Page 69 of Maverick
She laughs, and I feel it vibrate through me.
Her laughter, herjoy, is like an aphrodisiac. Medicinal as it fills me. Fuels me.
I’m taking her to one of the far corners of the property. Next to a wide, still pond, where there are often animals that come down to drink.
It’s good to be cautious here, but I’m not afraid of any of the wildlife. I just have a healthy respect for it. And somehow I know that Stella would feel exactly the same way. I can see the way that she is with animals. With nature, with the land.
It’s one of my core beliefs. One of my core values. That this place and these things matter. Because when I didn’t have a single person in my life I could depend on, I had this land. That’s one reason I didn’t leave. It’s one reason that I wanted to buy a piece of this place when I could. Because it was always something that felt like it could heal me. Even when no one and nothing else could.
Stella seems to share that, even though right now, that’s a wordless assumption. But I can see it in the way she is with the horses. I can see it now in the awe on her face as I stop Jake in front of the pond. I look back at her, and she’s gazing all around. “This is beautiful,” she says.
“Thanks. I thought you would like it.”
“Your ranch is just amazing. Honestly, I’ve never been sure how I would feel living in a landlocked state. But this is just so beautiful. Not that I’m moving here. I just mean…” She shakes her head. “You know what I mean.”
But I worry that maybe I don’t know what she means. Or that she actually did mean what she’s pretending she didn’t. I decide to let it go by, though, because all I want right now is to share this with her. Because I need it. I’m familiar with the need that I feel when we have sex, but the need that has gripped me lately, for more of her, more of the shared moments, that’s something I don’t fully understand. But there’s a time limit on this, so it has to be okay. Okay for me to have this, just for a while. Since before her, I didn’t remember what it was like to enjoy anything.
The only thing I got any joy out of was being an antagonist, and now I’ve remembered that there’s more to me than that.More to being alive. I don’t want to let it go. Not right now. At least not right now.
“I used to come here when I was a kid.”
I dismount from Jake and reach up, lifting her down with me, even though I know she could scramble off a horse by herself much faster.
I like touching her. I like doing things for her.
She stands there while I work at getting the picnic basket and blanket out of my saddlebags.
And I don’t take her hand as I lead us down to the edge of the pond. Though I do think about it.
I spread the blanket out on the ground, and the prickly weeds keep it from lying totally flat. But we sit down anyway.
“To this exact spot?” She asks, looking around.
“Yeah. I used to sneak onto the property. I would wander through the woods and come out here. It just made me feel… Calm. Safe. Which I guess is ironic. But I never felt safe in my house. It always felt like I was waiting for something. For her to overdose and die, or for one of her boyfriends to have some kind of dangerous explosion. Kill all of us. Obviously, that never happened.” I look out across the pond. “She’s still alive. Sometimes I think that’s a tragedy.” I grit my teeth. “That’s a terrible thing to say. I know it. It’s a terrible thing to think. But her life is just so… Bleak.”
The darkest, most complex part of me is bubbling up to the surface, and I’ve never said these words out loud to anybody.
Because people will think I’m a monster. I think I’m a monster.
I continue though, in spite of all that. “It’s kind of shit that she doesn’t care about any of the consequences that she’s had. The fact that I don’t speak to her. It doesn’t seem to matter. That she lives in squalor doesn’t seem to matter to her. She’s alienated everybody around her, and it doesn’t matter to her. Because allshe cares about is getting her fix. And so sometimes… Not as much now, but I used to want her to have an overdose. Not die, necessarily, because if somebody’s dead, then they can’t learn their lesson, but I used to want her to have something that almost took her out. So that the thing she thinks matters most could betray her. So she might hate it as much as I do. Because her just living like this? Her just thinking that this is life, and it’s great as long as she has that meth, that’s the thing I find so difficult.”
I look over at her, and I wait for her to judge me. Because I deserve judgment for that. It’s entirely unempathetic. The kind of callous response that probably makes people entrench even more deeply into addiction.
But it feels safe here. With nothing but the trees, the water, the sky, and Stella to witness it.
But I think it reveals things about me. How dark I am. How twisted I am by the things that I’ve been through.
“I can understand that,” she says softly.
“You can understand it?” I sound incredulous, because I am.
“Yes. It’s a really awful thing to have to go through, and it’s kind of a terrible thing to feel like there’s no justice for the kid that you were.” She shakes her head. “I think we all want that, don’t we? We want life to make sense. We want for life to feel like it’s… Not fair, necessarily, but at some point, shouldn’t there be a lesson learned? You’re right. It’s unsatisfying storytelling. Which I think is the hardest thing about the actual world. So often it’s just unsatisfying.” She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “Like you going through that childhood you had, falling in love, finding somebody, and then losing her. What’s the point of that?”
I open up the picnic basket, because why not? It’s a weird moment to have some cheese, or maybe it makes perfect sense. “Yeah. I’ve thought the same thing more than once.”
“Well, it’s a valid thing to think. That should have been your happy ending.”
I lock my teeth together. “I’m not sure I believe in those. I have to say. Because everything in life is so much more complicated than that.”
