Night, Forgotten: Draft 1

Chapter 13: Now

            

Thinking back on it, I still don't have an explanation for what happened that day. Maybe it was that I noticed how Carmen was a bit too comfortable around Donny. Maybe I was overcome with nausea; that would make sense, since my "morning" sickness symptoms had lingered into my second trimester.

But Carmen's reaction – to yell at me for being pregnant, when I didn't even want to be – was bizarre. I still can't reconcile it with the friendship I thought we had.

That was the last time I spoke with Carmen. She never apologized for her outburst, and I never explained what had made me run away. After that afternoon on her porch, we remained secluded from each other, never crossing the barrier of woods between our properties.

There's something particularly tragic about our relationship ending over life circumstances that are out of our control. It's why I was curious to follow her and Marcus when they left so abruptly after stopping by the other day. I regret hiding from them in the parlor while they were visiting with Owen. That must have come across to them as rude. The lasagna was a nice gesture, but if Carmen had been intending to apologize, she clearly changed her mind.

While part of me mourns the loss of Carmen in my life, I also have to admit a sense of relief. We started our friendship out of convenience about half a decade ago now, when Owen and I moved into the cozy colonial that backs up to the Dolans' much more ornate, expansive house. It had always been easy to be friends with Carmen and Marcus, since they lived so nearby, even if our personalities were mismatched.

Owen and I, as a couple, communicate most things to each other nonverbally. In conversations with others, I find myself rambling along, trying to talk my nerves out of trembling. Owen, on the other hand, is an attentive listener and observer. But he prefers solitude and predictability to parties and relationship drama.

Carmen and Marcus, on the other hand, are both artists who nurture each other's volatile personality. Their families' accumulated wealth has allowed them to pursue their dreams for longer than would be feasible for most people. Their twenties were spent in New York, in and out of an open relationship with each other and several recurring characters with names like Elsbeth and Alastair and occupations like Bike Messenger and Performance Artist. Carmen danced in respectable productions but never landed a role in one of the big ones. Marcus picked up gigs in the film industry and was perpetually "working on a screenplay." Neither of them, apparently, mastered the skill of anger management during that time.

Their fights, according to Carmen, are intense. She never tells me what the fights are about, or the details of any one fight in particular. But over a year ago, when I squinted at the layers of concealer she'd caked on around her eye and asked what the hell happened, she snorted and told me to go find Marcus and take a look at his black eye.

When I told Owen about that, it was enough to end their friendship, which was tenuous anyway. Neither Owen nor I knew much about domestic violence situations, but we agreed that we should do our best not to upset Marcus. It just seemed best to try to keep him in a mellow mood and to follow Carmen's lead. She didn't seem concerned, so were we just being nosy?

Doing nothing didn't quite sit right with either of us, but over time, I'm ashamed to say, we got comfortable being uncomfortable with the situation.

That was before I saw the way he looked at her when they were standing in our kitchen. The way his eyes simmered black and his nostrils seethed and his jaw clenched and twitched. He looked down at her as if to say, "You are so lucky we're not at home right now..."

I don't know if Carmen saw him looking at her like that.

Why did I act like such a weirdo that night? I should have announced my presence and told her she might be in danger. I'll tell her if she comes by again. I wonder if she will. Thinking about the whole thing nauseates me, like all social interactions seem to these days. Interacting with other people has never felt so arduous.