Pull (Push #2) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Emma—Present Day

I look at David’s face and think about how people all over the world are walking around with massive secrets bound to their backs, weighing them down until their knees scrape the ground. It isn’t just David and me. It is everyone. We all suffer at the hands of secrets, whether we are the cause of them or not. And we are a world of self-made martyrs because of it. We try so hard to hold on to our secrets because we are afraid that no one will understand or that we’ll somehow be judged because of them. People steal and lie and cheat and murder and ignore and deceive, and their victims wear the burden of these wrongs like some kind of godforsaken badge. I am guilty of it, and so is David. But I think David is ready to give up his martyrdom. I think, like me, he is ready to slough off his secrets and move on. He already recognizes that, without them, he wouldn’t be the man that he is. But now, I think he’s finally recognizing that maybe he’ll be a better man without them.

“It’s okay, David,” I say as I brush my hand against his hair, stroking his head as if he were still the small child I am picturing in my head. For once in my life, I know the right thing to say. “You know what, she didn’t
want
to be saved. It wouldn’t have mattered what you did or said. She had already made up her mind. She saw you standing there, watching her, and she still chose to jump. She chose to do that to her own child. She was gone before her feet even left the bridge, and nothing was going to change that.”

He looks at me as if I just smacked him in the face. “She was sick. I don’t think she saw it as a choice.”

“
She had a choice
,” I say ardently. “Even if she saw suicide as her only way out, she could have made the choice to leave you out of it. But she didn’t. She involved her own child in a terrible thing—a very grown-up thing—and no child deserves that. And now
you
are the one who has had to think about it for all these years, and that is really fucking unfair.”

He reaches over to me and pulls me toward him. I climb on to his lap, straddling him and wrapping myself around his body. When I hear him start to sniff back more tears, I want to weep again—but instead, I keep talking. “You’re right. It’s fucked up, David. You’re fucked up. And I can totally see why. I can’t imagine how all this has affected you for all these years. Hell, you already know how messed up I am. You know what Michael did to my life. His choices influenced everything I did for years. And your mother’s choice did the same to you. But you have to find a way to move on. You have to stop punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. We both have to.”

His hands move up to my head and bend it forward, until I am face-to-face with him. He kisses me, and it is deep and lustful. The burn in my skin turns from anger to passion, and I feel loved and needed and right.

“I can’t move on by myself, Emma. I need help. I need you to make it go away,” he says when he pulls his lips from mine. His voice is scattered and nervous.

“Listen, you already know I love you, David, and I always will. If you need me to tell you those words every fucking day for the rest of our lives, I’ll do it. And I don’t ever have to hear them back. I’m not going away. We can move on together.”

David blinks up at me. His eyes are warm, roaming over my face carefully. He seems to be strengthened somehow. His back straightens and his mouth sets into a straight line.

He snakes his hands around my waist to the small of my back, weaving his fingers together and resting his palms against the base of my spine. “I know something you can do right now that will make everything better,” he says, the nervousness disappearing from his voice. “I know what I need.”

I look down at him and cup his face in my hands. I see the crazy current whipping through his body and vibrating in his eyes. I feel his skin start to warm beneath my hands, and because of it, I know that whatever he’s about to ask me to do is energizing and inciting his body far more than anything we have done before. There is utter and absolute ecstasy in his face.

“What is it?” I ask. “What do you need me to do?”

He keeps looking at me, and his hands tighten against my spine. I swear I can feel the blood rushing through his body. Every one of his muscles shudders as a wave of total rapture pulses through his veins. I cock my head to the side and narrow my eyes at him, dropping my hands to my lap. His mouth is not moving, but his eyes are silently screaming at me. They are telling me to save him. They are telling me to reach down into myself, pull out my own heart, and hand it to him. His eyes are telling me that I can do this. That I am strong enough to fix him.

A moment later he blinks, and from my place on his lap, I can feel his body harden. This thing he wants me to do—this thing that he needs—it isn’t sex, of that I am sure. It’s more than that. It has to be. His scalp draws back, and the edges of his mouth twist up into the sweetest of smiles. His lips part, and I think for a second that I’m going to see David’s teeth, but something stops his smile from going that far. I see fear there, too, beneath his grin, and I feel a drip of worry seep into me. He needs to start talking. He needs to wipe up my worry with his words. He needs to tell me what he wants.

I don’t say a word. I just look at him and wait. A moment passes, and he releases his hands from around my waist and drops them backward, onto the rock behind him. He leans his body back and away from mine.

