Push

chapter Thirty-Four

Lucia

I am standing on this bridge listening to David’s fists smack against Robbie’s body. It isn’t even a fair fight. David is beyond pissed off, and he is beating the living daylights out of Robbie. I want to run away. But if I do, Robbie will never forgive me, and David will hunt me down. Robbie is on the ground now, and David is straddling him, punching his face over and over. It is a mashed-up, bloody mess. I hear Robbie’s breath gurgling and watch his hands move up to try to block David’s fists. My own hands are on David’s backpack, trying desperately to pull him away. I am screaming for him to cut it the f*ck out, but it’s fruitless because he’s far stronger than I am. This is the first time I have ever seen David lose control.
David found out about me and Robbie yesterday evening. I was supposed to meet David at his apartment before my photography class, but Robbie stopped me on my way up the stairs and invited me to come to his place first. He lives two floors below David.
The trouble is that sex with Robbie is hard to resist. I’ve been f*cking him for months now—for nearly as long as I have been seeing David. Robbie doesn’t want a relationship; he just wants to screw. But David, he wants more than sex. I think he wants love. I’ve tried to tell him that love is never going to come from me because I’m not interested in all the bullshit that goes with it. David never seems to hear me when I tell him that love is for pussies.
Robbie and I were in his living room. He had me bent over the back of his couch when David opened the door. I must have been too loud. The look on David’s face was pretty damned crazy. I thought for a second that he was going to come in and beat us both to a bloody pulp right then and there. But instead, he shut the door and walked out of the building. It was a display of godlike self-control, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, even from him. When Robbie finished, we both went over to the window and saw that David’s car was gone. We knew that we were going to suffer for David’s humiliation. I just never thought Robbie would suffer quite like this.
David and I met six months ago at one of my photography shows. He was building a display unit for someone who was exhibiting in the same gallery. My work is a bit unconventional, and I guess that’s what inspired David to approach me that day. I was securing one of the frames to the wall when he asked me what type of weapon was in the picture. I knew from his question that he didn’t know jack about guns. Who doesn’t recognize a Colt Python .357 Magnum when they see one? He asked me if it was a .38 Special, and I nearly laughed at him. We spent the rest of the evening looking at my pictures and talking about the guns and how I staged the shots. David said his favorite was the image of my antique blunderbuss pistol resting in a pile of colorful smart phones.
When the show was finally set-up, David took me out for coffee, and I told him about how my entire childhood revolved around my father and his gun collection. My mother left us soon after I was born, and when I was nineteen, my father died because a semiautomatic rifle slam fired as his friend was loading the chamber and my dad was setting the target. It never should have happened. And now I have all of my father’s guns but not my father. He raised me to be respectful of his weapons and to appreciate their beauty. When I decided to become a photographer, I knew exactly what my subject would be.
From the day we met, David was flirtatious and funny. When I wasn’t talking about my work, we were swapping stories about past jobs and our childhoods. David was the one who introduced me to Robbie a week or so after we met. Robbie likes guns, too, and David brought him to the show to see my work. Two weeks later, Robbie and I shared our first f*ck in the bathroom of his apartment. He was having a party, and David and I were invited. One thing led to another, and while David was outside smoking a cigarette, Robbie was lifting me up on to his sink and sticking his dick into me. It became a game for us. We would find a time and a place for a quick screw, and then I would go back to being David’s sort-of girlfriend.
I taught David how to shoot, and I even gave him his first gun. He taught me how to make my own picture frames and how to use a laser level to set up my shows. We were good together, yes, but it was clear that we were not good enough. Somehow it always seemed as if he was unsatisfied. As if he was always holding himself in. We were going through the motions of being together without ever truly connecting. But, like I said, love is for pussies. It was never going to happen.
Robbie called me a few hours ago to tell me that David showed up at his apartment this morning. He used his maintenance key to let himself in, and then he proceeded to calmly wreak havoc on the apartment. David didn’t lay a hand on Robbie or even speak to him, but he did rip the kitchen cupboards off their hinges and smash some of the merchandise Robbie was stowing. Then he told Robbie that he had one day to clear out his shit and leave town because Carl was evicting him. Robbie’s been selling stolen electronics out of the apartment for the past seven months, and David’s known about it since he came to fix the water heater one day and saw a bunch of car stereos and at least a dozen laptops on the floor.
