Broken Play, page 5
I can’t look at Drew, not right now.
“Fuck me,” he says, and he rises, returning to pacing by the window.
“That news upsets you, Drew?” Dr. Fillmore asks.
“It makes me angry. June shouldn’t be taking the fallout for the decisions I make. I never wanted that.”
“You don’t believe that comes along with marriage, that you weather the storm of each other’s choices?” Dr. Fillmore asks.
His pace stutters. He hadn’t ever given attention to how much this would all impact me. Has he always walked so selfishly blind in the world? How had I never noticed?
“I… I believe it’s a partnership, yes. But in this situation, no. She shouldn’t have to deal with the bullshit gossip. This is on me. It’s because of my decisions.”
“Yes, but as a married couple, most decisions you make affect both of you. The same as with the decisions June makes. Do you think the decisions you’ve made would be different had you considered that June would be in this position now?”
I send a quick prayer that his answer will be a resounding yes. Of course he’ll answer yes. Say yes, Drew. Say yes. Plead all I can, the words don’t come.
“Probably not.”
Probably not. He says it as if someone just asked him if his favorite baseball team will make it to the World Series this year. Probably not, he said with a shrug. Two such casual words, yet they ravage me in the most complex of ways.
My eyes sting. So, I close them. Close them down, shut it out. Shut him out. A wall heater stops running somewhere in the room, and there is a low tick, tick, tick from it as the coils inside cool and constrict. I sympathize, relating to the feeling of warmth seeping away as you shrivel. I wonder if I will grow smaller and smaller until there isn’t anything left of me. A husk of nothing but memories that were all lies.
Probably, I mentally shrug.
Calloused fingers pry my fists apart. I open my eyes to mossy green worry.
“Junie,” comes his pained whisper as he rubs his thumbs in circles over my palms.
Pulling my hands from his, I say, “I think I’m done for today. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, June, no need to apologize. I want to tell you both that many couples have been where you are now. You’re not alone in this. Our work here is to find the right path to get you both to a healthy place, valid in your feelings, and accepting of the choices you’ve made. There is no easy fix, simple solution, or guarantees.”
A profound sadness over the idea drowns her voice out. That I may not only lose Drew in this mess, but myself, too. With or without him, who will I be after it’s all over? Can it ever really be over? I doubt it. Maybe there’s a way for us to reconcile, maybe not. I won’t ever forget, though. There might be forgiveness in the far-off future. There will never be a time when I can unsee the image of her naked body wrapped around my husband.
“Do you love your wife, Drew?”
“Yes,” he answers immediately. No hesitation. No second-guessing.
“Do you love Drew, June?”
“I do. I always will.”
Drew makes a sound, low in his throat, as if I’ve startled him with my answer, but he should know this already. He should know this about me. I’ve loved him through so much already.
“The fact that you both answered that so easily is a good start. It’s a solid base to work from. Do you want to stay married?”
Again, Drew answers affirmatively and instantly. I don’t. I hesitate.
“I don’t know. I think... I think I’m here because Drew is family and I want to reconcile my friendship with him. Reconciling our marriage is something different. Does that make sense?” I ask her.
“Of course it does. I’d like to see you both as often as your schedules allow. Twice a week preferably, but I understand you have busy lives.”
“I’ll make it work. Until the season is over, can we keep the appointments flexible?” he asks her. I’m surprised he’s willing to commit to that, honestly. It’s going to be difficult for him to maintain any appointments and keep up with his training and game days.
“I can work with that as well.” She hands him a card. “June, can you manage that?”
“I can, but I may need to video in. I’m in contract negotiations for a job that will take me out of town.”
Drew says nothing, but I feel his eyes on me.
“That should be fine. In the meantime, I have some homework for each of you.”
I sit forward, propping my arms on my knees. A movement that brings me closer to where Drew sits. He reaches out and laces his fingers with mine. It’s both familiar and foreign. I stare at my delicate, pale hand encased in his powerful grip. How do we still fit together? I blink a few times and focus again on Dr. Fillmore.
“First task, I’d like you two to date. I realize we’re going about things in an unconventional order. However, I find dating an important part of a relationship. It is the time when we learn the other’s likes, dislikes, behaviors. You may both already know those from growing up together, so I’d like you to take the time to learn how to be June and Drew the couple. Not June and Drew, who immediately went from childhood friends to a married couple. Woo each other as if you haven’t spent a lifetime together already.” She looks at each of us for affirmation.
“Second, your sex life needs attention. However, I am not saying that you should be intimate if you are not ready. Drew, am I correct in assuming you were also not a virgin on your wedding night?”
“I was not.” He uses his other hand to wipe his brow, obviously uncomfortable with the direction of questioning.
“June, I’d like you to explore your sexuality.”
Drew stiffens, his back now ramrod straight. His hand tightens on mine.
“What?” I ask softly.
“You heard me. The next time we meet, I’d like to know what turns you on, what you fantasize about. You understand?”
I give her a small nod.
“Lastly, Drew, I’d like you to think about what June said about your sex life. It’s fair to say she follows your lead in that regard. Therefore, I believe I’m correct in asking you why your sex life isn’t as fulfilling as she believes it should be.”
