Push(108)

Because I don’t know what else to do, I pick up my glass of wine and finish it. Then I walk into the kitchen to pour myself another. I set the glass down and put my hands on the counter, leaning my head forward until it’s resting against a cabinet door. Holy hell.

“Is that all, David?” I ask. My voice is quiet and rife with exhaustion and distress. “Is there anything else I need to know about my fucked-up family?”

“No,” he says. “That’s it.” I hear him push away from the table. His feet brush against the carpet as he walks toward the kitchen, and then he is behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and holding my back tight against his chest. I pull my head away from the cabinet door and drop it back down, repeatedly banging it against the wood in three firm, successive smacks. “Do you want me to leave?” he says quietly.

“No.”

David doesn’t move a muscle, and we stay together in the kitchen for a long time. I think about how happy I was to have someone who wants to protect me. How happy David made me when he told me how covetous he feels. How many years I have lived with no one to look out for me aside from myself. And here I am now, in the arms of someone who wants to protect me so much that he is willing to risk everything, and I don’t know what the fuck to do. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know how to say thank you and let life roll on.

“Did you really leave the poker game just to make sure we were all right?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says.

“Brad is going to be pissed at you for leaving, you know.”

“No, he isn’t,” he sighs. “He’s the one that told me to come.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

David lets go of my waist and leans back against the door frame. I turn around and rest my rear against the edge of the counter so that we are face-to-face.

“We’re all right,” I say with a small smile. “I get it now, David. Thank you for wanting to protect me. Thank you for caring about me enough to do what you did. But I still think you’re an idiot.”

“I know you do,” he says, completely unfazed. “I guess I’m just a little crazy.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed.”

“It’s your fault, you know. You turned me crazy,” he says, the playful lilt returning to his voice. “I was normal before I met you.” And then he is smiling again. I can see the same happiness I saw at the tattoo parlor. The same happiness I heard in his laughter when we were overlooking the city and I asked him about his last name. The same happiness I sensed when I agreed to be his girlfriend. It thrills me to know that I can make David happy, to know that he is crazy about me. Because I’m a whole bunch of crazy right back.

“Normal, huh? Well, if that’s the case, then I guess the same could be said for me,” I tease. David’s body straightens, and his chest rises, and then he looks down at the floor. What? His happiness is gone, just like that, and now he looks ashamed. It catches me by surprise, and suddenly, everything seems very serious. I feel as if I should apologize, but I’m not sure what for.

“I’m sorry,” I say as he looks back up at me. “I was just teasing. Look, it’s clear that both of us have very valid reasons for being a few coils short of a Slinky, but I say we embrace it.” I plaster an overly dramatic smile across my face and give him two enthusiastic thumbs up. “I say we run with our crazies, and to hell with everybody else.”

He chuckles softly and sinks his hands into his pockets. He regards me intently for a minute before he replies. All I can do is smile at him and wait.

“I can’t tell you how unbelievably relieved I am to hear you say that we’re all right,” he says at last. “I thought I’d fucked everything up. When you shoved my phone in my face and said that you saw Michael’s number, I swear my heart stopped beating. I thought we were done. I thought the bottom dropped out, and you were gonna walk. That’s what always happens with me. The bottom drops out, and everything that was good ends. Just like that.” His eyes are back on the floor.

“The bottom isn’t going to drop out on us, David,” I say with the compassion and reassurance he so clearly needs, “because I love you. And now that I know what love is, I can see that it makes you willing to do anything to make sure that the bottom stays intact. It makes you forgive the other person for their mistakes. It makes you see past their crazies and their fucked-up past and their underwear fetish and their gun-toting, drug-addicted ex-girlfriends and their complete lack of self-preservation.” He looks up at me, and as his scalp draws back, I can see acceptance spread across his face. “And what you don’t realize, David, is that you already know all that. You know it because what you tried to do to Michael was meant to keep the bottom intact.”