Fuck,” I hiss through gritted teeth.

  I close my eyes and try not to picture Rory as I slide in and out of Tessa, but all I can think is how Rory’s cheeks were softer and creamier and how much I’d rather be buried inside her right now. I have to stop this. I’m coveting that which I cannot have.

  I open my eyes and focus on Tessa’s body. I lean forward, sliding my hand under her tank top to grab her breast. She looks back at me over her shoulder and I feel myself getting strangely annoyed by the look on her face. Letting go of her breast, I stand up straight again and grab her hips to drive her harder. But she keeps looking at me.

  I close my eyes and force myself to think of anything other than Rory. First, I think about work, and visions of brew tanks and bags of barley and hops flash in my mind. Then I think of my office and suddenly I remember that box I have hidden in the closet of my office.

  I open my eyes to clear away this memory. My thrusts are slow and deliberate as I try to focus on anything but Rory and her soft, pliant body laid out beneath me. I try not to think of the perfect fit of my mouth on hers. Or the time we became parents for two seconds. Then it was over.

  When I took Rory home, after she had the abortion, I waited until she had slept off the sedative. Then I waited until she had washed up, pretending not to hear the aching song of her cries in the shower. Then I waited some more, until she had eaten solid food and fallen asleep. Then I left.

  I’ve been waiting five years to tell her the truth. The truth about Hallie. The truth about why we were together. And, most of all, the truth about how I’ve never stopped loving her. I’m tired of waiting.

  I pound Tessa from behind, completely oblivious as to whether or not she’s actually enjoying herself. All I can see and hear over my blinding memories of Rory is the vague curve of Tessa’s hips and the faint sound of her moans. Whether those are cries of pain or ecstasy I don’t know.

  Because even if those are cries of ecstasy, Tessa will still find a way to complain. No matter how many times I fuck her senseless. No matter how many times I make her come so hard she cries real tears. No matter what, it will never be enough unless I fuck her with the intention of making a baby.

  I told Tessa from the beginning of our relationship that I don’t want children. But she was undeterred. She probably convinced herself that she could change my mind.

  I will never change my mind about wanting children with Tessa. And the reason is simple: I don’t want to have to choose.

  If Rory ever wanted to give me a second chance, I wouldn’t want to choose between her and my children. And I know it’s crazy to risk losing my wife over something that may never happen—will almost certainly never happen—but I can’t bring children into my life when I’m still living a lie.

  My cock twitches and I pull out of Tessa. She waits as I come on her ass, then I grab a tissue off the nightstand and quickly wipe it off. She turns over and narrows her eyes at me. I know what she’s thinking.

  I always come inside her. She has an IUD implanted in her uterus, which means she has less than half of one percent chance of getting pregnant. Not a single pregnancy has been reported with the use of this particular IUD, so I’ve always been quite happy to release my load inside her. But I can’t bring myself to do it tonight.

  Rory was on birth control when she got pregnant. And I know a .05 percent failure rate on this IUD means it’s basically impossible for the same thing to happen with Tessa, but I can’t take the chance anymore. I won’t take the chance anymore.

  “Why did you do that?” she asks as I climb off the bed and head for the door.

  “Do what?”

  “You know what.”

  I keep walking into the corridor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I make it to the kitchen and manage to pour myself a glass of cold water before she catches up with me. Her panties are back on and her face is contorted in disbelief.

  “Are you fucking someone else?”

  This wouldn’t be the first time Tessa has accused me of having an affair with absolutely no evidence. I’m pretty certain she does it just to remind me how much I don’t want to end up like my father. But this tactic isn’t going to work with me tonight.

  “What?” I reply calmly, placing the empty glass in the sink.

  “You heard me. Are you fucking someone else?”

  I let out a soft chuckle as I shake my head. “I didn’t come inside you, so now I’m having a fucking affair? What if I happened to read an article on the ineffectiveness of IUDs today? Nope. Right away you jump to the worst fucking conclusion.”

  She gets in my face. “Did you read an article on IUDs today?”

  I roll my eyes as I try to step around her, but she blocks my path. “No. No, I didn’t. Are you happy now?”

  Her gaze falls to my chest and she swallows hard. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  I sigh as I grab her face. “Tessa, I’m not cheating on you. I’m just… I’m sorry.”

  She looks into my eyes. “Sorry for what?”