“I need you to let me save you,” he says quietly. The quiver of joy I felt from his body is gone now, and his voice sounds deep and oppressed. “I need you to trust me completely and do exactly what I say. If you don’t…” He trails off, leaving me to wonder precisely what will happen if I don’t comply. I shake my head from side to side and crease my brow; it is a sign that I don’t understand. His eyes leave mine and drop toward the ground. I think I see shame on his face.

“If you don’t,” he continues, “we fail.
I
fail. And that can’t happen. Not with you.” I lift my hands, grasp his face, and tilt it upward. His eyes settle on mine once again, and I put my mouth onto his. He sucks the air out of me and tangles his fingers into my hair. He already knows I will do exactly what he says. I think he’s always known I would.

He pulls his mouth off of mine and holds me against him. “Save me from what?” I ask.

“From me.”

Suddenly I’m worried that he is going to leave. That he is going to walk away from me in some heroic gesture of love after doling out some line of bullshit about me being too good for him. About how I deserve better. About how I will be better off without him. If that’s what comes out of his mouth, I’ll be damned if I comply. If he tries to end us, I’m going to tackle him to the ground and knock his fucking teeth straight to the back of his skull.
That
is the one thing that I will not let happen. I won’t let his revelation ruin us. Fuck that.

“You’re
not
running away.” There is a touch of anger edging my voice. “Leaving me is not going to fix things for you, David. And if you think you are
saving
me from something by pulling the plug on us, I’m calling your bluff. Leaving me won’t save me—or you for that matter—it will turn both of us into a puddle of nothingness.” His head draws back in surprise, and his eyes open wide.

“I’m not trying to break up with you, Emma. Jesus Christ.” He plunges his face into his hands and wipes at his eyes. When he pulls his hands away, he starts talking again. “I want to fix things, not ruin them.”

He grabs me by the waist and lifts me up off his lap. Then he is standing next to me. His arms, swathed in their colorful, tattooed birds, rest against his sides. “Come with me,” he says softly. He is looking at me, and I can see some unknown emotion dredging through him. The expression on his face is telling me how important it is for me to just do what he says. Don’t make any more assumptions. Don’t ask any more questions. Don’t fuck this up.

David grabs my hand and turns to walk back up the trail. I stumble along behind him, trying to keep my eyes on the circle of light cast by his wavering flashlight. When we get to the parking lot, he opens my door and I sit down. He drops to his haunches just outside the car and puts his head in my lap. I stroke his hair gently and rub my hands against his upper back. My motions are motherly, and they cause a deep pain to well up in the center of my chest. Pain for this man’s shattered childhood. Pain for all the losses he has suffered. Pain for his perceived inability to love. I feel sorry for him. Pity. But in my heart, I know that my pity is not what he wants.

His head sits heavily in my lap for countless minutes. I run my fingers through his hair again and again. I circle my palm against his back over and over. I am waiting for him to move. I am waiting for him to tell me what to do.

Then suddenly, he lifts his head from my lap and looks up at me. “I need to make a phone call,” he says quietly. He stands up, closes my door, and walks over to the other side of the parking lot. I turn my head to the side and watch him pressing his finger against his phone. Whoever he is calling must have answered quickly, even at this ungodly hour, because I see his lips say
hey
. And then his back is to me, and his phone is to his ear, and he stands like that for several minutes talking to whoever is on the other end of that phone.

Chapter 3

Matt—Present Day

Jennifer Lawrence’s tongue is in my mouth, and I’m dancing around with her like I’m Bradley-fucking-Cooper in
Silver Linings Playbook
. I’ve got a raging hard-on because she keeps rubbing her hips against me. She’s about to drop to her knees, and I am in a state of complete ecstasy. I can’t believe this is happening. Her lips separate from mine, and she lowers her body, looking into my eyes and burning right through me. I know what she’s going do next, and it’s making my heart jump out of my chest. She’s about to unzip my jeans when P.O.D. begins screaming the lyrics to “Lost in Forever” right in my ear.

I shake my head and look down at her, trying to push that song out of my mind. But it’s there, pulsing in my ear and making Jennifer Lawrence disappear. Crap. She’s gone, and I open my eyes. I am lying in my bed alone with “Lost in Forever” blaring out of my cell phone. Why is that son of a bitch calling me in the middle of the night? I want to throw my phone against the wall, but instead I roll to my side and pick it up. I need to figure out what the hell David wants at three o’clock in the morning. I press the answer icon.

