Page 35 of The Sound Of Us

My palms tingle. Something doesn’t feel right.

Axel steps close to the lake. Too close. There’s a smooth rock near the water’s edge. Big enough to stand on if you kept your feet very close together, but even then, it’s not a good idea. The rock doesn’t offer a good grip.

Axel steps on it.

I race out of the house. It takes me less than sixty seconds.

I grab him from behind, my arms gripping him around his waist and pulling him away from the water’s edge.

He turns in my arms and that movement changes everything. He doesn’t just lean into me. He makes himself small, burying his face in my chest. I think he’s drunk.

He’s so hidden inside my body it’s like he wants to get lost in me. My arms come around him, pulling him in closer. And when he shifts, letting our lower bodies press tightly together, I gather him closer still. Pepper sits obediently next to me while Axel shivers inside my body.

I stroke his curls softly, praying to all the gods to help me ignore the way our hips and thighs are connected, and fighting demons to keep an inappropriate erection at bay.

Axel lifts his head after a long time.

I search his face. I don’t know what happened, but I’ve never seen him—or anyone ever in my life—look so sad. He’s not crying. There’s just… nothing… nothing but sadness.

I want to kiss him. I want to pour some of the happiness I’ve experienced throughout my life into him. My eyes linger on his mouth. He follows my gaze, parting his lips. My head drops and I swear to all the gods, for one fraction of a second, he tilts his chin upward. I can almost taste him.

Axel drops his head, ending whatever could have been between us. He takes a step back and the cold air separates us like mountains.

And then he turns and walks away. Pepper hesitates, but eventually, she too walks away.

It may look like Axel has ended something, but it feels like he’s started something and if he’ll let me, I’ll be the home-wrecker.

I’ll be the bad guy as long as I can take away all this sadness he keeps inside him.

Fuck Frank.

Chapter 18

Axel

One time, when I was twenty-six, I didn’t shower for a week. Frank gave me money for a haircut, since my hair had reached my shoulders, and I spent the money on books.

My birthday was on a weekend that year and Frank had invited some of his friends over for a get-together to celebrate. It was a little strange to have a birthday party without a cake or a gift. Or a happy birthday wish, for that matter.

All night long, Frank and his friends drank and smoked and talked about all the reasons Frank had married me: I was cute. And pretty. And sweet.

Frank seemed okay about having his friends drone on and on about it, so I accepted their compliments, smiled and laughed with them even.

And then when they were all gone, Frank rearranged my face because you like them ogling you, don’t you, Axel?

That was the thing with Frank. When we were with friends or in public, the very things I was beaten for were the things he praised me for in public.

So, after that birthday weekend, I did everything I could to become as unattractive as possible. It was nasty but also liberating in a way, not taking a shower for a whole week. Looking in the mirror every morning and admiring my stress-induced breakouts. My chapped lips and the peel of my skin from my recent sunburn.

I wanted Frank to look at me and regret the day he ever met me. I wanted him to lose. He wanted a husband he could show off to people, and I didn’t want him to have that. I didn’t want Frank to have all the things that led him to me. I didn’t want to be pretty for him. Didn’t want to be sweet. Or cute. I wanted to be the opposite of everything he thought he deserved to have from me.

I wanted to be all the things he accused me of being behind closed doors and none of the things he praised me for in public.

I wanted to be all the nothingness he accused me of being. All the uselessness. If I was ugly, then I wanted to be the ugliest one of all. If I was worthless, I wanted to be as worthless as they come.

I wanted to embrace this nightmare. Become its loyal companion, so I wouldn’t have to be this powerless bystander, watching my life disintegrate before my eyes.

Sometimes, I think about if the cancer came back. I wouldn’t tell Frank. I spitefully didn’t want him to be treated like a grieving spouse while I lived out my last days in some hospice. Because he’d love that. He’d love the attention.

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