Hard As Rock (12 page)

Between the car and the house, about 50 feet away from us, stood a lone figure in the rain, wearing jeans and a sopping wet t-shirt plastered to his muscular frame.

Derek.

He was peering at the house with one hand shielding his eyes from the floodlights, trying to see who was on the porch. He was also drunkenly weaving, as though he couldn’t quite maintain his balance.

“Kaitlyn?!” he yelled, and my heart skipped three beats.

I realized in the seconds that followed that I was clutching Ryan’s arm as though I might rip it off. I was both terrified and elated. Which I felt more, I couldn’t say.

“Derek,” Ryan said neutrally.

At the sound of his best friend’s voice, Derek dropped his hand. His face became a mask of hatred as he squinted into the floodlights. “YOU – you fucking TRAITOR – where is she?!”

At first I was mystified –
I’m standing right here, can’t you see me?!
– but I realized that the lights were blinding him. Ryan and I were in almost complete darkness under the porch, so for Derek, it was probably like trying to see inside a pitch-black room while somebody shined a flashlight in your eyes.

Ryan squeezed my hand. I knew immediately what he wanted:

Stay quiet. Just for a minute.

My heart caught in my throat, and I complied, though I wasn’t sure how long I could hold out. It was like a volcano of emotion was erupting inside of me:

Love, especially for everything wonderful Derek and I had shared.

Hatred for how he had cheated on me.

Swooning desire – because he had traveled a thousand miles and was here in the middle of a rainstorm, screaming out my name.

Fear that he was unbalanced, that the Derek who had called me a bitch a thousand times might have shown up, rather than the Derek who had pleaded for me to forgive him.

There were other emotions, too – doubt, shock, anger, guilt, hope – but love and hatred and desire and fear were the ones that overwhelmed me most.

“She’s here, but I’m not a traitor,” Ryan called out. “She’s just been staying here. Nothing’s happened between the two of us.”

“
Fuck
you – KAITLYN!” Derek screamed, and suddenly it sounded like he was in torment. “Kaitlyn, PLEASE, come out here!”

I almost spoke out, but Ryan squeezed my hand again and stopped me.

“Why are you here, Derek?”

“To take her back with me, you fucking Judas!” Derek shouted, and staggered drunkenly in the rain.

“What if she doesn’t
want
to go back?”

“Why don’t we ask
her,
huh?” Derek said – but he said it through clenched teeth, all bile and venomous anger.

“Just say what you want to say.”

“I’ll say it to her, not
you
, you fucking backstabber – KAITLYN! PLEASE, COME OUT HERE!”

“I’m here,” I said – squeaked, really. I could barely get the words out.

Derek paused in surprise, and then suddenly it was like his features were lit from within. He looked so happy he might have started crying. He stumbled towards the house, his boots sloshing through the mud. “Kaitlyn!”

Ryan walked down the front steps of the porch and out into the rain, holding one hand out in front of him. “Stop. You can say what you want to say right there. She can hear you.”

“Fuck
you,
you goddamn piece of shit motherfucker – ”

He reared back drunkenly, cocking his arm behind his head, readying a punch.

“DEREK, NO!” I screamed. Suddenly all my fear was for Ryan, who stepped back into a defensive crouch –

You know that sound in the movies where somebody cocks a pistol or pumps a shotgun? Unmistakable. Everybody’s heard it, everybody knows it.

And you know in the movies how everything just
stops
when that sound happens?

Whether it’s life imitating art – since hundreds of millions of people have watched a scene just like that in the movies, and now ‘know’ what to do if it happens – or whether it’s art imitating life and something that really happens, it doesn’t matter.

That sound works.

Off to my left in the rain, there was the metallic
clack-clack
of a gun.

Derek and Ryan both froze and looked over to the side.

A lone figure walked around the corner of the house, keeping to the shadows cast by the roof. He wore a soaked denim jacket, and raindrops splashed off his white Stetson hat. There was a rifle at his shoulder, leveled right at Derek.

Mr. MacCruder.

“Wouldn’t do that,” he said in that laconic drawl of his.

Now I was relieved for Ryan – and terrified for Derek.

Because he was drunk, and belligerent, and
Derek,
there was no telling what he might do.

