Page 115 of Made for You

“What could possibly be wrong with it?” I challenge, moving back toward him. I lift a fist and bring it down on the metal table, as hard as I can. Andy swears as we both survey the deep indent I just made.

“Something is wrong with you, Andy. Not me. You murdered my husband. All I’m asking is for you to man up and admit it.”

“I never laid a hand on your husband. If you’d killed him, then from a certain perspective, sure, yes, I killed Josh. And he fucking deserved it.” His words are jumbled, like he’s finally realizing that excuses and lies won’t save him but is determined to scramble on anyway. “But you didn’t, and I didn’t, so please, Julia, it’s time to put our heads together and find the real culprit.”

I’m stalking Andy as he retreats down the length of the table.

“Maybe what’s wrong with me is that for the first time in my life, things are actually right,” I say. “Maybe you put the wrong in, and I weeded it out.” I lift my knuckles. The blood is drying. Underneath, the broken skin has knit itself back together. It feels natural, evident, like of course this is how my skin is supposed to work.

Andy looks at my cuts and I watch realization dawn.

I feel my mouth stretch. It’s not quite a smile. But there’s pleasure. “What? Are you afraid of me, now that I’m strong? Now that you can’t control me?”

“You need to be reset,” says Andy, readjusting his grip on the wrench. He’s finally realizing that maybe I could hurt him.

“I think we’re beyond this dynamic where you tell me what I need or what I was made for.”

“Let me help you! Please, Julia!”

“I think we both know I’m beyond your help.”

Now I smile.

THEN

“Eden. Oh, Eden—” I gasp into the phone. I’m sitting on the couch, my knees together, my spine straight, with Josh’s dead body at my feet. My throat feels raw. She’s the only one I could think to call. The only one who knows how Josh treated me. The one person in this entire world who might—might—be on my side right now.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“It’s Josh. I... I hit back.”

“Do not move, Julia,” says Eden with a new authority in her voice. “You haven’t called 9-1-1, have you?”

“No, I... No.”

“Don’t.”

“Okay.”

The fever in my head makes it hard to think. All the beautiful scenes from The Proposal that I’ve been crowding my brain with over the past weeks are rushing in. Kissing Josh in the hot tub. Blurting I love you at Vasquez Rocks Park. Him, kneeling to place a diamond on my finger as the mountains of Jamaica rose around us like glorious witnesses. And now it’s come to this. Josh dead on the living room floor.

“I’m coming over,” says Eden. “Hang tight.”

“Okay,” I say.

There’s a knock. That was fast... Maybe she ran. Or maybe time is landsliding away from me, along with my life. With the phone still pressed to my ear, I unlock the front door.

A tall, white-haired, wide-shouldered man stares down at me. His name catches in my throat.

“Bob,” I expel like a cough.

“Julia?” I hear Eden’s voice say through the phone, but my hand falls to my side with the phone in it. Bob touches my shoulders, moving me like I’m a piece of furniture, and somehow I’ve let him inside my house. It’s not even worth saying stop or wait.

I follow Bob into the living room. Josh doesn’t look dead yet, if you stand where you can’t see the gash in the side of his head. Just stunned. I’m stunned, too, I want to tell him.

My eyes wander up to the curtains on the other side of the room. Mostly closed. But not quite. Bob was watching.

“I didn’t mean to,” I say, half to Bob, half to myself, holding the back of my hand to my mouth.