The Marbury Lens (20 page)

We went dancing at a club after dinner, and by the time we got back into the hotel room, at two in the morning, we were all sweating and tired.

Nickie held my hand on the way home. We’d walked along the promenade and she rested her head on my shoulder and quietly asked me to tell her what was scaring me—why I was still afraid.

Well, it’s like this, Nickie. He did something to my brain, and now I’m fucked up.

And I tried not to be ashamed, was glad for the quiet and the darkness, and I told her everything I could remember about those days up until I’d made it back to Conner’s house. I even told her about how I believed I’d deserved it, and I’d even tried hurting myself afterwards, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about how Freddie died.

Jack killed Freddie Horvath.

It wasn’t about me, it was about Conner. I didn’t need to drag him into this. Everything Conner had ever done, it seemed, he’d done for me; so the least I could do was just shut up about my best friend.

Nickie stopped walking. She sighed. The night was cool and I could just faintly hear the break of waves on the beach.

“What if I’m not the help you need?” she asked.

“It’s not about that, Nickie.”

“What happens if nobody can help you?”

She sounded frightened.

So I lied to her. “I’ll get better.”

Conner and Rachel were ahead of us. He stood, smiling, leaning against the open door of the hotel room as Nickie and I kissed one last time in the hallway.

And then everything kind of crashed into Jack all at once.

It was easy enough for me to keep my mind off things as long as we were out in the music and diversions of Blackpool, but as soon as the door shut us inside that quiet room, Jack felt panic setting in. I was scared about undressing in front of the girls, and that maybe I was driving Nickie away from me and there was nothing I could do about it. I knew Conner expected me to give the glasses to him. I worried, too, if Seth was going to start making noises. And I tried, unsuccessfully, to shut out those images that flashed from the other side of the Marbury lens: Griffin running in fear, crying for my help, and seeing Freddie Horvath was there, like he was waiting for me, hunting.

The distance, the gap, between here and there was narrowing into nothing.

Frustrated, I didn’t say anything. I pulled a blanket and pillow from the “boys’ bed” and threw them on the floor beneath the window.

“You can have the bed, Con. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Shaking, terrified, keeping my eyes down like the act somehow made me invisible, I stripped down to my underwear as quickly as I could, before Conner even had a chance to say anything; then I wound myself up in my covers.

“Are you sure, Jack?”

“No worries, dude. I’m so tired, I could sleep in the tub again.”

I shouldn’t have said that.

I tried to pretend that I wasn’t watching her, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off Nickie as she slid her long slender legs out of her jeans and lifted her sweater over her head, standing there, right above me, wearing only a bra and panties.

Conner was completely unfazed by it, and casually tossed his clothes down onto the floor before swinging his legs up onto the bed. “Remember what we talked about, Jack. We can take care of it in the morning. Right?”

Of course I knew what he meant.

The glasses.

“Yeah. We will. Good night, Con. Good night, everyone. I had a great time tonight.”

“Me too,” Rachel said. “I especially liked your stories, Jack.”

“Yes. You are beautiful.” Nickie dropped down onto her knees beside me and told me good night. She put her mouth to mine, and it was the first time that Jack’s tongue had ever tasted a girl’s. And I knew that if she’d kissed me for about one second more that I would have completely lost control.

She flicked out the lights, but I silently watched the paleness of her legs, and Rachel’s, too, as they climbed up into their bed. My heart was pounding so hard. Jack had never felt like this about another person. It was frightening. It was exciting.

I heard Conner’s heavy breathing. He fell asleep as soon as the lights went out.

But as tired as I was, I still couldn’t sleep. It was impossible for me to slow my mind down for one second from its back-and-forth bouncing: from Nickie to Conner to those goddamned glasses. And I wanted to get up from the floor so bad, so I could just dig them out of my pack and go back to Marbury, but I couldn’t do that to Conner, I decided. Or, maybe it was just that I was a coward, and knew he’d only find out and get pissed off at me again.

I rolled onto my side and stared out the window.

Fuck you, Jack.

Then I heard something moving, and thought,
Okay, it’s going to happen again.

