Page 40 of Plunge

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Thistle

FLETCHER PUTS HIS hand on my arm and I don’t know why I let him guide me down the steps and around the corner into a little restaurant. He signals for the server and has a shot of whiskey in my hand before I can even start yelling at him.

“No,” I tell him. I didn’t like listening to that guy talk about our chemistry when I’ve been fighting so hard to stop noticing it myself.

“Just drink the liquor, Thistle,” he says, slamming his down and waving for another.

I sit back against the booth and cross my arms tightly over my chest. How the hell did I even get here today. “Fletcher, my life is falling apart. Again.”

He reaches under the table and squeezes my thigh, and I slap his hand out of the way.

“I’m sick of your dick controlling my life,” I snap.

And I’m immediately filled with regret.

He swallows slowly, a look of deep pain transforming his dark eyes. Gone is the joking guy with the winks and the teasing.

I see before me a broken man, slumped with…is it grief? I don’t know what all he’s feeling, but I know it’s my fault.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Thistle. I still can’t believe it.”

I reach for the whiskey. “I was a teenager, Fletcher. I was pregnant. Pregnant teenagers go to their mothers first. Get over yourself.”

“Get over myself? You made decisions about a baby I made without even fucking telling me. Like keeping me in the dark about it would make it all fine!”

“It was fine for you,” I shriek. “It was always going to be fine for you. You were going to California to run. What was I going to do? I was always going to Oak Creek College. You wanted me to feel like I kept you from your scholarship? Why can’t you be happy I tried to spare you?”

We glare at each other for awhile, taking turns pouring the shots and slogging them down. I breathe through my nose while I wait for the whiskey to settle in my belly, warm like the heat of my shame.

“Spare me?” He asks eventually. “What am I, a kid? Spare me what, Thistle?”

I think back to how I felt when I took that pregnancy test after puking every time I tried to eat anything. I remember how I could feel each hair on my body standing up, how I could practically smell my fear seeping out of my skin. “Why would I want you to feel all of that, Fletcher? I loved you.”

“You think I only loved you when it felt good,” he says. He shakes his head, pours another drink. “I loved every bit of you, Thistle.”

His eyes flash with old pain and he says, “You know how it was killing me to leave you and move across the country for school. Jesus, the idea of breaking up with you was bad enough. But to learn that you were keeping me in the dark like that? Fuck, Thistle.”

“Well excuse me if I made a mistake,” I snap, realizing how juvenile I sound. I take a deep breath. “I know I made a mistake.” I feel a tear leak out of one of my eyes but I can’t be bothered to brush it away.

“My family doesn’t talk about hard shit,” I tell him. “My father literally walks out of the room once he’s said his piece. That’s the relationship I grew up observing. It’s been a nightmare dealing with that now that I’m back in their house.”

Tears are flowing freely now. “It’s like I’m looking at my whole damn life with new eyes and I hate every bit of it, Fletcher. I hate what I did to you. I hate how I’ve isolated myself from most humans and I hate how much I resent helping my mother through this fucking stroke.”

Other patrons look over as I yell this last bit and Fletcher sits forward and places a hand on my forearm. It feels good and I don’t know if it’s the whiskey or if I’m actually less mad at him, but I don’t brush his hand away.

“Thistle,” he says. “All my family ever does is talk about their feelings and analyze various hypotheses.” He closes his eyes. “That gets exhausting, too.”

“I’m so sorry, Fletcher,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t take the test with you and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you to make the decision together. But I’m not sorry I lost the baby.”

I’ve never said that out loud, and it feels like I’ve both lifted a chain from around my waist, and revealed myself to be a monster.

He smiles and pulls my hands into his. “I know that baby wasn’t meant to be,” he says. “I know that.”

Fletcher and I eat in silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s just…charged.

I actually feel lighter today than I have in a long time, like I’ve been walking around with the weight of something that happened in high school and now I don’t have to carry that anymore.

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