But for now, though, he just reacted in shock.

He stood there, his arm still cocked back in the air, and then he looked at Ryan. “
Really?
You fucking piece of shit – you’re too much of a pussy to fight me, so you get some psycho with a gun to come out here instead?”

“Fuck you,” Ryan snarled, probably the first time ever I’d heard him really, truly angry. “Mr. MacCruder, put down the gun.”

“Can’t do that,” Mr. MacCruder said as he just stood there in the rain, never taking his sights off Derek.

Now it was Ryan’s turn to look over in shock. “What?”

“Be against the terms of my employment.”

Ryan was caught somewhere between amusement at the surreal nature of the moment, and annoyance at being told ‘no.’ “Mr. MacCruder, seriously – ”

Derek had lowered his arm and was now walking threateningly towards the rancher. “Put down the fucking gun, shithead.”

“
Don’t
do that,” Mr. MacCruder said, almost like he was sighing.

Derek flung out his arms like
Oh YEAH?
“What the fuck’re you gonna do, shoot me?”

It was the exact pose he’d struck when he was antagonizing Ryan in the grocery store four years ago.

Except Mr. MacCruder wasn’t Ryan.

The old ranch hand let the rifle dip a few inches and pulled the trigger.

BLAM!

Muddy water exploded at Derek’s feet as the boom of the gunshot rolled through the darkness.

My heart stopped in my chest, and my knees almost collapsed.

“HOLY SHIT!” Derek screamed, and staggered back through the mud. “You almost SHOT me!”

“Yup,” Mr. MacCruder agreed as he racked back the lever, ejected the shell, and leveled the rifle at Derek’s chest again.

The poor cab driver was obviously terrified at this point, and I heard the gears grinding as the car went into reverse.

Derek heard it, too, and his surprise and fear turned to fury as he spun around. “Do NOT fucking move, you fucking coward!” he roared, pointing at the driver. “I paid you five hundred goddamn dollars, you STAY there until I fucking tell you otherwise!”

The driver seemed caught between his terror of the gunman and this wild-eyed drunkard screaming at him.

You might think that in a situation like that, the fear of the gun would trump all else.

But Derek was pretty terrifying. Rage personified.

I know
I
was scared.

The driver apparently was, too, because he stayed put.

Derek wheeled back around towards Mr. MacCruder, and all the hatred and anger that the gunshot had wiped away was back. “Do you know who the
fuck
I am, old man?”

Oh God.

Despite my fear, I rolled my eyes.

It was the lamest refuge of a celebrity in crisis.

Do you know who I am?
Meaning,
I’m FAMOUS, and you’re NOT. Don’t fuck with me.

Mr. MacCruder wasn’t even remotely impressed, though.

“Nope,” he said, unconcerned as could be.

“I’m Derek Kane, lead singer of THAT asshole’s band,” he snarled as he pointed at Ryan. “I’m also probably the most famous person on the planet right now.”

“Well, Mr. Kane… this is Mr. Remington,” the rancher said, and edged his gun up a millimeter for emphasis. “I believe you two just met.”

Derek looked like he had just entered the Twilight Zone.

He stared at Ryan with an expression of bewilderment – like,
Where the hell did you GET this guy?!
Then he turned back to the rancher.

“You stupid FUCKHEAD, this is the United States of America! You don’t – you don’t just go around
shooting
people!”

Actually, I have some European friends who would have said that’s
exactly
what we do in the United States of America, but that’s a moot point, because Mr. MacCruder didn’t buy Derek’s argument, either.

“I don’t where you’re from, son, but this is South Dakota,” he said, using the most words I’d ever heard him utter at one time. “We do things a little different here.”

It would’ve been hilarious, except that I knew Derek was on the verge of losing it.

He had one of the worst anti-authoritarian streaks I’d ever seen. He loved to antagonize anybody who had power over him, or
thought
they should have power over him. Grocery store managers, Miles, snotty magazine editors.

But I’d never seen him run up against somebody who
actually
had power over him. Like a cop.

Or a man with a gun.

I’d also never seen Derek get pushed to the edge of physical violence, but I could tell from the vicious scowl on his face and the way he squared his shoulders that that’s exactly where he was headed in less than three seconds.