Nickie.

She lifted the cover of my blanket up and slid her body along the floor and into my little bed.

I thought my heart would come out through my throat when she put her arm around me and pressed her warm lips against the back of my neck.

“Nickie,” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. Her hand rubbed my body. Down, she tracked along my belly and to my side.

I shook. “Nickie. I can’t do this. I don’t…know anything…”

Her hand tracked a circle over my heart, and as she pressed against me, I realized that she wasn’t wearing anything. I could feel the points of her nipples rubbing against my back. She squeezed into me. I felt myself letting go, shaking everywhere, like there was an itch on every thrumming nerve ending in my body. But it felt so good. She hugged me tightly, her tongue lightly tasting my neck.

I never imagined this.

I couldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“I never did anything like this,” I whispered. It didn’t sound like me. I was scared.

“I know.” Her voice, just a warm breath in my ear.

Her hand slid across my belly again, fingers suddenly lifting up the waistband of my briefs, her warm hand slipping inside them and following the curve of my hip forward. And almost as soon as she grabbed me, Jack gave up trying to hold himself in; and everything, rushing, pouring out of me, so it felt like I was turning inside out, everywhere, inside my underwear, spilling all over Nickie’s hand.

“Oh God, Nickie,” I breathed. I was terrified and so embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhhh…,” she said, and kissed my ear, her fingertips smearing a trail of stickiness up over my belly.

I rolled onto my back and Nickie put her shoulder in my armpit so her hair fanned out over my chest. I was horrified at the mess I’d made all over us, in this bed on the floor, felt like someone had poured a quart of motor oil inside my boxer briefs, that were now drenched and plastered down to my skin. Nickie kissed me so softly.

I wished I could stay there forever.

In the dim light that fell on us through the uncovered window, Nickie and I made love two more times that night.

And finally, Jack slept.

We woke just before noon.

Conner and Rachel had somehow ended up together in the “boys’ bed.”

So much for that assignation, I thought.

Nickie and I lay together, facing out at the gray sky on the other side of the window, twisted up in the one blanket I’d taken down onto the floor with me. I replayed in my mind what had happened to us there on the floor, felt embarrassed and foolish.

You’re just like fucking Mike Heath, aren’t you, Jack?

Like father, like son, asshole.

And Jack already felt the urgency, shaking, wondering if there was some way I could slip my hand inside my pack and just take the smallest peek through the glasses, just so I could see if Griffin was going to be okay, if Freddie Horvath really was there like I’d seen him in the bathroom before dinner.

I needed to.

And, in that need, I swear I heard something small rolling along the floor under the bed where Conner and Rachel lay together.

Something was wrong inside me. I felt sick, but in a way that scared me. It was getting worse.

Conner was the first of us alert enough to notice what had gone on in the room. He crawled over and looked down from the foot of the bed, and when he saw me and Nickie lying together, his face lit up and he said, “Holy shit! Do
not
fucking move!”

Then he jumped from the bed, pulled my cell phone out of its charger, opened it up, and, straddling the two of us with his long, hairy legs, began snapping pictures, announcing, “Jesus Christ! I am so proud of my Jack!”

I hid our faces behind the blanket, and Conner snapped one last picture of my extended middle finger, while, under the covers, Nickie kissed me and said, “Good morning.”

“Well, now that we’ve got all this sorted out, I guess nobody’s going to sleep on the floor tonight,” Conner said.

Nickie peeked her head out, looked over at Rachel. “We’ve got to take Rachel back home to Harrogate today,” she said. “Then, it’s down to London for me, sorry to say.”

Then Conner exhaled a deflated sigh and sat down on the bed. I grimaced and pulled my underwear on. Nickie wrapped our blanket under her arms, dragging the end along the floor as she made her way into the bathroom. I heard the shower running.

She called back, “Rachel, could you bring my things here, please?”

Rachel got out of bed. She wore Conner’s T-shirt, and it hung down to the middle of her thighs.

