Drown #10: the mouse, part 5

January 2086. Stephanie Nova is 26, Justin Kim is 25, Cynthia Kim is 48, Willow is 4, Lily is 3. Jeremiah Day is 29.

* sensitive content advisory for Drown #10: the mouse, parts 3, 4, & 5

But she told Justin about the messages. She asked him to read every single one. Because she wasn’t weak or stupid, and she did believe that he loved her. Because he promised her, before they were lovers, that nothing could ever change them. He was her best friend first and nothing would ever change that.


"So tell me the truth and I'll believe it," she said. "Tell me anything and I'll believe it because you were the little boy who used to bring me two birthday presents because my birthday was nine days before Christmas and you didn't want me to be sad."

When she looked at Justin, she still saw that little boy and she saw the man he was now, too. She thought of that and wondered if maybe it was him who loved her first in that gentle and unassuming way he always had, long before either of them knew what to call it.

"Loving Keri doesn’t make you a backup plan," he said. "Even if there was a time when I'd wanted it to work out with Keri, it still doesn’t make you a backup plan. It makes you the better plan that I just couldn’t figure out yet. It never could have worked with Keri, no matter how hard we tried. She doesn't fit me like you do. Sometimes people just want what isn’t good for them, even if what’s perfect for them is right under their nose. People are dumb. Especially college guys."

"You were never dumb," she said. "You're the wisest person I know."

"Nobody gets to decide for us how our lives were going to happen," he said. "So you go first. What do you think would have happened?"

"Keri would have pissed you off one too many times."

"Of course, she would. And I never would have proposed to her because Jeremiah wouldn’t have been there to put the idea in my head. You would have dated someone else. Anyone else. Not Jeremiah."

"Who?"

"Maybe a guy named Rufus. He had stale breath and pulled his pants up too high, and when nobody was talking to him he would sit around with his mouth open and a little bit of drool, like this." Justin made a drooly face.

"Eeew!"


"But otherwise Rufus was a pretty nice guy," Justin said. "He wouldn’t be mean to you. That's the important thing."

"Do you think I couldn't do better than a drooly boyfriend?"

"No, I know you could. But then you might not have wanted to break up with him for me in the end, remember?"

"I would always break up with him for you," Stephanie said. "Okay. So I only dated him because I was lonely, but I made him brush his teeth."

"He can brush his teeth if you want. So then I’d want to hang out with you every time Keri pissed me off."

"But you’d have to hang out with Rufus, too."

"That’s alright, because he’d be kind of boring. He wouldn’t want to do anything fun and he’d just end up going home. So we’d ditch your drooly boyfriend and go have a dance party on the beach in front of a bonfire."

"Oh, that sounds nice. And it would be okay because Rufus didn’t like dance parties or bonfires. And then what would happen?"

"The same thing that did, maybe," Justin said. "I’d look at you in front of the bonfire like I looked at you in front of the Christmas tree on your birthday, and I’d think, 'Damn, I sure did it wrong.'"

"I remember that night. Is that what you were thinking?"

"Yeah, and that you were pretty and I wanted to kiss you. Except this time I wouldn’t be married. And you wouldn’t be married."

"But then we wouldn’t have Lily and we wouldn’t have Willow."

"That would be sad," he said. 

They were both quiet for a moment, thinking about how lacking their easier life would have been. 

"I like the way it really happened better," she said. "Even if it’s hard."

"Me too," he said. "You have to believe in it, Steph. If you don't believe in it, he’ll eat you alive."

"I do believe in it," she said. "I do."

—

She needed to believe it in her heart because Jeremiah did find her. It was only a matter of time. He said that she wouldn't even see it coming, but she did see it coming. She imagined him, driving every street in Lakeside Heights until he found her car parked in one of the driveways. Would he drive every street in the state? Would he drive every street in the world?

"Did you really think I wouldn’t find you? Don’t be naive, Stephanie, I could find you anywhere."

His bangs thundered through the door and front windows, rattling the glass ornaments and picture frames that hung on the walls.

Willow tipped up on her toes and peeked through the windowpanes on the door, looking confused and disappointed. "Is that my daddy?"

No, Stephanie thought first. But she didn’t say that because she didn’t want to lie. What she meant was, Yes, he’s your father, but I don’t want you to see him like this. But what if "like this" was just how he was. Stephanie didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t know how to tell Willow the truth, either.


Jeremiah still shouted at her. "You need to come to South Carolina with me. I don’t want to only see my family two weekends a month. That’s not what I want. That's not what we're doing."

