The Good Wife(132)
She struggled to smile. “I just want you happy.”
“I am.”
“I just want you happy with your career, and your kids—” She drew a breath. “And me.”
His gaze met hers, held. “Don’t I seem happy?”
She searched his eyes, trying to see shadows in them, secrets. Trying to see if he was honest. True.
The fact that she had to search his eyes terrified her. She should know these things. She should have confidence in him, in them. She should feel safe.
But she didn’t.
And so she constantly monitored her marriage, patrolling the perimeter of her yard like a high-strung dog.
“Yes,” she lied, hoping to protect him, just as he wanted to protect her.
He turned out the lights, and in bed, he reached for her and they started to make love. But Sarah felt numb as he touched her. Normally she could relax into it, but the panic was there, and the pain and fear . . .
She wasn’t young and fun anymore. Didn’t laugh as much. Didn’t tease and giggle. Didn’t bat her eyes and work to make Boone feel like a million bucks.
“Not into it, baby?” Boone asked, kissing the side of her neck, feeling her detachment.
No, she wasn’t into it, but she also didn’t want to shut him down or reject him in any way. If he thought she wasn’t willing, if he thought she wasn’t into him, then he really might feel entitled to look for satisfaction some other place.
“Let’s change position,” she whispered. “Change it up a little.”
He braced his weight on either side of her head, and his teeth scraped along her neck. “What do you want?”
To feel safe. To feel secure. To know I’ll never be replaced.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to block out the voices in her head. “What sounds good to you?”
“You pick a position. You know I like it all.”
She was crying. She didn’t want him to know. “How about doggie style?” she suggested. That way he couldn’t see her face.
Twenty
The car, traveling. Fast. Bright lights, blindingly white, brakes scream. Headlights swing wildly, an arc of light. Metal grinds against metal. Smoke. Fire.
So much fire.
Help, help!
Help my baby. Save him. Save my son.
Jerking awake, Lauren sat up. Dark. Night. A dream.
She opened her mouth, gasping for air.
Just a dream, she repeated, even as Chris’s hand came to her back, rubbing it lightly. “You okay, babe?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep.
“Yes.” No.
She drew the covers back, swung her legs out to sit on the edge.
It’d felt so so real. The blinding lights, the screeching brakes, the smoke. She’d even felt the flames, the heat of them. Blistering.
Lauren stood up, legs shaking.
She’d stayed at his condo again, seemed to be staying there more and more lately, and one entire wall of his bedroom was glass, massive plate-glass windows that overlooked San Francisco Bay. Chris never closed the curtains at night since he had the penthouse condo on the forty-fourth floor and tonight the moon shone, the white lights of buildings and boats glimmering white and yellow below it.
“Where are you going?” he asked, pushing up on his elbow to look at her, naked to his waist, muscles bunching, contracting across his back, his thick blond hair tumbling loose to his shoulders.
A warrior, her Chris. So different from her.
“Just to get a drink of water,” she said.
“Coming right back?”
“Yes.” She leaned over the bed, kissed his cheek. “Go back to sleep.”
He reached out to catch her hand, his fingers lacing with hers. “Were you having that bad dream again?”
“No. Just thirsty, baby. Go back to sleep.”
But in the modern, sophisticated kitchen of Chris’s condo, Lauren stared blindly out the window with its insane view of the Bay Bridge and the water and the city beyond, her heart still pounding, skin clammy and cold.
Ever since she’d visited Grandma’s house on Father’s Day, ever since she’d gone into Blake’s room, she’d been having the dreams again. Dreams of Blake crashing and dying. Dreams of him calling for her.
It was too much.
She shouldn’t have gone inside. Shouldn’t have opened the door to his room. It had opened up her memories, and the past, and the grief had sucked her right back in.
Lauren filled her glass with chilled water, drank it slowly, trying to slow her racing pulse.
She hated the dreams. They were never exactly the same. In some, the accident happened at night. In others, it was sunny, the sun shining, just like it had been the day David, Blake’s best friend, pulled a stupid teenage move, passing a slower car on the twisting country road, and discovered there was nowhere to go, killing three of the four kids in the car.