“Would you?” he asks, sounding amused. She wishes she could see his face, even for a moment. “I think you’ve done that already.”
This is about Hoskins, she thinks. Somehow, Dean knows she was with him. She wishes she could tell him the truth, tell him everything, but he’d lose his mind, and there’d be trouble. Because she does love Dean, no matter what he believes. She fell in love with him because he was quiet and strong-willed and seemed to have it together—not like so many of the other men she dated back in college, when the guys were more interested in getting wasted and taking care of their cars and seeing how often they could get laid. Dean had plans, even back then—he wanted to settle down, to buy a house and have a good job, to be an adult. She wanted those things too, but it wasn’t until after they married that she realized that being an adult wasn’t all that much fun, that saving money meant not spending it, that making plans didn’t necessarily mean they’d work out. She knows what Dean thinks: that when she’s unhappy it’s because of him. And it’s not true, not entirely, although he won’t believe her.
“Believe it or not, you’re not the center of my universe,” she’d said once, when he’d started complaining that she wasn’t satisfied, all because she’d made the mistake of wishing out loud that they had the premium movie channels on the TV, when they couldn’t afford it. He accused her of being disappointed in him, in wishing that he made more money, that he had a better job, although she thinks those are thoughts that he has about himself, ideas he’s projecting onto her.
“Maybe,” he’d said, “you wish you’d married someone else. Someone better.”
The idea of being married to someone else has crossed her mind—who hasn’t had those kinds of thoughts? But would it be better to be married to someone else, or to be alone? In the end, her answer was always no, although Dean doesn’t seem to believe it, and she’s tired of pleading her case to him. I chose you, she wants to say, but doesn’t. I could have left anytime, I could be with Hoskins, but I chose you.
Oh, they haven’t had a perfect marriage, but Dean—and Hoskins—are the only men who’d never treated her like nothing more than a piece of ass. Dean listened, and he’d encouraged, and he’d always tried so hard, and she wishes she could be honest with him, but he’s so afraid. So insecure.
“I’m writing again,” she says. “Corbin called, because of those women who’ve been killed. They think Seever might be connected.”
“You’re writing again.” Dean shifts his feet under the covers, away from her, so they’re no longer touching. “About Seever.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? I’ve been waiting for a chance like this.” But she understands what he’s asking. He wants to know if she’ll be seeing Hoskins, if they’ll be sleeping together again. He’s apprehensive, and maybe that’s to be expected, after everything she’s done.
“I guess.”
“Have you ever hurt someone?” she asks, pushing the words out of her mouth and into the dark, because she has to say something, and that’s the first thing she thinks of.
“Physically?” Dean says, surprised. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“What happened?”
“In the third grade I shoved another kid into a wall, he got a bloody nose.”
“Not kid stuff. Like, lately.”
“Lately? No.”
She stretches out, touches her toes to his, then pulls away again.
“Would you ever kill someone?”
There’s a long pause, so long that she’s sure he’s fallen asleep again.
“Yeah,” he finally says. “I would. If I had to.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like, in self-defense,” he says. “If someone broke in and tried to hurt us, I’m entirely within my rights to defend myself.”
“How politically correct of you.”
“And I’d do it for you.”
“What?”
“I’d kill someone if you wanted me to,” Dean says. “Sometimes I feel like that’d be the only way to get your attention. Start murdering people so you’d have a story to chase.”
She doesn’t say anything, but his words set off a faint alarm in her head, make her think of something else, although she can’t think what. They’ve both said strange things under the cover of dark, admitted to things they wouldn’t normally. Instead of another question, she gently pushes him over to his side, so his back is facing her, and she presses against him, their bodies perfectly aligned, and she pushes her forehead into the spot where his neck widens into his back, and they fall asleep that way, like one body under the covers instead of two.