Don't Deny Me

  He forced the words. “I never knew everything about you, Alice. Nobody ever knows everything about anyone.”

  “You knew enough. More than anyone else ever did before you, or has since.” She went quiet.

  Both of them watched the sky getting paler. She sipped her coffee. Mick had lost the taste for his.

  “I’ve missed you,” Alice said.

  He’d missed her, too. For years, Mick had thought about Alice, wondering what she was doing. Who she was seeing. He’d seen her face on random women and in his dreams, always wishful thinking and never her, save that one lucky time a few years ago when he’d spotted her dancing with her friends. He’d been stupid, maybe, not to say something to her that night. He’d be stupid not to say something now.

  But though his mouth worked, his tongue trying without success to push the words free of his lips and teeth, the only thing that came out of Mick’s throat was a soft, hissing sigh.

  “Well, I guess that’s my answer,” Alice said, and went inside the house.

  He almost went after her, but as with so many other mistakes Mick had made, he waited too long. By the time he was able to get himself moving, Alice had gone inside her bedroom. Knocking would wake everyone up, if she deigned to answer. He almost did that, too, raising a hand to let his knuckles rest against the wood. Then his forehead. Straining for the sound of her inside, all he heard was the sound of his own breathing and the pound of his heart in his ears. His stomach, gone sour, sent a surge of bile into his throat.

  “Alice,” Mick whispered, knowing there was no way she could hear him.

  There was no light beneath the door, nothing to indicate she was awake, though he had to imagine she hadn’t simply tossed herself into bed and slept. What if, he thought suddenly, she wasn’t in there at all, but in his room? She’d done that more than once. Left him upstairs only to be waiting for him in his bed, usually naked. It was too much to hope for, but Mick let himself hope for it.

  Disappointment slapped him in the face when he found only the tangle of his sheets, his own drool-spotted pillow. He had missed her, that wasn’t the problem. Admitting it, saying it aloud, that had been too hard. Why? Because he was stupid. There was no other real explanation, other than faced with the reality of seeing her, all he could think about was how much he didn’t want to lose the fantasy. But faced with his empty bed, the empty room … empty fucking life, Mick thought as he sank onto the bed. Without Alice, everything was empty.

  And later, he would tell her.

  He woke to a roaring hunger and sprang out of bed to yank back the curtains. Daylight, bright enough to blind him for a minute. He’d slept in the clothes he’d put on early this morning after his shower. He didn’t bother combing his hair or washing his face, though he did brush his teeth. That was just courtesy, he thought with a grin, already imagining Alice’s kiss.

  In the empty kitchen, he snagged a doughnut from among the detritus of breakfast and went out onto the deck to look for everyone else. He found only Cookie, her huge, flopping sunhat shading her eyes as she sat in the same lounger Alice had been using this morning. The fleece blanket, not needed in the afternoon heat, had been folded neatly across the end of the chair. She looked up from her book, her finger holding her place.

  “Hi, sleepyhead.”

  “Morning.” Mick, nearly dancing with excitement, bent to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You missed brunch.” She laughed and brushed away the sugar granules his kiss had left on her skin. “But I see you found something. There’s plenty of leftovers in the fridge, if you want.”

  “I’m good.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “Where’s everyone else? Lake?”

  “Bernie and Jay went into town to get some propane for the grill, since my ridiculously prepared husband for once forgot something important. Paul and Dayna went to the lake. Everyone else should start getting here around three.”

  Mick turned. “And Alice, too?”

  Cookie paused, then gave him a look of such sympathy that instantly, his stomach sank. “Oh, honey, Alice left early this morning. She said something came up at home, so she couldn’t stay for the picnic.”

  “Did she … say what it was?”

  “No.” Cookie shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mick. We were all as surprised as you that she left.”

  But that was the problem, Mick thought. He wasn’t surprised at all.

  * * *

  When I found out you were going to be there, my hands started to shake. The world spun, and I had to breathe deep. Deep. Deep. Everything shifted and changed, and I was sure, for a moment, I was going to pass out.

  You were going to be there.

  After all that time, the things we’d said and done and what had passed between us, and it was such a simple, casual comment. “He’ll be there. You’re okay with that, right?” I had to say yes, of course. Couldn’t make it into anything important, make a big deal, cause a fuss.

  Was it okay? It was more than okay. After all this time, I was going to see you again.

  I had done my time waiting on you. Done my share of crying. And yes, I knew a part of me would always ache at the loss of you in my life, part would forever find a way to weep for missing you, some part of me would infinitely yearn for you the way a flower desires the kiss of a bee to help it to bloom … but it was no longer the biggest part of me. I closed the door to that room in my house of many. Ended that chapter in the novel of my life. I had said good-bye to you and meant it.

  Yet there you were again.

  And everything I thought I had known crumbled, shattered, scattered, splintered, broke.

  —Alice to Mick

  * * *

  Fool her once, shame on him. Fool her twice, shame on her. It was an old saying that made total sense.