David’s no dumbass. When he saw Robbie f*cking me, he must have gone straight to Carl to tell him about Robbie’s little sales operation.
After Robbie’s phone call, I texted David and told him that we needed to talk. He told me to meet him here, on this bridge, at eleven o’clock sharp. I was supposed to come alone, but after hearing about what David did this morning, there was no way I was coming here by myself. Robbie said he would come with me, but he agreed to stay out of sight unless there was a problem. And now, Robbie is on the ground in a pool of his own blood. He came running when he saw David grab my arms and pull them behind me. Robbie swung the first punch—it was the only one that he landed.
Robbie is motionless now, and I look down at him, wondering if he is still alive. David is sitting on top of his body, and when he looks up at me, I can see the anger searing through him. It is unbelievable—I can feel how angry David is. I can feel the King of Control utterly losing his shit. Because of me.
He stands and kicks Robbie’s side hard, and Robbie lets out a small cough. Then David is nose-to-nose with me, asking me in a quiet, malicious tone exactly how long I have been screwing Robbie. I tell him it doesn’t matter. It was just f*cking. It didn’t mean anything. The look on David’s face tells me that I had better say what he wants to hear. That self-preservation is a must if I plan to walk away from this. Lies may be the only thing that will save me.
I tell David I love him—which I don’t. And that I am sorry—which I’m not. And that what happened with Robbie was just a one-time thing—which, clearly, it wasn’t. Lies, lies, lies. As I am spitting out the words I think he wants to hear, David smiles at me. I think my lies are working. I think I might actually walk away from this. But then David leans down and puts his face right up to mine. He asks me if I think he is a f*cking idiot. He knows I don’t love him, and he knows I’m not sorry.
I can feel the anger shooting through his body again. His hands grasp my shoulders tightly, and his breath deepens. His face is infused with fury, and this time it is aimed at me. I don’t move because I think that if I do, my body will wind up on the ground right next to Robbie’s. I’m going to have to find a way out of this. I wish I had one of my father’s guns.
I quietly ask David what he wants me to say. “Don’t f*cking say anything,” he whispers to me. “Just do what I tell you to do.” He takes his hands off my shoulders and tells me to turn around and look at what I made him do. Look at the bloody mess I turned Robbie into.
When I turn around, I see Robbie lying on the ground behind me. His head rolls to the side, and he exhales another little blood-soaked cough. Then I hear David’s heavy breaths and his backpack sliding down off his body. I should run. I should leap over Robbie and run like hell. But I can’t. I can only look down and silently beg his now unconscious body to keep breathing.
I squat down and touch Robbie’s face. It is hot and slick with blood. I look at his closed eyes and consider moving my palm over to his mouth, to confirm that he’s breathing. But David grabs hold of both my wrists and drags them behind me. The force of it knocks me forward, and my cheek pushes against Robbie’s chest. David’s knee is on my back, and he wraps something around my wrists, tying them together. When he pulls me back up to standing, I can feel the blood from Robbie’s shirt trickling down my face. I can taste it on my lips. It is the taste of my own guilt.
David pushes me over to the side of the bridge so that my toes are up against the edge, just beneath the knee-high guardrail. He has a hold of my upper arms, and as I look down through the dark at the water below me, David lets me go and bends over. I think for a second that he is going to pick something up, but then I feel his backpack on top of my feet. It is heavy, and a few seconds later, he has secured a strap to each of my ankles with a zip tie. What is happening? I think again that I should be running away. That I should be kicking and fighting him. But by the time my fear sets in, it’s too late.
David stands back up and whispers into my ear that he is going to push me off this goddamned bridge.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “Don’t do this. Let’s just walk away from this. I will go, and I won’t come back. You’ll never see me again, and Robbie, he’ll go, too. I promise, David. I promise.”
He is smiling at me now, looking both smug and justified. He’s taken charge of the moment, just like he always does. He moves behind me, and then his hands are flat against my back. I feel him push me forward, and my upper body tips over the guardrail. As I fall forward, his hands slide down my legs and lift my heavy feet, flipping them over the railing with force and causing me to tumble over the edge. The wind sings in my ears and when I hit the water, I think about Robbie and I feel ashamed.