Devil You Know(75)

And now she watches me go, like a puppy waiting for its master to come home before they've left.

“Thanks again for the phone,” she says, holding the mobile I bought her up.

I nod. The crazy woman tried to give it back to me, said it was mine, since I paid for it. When will she understand that everything I’ve given her, tangible or not, I never expected to get back? It was all hers to keep, to do with as she wished.

Her stare burns into the side of my head as I start the pick-up, and put the window up. I throw my hand in a wave without looking back, and peel down that driveway as fast as the tires will let me without losing traction.

The drive to town is slow, and laborious—filled with thoughts of her. There isn’t a song on the radio that manages to keep me distracted, and counting backwards from one hundred has no effect. She’s there, haunting every breath I take, niggling away at my conscience like an invasive leech. Jane is my first thought in the morning, and my last care at night.

The realization hits me like a slug with a steel bat.

I love her.

I shouldn’t have quit so easy.

I am a quitter.

But that’s what I do, isn’t it? I cut and run, I shut off, and I escape. Most would say it’s the coward’s way out, but I call it survival. Attachments cost lives, and attachments break me apart when they’re severed. Fuck, look at Tigger. Look at how bad that’s been fucking with my head this past week.

I would do anything to wind back the hands of time, and ask him what’s wrong. To pester him until he caved, and asked for the help he obviously needed. But us guys, we’re dumb-asses like that. We shut off, and ignore the emotional, touchy-feely stuff. We shove our demons deep, and suffer while they rot our insides like a cancer.

All in the name of saving face.

Well, who looks like the idiot now?

I love her.

And what have I done? Systematically pushed her away, and pulled her close, over and over, like a damn tide. The woman must have sea legs from all the too-ing, and fro-ing I've done.

Thinking of her out there, alone, makes me want to turn the damn pick-up around and drive like a maniac until I can touch her, feel her, reassure her that she will be okay. But why? Who am I actually reassuring?

Me.

I'm playing out my own fears through her. I'm making it a struggle to love me to know that I'm worth it. I'm being fucking selfish, and unfair. And this is why I need to stay my course, and give her space. Jane needs air to breath, room to move. She needs to work it out for herself, without my suffocating influence and my selfish desires.

She needs to come to me.

I have to know she wants me despite all the shit I’ve dropped on her—not because I pestered her until she felt cornered.

My house looms like a foreboding sign of misery as I pull up and park. The dark exterior and shaded porch seem to reflect the way I feel returning here. When I left, I honestly thought that I’d never return; that I’d find another place to live.

With Jane.

One more pipedream to add to the list of disappointments in my life.

I step out, and shut the door to the prickle of my senses. Chills trace a lazy line up the back of my neck, and I turn slowly to scout the area. It doesn’t take me long to see the problem.

Him.

Her dumb-fuck husband stands at their front door, watching me with his hands thrown casually in his pockets. We stare off for probably seconds, but it feels an eternity. The hate the man emits is heavy, even from this distance. I can only imagine what it was like for Jane, being in the same house as the asshole, day in, day out.

Suffocating.

My gut churns, and rage slips through my veins like a familiar drug. All the thoughts I’ve had about this guy, about what coward treats their wife like he did, about what kind of an end he deserves, culminate at seeing him there—watching.

“Satisfied yet?” I shout over to him.

He lunges forward, and strides down their front path with such haste that my fists clench at my sides.

“I guess you are,” he spits.

I wave a hand at the empty car. “Does it fucking look like it, asshole?”

He pauses at the waist-high fence, his jaw ticking. “Tell me, she good in bed for you? Because she was always a cold, lifeless fuck when I had her.”

Anger pulses so intense I can feel my temples swell with each beat of my heart. “You’ll stop there if you know what’s good for you.”

He laughs. Fucking laughs. “Got ya by the balls, hasn’t she?” The asshole throws his hands to his hips as though he thoroughly enjoys the conversation. “Don’t worry, buddy, the attraction wears off after a while.”

“I’m not your buddy, asshole,” I seethe.

His humor turns to a cruel smirk. I shiver at the thought of Jane facing this. “Yeah. And she ain’t your wife.”