He swallows hard, the knot in his throat bobbing. He doesn’t like his assignment, but he nods all the same.
“Good. Send me your schedule right away and I’ll get your next appointments set up. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other.” She stands and gives my shoulder a soft pat as she passes to open the door for us.
6
JUNE
“We need to talk, Junie.”
Drew walked me to my car but now stands in front of my door, preventing me from running away from him and this conversation.
“Probably,” I reply.
“How do you feel about your homework assignment?” he asks, and I struggle to read his emotions.
This is not the first thing I want to talk about. It’s far down the list. Like, last on the list. It’s embarrassing, even with my husband. Especially with my husband.
“I don’t know. I feel naïve, abnormal. I’m twenty-seven, Drew. Shouldn’t I know by now what turns me on without having to study up on it?” Heat rises to my cheeks.
“I don’t think it’s strange.”
“Yeah, well, at this point, I don’t believe that. I was a virgin bride who had barely ever masturbated, and I married a manwhore who doesn’t even want to fuck me. That’s awfully strange, I’d say.” I try to nudge around him.
Drew’s arms surround me, halting my progress as he drags me into his chest.
“June, I can’t remember a day in all my life that I haven’t wanted to fuck you.” His fingers tangle in my hair, tipping my head up to look at him.
“But you don’t. You fuck others.”
“But I love you.”
I shove him away. “Are you kidding me? That’s your answer. Is that supposed to make it better? You want me to say, sure, babe, sleep with whoever you want as long as you only love me?!”
He flinches at the accusation. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Are you sure? It sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.” Tears pool in my eyes. I can’t keep up with these whirlwind emotions. Angry one minute, distraught the next. It’s exhausting.
His firm hands land on my waist. I’ve always loved his hands, big, sure. They’ve made me feel safe and comforted so many times since we married. They’ve given me the only pleasure I’ve ever known.
Once, those hands owned me.
Not anymore.
“Listen to me,” he whispers, lips just inches from me. A brief touch, mouth to mouth. I tremble. Both need and hurt shivering through me.
“I need you to hear me. I only love you. You’re the only woman I have ever loved or wanted. There is nothing wrong with you. We married when you were only twenty-two, June. Inexperienced yes, but then you had me. And I have tried to keep you satisfied.” Another touch, as short as the last. “I don’t know how to explain everything, to make it make sense. It doesn’t even make sense to me. But I promise you, June, I promise I’ll make it right. I will.”
“How?” The word is barely out of my mouth when his lips meet mine.
Warm, firm lips asking for permission. Or maybe forgiveness. There is a need between us that has never been there before. His tongue dips in, eliciting a moan from me. Encouraged, he deepens the kiss in response.
No. No, I don’t want this.
I pull away and step back as far as I can with his hands still on me.
“Sorry,” he says, contrite. “Want to tell me about this out-of-town assignment?”
“I wanted to tell you in LA.” I sigh. Drew’s hands leave my hips and tangle with my own. Again, I had been making fists and not even realizing it.
“I’m sorry for that, too.” His eyes bounce between mine and he takes a deep breath. He’s hedging. Wanting to say something but unsure how I’ll react. We know each other so well. It’s unnerving that he’s questioning my reactions now.
“How about I take you out on a date tomorrow night and you can tell me then?”
I wake the next morning to my phone ringing with an incoming call from Leighton.
“Hey, Love,” I answer.
“Hi, babe. How are you?” Leighton asks.
“Hell if I know, honestly. I’m okay one moment, imploding the next. I feel like Dorothy, spinning around in a tornado. I don’t know where I’m going to land, you know?”
There’s a beat of silence before she responds.
“You’ll land on your feet, June. You always have before.”
I have. She’s correct. I had to battle my way there, though.
A man named Jonas Givins stalked me nearly my entire senior year of college. It started with him asking me out. I declined the invite. He took it badly and became more and more aggressive in his efforts. My constant rejections prompted him to become more volatile. He began yelling at me in public, calling me a prude one time, a whore the next. He’d leave gifts at my dorm room, colorful flowers, cards filled with the explicitly detailed things he wanted to do with me and to me. Then the flowers started arriving dead. It was disturbing, but I still felt he was mostly harmless. Leighton was the only one I spoke of it with. A few others in the dorm knew—his attention was hard to miss—but I didn’t tell Reed or my parents.
Gradually, the gifts increased. In number and creepiness. I began finding small dead birds on my doorstep. Then, small piles of bones, vials of fluid that looked like blood, small animal intestines tied in ‘love knots.’ By that point, I had alerted campus security and filed a police report. I was in the middle of filing a restraining order when Jonas found me one night. Vulnerable and alone.
I had been careful up to that point, but one night, Leighton could not meet me after a class to walk back to the dorm with me. She had to meet her guidance counselor. And though she begged me to wait for her, I was confident that I could make the four-minute walk home without incident.
I was very wrong. A stupid decision and mere moments changed my life irrevocably. It took me months to get to a point where I wasn’t constantly looking over my shoulder for threats, even though my attacker was dead.
