Push(110)

“What?” I say, shaking my head in surprise. “No.” My answer causes his face to lose a bit of its glow. “I mean, I’d love to, but I have to go to work in the morning. Plus, I already ate dinner.”

“Okay,” he says quietly.

“But, if you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich or something,” I say, trying to salvage what’s left of his glow.

“No. I’m not really hungry either,” he says. His eyes are still bright, but now he looks a little embarrassed.

“Then, why did you ask?”

“Because I don’t want you to make me leave again. I was just trying to come up with an excuse to be with you.” He looks both adorable and electric when he says it. He dresses and heads toward the bathroom. Once his back is to me, he adds, “Come to think of it, ever since the day I saw you carrying boxes into the front door, everything I’ve done has been an excuse to be with you.” A flurry of cyclonic wind is filling me again.

“I won’t make you leave, David,” I say when he returns with a washcloth for me, “and you don’t need an excuse to be with me. You need to realize that the bottom is solid on this one—it is not going to drop out.”

“Promise?”

“Of course,” I answer. As I dress, it occurs to me that David may have heard these words before. That maybe Lucia or Jenny or Anna once said the same thing to him—but then another man, or drugs, or schizophrenia, changed everything and caused their relationship to spin out of control. How do I make him see that I am not them? “It’s pretty clear to me now what you meant when you said that your ex-girlfriends have played a huge role in who you are. Lucia and Jenny—and whoever else there was—failed you, David. They let the bottom drop out. Or maybe they even caused it. But I am not them. I said it before and I’ll say it again, the only way we fail is if you lie. I’m not going to fuck it up like they did, and I trust that you won’t fuck it up either.”

He gives me a small smile, reaching for me and rubbing his hand up and down my spine, being careful to avoid the still-sore skin around the tree branch. But a moment later, his smile fades, and a look of sadness spreads across his face. “It happened six times, Emma.”

“What happened six times?” I ask in a state of genuine confusion caused by both his statement and his expression.

“The bottom dropped out.”

“Oh.” I want to ask him about all of them. To find out what they did to make David feel so lost. To find out how things ended with each of them. But I don’t ask. Because I don’t want to hear about Anna Spaight. I don’t want to hear what I already know.

“I told you before about Lucia and Jenny and Elizabeth, but there were three other women.”

“Elizabeth?” I ask. Who is Elizabeth?

“My dad’s secretary.” Ah, yes. Elizabeth was his first lover. “We were together for a couple of months,” he says, his voice trailing off to a near whisper, “but then I found out that she was fucking my father, too.”

“Jesus,” I say as we both sit down on the edge of the bed. “That’s horrible.”

“Yes. It was.” I wonder if he’s going to continue. My heart is in my throat, and I am begging his mouth to keep quiet about Anna. “But Kelsey was worse than her,” he says. Worse?

“Who was Kelsey?” I ask gently, trying to keep my voice steady and calm.

“She was from my hometown, and we were together for a long time. My dad used to tell me I wasn’t good enough for Kelsey, but that just pissed me off and made me want to be with her even more.”

“Determination is one of your best traits,” I say, trying to force a small smile and lighten the mood. Please, don’t mention Anna. Please. Please. Please.

“And Sarah—she was my girlfriend in high school,” he continues. He doesn’t offer me any more information about Sarah, but from the look on his face, I can see that the end of that relationship hurt, too.

He wraps his arms around his middle. He is protecting himself again, from another imaginary shot to the gut. I feel Anna’s story in the air between us, and I know he is going to tell me about her now. I know the words are about to come out.

“And the sixth bottom to drop out was named Anna. She sent me into utter ruin, and after I moved here and was finally beginning to piece myself back together, I met Lucia.” The words rush out of him, making my head feel dizzy and thick. He looks away from me but keeps talking. “Anna was...Anna. She was good and kind and beautiful. But she was also a paranoid schizophrenic. We lived together for a while, and I tried to help her. I really tried. But I couldn’t.” He moves his eyes back to mine, and he raises his shoulders in a small shrug. His arms are still wrapped around his waist, and he is regarding me very carefully. Waiting to see if I will ask him what happened. But he must see that I don’t want him to continue, I’m going to pretend I don’t want to know any more about her. I’m going to pretend that it doesn’t matter. I let my face tell him as much because I am afraid that if I open my mouth, it will say all the wrong things, and I will start to cry.