Something Blue

'Move!' I screamed. 'I know he's in there!'

So she moved and I opened the door. And sure enough, there he was, crouched in the corner in his striped navy boxers. Another gift from me.

'You liar!' I shouted at him, feeling myself begin to hyperventilate. I was accustomed to drama. I thrived on drama. But not this kind. Not the kind of drama that I didn't control from the outset.

Dex stood and dressed calmly, putting one foot and then the other into his jeans, zipping defiantly. There wasn't a trace of guilt on his face. It was as if I had only accused him of stealing the covers or eating my Ben amp; Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream.

'You lied to me!' I shouted again, louder this time.

'You have got to be kidding me,' he said, his voice low. 'Fuck you, Darcy.'

In all my years with Dex, he had never said this to me. Those were my words of last resort. Not his.

I tried again. 'You said there was nobody else in the picture! And you're fucking my best friend!' I shouted, unsure of whom to confront first. Overwhelmed by the double betrayal.

I wanted him to say, yes, this looks bad, but there had been no fornicating. Yet no denial came my way. Instead he said, 'Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, Darce? You and Marcus, huh? Having a baby? I guess congratulations are in order.'

I had nothing to say to that, so I just turned the tables right back on him and said, 'I knew it all along.'

This was a total lie. I never in a million years could have foreseen this moment. The shock was too much to bear. But that's the thing about the sucker punch; the sucker element hurts worse than the punch. They had socked it to me, but I wasn't going to be their fool too.

'I hate you both. I always will,' I said, realizing that my words sounded weak and juvenile, like the time when I was five years old and told my father that I loved the devil more than I loved him. I wanted to shock and horrify, but he had only chuckled at my creative put-down. Dex, too, seemed merely amused by my proclamation, which enraged me to the brink of tears. I told myself that I had to escape Rachel's apartment before I started bawling. On my way to the door, I heard Dex say, 'Oh, Darcy?'

I turned to face him again. 'What?' I spat out, praying that he was going to say it was all a joke, a big mix-up. Maybe they were going to laugh and ask how I could think such a thing. Maybe we'd even share a group hug.

But all he said was, 'May I have my watch back, please?'

I swallowed hard and then hurled the watch at him, aiming for his face. Instead it hit a wall, skittered across her hardwood floor, and stopped just short of Dexter's bare feet. My eyes lifted from the watch to Rachel's face. 'And you,' I said to her. 'I never want to see you again. You are dead to me.'

two

I managed to make it downstairs (where I gave Rachel's doorman the gruesome highlights), into a cab (where I again shared the tale), and over to Marcus's place. I burst into his sloppy studio, where he sat cross- legged on the floor, playing a melody on his guitar that sounded vaguely like the refrain in 'Fire and Rain.'

He looked up at me, his expression a blend of annoyance and bemusement. 'What's wrong now?' he said.

I resented his use of the word now, implying that I am always having a crisis. I couldn't help what had just happened to me. I told him the whole story, sparing no detail. I wanted outrage from my new beau. Or at least shock. But no matter how much I tried to whip him into my same frenzied state, he'd fire back with these two points: How can you be mad when we did the same thing to them? And, Don't we want our friends to be as happy as we are?

I told him that our guilt was beside the point and, HELL NO, WE DON'T WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY!

Marcus kept strumming his guitar and smirking.

'What's so funny?' I asked, exasperated. 'Nothing is funny about this situation!'

'Well maybe not ha-ha funny, but ironic funny.'

'There is nothing even remotely funny about this, Marcus! And stop playing that thing!'

Marcus ran his thumb across the strings one final time before putting his guitar in its case. Then he sat cross-legged, gripping the toes of his dirty sneakers, as he said again, 'I just don't see how you can be so outraged when we did the same thing-'

'It's not the same thing at all!' I said, dropping to the cool floor. 'See, I may have cheated on Dex with you. But I didn't do anything to Rachel.'

'Well,' he said. 'She and I did date for a minute. We had potential before you came along.'

'You went on a few lousy dates whereas I was engaged to Dex. What kind of person hooks up with her friend's fiance?'

He crossed his arms and gave me a knowing look. 'Darcy.'

'What?'

'You're looking at one. Remember? I was one of Dexter's groomsmen? Ring a bell?'

I sniffed. True, Marcus and Dex had been college buddies, friends for years. But it just wasn't a comparable situation. 'It's not the same. Female friendships are more sacred; my relationship with Rachel has been lifelong. She was my very best friend in the world, and you were, like, the very last one stuck in the groomsman lineup. Dex probably wouldn't even have picked you except that he needed a fifth person to go with my five girls.'

'Gee. I'm touched.'

I ignored his sarcasm, and said, 'Besides, you never painted yourself as a saint like she did.'

'You're right about that. I'm no saint.'

'You just don't go there with your best girlfriend's fiance. Or ex-fiance. Period. Ever. Even if a gazillion years elapsed, you still can't go there. And you certainly don't hop in bed with him one day after the breakup.' Then I hurled more questions his way: Did he think it was a one-time thing? Were they beginning a relationship? Could they actually fall in love? Would they ever last?

To which Marcus shrugged and answered with some variation of: I don't know and I don't care.

To which I yelled: Guess! Care! Soothe me!

Finally, he caved, patting my arm and responding satisfyingly to my leading questions. He agreed that it was likely a one-time thing with Rachel and Dex. That Dex went over to Rachel's because he was upset. That being with Rachel was the closest thing to me. And as for Rachel, she just wanted to throw a bone to a broken man.

'Okay. So what do you think I should do now?' I asked.

'Nothing you can do,' Marcus said, reaching over to open a pizza box resting near his guitar case. 'It's cold, but help yourself.'

'As if I could eat now!' I exhaled dramatically and did a spread eagle on the floor. 'The way I see it is, I have two options: murder and/or suicide… It would be pretty easy to kill them, you know?'

I wanted him to gasp at my suggestion, but much to my constant disappointment, he was never too shocked by my words. He simply pulled a slice of pizza from the box, folded it in half, and crammed it in his mouth. He chewed for a moment, and with his mouth still full, he pointed out that I would be the prime and only suspect. 'You'd wind up at a female corrections facility in upstate New York. With a mullet. I can see you now slopping out gruel with your mullet flapping in the prison yard breeze.'

I thought about this and decided that I'd vastly prefer my own death to a mullet. Which brought me to the suicide option. 'Fine. So murder is out. I'll just kill myself instead. They'd be really sorry if I killed myself, wouldn't they?' I asked, more for shock value than because I was really considering my own death.

I wanted Marcus to tell me that he couldn't live without me. But he didn't take the bait in the suicide game as Rachel had when we were in junior high, and she'd promise that she'd override my mother's classical music selections and see to it that Pink Floyd's 'On the Turning Away' was cranked up at my funeral.