“Good morning, Jack.” She smiled at us, grabbed Nickie’s bag, and shut the door to the bathroom behind her. We could hear them talking and laughing in there. I sat on the floor, my knees bent, still dizzy from the night before.

“Dude,” Conner said, beaming. “You actually, finally, totally
did it
.”

He slapped my palm and I said, “Three times.”

I felt myself turning red.

“God damn.” Conner shook his head. “Me and Rachel only slept. That’s it. We just fucking slept next to each other. How can that be? It’s like I’ve reclaimed my virginity with one of the hottest girls on the planet. And now, she has to go home.”

I smiled at him and shrugged my shoulders. “You want some pointers or something?”

“Shit.” Conner collapsed backwards on the bed, moaning, his forearm across his eyes. “Three times? I must be sick.”

I slapped his knee.

“Run on the beach while the girls get ready?” I asked.

And I wondered if he realized that I was just trying to distract him.

Conner grunted and pushed himself up. “Okay.”

Once we’d gotten into our shorts, I sat beside him at the foot of the bed and we laced up our shoes. And even though I almost had convinced myself that we were going to avoid it, I also knew Conner. He never forgot things once he’d set his mind on them.

I felt like a thief, and I was trying to come up with some way of stealing from myself.

So my stomach knotted up when he cleared his throat and looked at me with a stern expression and said, “Okay. Let’s take care of that shit now, Jack. Give me the glasses. I’m throwing them in the sea, dude.”

Fuck you, Jack.

I rested my elbows on my knees, looked back once in the direction of the bathroom. The water was still running. The girls were in there, talking, laughing.

“I don’t want you to do that yet, Con.”

“Dude, you’re going to fuck up your head. Your life.”

Freddie Horvath.

Did something.

“You don’t understand. Don’t get sucked into it, Con. It’s not what you think. You have to trust me. Leave it alone. Please.”

Conner sighed. He pushed himself up from the bed and stood in front of the window, looking out at the flat of the beach.

“Fuck it,” he said. Then he started emptying out the stuff from my pack. “You promised, Jack. You swore to me.”

“Quit it, Conner.”

Quit it, Jack.

Everything came out. He dropped it in a heap on the floor between us. I didn’t know what to do: Here I was, watching my best friend as he tried to fuck with my life. I stood, thought about pushing him off my stuff when his hand came up, squeezing a balled-up pair of my underwear. And I could see the braided gold frames of the Marbury glasses that I’d twisted up inside of them.

I pleaded, “Conner, don’t.”

He’s becoming my enemy here, too.

He’s trying to kill me.

I tried grabbing his hand, and as I did, he pushed me away. It felt like a punch. I fell onto the bed and the glasses tumbled from Conner’s grasp. And as they fell, spinning in the air, I saw flashes of Marbury through them. The other side, shooting blazing white pictures at my eyes like spotlights in the night. Conner had to see it, too: Griffin running; me, chasing something through the woods. I could even hear the sounds of the brush snapping against my skin while I ran wildly, shouting, “Griffin! Griffin!”

And we saw Freddie Horvath there, too.

“Fuck that shit!” Conner kicked the glasses under the bed. “Don’t look at that shit, Jack!”

I rolled over onto my stomach, tried reaching under the bed.

Just like you’re back in bed at Freddie’s house, isn’t it, Jack?

All tucked in, Jack.

Conner slid beneath me, lying on his belly, his arm extended, sweeping across the floor.

“What are you two doing?” Rachel, smiling, had come out from the bathroom. “Are you wrestling?”

I tried grabbing at Conner’s hair.

I wanted to fucking kill him.

I was mad enough to scream.

He straightened up onto his knees, gave Rachel an embarrassed grin, and said, “Nothing. Dropped something.”

Then I saw him slip the glasses inside the brief liner in his running shorts.

He looked at me. There was almost a smile, a challenge, in his eyes, like he was saying,
Now what are you going to do, Jack? I won, it’s over. Give up.

You’re dead.

Then he spun around, gave Rachel a kiss, and said, “We’re going out for a quick run. We’ll be back in twenty minutes, tops.”

I chased after Conner as he pushed his way out the door.

He ran fast.