Page 36 of Choke

I stop mid-chew when I register the look on her face—concern, lines forming between her brows as she stares. Assuming I’ve made a mess of myself, I wipe my hand across my lips and chin.

Her warm eyes shift to meet mine, the worry still present. Tucking a lock of her thick brown hair behind her ear, she leans toward me.

“We’ll talk about that after the kids are in bed.” She signals with her fork at my neck/chest area.

It takes a few seconds to realize she’s not talking about food on my face but about the bruises on my neck—from Adrian’s grip. I reach up, running my fingers over the area on my neck that I know she sees, the area left a light purple from the strength of his grip. Instantly, I feel the tenderness there. I choke down the food I’d been chewing. My mouth feels full of ash, and my stomach is full of rocks. I cough before I canreply, looking around the table for water. Instead, she slides a wine glass toward me and fills it nearly to the brim.

“This doesn’t feel like a water conversation,” She says, a small smile returning.

The rest of the dinner is quiet. Her kids tell me about the sports they’re playing and who’s who at school, and Enzo teases Luke about his new girlfriend. I resist asking Luke what happens with a girlfriend when you’re in the fifth grade and turn to Lola instead.

She is all business when she says, “I’m going to be a boy when I grow up. Just like my brothers.” She pulls a baseball cap out from under the table, puts it on backward, and crosses her arms high on her chest.

Luke laughs and loudly whispers, “She tried to pee standing up yesterday. Ask mom how it went.”

I am shaking with laughter when I look at Lane, whose face is fixed into a straight line. She moves her hands in an outward circle and mouths the word everywhere. The table dissolves into laughter, save for Lola, who screams that it’s not fair that her brother can stand to pee and she can’t.

The kids are in bed an hour later, and the house falls quiet. Lane emerges with the bottle of wine and tops off my glass before sitting beside me on the couch. I swallow a healthy mouthful, hoping to ease the edge of telling her about the altercation with Adrian.

She’s silent as she reaches for me, tilting my chin to the side to inspect my neck.

Sighing, she says, “You can tell me anything, you know?”

I smile slightly before replying, “It’s not what you think.”

She drops her hand to her lap, offering a humorless laugh.

“Oh, excellent. Because I was thinking some man dared to put his hands on you hard enough to leave you black and blue.”

Adrian is deranged, but… I don’t want her to worry—which is weird, right?

“Well, okay. It is exactly what you think, but—” She cuts me off before I finish.

“But you gave him permission to get rough?”

Biting my bottom lip, I can’t even respond.

“Okay, so he did this without permission? Did you know him?”

I am overcome by the desire to defend the situation. I am not entirely sure if it is for Lane’s peace of mind or to protect the violent, out-of-control man who accosted me at work. I drink down the rest of my wine.

“I know him. I’ve known him for a few years, kind of. We reconnected a few weeks ago?” The question at the end has her eyebrow quirking upward.

“Why do you sound so unsure of that?”

I explain the situation at the highest level. We’ve been friends for a long time, but I never told her about the night I met Adrian or saw him at the restaurant. Now, she is learning about him while also getting an up-close-and-personal view of his handy work.

“Babe,” she starts, pausing for a second. “From an outsider’s perspective, this sounds incredibly problematic.”

I scoff, the sound dripping with disdain.

“Problematic. I think if you looked up ‘psychopath’ in the dictionary, you’d find this guy’s photo next to Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez.”

Okay, maybe comparing him to serial killing rapists is a little dramatic.

She leans her head back against the couch, eyes searching for something to say about this mess of a situation. When she sits back up, she’s smirking a little.

“This is why you wanted to visit, isn’t it?”

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