“What the hell, Calgaro? It’s the middle of the night. What do you want?” I grumble into the phone, running my other hand across my forehead.

“Hey,” David says with a surprising amount of exhaustion in his voice. He pauses for a second and inhales a deep breath. “I need your help.”

“What? What happened?” I sit up in bed and swing my legs off to the side. This ought to be good.

“I can’t stop myself from doing something, and I need you to make sure Emma doesn’t get hurt.” His voice is quiet.

I sigh loudly into the phone, thinking about how interesting life has become since Emma started working with me at the engineering firm. “Shit, man. Don’t cheat on her, okay? She’s got it so bad for you. Don’t be a heartless bastard, David. Break up with her before you screw someone else.” I say it with more arrogance than I intend, but Emma is pretty great, and I don’t want to see either of them get hurt just because David can’t keep his johnson to himself. When he doesn’t answer, I start to doubt my assumption. “Is that what you’re about to do? Are you calling me hoping that I’ll talk you off of whatever skank you’re about to screw? Knock some sense into you?”

“No.” His voice sounds even more tired now, maybe even a little sad. “I’m not going to cheat on her, you asshole. I’m gonna ask her to do something for me, and I just want you to make sure she’s safe if I can’t do it myself.”

Maybe my mind is still groggy from Jennifer’s abrupt departure, but I’m not understanding him.

“What are you talking about? Are you high again? Jesus. I thought you were done with all that ape-shit-crazy stuff. It’s three o’clock in the morning. Just sleep it off, man, and call me in the morning.”

“No,” he says again, but this time his voice is loud and sharp. “I’m not high. And I’m not taking no for an answer. Just do what I fucking tell you to do. If you want Emma to show up for work tomorrow, you’ll get your ass in the car and drive to the gravel lot at the end of 10th Street as soon as we hang up. You’ll watch the bridge, and you won’t take your eyes off of it for a single fucking second.” He takes a breath and exhales it harshly before he talks again. “If you only see one person, count to ten and then go get her. But if you see both of us, count to thirty instead.” His words are clipped and commanding, and I can tell he isn’t kidding around. “I need you to be there, Matt. Please. Promise me. Promise me right now that you’ll be in that lot in less than thirty minutes.” There is panic in his voice now, and it’s something I’ve not heard from him before. Calm, collected David has lost his cool because of a girl. He’s about to do something extremely stupid, and because of it, I can’t go back to Jennifer Lawrence. I have to be a part of whatever dramatic moment of bullshit he’s concocting on the 9th Street Bridge.

“Fine,” I sputter. “I’ll be there. I’ll watch for you guys, and I won’t let her get hurt. Whatever the hell that means. But you owe me, David. You owe me big time.”

“You have no idea.” And then there is nothing but silence in my ear. He’s gone now, too, and I stand up to put my pants on and kiss Jennifer Lawrence goodbye.

                            ------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s nearly 3:25 by the time I pull into the lot. There aren’t any other cars here, just an empty picnic table and the sound of the water lapping against the cement retaining wall, but I get out of my Honda anyway to look up and down the shore for some sign of David. When I don’t see him, I lean against the hood of the car and take a cigarette out of my pocket. If that jackass left before I got here, or if this is some kind of joke, I’m going to lose my shit. The only thing that’s stopping me from getting back into the car and heading straight for his apartment is the panic I heard in his voice. It’s the reason I got into the car in the first place, and it’s the reason I’ll wait here for twenty minutes before I head back home to sulk about falling for his stupid joke.

He told me to watch the bridge. For what, I don’t know, but I light my cigarette and alternate between watching the stars and the bridge. I wonder what the hell that man has up his sleeve.

Then, just as I’m lifting my cigarette up to take another drag, I see Emma up there. She’s small and far away, but I know it’s her because the streetlights are making her red hair glow like a beacon. She has a green dress on, and she’s standing stock still right at the edge of the bridge. I hop up onto the roof of my car to have a better look, tossing my cigarette into the gravel as my foot hits the bumper. When I get to the roof, I turn back to face the bridge, and I see someone falling. Shit. I think it’s Emma. No…I know it’s Emma, and there is something on her feet. What the hell? Where is David? Is he already in the water? Did I miss it? My hand flies up to my mouth and mashes across the front of my lips. My heart sinks into my gut, and I start to count.

I bend down, frantically pull off my shoes, and toss them down from the car. And then I see David. He steps forward toward the edge and watches Emma hit the water.

