DITW 13-7: Unholy (Patreon)

The lure to stay away from home was strong. She saw why Josh couldn’t resist it. Saw why Josh fled to Meyer’s and wouldn’t tell her where he was. Because it was easy. It was safe. Nothing bad could happen when you avoided the confrontation altogether.

She opened the apartment door, feeling prepared for what she might find. Maybe Josh would have trashed the place; upended their TV, sliced their upholstery with a butcher knife, set her clothes on fire. That could be the worst, so she started there and made her preparations on a down-sliding scale. She knew he was home. He hadn’t cut her off from his Find My Phone this time. It was a good sign, but more likely that he just hadn’t thought of it yet.

But the apartment looked preserved. Straight ahead, her father’s photo of the Lungshan Temple, straight and square, not knocked askew nor smashed on the floor. The TV was off in the living room, but upright and unmarred. First instinct would be relief, but then again, there was still so much to account for, and maybe if the apartment had been trashed she would find Josh exhausted, spent, tossed on the floor and looking for compassion. The Josh she had witnessed in the hotel room was terrifying. But in the best way she could imagine. That Josh didn’t take shit from Devlin. Didn’t balk. Didn’t cower. It was welcome to see, in a strange, sick way, but terrible to think how much he’d been damaged in order for that savage Josh to have no more kindness blocking him from action. She and Devlin had turned him into a cornered, feral animal.

Josh met her in the hallway entrance, the two of them coming together in front of the kitchen pass-through. Josh was still dressed in his suit jacket and pants. He looked better than ever: that new haircut, no longer a boy, but now a man; his expensive suit she’d cloaked him in; and a wonderful angry wildness in his eyes. Josh was a man possessed with determination. He’d been in their bedroom, had heard her come into the apartment, and strode out to meet her, an argument already on his lips.

He jabbed a finger at her. “You know what I said to myself? To defeat a demon, become a demon. I’ll be as stone cold as you are. Nothing will affect me, I said. I had no idea...” He shook his head—not despondent, but bewildered. “No idea at all.”

“You certainly became a demon,” she said.

“I went in thinking I was a demon, Kimmy. This is what I’m saying. Thinking I could overcome your crimes, rise above them if I somehow donned a mantle of pretend nobility, that if I could be the one in charge, then I could fool myself into thinking I’d always been the one in charge. But, but...”

She slung her purse to the couch. “You can pretend your responsibility was nothing, but it wasn’t, Josh—you weren’t always in charge, but sometimes you were. Sometimes you made—”

“You can’t put this on me. I’m not stupid. You’re not smarter than I am. You betrayed me.”

She hugged herself, slumping against the counter’s high edge and looking down. “I did. I betrayed you. And I regret it, Josh. I...”

Josh walked away. She followed, all the way down the hall, to the right, to the left and into the bedroom. Josh went into the closet and she stood by the corner of the bed. He had suitcases out and was in the process of filling them with her clothing.

“I regret it,” she said, a fear rising up now that she might not have this tiger by the tail, that all the worst things she could imagine might come true.

Josh tossed an armful of clothing to the bed. She stepped to block the doorway. He’d hunched, looking for more of her things to toss, but he stood up now and faced her.

“I said I regret it, Josh. I’m sorry. It never should have happened.”

Josh’s expression didn’t change. He said, “Did I fail you?”

She shook her head. “No. No, you didn’t.”

His eyes flinched, like he was trying to make sense of her answer. “Then do you hate me?”

“I love you, Josh. You’re everything to me.”

He laughed and shook his head. Looked for more things of hers to haul out and cast away. She went to him, afraid to touch him, but knowing she wanted to be close. “I do, Josh. I love you. I never didn’t love you. I never once cared about Devlin. Not even for a minute.”

Josh groaned a creaky Oh my god and rolled his eyes. She said, “What? It’s true, Josh. I swear.”

He shook his head. “You tell yourself—and you tell me—you hate Devlin. But you only do that because it makes what you’ve done more palatable.”

“I know what you’re saying, but I’m not lying, Josh, I’m not.”

He looked at her. “If Devlin behaved himself, if he did what you wanted him to do, if he didn’t fuck it up by taunting me behind your back, tell me this: how deep would I be in your game right now?”

Her shoulders slumped, and she played dumb. “What game?”

“You were gaming me, you were gaming Devlin. If you hate Devlin, then why do you do the same thing to me? And worse. You had a fucking affair with the one guy I hate most in the world.”

“That’s because of you. That’s because it means something to you...”

“What does it mean to me, Kimmy? What the hell does it mean?—it means he’s the worst guy you could fuck behind my back.”

“No, that makes him the best.”

“Oh my god,” he said, stepping away from her like she was toxic. “The best guy you could fuck behind my back? Like, what the fuck are you saying? Like this was good for me?”

“No, Josh, no, that’s not what I mean. Devlin’s a piece of shit, he’s—”

“I know he’s a piece of shit, Kimmy. What the fuck? You don’t need to tell me that. This isn’t some grand revelation. I told you he was a piece of shit. I told you not to take that job. But you . . . You just had to take the fucking job.”

“I did have to take the job, Josh. I took it for us, I—”

“Us? You destroyed us. You destroyed me. How’s that working out for you, this fucking great job for Devlin? Is it working out the way you wanted it? I mean, you had to take it, right?”

She turned and stepped away, giving him space. There was more bad than Josh could ever realize. Terrible things she’d done, not even revealed to him in the hotel room today.