  Open doors should be closed, Alice told herself as she pulled her clean laundry from the dryer and piled it into the basket. The faint smell of sunscreen lingered on everything, normally a good smell but one that made her melancholy now. Her bathing suit tumbled out, tangled in a T-shirt. She pressed it to her face, breathing in the clean laundry smell, nothing of Mick left there at all.

  Then she was crying. Sitting back on her heels in front of the laundry basket, gathering handfuls of her clothes, digging through the pile of everything she’d worn this weekend that had touched him. Smelling all of it. Holding everything to her face in a futile attempt at breathing in any small molecule of his scent, but she’d done too good a job. All she had was a basket full of clean clothes.

  “Enough,” Alice said loud enough to make her cat meow at her. “Enough, Alice. This is enough. No more of this. No more of him. Ten fucking years,” she gasped out on a sob, the tears coming hot and fierce and fast enough to drown her. “You’re over him.”

  That was the problem though, wasn’t it? She’d never been over him. Not a day after they’d broken up. Not a week. A month, a year, five years, ten. Alice had never completely let him go, and she’d been an idiot to think seeing him again would’ve brought anything but grief.

  She shouldn’t have let him kiss her, touch her, make whatever love they’d made. She should have kept her distance and been pleasant and polite. Like Dayna had said about Paul, seeing him would surely have broken her heart, but at least it would’ve broken quietly, with only her to know about it.

  “I missed you,” she’d said, and he had said nothing.

  Nothing!

  Not one fucking word. The thought of it, that he could put his hands all over her, his tongue down her throat, his fingers inside her … God, it was too much. With a strangled, growling sob that scared the cat into running away, Alice got to her feet with the laundry basket and took it upstairs to her bed, where she tossed out the contents and began folding. Snap, snap, making creases in the fabric. She folded the fuck out of that laundry because to do anything less would be giving in again to the rising urge to fall onto her knees again and weep into her hands.

  “Fuck him,” she said aloud,
lower this time. The words, bitter as bile, burned her tongue.

  In her bathroom, Alice got out the bleach and scrub brush to attack her grout. The toilet and sink got their share of attention. Then the shower, where she used an old toothbrush to clean out the tracks in the shower door and around the drain, and where at last she turned on the hot water to rinse away the soap and bleach, and she got under the water herself, no longer able to hold back another round of sobs.

  She hated him, she told herself, and knew it wasn’t true. Shaking, Alice curled into a ball on the floor, grateful as always for the oversized shower. Perfect for a breakdown. With her forehead pressed into her palms and the hot water pounding onto her back, Alice could let the sounds of the shower drown out her hitching, desperate cries. She hated herself for letting him do this to her. Again.

  “I missed you.” Her voice echoed inside her head, and Mick’s silence became as loud as the thud of a drum.

  She stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, and then a few minutes more as some kind of self-punishment, until at last she couldn’t stand it any longer and got out. Shivering, she wrapped herself in a towel and went into the bedroom to curl up among the piles of her clean clothes. She thought there’d be more tears, but apparently that well had gone at least temporarily and thankfully dry.

  She rolled onto her back to stare at her ceiling. “Fuck him,” she said, this time without heat. “Fuck me.”

  This was not how she’d planned to spend her weekend. Not doing laundry and cleaning tiles. She should be in her bikini, lathered with lotion and sunning herself on her beach towel next to the lake while her friends laughed beside her. She should be eating hotdogs and macaroni salad and drinking sangria and dancing to eighties pop tunes.

  She’d let Mick make her give that up. She couldn’t even blame him for stealing it from her, because she’d been the one to run. She’d made up an excuse about a vague emergency at home. Dayna had hugged her hard before she left, murmuring in her ear, “Call me if you need to talk.”

  She wouldn’t, of course. Not to rehash this old news, this story that had ended long ago and hadn’t needed this stupid epilogue. No, Alice thought as she forced herself to sit up and pull on some clothes rather than keep allowing herself to wallow. No more of this.

  No more Mick.

  No more memories.

  No more regrets.

  No more open doors.

  * * *

  How many times can a person say the same thing before it loses all meaning? How many different ways can I tell you I’m sorry before you believe me? I’ve tried my best with you, Alice, but you won’t listen to me. I’m sorry for what I said or didn’t say, or didn’t do right. I’m sorry about how it all turned out, believe me, if I could go back and undo it, I would. But I can’t. All I can do is tell you that I’m sorry, but unless you answer your phone, you’ll never hear me say it.

  I’m sending you this letter as one last chance to reach you, Alice. I know I made mistakes, but all I can do is try to apologize. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to beg. If that’s the sort of man you’re looking for, you’ve got the wrong one.

  —Mick to Alice

  * * *

  He had Alice’s phone number in his contacts list from when she’d texted him the photo of the two of them. He’d looked at it over and over. It was a picture of two people delirious with joy when they were together, he thought. Two people who were meant for each other.

  He had her number, but it wasn’t so easy for Mick to actually call her. The Alice he’d known ran hot with all her emotions, maybe especially fury. Not that he’d have blamed her for being angry at him. He’d fucked up by not telling her he missed her when she’d said it. Classic dumbfuckery, on his part.

