Page 20 of Thicker Than Water
My pulse is ticking, hot and fast. I feel it in my neck, my fingers, my temples, the countdown to an explosion.
There it is, a few driveways down—Clive Clayton’s house.
This isn’t my destination. I’m on my way to Wyatt’s. I called him after dropping Julia off, asked if it was okay to stop by, and he said,Of course, can’t wait to see you, as if this visit is for comfort or pleasure.
But to get to Wyatt’s, I have to pass Clive’s first. I couldn’t believe it, when we first started dating, that Wyatt lived in Clive’s neighborhood—an address I knew from my cyberstalking. Now there’s something cosmically correct about it, the nearness of these two men who hurt me, and as I approach Clive’s house, I don’t look away. There’s a masochistic part of me that needs to see it, same as I need to see his Instagram photos—him and his daughter laughing as he hugs her, him and his wife crouching in front of a Christmas tree.
Julia once described my anger as a lighter. “You keep flicking andflicking it,” she said, watching me stare at my phone, “and the whole time, you’re only burning yourself.”
She was right, of course. Even as she said it, my skin felt freshly singed by Clive’s latest post: a video of him braiding his daughter’s hair.
“Well, what’s the alternative?” I asked her then. “Ignore that he just gets to move on and live his life? Look at this.” I scrolled through his grid, showing her pictures I knew every pixel of by now. “It isn’trightthat he gets to celebrate holidays and string up piñatas for his daughter’s birthday.”
“But you don’t need to look at it. You’re only burning yourself,” she repeated.
“I’d be burning either way!” I said, snippier than I’d meant to be—and I was glad, for once, when Julia tucked her lips between her teeth, the telltale sign that she would not push it further. I saw her swallow her response and I didn’t encourage her to speak. Instead, I returned to the latest video, where Clive ran gentle fingers through his daughter’s hair—as if he was a good father, a good man. As if he didn’t take two lives and ruin mine. As if he hadn’t tried, years before he killed my parents, to ruin me a different way, too.
That time, I was a freshman at Willow Creek High, and Clive was a senior—so popular that passing him in the halls felt like a brush with a celebrity. When he started flirting with me at a party one night, I was flattered, if not a little shocked. I giggled into my third Smirnoff Ice, the room strobing gently around me. Clive slid his arm over my shoulders, asked if I wanted to go upstairs, and I nodded, then leaned against him as we climbed each step. I thought it was cute, how he helped me; I didn’t know it meant I wasn’t steady enough to walk on my own. And in the bedroom, he backed me against a wall, kissed me like I’d seen so many boys do on the teendramas I loved, and I closed my eyes, melted into it, melted into that wall, imagined the music that pulsed from the floor below was a soundtrack playing just for us. My first kiss. My first drinks. And soon, the two firsts blurred together, my mouth growing clumsy, my hands unable to bat Clive’s away as one crawled up my shirt to squeeze my breast, and the other tugged at the button on my jeans.Shh, just relax, he said, and I’d seen this, too, on my teen soaps, how a kiss could go so terribly wrong.
My eyes shot open, panic gushed through me, and then—as if sensing I needed him—Jason burst into the room. He yanked Clive off me, threw him onto the bed, and whisked me out of the house. In the car on the way home, he kept asking if I was okay. And I was. I was shaken and stupid and suddenly sober, but I was fine—all because my brother had saved me.I will never let him hurt you, okay?Jason said, blue eyes bright, even in the dark.Never. I promise.
He couldn’t have known, of course, that Clive would eventually hurt us both, that six years later—still clinging to his high school stardom, still living in our little town of Willow Creek—Clive would drive drunk from a kegger and crush our parents’ car. But even then, when Jason, too, was gutted by grief, my brother rushed in to rescue me.
Now, as I pass Clive’s house, I feel that burn Julia warned me against, decades of anger scorching me anew. His windows glow softly, a picture of warmth and security, fit for his social media feeds. You’d never imagine, looking at Clive’s from here, that the man inside spent eighteen months in prison.
As I round the corner, the house disappears from view, and my fire eventually cools.
I’m closing in on Wyatt’s, but I don’t look at his front window to see if he’s watching for me, don’t wave like I always used to, back when we were together. Instead, I park like I’ve arrived at the postoffice, the grocery store, just an errand I’m running on my way back home.
Outside, it’s a sharp April night, the cold like a blade held against my throat, and when Wyatt opens his door to me, dressed in the hoodie I bought him two Christmases ago, I have to fight the urge to hurry toward him, to bury my face in that soft, warm fabric that would smell like sandalwood and cloves. Instead, I step inside, harden my voice to steel.
“Thanks for letting me come over. I won’t stay long. I’m just wondering what you can tell me about the case.”
“Nothing,” he says. “I’m not on it.”
But cops talk. He told me that once. Details slip like loose papers from a folder. Even the desk clerk picks things up.
So I try another tactic, a familiar one. I drop my purse in the entryway, guide him to his bedroom. Then I press my palms against his chest and tug on his lower lip with my teeth.
“Come on,” I whisper, my mouth skating over his. “There must besomethingyou can share.”
He surprises me by drawing away. His eyes search mine, flicking back and forth like a doctor’s penlight, before he pulls me back in, folding me into an embrace.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” he says. “I know you’re going through hell.”
I go slack in his arms. Not in resistance—the way Aiden did last night when Julia tried to hug him—but in surrender. It feels good to be held, by Wyatt in particular. He straps himself to me like his body is a life jacket, the air an ocean, and all I have to do is float. A moan of release slips out of me, and he responds by holding me tighter.
My eyes snap open, reminders flooding in. I picture the woman he cheated on me with, even though I have no idea what she looked like. Don’t know her name, either, because Wyatt himself was toowasted to remember it. He’d always been an affectionate drunk—just a few beers and he’d turn boisterously sweet, complimenting everyone, pulling his friends in for hugs. But I never could have imagined he’d take it so far. A year later, and it’s still embedded in me, the hot knife of his betrayal.
I push him away. His expression flickers between surprise and confusion before settling into empathy, resignation. “Si,” he tries—but I shut him up, thrusting him onto the bed, where I climb on top of him, pulling my shirt over my head.
If sex with that woman had been nothing, then I can be nothing too. I rock my hips, arch my back, imagine myself weightless, bloodless, heartless. When Wyatt reaches up to stroke my cheek, I clamp my hand around his wrist and pin it to the bed.
Afterward, I roll off him, sweaty and panting, my body returning to me in a rush. “Fuck,” I mutter.
Wyatt hums in agreement, misinterpreting the curse as one of satisfaction. He turns onto his side, skims my arm with his fingers. I feel the admiration in his gaze even as I stare at the ceiling.
“That was awesome,” he says. “You’re amazing, Si.”