And I knew that if I didn’t do something, there would be a body on the ground in less than five.

“STOP!” I screamed, and ran down the steps into the rain, past Ryan, and threw my arms around Derek’s neck.

The scowl left his face, and he looked down at me with the most heartbreaking combination of sorrow and joy.

“Kaitlyn,” he whispered. His breath reeked of whiskey.

I felt his arms circle around me, warm against the soaking coldness of the rain.

He leaned down to kiss me –

I pulled away from him. Just an inch or two, but it was enough.

He stopped and looked at me. First shock played over his face. Then hurt, like I had crushed him… and then anger.

Ryan saw it, too.

“Derek – ” he said in a warning voice as his feet sloshed through the mud.

“Ryan, no,” I said. “I’ll handle this.”

I heard the sloshing stop. There must have been some sort of silent communication behind my back – perhaps a glance on Ryan’s part – because Mr. MacCruder moved his rifle to the side, so that neither Derek nor I were in danger of being shot.

Although I noticed he didn’t lower it.

Derek’s anger passed as quickly as the shock and hurt, and he whispered, “I’m sorry… Kaitlyn, I’m so sorry…”

For the first time I noticed how gaunt he looked, like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. There were dark circles under his eyes that weren’t just shadows from the floodlights.

“I fucked up,” he said, no louder than a sigh. “I know I fucked up, and I’m so, so sorry… please… please, just take me back… give me a chance to make it up to you…”

Raindrops were running down his cheeks, making him look like he was crying.

I put my hand to his face. My thumb brushed across his cheek – and I realized that the raindrops were hot.

They were tears.

He
was
crying.

I started crying, too. All the pain I’d tried to bury over the last two weeks – all the agonizing feelings I had told myself I’d dealt with, that were no longer there – erupted from beneath the surface. I felt all the betrayal, all the loss, all the longing in one single burst, like someone slicing a razor blade across my heart.

“We can’t,” I sobbed.

He seemed confused. “What?”

“We can’t,” I cried. “Not now. We…
I
can’t. I can’t forgive you. Not just like that.”

“But… Kaitlyn…” he whispered, his eyes looking completely lost and alone. “I love you.”

That almost killed me.

To hear it now, finally, after everything that had happened.

I wanted to say it back… but for some reason, I couldn’t.

“You have to go now,” I said. “We’ll talk. But not now. You have to let me heal.”

He shook his head. “No – Kaitlyn, all you have to do is just give me a chance –
just give me a chance –
”

“You have to go,” I sobbed, and I broke away from him and stumbled blindly towards the house, wailing in pain.

But my feet caught in the mud, and suddenly I was falling –

Ryan caught me in his arms.

He pulled me back onto my feet, and pushed me gently towards the house with one hand on my back.

Stupidly, though, I turned back to see. Like Lot’s wife in the Bible.

We all know what happened to her.

“KAITLYN!” Derek screamed and stepped forward, crazed like an animal, trying to push Ryan aside to get to me –

But Ryan was ready for him, and shoved him back.

Derek stumbled backwards through the mud – but miraculously he didn’t go down. Instead, he became enraged. He focused on Ryan’s face and he hunkered lower, like a bull about to charge –

“Ahuh,” Mr. MacCruder cleared his throat, and we all looked around to see him pointing the rifle at Derek again.

Everyone stood there, fixed and immobile in the rushing downpour of the rain, waiting to see who would make the first move towards tragedy.

It was Derek – but it wasn’t the move I expected.

He looked up at me on the porch and screamed like a dying animal, “Kaitlyn! Don’t walk out on me again!”

That one sentence –
Don’t walk out on me again! –
was enough to wipe away all my tearful weakness and trigger every bit of anger and hatred I had for him.

“You deserved it!” I shouted. “You cheated on me!”

He looked confused, and then he shook his head sadly, like he was heartbroken. “Not then… not then. Four years ago. You walked out on
me
, Kaitlyn.
You walked out on ME.”

He couldn’t have hit me harder if he’d punched me in the face.

All the guilt and shame and sadness and loss I felt when I drove away from him that morning four years ago rose up and swallowed me like a tidal wave. I burst into tears and stumbled into the house.