  The old Mick would’ve gone after her right away, even knowing she was likely to be mad, without giving her time to settle down. He’d have poked at her, probably angry himself, or at least defensive. That had been the way they’d played that game, circling each other like hissing cats, each winding up the other until there was nothing for either of them to do but scratch.

  He liked to think he’d grown up at least a little bit since then. At least that was what he told himself was the reason he waited two weeks after Bernie’s party to finally call her number … that he was giving her time to work through her initial fury with him. Not that that he was terrified of actually having to talk to her.

  “I was scared to call you before now,” were the first words out of his mouth, and they were the truth. “I thought you’d curse me out, or maybe hang up on me.”

  “I still might.” Alice’s voice was chilly and distant.

  He had no trouble imagining her expression.

  “Alice, look. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Icicles clung to every up-and-down dip in the beat of her laughter. “For what?”

  “For not … saying what I should’ve said to you.” Shit. The words still clogged his throat.

  Alice said nothing. The soft huff of her breathing tickled his eardrum through the distance. He waited, giving her time. To cut him with her words, if she was going to. Or to say she forgave him. He waited for a very long minute, counting off the seconds of silence before finally giving in.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  She hadn’t hung up him. That was something. Alice sighed. “It’s not ‘sorry’ that I want to hear from you, Mick. Fuck’s sake, I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to say you missed me, too.”

  “I did. I have. Shit, Alice, so much, you can’t even believe it.” He’d been sitting in his recliner, but got up now to pace.

  “I have missed you every day. Some more than others. But every fucking day.” Her breath hitched. There was a beat or two of silence in which he imagined her getting herself under control. “And all I wanted was for you to say it. And you didn’t. You couldn’t.”

  “No. I guess I couldn’t.”

  “Why, Mick?” In the past she’d have already been calling him names, raising her voice, slinging barbs. If he were lucky, that was, and she hadn’t disconnected and then refused to answer his call again. “Why couldn’t you just tell me? Why is it so hard?”

  “I don’t know.” He could peel away the layers of his existence to figure out the reasons, he supposed, and would still probably never know why. “It’s a guy thing. It’s hard for guys to talk about their feelings.”

  “That’s no answer,” Alice said harshly. “Not after all this time. And it’s bullshit, because I’ve had lots of guys who didn’t have a hard time telling me how they feel. There were times when you didn’t, either. So fuck your excuse. And seeing you again … I just … how could you kiss me that way?”

  Mick laughed, low and sad. “How could I not kiss you that way?”

  “You could have not kissed me at all. You could’ve stayed on your own side of the table. You didn’t have to kiss me. Or touch me.”

  Mick cringed at the sound of tears in her voice. “I did have to. There was no way I could’ve looked at you and stayed on my own side of the table, Alice.”

  If that didn’t tell her how he felt, she wasn’t listening very well.

  “I’m sorry,” Mick added.

  “Don’t be sorry!” she cried. “God dammit, Mick, don’t you fucking dare tell me you’re sorry for kissing me!”

  He didn’t answer right away. The silence spun out between them again. This would’ve been easier and harder in person, where he’d have been able to touch her the way she said he shouldn’t want to.

  “Look … I want to see you,” he said. “Will you meet me?”

  “For what? We already fucked around. You didn’t get your fill?”

  That stung. She could complain about him not being able to share his feelings, but she was totally missing what he was actually saying. “That’s not why I want to see you, Alice.”

  “Great,” she said sourly. “So you don’t miss me and you don’t want to fuck me, either. Thanks.”

  ??
?That’s not what I meant and you know it, so stop it.”

  Alice paused, then said, “I’m sorry.”

  “That might be the first time I ever heard you say that to me.” Mick grinned.

  Alice snorted softly. “Well … you might be right. In which case, I’m sorry again.”

  “I want to see you, Alice.”

  Again, she didn’t answer him, but this time the silence felt filled with anticipation, not anxiety. She sighed. He imagined her rubbing the spot between her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and ring fingers in that way she had when she was thinking hard about something.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said at last. “Why should I see you?”

  “Because I miss you.” There. He’d said it, right out loud. How could she complain about that?

  She laughed a little more warmly this time. “That’s why you should see me, not the other way around.”

  “Because you miss me,” Mick told her. “And you want to see me again.”

  Alice muttered something, a curse word, he was sure of it. She’d spoken so low he couldn’t be sure exactly which of her favorite profanities she’d uttered. It sounded something like “bruised whores,” which made him laugh uncertainly and ask her to repeat it.

  “I said closed doors,” Alice told him. “As in, doors that should be closed. As in us, this. All of this. Everything about it. Closed. Door.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I appreciate you calling me.”

  Shit, she was back to sounding chilly again. Distant. “Alice—”

  “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other. Thank you for apologizing. It wasn’t necessary.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  She hesitated, and for a second, he had hope she’d change her mind. “Well. Thank you for it, then. And for telling me that you missed me.”

  “I do miss you.” Easier this time. Like pressing ice to a bruise, eventually it numbed.

  She cleared her throat. “Thanks. I appreciate that. A lot.”

  No, no, no. This was all going wrong. He’d just been about to get her to agree to see him in person, so he could make sure she understood what he was trying to say.