He banged on the door.

"He’s scaring the girls," Stephanie said. "Willow, can you take Lily upstairs and lock the door?"

"But I'm not allowed to lock doors."

"Today, you're allowed."

"I'll go upstairs with them," Cynthia said. "Don’t open the door, Stephanie. Whatever he says, whatever he does. Let him pound it in, even if it starts to break, just don’t open it. I’m dialing the police. Keep him talking, keep him calm. I’m dialing the police, then I’ll call Justin and Robert, too."


"Don't leave me," Stephanie said.

"I'm not leaving. I'll just be right at the top of the stairs. You'll be able to see me, but he won't. He needs to think you're listening to him. Keep him talking. You can do this."


Cynthia took the girls upstairs and Stephanie was alone with him, behind glass.

"You have to come to South Carolina with me. Open the door. We need to talk about this."


She took a deep breath and faced the door. "Then talk. We are talking."

"You owe me a chance," he said.

"A chance to do what?"

"To convince you to stay with me."

She gulped hard and didn't answer him.


"Stephanie, I’m almost thirty years old. I lost so much time to that war, it wasn’t fair. If that war hadn’t happened, we would have had another baby by now. I want another baby. I want you to come to South Carolina and for us to be a family again."

She backed up against the door, but she didn't want to look him in the face.

Being nearer to him seemed to calm him. Or maybe it made him think he was winning her over. "I saw that you left your birth control pills at the house a few weeks ago," he said. "You didn't have them for days."


"You would have had another baby with me if the war hadn’t happened," he said. "Maybe two more. You would still love me. We’d have another baby and we’d be happy."

She hugged her fertile belly and wanted to throw up. What would he do to her and this baby if he knew?

"I need you, Stephanie. You were good for me. You calmed me down. I was a better man when you loved me, don't you remember? I didn’t mean those things I said."

"You don’t have to take it back," she said. "You can think what you want."

"But I don’t think that, I was just mad."


He banged again, weaker this time, three dull thuds. "I can’t breathe out here. If you don’t let me in, I’ll pass out. You're killing me, Stephanie. I know you always wished I would have died out there."

"You don't get to decide what I wanted," she said. 

"Do you want to watch me die? The father of your child? Would you be scared if I suffocated right here? You don't want me to die. Let me in."


When she closed her eyes and tried to tune out his voice, it was Keri’s voice she heard instead, Quit being such a goddamn mouse!

That was when she realized that he wasn't breaking the windows. All of that glass, so fragile, so penetrable, and he wasn't breaking it. He was bluffing.

If he really wanted to get to her, if he wanted to get in this house, he could do it. If he really wanted to push that door in, he could do it. He could break through the glass and unlock the door. He could walk in and pick her up and drag her away. If he wanted that, he could do it.

But what he wanted was to scare her into letting him in and she wouldn't let that happen this time. She was no mouse, this time. The mouse was dead.


She slid her back down the door and folded herself up in front of it. Her breaths were calm and she wasn't afraid anymore. "You better go then," she said. "I’m not letting you in here. Get back in your car and go. Go to South Carolina. Go to the ocean. You can start over. You’ll be happy there."

"You wouldn’t be scared if I died, would you? If I died in the war, if I exploded in space, you wouldn’t have cared at all. You always lied to me."

He made her a liar. Maybe she wouldn't care if he died right here, just inches behind her back. Maybe she wouldn't care very much at all.

"If I die here, it’ll be your fault," he said.

"No, it won’t. Because you can just turn around and get into your car. You should do it."

"You’ll be responsible for my death. You'll kill the father of your child. What kind of a monster are you?"

"Goodbye, Jeremiah."


Stephanie heard a slump, then a shuffle. That was it then? Had she killed him? First she broke him and then she killed him and now it was over.

"For the record," she whispered, "I never wanted you to die. I just wanted you to go far far away. You could have gone to the ocean. You could have been happy there."

But then she heard the sound of tires on the driveway, car doors, footsteps, voices, several of them.

"Don't move, keep your hands where we can see them…"

She heard more sounds, the hiss of an oxygen mask, the clatter of handcuffs, the scuffle as they dragged him to the car.

Stephanie didn't kill Jeremiah that day. She knew he wouldn't let it be over that easily.

—

—

footnotes: Keri is the voice of reason? // the night Justin knew he did it wrong

notes: ^ but look at Blair on his first day as a police officer, his first duty on the job is booking Jeremiah, lol! Isn't he cute in his uniform?