  What am I supposed to say? I’m sorry for not coming inside you… I’m sorry for fantasizing about someone else while I was fucking you.

  I’m so
rry I never loved you.

  “I’m sorry for being in a shitty mood. It’s not your fault. I’m just stressed about this new contract.” I pull her face to mine and kiss her softly on the lips. “I love you. Come to bed and we’ll do it right this time.”

  She lets out a soft sigh as her shoulders slump with defeat. She nods and I take her hand as I lead her back to the bedroom for round two. I’ll let her win this one.

  August 16th

  * * *

  During my senior year at UO, I worked as a fiction editor for Unbound, the university’s literary arts magazine. It was my job to work with submitting writers to get their pieces ready for publication. Though, since I was the new kid on the editing team, most of my time was spent reading through submissions, some of them terrible enough to make my eyes bleed. But every once in a while a submission would come through with the kind of prose that made my insides ache with envy. Sometimes, it wasn’t just words arranged on a page. Sometimes, I would open up a submission and smell the fumes of gasoline and smoke after a furious car crash; hear the echoing cries of a sick child in my mind long after their passing; feel the searing tendrils of lust curling inside me from a passionate affair. Sometimes, I would get a sensory experience.

  It was my semester working for Unbound that inspired me to write my own sensory experience. At first, I tried writing something completely fictional, a story about a detective who’s investigating a murder where her longtime lover is implicated. But I couldn’t seem to rein in the story. There were too many plot lines and plot holes, and none of it really made sense. Then I decided I would write a children’s book. It was safe. But I quickly realized it was too safe. I needed something a bit more challenging.

  Then it dawned on me that the one project I was avoiding would probably be the most challenging project of them all: the story of us.

  Over the past two years, I’ve written 227 pages in the as-yet-untitled story of Houston and me. But six weeks ago I reached the climax where everything falls apart and I can’t bring myself to write anymore. My mind knows how the story ends, but my heart is demanding a rewrite.

  My mom brings me a steaming mug of black coffee, setting it down on the table in front of me. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asks, taking a seat at the other end of the sofa.

  Skippy lies peacefully between us, having just ingested his morning ration of dog food and insulin.

  “I switched with Kenny so I could stay home with Skip today on his first day back from the vet. Right, Skippers?” I scratch his shoulder and he stretches his arms and legs out lazily.

  My mom rolls her eyes as she brings her cup of tea to her lips, takes a slow sip, then sets the mug down on the coffee table. She flips back her shoulder-length prematurely gray hair and leans back. She’s going to tell me what I should be doing today.

  “You should be working on your book, not watching TV. Where’s your ambition?”

  I grab my cup of coffee off the table and take a sip, mentally cursing my mom for knowing how to make coffee better than I do. “My ambition, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with why I’m not writing.”

  “Are you stuck? Because you know I’d be glad to help you. Just give me a few pages and I’ll tell you why you’re stuck.”

  My mother taught high school English for twenty-five years, until she retired a little more than three years ago. My parents’ divorce came about six months after Hallie died; just two weeks after Houston and I broke up. That was definitely the worst summer of my life. Then one year later, my mother retired. She declared her classroom days were over and she would be starting fresh, without my father.

  I assumed this meant that she would finally write that novel she’d had kicking around inside her head for the past twenty-some years, but I was wrong. She’s spent the past three years trying to live vicariously through me. She desperately wants me to write my novel, though she has no idea if it’s actually any good, since I refuse to let her get anywhere near it with her English-teacher-eyes.

  “I don’t need you to look at it. It’s not even edited. It’s a first draft. I just need to put it in a drawer for a while. Come back to it with fresh eyes in a month or two.”

  My mother crosses one slender ankle over the other and purses her lips at me. “You’re so afraid I’ll hurt your feelings by insulting your writing. That actually hurts me, you know. I would never purposely tear apart your work.”

  Yeah, she would never purposely tear it apart. Oops! What’s this dangling participle here and that cardboard character there? And how about this misguided attempt at theme? Really, Rory, you call this fiction? My mother is probably the perfect person to provide feedback on my novel, but she will never get her hands on it because it’s too personal. I don’t want her to know how deeply I fell.

  “Fine. If you’re not going to write, then you need to get up and get out of those lady boxer shorts. Go find yourself a man so you can wear his boxer shorts.”

  “Ew!” I shriek. “Don’t talk to me about that kind of stuff.”

