Guilliean Pacheco

“Honey, there’s something I have to tell you,” Gavin Matthews said gravely.

Catherine – his wife of fifteen years was at the stove, her back to him. She paused, her hand gripping the wooden spoon stirring their tomato soup dinner on the stove in front of her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, turning the fire down and willing her brain not to run the gamut of the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes when presented with such a loaded question. She placed the spatula on a plastic holder beside the stove.

“Justin and Audrey,” Gavin began.

The Watsons had been their friends since they had moved in across the street five years ago. Justin had been in a car accident before they moved in, a hit and run that paralyzed him from the waist down. It was no secret how much Justin despised the person who put him in that state. In fact, his homicidal threats were a joke shared between the two families.

Because of the accident, the Watsons couldn’t have children, something they had dreamed of since before they married. Justin always looked wistfully at the Matthews’ own 2-year-old son, Brandon. Audrey loved to babysit when the Matthews’ regular sitter was unable to come over. Catherine’s heart broke every time they saw Brandon with them. They had tried adoption, in-vitro, everything. But nothing worked.

“Do you remember my car accident five years ago?”

“Yes, of course. Our insurance went up because of it. Why?”

“I wasn’t entirely honest with you, or the insurance company. It was foggy that night. I-I hit something. Somebody.”

Catherine’s face contorted. “It was you.”

Gavin’s face remained stoic. “I was the one who put Justin in the wheelchair.”

“But I don’t understand!”

“Me either. Every time he mentioned the accident, there was something about it that got to me every time. When he mentioned the fog a couple of months ago, I knew – I just knew – it was me.”

“We’ve been friends with them for years! And you’ve known for months and never told me?”

Her husband nodded. “I know! Jesus Christ Kitty, don’t you think I haven’t agonized over this enough? I’ve known longer than you.”

“Should we tell them?” Catherine asked.

“Oh that’ll be nice,” Gavin said sarcastically. “‘Hi Justin. How are you? Oh yeah, I’m the one who hit you on that foggy night and left you to die.’ That’ll be a real cheery conversation.”

Catherine turned to pick up a sponge and absentmindedly began wiping the counters down. “Justin has to know.”

Suddenly Gavin became angry. “Why? Who’s that going to help? If we tell the Watsons, they’re gonna think our friendship was contrived this whole time. They’re gonna think we’ve been nice to them because we knew how he got into the damn accident in the first place!”

“Shut up!” Catherine snapped. “You could’ve killed him. What would that have been like?”

Gavin ignored that last verbal attack. “Think about it, Kitty. Does Justin have to know? He’s adjusted, gets around fine…”

“And harbors homicidal thoughts he’s not afraid to voice about the person who did that to him!”

Brandon toddled into the kitchen from his makeshift play area in the dining room Catherine had set up for him as she cooked dinner. He puttered over to his father, who scooped him up. Gavin allowed Brandon to tug on his short blond hair.

“I tapped him and I guess he went spinning. I didn’t see. It was icy, foggy, mid-December.”

“Now you’re just trying to justify your negligence? Gavin, grow up.”

“Kitty, you have to promise me that you’re not going to tell the Watsons.”

“No, I can’t. Audrey is my friend, one of my closest friends. I can’t not tell her who nearly murdered her husband.”

“But didn’t,” Gavin pointed out. “He’s still alive.”

“In a much smaller capacity. He’s a half a man, Gav.”

“Would you rather risk losing the Watsons’ friendship over something that happened five years ago? Is it worth it?”

Catherine didn’t say a word, dropped the sponge in the sink, and turned her back. “I have to finish dinner,” she said, nearly inaudibly.

I won third place at the 2002 Modesto Junior College “Celebration of the Humanities” contest with this story.

I think love is real and true when all those cheesy love songs on adult contemporary radio begin to make sense. My name is Francesca Miller. I am the product of an American fighting man and an attractive Italian-American. I’m twenty-four years old. I want to tell you a story about the One.

I first remembered Giovanni Paretti when his little brother Joey and my little brother Anthony met in choir class. The drama teacher at school had decided to do the musical, Picnic. That’s where their friendship grew and I got to know of Joey. Then I put two and two together. I realized that he was related to Giovanni and that Giovanni had been a teacher’s assistant in my sophomore English class. He was a senior at the time.

I did that whole turbulent “I’m stupid, fat, and ugly” teenage crisis during my freshman year. It didn’t take me too long to get over myself and grow up. During my second year in high school, I felt remotely self-assured and confident enough to stand on my own two feet, doing whatever puts a smile on my pretty face. Lucky (as people at school nicknamed him) never really stood out to me; he blended in with the woodwork. I mean that in the nicest way possible, of course. He was attractive, but not something I’d typically pursue. He was one of those clean-cut, friendly, easygoing, helpers of old ladies to cross crowded streets, and feed the homeless type of guy. I’m usually infatuated with a more streetwise kind of guy if you know what I mean.