Jonas had caught up to me that night with a knife in hand. He held it to the base of my throat as he held me down on the ground. The blade cut into me slowly, the harder he pressed. He mumbled as he struggled to undo my pants with his other hand.
“I’ve waited so long. How dare you tell me no? You’re mine. Mine.”
I struggled to get him off, which only made him press the knife in deeper. Despite my fight, he got my pants undone, pulled down. No matter how many times I’ve tried to block that night from my memory, that feeling of fear will stay with me forever.
Incapacitating fear. Gasping for every shallow breath as my mind raced through ways to survive. Just survive. Survive.
His hand moved to his pants, and my vision blurred through tears as I screamed and fought. Screaming helped. Because of that, his hand moved from his groin to hitting my face. Over and over.
Eventually, help arrived. Two girls and a guy came rushing to my aid. Jonas, so startled by the interruption, moved the knife from my neck and impaled it in my abdomen. He used it as leverage to lift himself up and off me before he fled. The knife left a long wound from my belly to my hip.
When Jonas returned to his dorm, he hung himself.
I’m grateful he’s dead. Grateful I didn’t have to face the torture of a trial. I’m not grateful that he left precious lifeblood seeping out of me onto the cold, rough ground.
If the knife at my throat had gone any deeper...
He left my jaw broken and one eye swollen shut, but the worst of it was the knife impaled in my belly. It’s very unlikely I can ever carry children because of the damage he caused. The risks of miscarriage are high from the wounds he left behind.
“I know I will, eventually. But this is Drew, Leighton. The blow is bigger because I trusted him. I can’t imagine him betraying me in any bigger way. Unless he fucked you, of course.” I laugh at the idea. Leighton and Drew love each other like a brother and sister. It would be like me fucking Reed and... well, just no.
“Ewwwwwaaaa,” she groans. “Gross, June. I’d never. Honestly, I never expected this from him. The guy can’t be near you without laying his disgustingly gigantic hands all over you. I would have placed huge bets on the odds that he’d never cheat on you. I don’t understand what happened. Did he give any kind of explanation at therapy?”
“No. He keeps saying I don’t understand. Yet he doesn’t even try to make me understand. What can he say, though? How can he explain falling into another woman’s vagina? It’s not like I withhold sex from him, or we don’t get along. The only thing I can come up with is that he may love me, but he doesn’t want me. Not in that way.” The last few words come out more choked than I would’ve hoped. I don’t want to sound like a weak and wounded little dove. Not with Leighton, especially. She blamed herself so much for my attack, and the distance between us has been hard for her. I don’t want her to worry.
“He loves you. I know that like I know my name.” She says it with all the confidence in the world. “Are you still talking to your psychologist?”
“I haven’t for a few weeks, but I should probably set something up. Dr. Fillmore suggested Drew and I date. We’re going on our first tonight. How bizarre is that?”
“I’d say that’s weird as fuck, but I guess it makes sense. You jumped straight from BFF’s little sister to wifey in like five minutes.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll see how things go tonight.”
“You can do this, June. Unless you don’t want to. You don’t owe him another chance. You know that, right?”
I know it. Deep down, I do. But somehow, I feel like I owe myself one. “I do. I know,” I say determinedly.
“Anyway, that’s not why I called. I mean, of course I called to check in on you, but I have news! I found you the most amazingly perfect condo, and it’s yours for as long as you want it,” Leighton says excitedly.
“Tell me everything,” I say, letting her enthusiasm work its way into me.
“Okay, my friend, Nina—you remember her, she does the weather. Anyway, her parents have a condo in the French Quarter. It’s on Conti, right by the courthouse, so you know... in the middle of everything. Small, but two bedrooms, courtyard, and private balcony. Nina’s parents usually only use it a few times a year, but her dad has some health issues and they’re choosing to stay in the Mediterranean while he recuperates.” Leighton catches her breath. “The rent is reasonable, too. They’re just happy to have someone looking over the place for them. Not that it matters. Charge it straight to Drew’s accounts, the asshole. Plus, that’s only a five-minute walk from me. It couldn’t be more perfect!”
She’s not wrong. It sounds amazing.
“How soon can I have it?”
“Now, Love. As soon as you want it and for as long as you need it,” Leighton answers, and the salting of sympathy in her voice makes me cringe.
“I’ll call Jared as soon as I’m awake and fed. Keep you posted?”
“Yeah, June, sounds good. Call me if you need anything. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I shower, dress, and walk to Pike Place Market for coffee and a raspberry bear claw from the bakery there. I don’t rush it, taking my time walking through the market. Listening to the chatter of vendors and customers, admiring all the fresh bouquets that are now full of vibrant autumn colors. Even stopping to enjoy a couple of fish being thrown, a big tourist attraction unique to Seattle. A toddler girl, maybe three years old, pulls on her mom’s hand, complaining about the smell, and the nearby crowd giggles with her mother.
The entire experience brings a smile to my face. Despite the crowd or the chilly, wet weather, this is always a lively place. I realize I want that. A lively life. Carefree. Which, I know, is not realistic. Who lives a completely carefree life? It can be fulfilling, though. I can make my life that, at least.