Josh pursued her. “You love it, huh? You love that money, you love that power. You love it so much you’ll fuck the guy who gives it to you behind my back.”

“Devlin doesn’t give me power, Josh, he—”

“Right, he just signs your fucking paychecks. Does he leave them on the dresser after he fucks you?”

She spun and showed him the exact face she would show if she’d slapped him as hard as she wanted to right now. “Devlin doesn’t deserve a single thing he has. He’s a mediocre man with too much time and money in his pockets.”

“Don’t forget that big dick you love.”

“Josh,” she said, her mouth slimmed in a disappointed line, “don’t be so juvenile.”

“You were the one who wanted to see it next to mine.”

She jabbed a finger now. “You’re the one who wanted to see that, Josh. That was you. That was for you.”

“Oh thanks so much, Kimmy. It was amazing. I loved it. Humiliation is just the best.”

“Don’t act like it came out of nowhere, Josh. . . . It was more than that, Josh. You don’t even see it yet. It had to be Devlin. It wouldn’t be anybody else. This is about you.”

“You fucked him to do me some unseen favor?”

She turned away again. “I never should have done it. But once it was done the first time, the rest of it I did for you.”

Josh chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, I see now. I see it. You’re fucking crazy, that’s what it is.”

She spun and showed him venom. “Don’t call me crazy.”

“So explain to me, oh sane one, how the fuck your disgusting—disgusting—affair with a man I hate does me any fucking good?”

“You’re acting like you and I never lay in bed and made all kinds of dirty talk about me and Devlin. You’re acting like all this was my thing, my affair, when it was—”

Josh stepped up, his face close to hers, eyes in dazzling but baleful glory. “You took something that was ours—could have been ours—and you made it your own. You made me suffer and told yourself that was the right thing to do because Josh likes to suffer.” His finger went in her face. “But it was you who told me it was okay to suffer. It was you who told me it was part of who I am. You were on Josh’s side when it suited you. You had to convince me I liked it. You worked to convince me just so you could get away with it.”

She pushed his hand away. “No, you like to suffer. I did it because you liked it.”

He challenged her, eyes flashing even brighter. “How did I like it?”

“You responded to it,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t respond to it.”

He put up angry hands, outraged. “That means I deserve it? That means the suffering should be real and not pretend.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You knew it was real.”

He nodded, smug. “Tell yourself that.”

“Tell yourself you didn’t. I’m not the only liar, Josh.”

“You can’t stop lying. Even when I offer you reprieve, when I grace you with my absolution, you still can’t stop lying. Everything you’re saying is pseudo-psych bull shit.”

She said, “You don’t even see it. Your head is so far up your own selfish ass, you can’t see how you deserve any of the blame.”

“No, I can’t. I didn’t fuck your bully.”

“Oh, Mr. Innocent,” she said, putting up her hands in a weak pose, “I’m just a victim, everybody else is so mean to me, even my wife who dared to try to give me things I only dreamed of.”

“More psych bull shit,” he said. “You should listen to yourself.”

Now she got in his face. “You had me and Devlin bickering over your ownership, like you were the hottest girl in school. Don’t you realize that? Don’t you realize what you’re worth? What you mean to me? Do you have any idea what I went through to make your dreams come true?”

“What you went through? And you’re not crazy? Do you—”

“I know what you went through, Josh,” she said with snide disregard. “Just accept that I know it. You can’t stop telling me about it. Bemoaning how hard your life is. You’re moody, you hide away, you sulk, you go all the way to Rome with your back turned to me. Like a coward.”

“A coward?”

“You never stood on your own two feet and told me what you wanted. You’re just a shy hint-machine typing out cryptic tickets, like a fortune cookie factory. I have to read your intentions, surmise what you want, try to make sense of the random lottery numbers you give me.”

“Isn’t it easy to know what I want? . . . Or how about what I don’t want? Like, maybe you don’t fuck Devlin Stone behind my back. God, the night I told you how Devlin got Rumble to punch me in the stomach and steal my jacket—you were fucking him then. Listening to my story and nodding, coo-cooing and smoothing my hair, saying oh my poor Josh, and then like the next day you’re in his fucking Mercedes sucking his magnificent cock.”

“He’s nothing, Josh.” She held her thumb and finger up, a hair apart. “He’s this. He’s not even half the man you are. Not even half. But you walk around wearing his high school words around your neck like a useless fucking albatross. You’re better than that.”

Now she had his attention. He stared, eyes crazed with fire, but paused, held in place like a mosquito in amber, wanting her words to be true, wanting to believe what she said because he liked so. Much how it sounded.

“You’re the only person in the world I give half a fuck about.”

“Why would you want to hurt me, then?”

“Because you’re weak. You’re small and weak when I know you don’t have to be. All you ever had to do was tell me what you wanted. I thought you did.”

“You thought I wanted you to fuck him? This is madness.”

She gripped his lapels and held him in place, Josh looking like he would flee. “You fucking asked me to do it today, and I did it. I did it for you. Why can’t you see what you have? Why do you always pretend you have to be moral? You’re not better than me, so stop acting like it.”

Josh snarled and walked into her, grabbing her wrists and marching her back on her heels and shoving her onto the bed. She went down and bounced. Josh stood above her, hands clenched into fists, huffing through flared nostrils.

She went up on her elbows. “Are you ready now to act like a man?”