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She looked at him pointedly. Amidst the fervor of the green room of the Empire Ballroom, he got the hint. Only a few people knew of their love affair – and if the rest of them knew, they played dumb.

They left in their respective tour buses for the budget hotel the record label sprung for them on the tour. As always, she got her own room, being a solo artist. She unceremoniously dumped her Gucci valise and oversized messenger bag near the dresser and waited. It was excruciating. Luckily, the feeling was temporary. A soft knock echoed in her ears, as the blood rushed to her head.

Opening the door, he stood there, an unmistakable and familiar look of lust in his dark brown eyes. She drank him in, electricity crackling through her skin. She looped her left index finger on his black skinny jeans, and walked back into the room, never taking her eyes off of him. He shut the door behind him and allowed her to continue her walk backward.

She sat on the edge of the bed, unzipping his jeans. Their lovemaking was slow, deliberate. She bloomed under his touch as she had so many nights before. He lost himself within her, forgetting who he was, suspending time and space, for just a moment.

They lay in each other’s arms on the covers of the bed, wide awake. He wouldn’t stay the night. It would raise too many suspicions.

He ran a hand over hers, enveloping it, squeezing it gently.

“Where do we stand?” he asked gently.

She looked up at him in surprise, willing her post-sex euphoria to remain high. “Why are you asking me this?” she asked, adjusting her head from its comfortable position on his bare shoulder to stare up at him.

He looked down at her gravely. “I need to know.”

“What the fuck for?”

“Because.”

“Don’t pull that childish shit on me.” She sat up like a rocket to stare at him. “What do you want me to say? I want you to leave Lisa for me? Write me a song instead, asshole.” She took his t-shirt and pulled it over her head as she made her way to the bathroom. She locked herself inside and sat on the edge of the tub to pout. She thought he knew where they stood. It was pretty obvious. It was just fucking. Nothing more.

Sighing he grabbed his boxers, shoving his legs into them, and sat against the cool wooden door. His back was still sweaty from their session together.

“Matilda. Open the door, let’s talk,” he tapped a drumbeat on the door.

“No,” she said haughtily.

“I need my shirt back you know. They’re gonna wonder where it went if I come back shirtless.”

“Just say you lost it in your walk of shame because that’s what I am to you.”

“No, that’s not what I said, and you don’t mean that. You’re more important to me than that,” he said.

“Am I? Am I really? So why the hell would you ask me such a stupid question?”

“Because I feel like what’s going on between is more than just sleeping together.”

“But I don’t want you to leave Lisa. She’s a great girl and I don’t mind sharing you at all,” Matilda replied.

“Why do you have to look at it that way?”

“Don’t tell me you love me, because I love you, but not that much.”

Talking through the door was being childish and ridiculous and she knew it. She unlocked the door and he couldn’t move away fast enough, he tumbled backward and fell at her feet.

“Hi,” he said, squinting from the overhead light.

“Hi back,” she replied, kneeling back down. He adjusted himself so his head was in her lap. “I’m sorry I locked you out. But it’s just sex. You have a good life. I don’t want you to ruin it because of what we’re doing.”

He sighed and looked up at her. “How can you say all that?” he began. “How can you look at it like ‘just sex?’”

She leaned over him to block the light from his eyes. “So it’s okay for a guy to be in control of his sexuality and fuck as many girls without thinking twice, stringing them along, and when a girl stands up for her, it’s not okay? It’s something that needs to be questioned? A double standard if I ever saw it.”

He sighed. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to be so damn analytical all the time.”

“Well, what did you mean?”

“I don’t know now.”

She leaned over and kissed the tip of his nose. “I think I’m beginning to. It’s okay. If you don’t want to see me anymore, that’s fine. I’m not gonna psychoanalyze you, or tell people about us. I went into this knowing I could let you go and not be hurt. Being your little secret is fine with me. I’m really not going to be upset.”

“That’s the thing,” he said, raising himself up to the sitting height to look at her face to face. “I dunno if I could.”

She leaned over to kiss him, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer to her. Her kiss was gentle. “You better go,” she said, pulling away to take his shirt off, “they’re gonna start to wonder.”

He nodded and pulled her towards him to hold her tight as if to say goodbye. She rested her head against his shoulder and held onto him fiercely. They both knew it was goodbye. Touring together on and off for two years made the sexual tension unbearable; six months of sleeping together didn’t make it go away.

The love affair was immortalized in Love Split Mystery’s song “Astral Plane,” one of the last songs recorded for “The Autumn Years” album. It became one of their biggest hits.