  “Oh, please, Rory. You’re twenty-four years old. You can have an adult conversation. You can’t keep denying yourself. We all have needs.”

  “Double-ew. Please don’t talk to me about needs.”

  She glances around the living room as she slides my mug aside and sits on the coffee table in front of me. “Maybe you should make one of those online dating profiles. You’re a beautiful girl, Rory.” She smiles as she reaches forward and pets my hair. “You’re smart. You’re self-sufficient. You’re healthy.”

  “And I’m purebred.”

  “Oh, Rory, stop making everything into a joke. Men will see it as a defense mechanism and they’ll wonder what you’re hiding.”

  “I’m hiding from men. Isn’t that obvious?”

  She sighs heavily as she lays her clasped hands in her lap.

  “Okay, that’s enough, Mom. If you want to make an online dating profile, make one for yourself. Leave me and my defense mechanisms out of it.”

  I stand from the sofa and scoop the coffee mug off the table to take it to the kitchen. I don’t know why I’m taking it to the kitchen, other than I need an excuse to get away from my mother.

  She calls out after me. “You know, you have more than one soul mate in this world, Rory.” She pauses to let this sink in. “There really are plenty of fish in the sea.”

  “Yeah, and most of them are slimy eels or boring sand dollars,” I shout back at her as I dump my coffee into the steel sink. “I want a smart, spunky dolphin. Is that too much to ask?”

  A smart, spunky dolphin named Houston.

  Just thinking these words makes me sick to my stomach.

  My mom arrives in the kitchen with her tea mug. “A smart, spunky dolphin? Is that how you remember Houston? Because I remember him being an arrogant frat boy.”

  After five years of hearing these kinds of insults directed at Houston, it still makes me as angry as it did the first time. “This conversation is over.”

  She follows me out of the kitchen and I brace myself for more criticism as she trails behind me. “Rory, you don’t need to be ashamed for loving Houston as he was, but it’s been five years. You need to stop remembering him through the telescopic view of young love. You need to look at the big picture. At reality. And the reality is that he left you. He. Left. You.”

  “That’s enough, Mom.” I stop in the hallway and round on her. “That’s. Enough.”

  Her eyebrows knit together as she nods. “I’m sorry. I just want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy again.”

  Why is everyone always trying to tell me what I deserve? My mom insists I deserve to be happy. Houston insists I deserve to decide whether or not he should sign a contract. It’s as if everyone knows something about me that I don’t know about myself.

  I’m no more deserving of happiness than anyone else. I’m just a screwed-up girl with a billion stories racing through my mind on any given day. And only one story I really want to tell.

 
; August 17th

  * * *

  My nerves are buzzing as I make my way through Zucker’s icy warehouse. Taking a deep breath, I push through the swinging door and enter the store. Right away, I busy myself with tidying up a display of dried apple chips in the produce section. Then I keep my head down as I make my way to the cash register. I don’t know if Houston is coming in today, but I know he came in yesterday to sign the contract, which is the real reason I switched shifts with Kenny.

  Kenny and I are both working today and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see him standing behind register four. He’s the only person in this store that I could maybe call my friend, though I’ve only hung out with him outside of work on one occasion. He’s also the only person in this store I would trust to balance my cash drawer if I were to suddenly drop dead while ringing up a bottle of organic shampoo.

  Kenny is ridiculously attractive and completely gay, so he’s as safe as a children’s book. But that doesn’t stop him from flirting with me. I’m sure in his twisted twenty-two-year-old mind, I’m as safe as a children’s book to him, because I’m hopelessly incapable of forming new attachments. He knows I won’t misinterpret his flirtations.

  “Hey, beautiful,” Kenny says as I slide in behind register three.

  Unlocking the drawer, I pull it out completely. Then I walk past Kenny’s register toward the service register at the front of the store, where Jamie is on the phone. We exchange my empty drawer for the drawer she has waiting for me under the counter. Checking the amount on the register slip, I sign it and hand it back to her. She time-stamps the slip and tucks it beneath the money tray inside the service register.

  Carrying my cash back to my station, I easily lose myself in the monotony of setting up my drawer. I don’t notice there’s someone at my register until I hear the unmistakable sound of a woman clearing her throat. Looking up, I want to say something, but I find myself stunned into silence. The girl at my register has the same straight, light-brown hair as Hallie. She’s wearing a crooked smile as she tucks her hair behind her ear while holding out a pack of gum to me.