“Jump in after her, you motherfucker! Jump!” I whisper. David doesn’t jump, though. Instead he drops to his haunches on the bridge deck and sinks his face into his hands. As my mind reaches the number five, I hear David scream. It’s primal and pained, and it pulls the breath right out of my chest. I reach the number nine and jump down off the hood of my car. As I run to the edge of the retaining wall like a goddamned madman, I look up to see David standing. In a split second he is off the bridge, and I watch him fall into the water. I keep counting in my head while my toes curl over the edge of the wall, and my fingers race to take off my shirt. I can’t see either of them, only the ripples in the water.

Fear rises in my throat, and I pick up the pace of my count. I’m not waiting until I reach thirty. They are two hundred yards away, and I’m not watching this from a distance anymore. I toss my shirt onto the gravel, dive off the retaining wall, and swim into the darkness.

As I approach the spot where I think they entered the water, my brain kicks into overdrive. What is happening? This isn’t David’s usual ape-shit-crazy stuff. This is messed up. What the hell did he talk her into? David can swim like a fish; I know he can. I’ve seen him swim across the river after a night of poker and a dare from Carl’s cigar-laden mouth. But I don’t know if Emma can swim. And what was on her feet?

I stop swimming only long enough to look for them and call out their names. When I get no response, I put my face back into the water and keep swimming.

The next time I draw my head up out of the water, I see something. I see the back of someone’s head only twenty feet from where I am. It’s David. His dark hair is wet and tight against his scalp, but I know it’s him.

“David!” I shout, as loudly and clearly as I can muster. I swim toward him until I am nearly at arm’s distance. “Where is she? Where’s Emma?”

He turns his head to face me. It’s dark, but the bridge lights allow me to see his face. His expression is of sheer and utter dread. He’s terrified out of his mind. His eyes are wide and his nostrils are flaring. His mouth is in a grim line, opening and closing rhythmically, just enough to manage a few gasping breaths.

“She’s here,” he says at last. “I’ve got her. She’s right here.” And then I see Emma floating in the water in front of him. She’s face-up, and he has a viselike grip on her upper arms. Her eyes are closed, and her lips are parted. Christ almighty. She looks dead.

I swim around David and tell him to let go of her right arm so we can tow her to the shore together.

“No,” he says quietly. “I’ve got her. Just make sure her face stays up out of the water.”

“You sure?” I ask, disbelief and anger surging through my voice. “You sure you’ve got her?”

“I’m sure,” he says, looking straight at me.

He swims backward toward the streetlights hanging over the retaining wall with Emma’s outstretched body dragging across the top of his. I swim beside them, occasionally reminding David to lift her high enough to keep her nose and mouth above the water line. Every time I speak, his head snaps toward me and his eyes open wide, almost as if he’s angry at me for being here.

By the time we get close enough to see the retaining wall, my arms are nearly numb. I feel weary, and I’m seriously doubting my own strength. I hope David can manage to get Emma up over the wall, because I don’t think I’ll be much of a help. The concrete sticks out of the water by a good four or five feet, and when we reach it, David tells me to hold onto Emma while he pushes himself up out of the water and tries to catch his fingers on the lip of the wall. After three or four jumps, he finally connects with the edge. He hangs there from one arm for a few seconds before he swings his other arm up and over the top. A surge of adrenaline must be working through him because he pulls his entire body up and out of the water in half a heartbeat. I am struggling to keep a grip on Emma, and my legs are turning to stone.

“Don’t let her go,” he shouts, lying on his stomach with his upper body hanging down over the wall’s edge. “See if you can lift her arm up so I can get a grip on her hand.”

I move closer to the wall and shift our bodies so we are parallel to the concrete blocks. David’s arms dangle over the edge; his fingers are spread wide and his face is still wearing a look of unmistakable terror. I lift Emma’s arm as high as I can while my bare feet struggle to get some kind of a grip on the slimy concrete beneath the water. I leverage my body against the wall in hopes of lifting her arm high enough for him to be able to reach it. A moment later, I feel them connect. Emma’s weight rises up out of the water, and David lets out a small groan. I’m not sure if it’s out of exertion or relief.

He pulls her out of the water, and for a minute, they are both out of my sight. I’m tired, and I know there is no way I can get out of the river without his help. But before I can shout out to him, I see his arm drop down over the edge and reach for me. I stretch upward, and when our hands touch, relief bites into me and my body goes slack.