“Fried bologna sandwiches with sides of coleslaw and macaroni and cheese.” Gracie stared down at her plate with a notable lack of awe. “My impostor changed our catering menu, didn't she?”
“Mmmhmm.” Cal stretched out across an old fashioned straight-backed chair with his boots propped up on an antique ottoman.
“It could be worse,” Katie said as she sat down on the floor of Cal's parents living room with her own plate.
“Worse than fried bologna?” Gracie stuck her index finger halfway down her throat and made a gagging gesture. “How?”
“Could have been chili dogs,” Trish mused as she poked at the sandwich on her plate. Gracie doubted that Trish had ever eaten a piece of fried bologna in her life.
“With canned chili,” David added.
“Ugh.” Gracie picked up a slice of bologna and then dropped it back down onto the plate. “I hate bologna.”
“We know. Don't worry, Momma chewed the catering company a new asshole. Tomorrow's dinner will be exactly how you ordered it originally.”
“Is it too late to elope?” Gracie wanted to cross the room and cuddle up with Cal, but he hadn't so much as looked at her since she'd come back from dress shopping. She watched as he stabbed his coleslaw with a plastic fork.
“Momma would kill y'all,” David said. He and Trish were curled up together on the love seat. He had his arm around Trish's shoulders and she had her cheek resting on his chest. Gracie felt a twinge of jealousy go through her.
“Maybe we should just call off the wedding altogether,” Gracie said.
Cal finally looked up from his food. “What did you just say?”
Gracie took a deep breath and then let it out in a long hiss. She set her plate down on the coffee table. Trish, David and Katie were all watching her. Trish and Katie both looked concerned. David was expressionless, as usual. He probably didn't care whether or not she and Cal actually tied the knot.
“I said...” Gracie was already debating the wisdom of starting a fight with Cal, but she'd had enough of his indifference. She could handle dispassionate detachment from David. That had always been his thing. Cal, on the other hand, not so much. Cal was supposed to give a shit.
“You said what?” Cal's dark eyes were focused on her.
“Maybe we should call off the wedding,” Gracie said.
“No.” Cal set his plate on the arm of his chair. It immediately slid off and hit the floor, splattering coleslaw everywhere. “I'm not canceling our wedding.”
“Why not?” Gracie asked. “You sure as hell don't care about it.”
“Of course I care,” Cal snapped.
“Really?” Gracie felt like throwing her bologna at him. “You could have fooled me. You've done exactly nothing to help me with anything. My bachelorette party was ruined, you didn't care. Our flowers were ruined, you still didn't care. Now my wedding dress has been stolen and you still don't care. You haven't lifted a single finger to help me. Hell, you ditched me this morning before I even woke up.”
“Here we go,” David muttered under his breath.
“I don't care about any of the things that have gone wrong because none of them matter,” Cal yelled. His face was beginning to flush with anger.
“How can you say that?” Gracie demanded, stomping her foot against the ancient hardwood.
“Because it's the damn truth!”
“Should we go?” Trish whispered a little too loudly to David.
“Nah.” He shook his head and grabbed his beer off the coffee table. “It's just getting good. I'm thinking about running into the kitchen and popping some popcorn, but I'd hate to miss anything.”
“Fuck you,” Cal said to David.
“Did you really just say that our wedding isn't important to you?” Gracie was absolutely furious with her fiance.
“Has anyone died?” Cal leveled his dark eyes at Gracie. His fists were clenched at his side and his heavy jaw was set in a tight line.
“What?”
“Has anyone died?” Cal repeated.
“What does dying have to do with anything?” Gracie demanded.
“Oh, I don't know. I guess my priorities are a little fucked up after the last couple of years.” Cal crossed his arms over his chest. “I count any day where we don't wind up dealing with a corpse as a good day. Everyone in this room has either lost someone they cared about or fucking killed someone, in case y'all have somehow all forgotten.”
“Cal-,” David's voice had a warning tone to it.
“Fuck off, Breedlove. Are you really going to tell me you give two shits about an ugly dress or some screwed up flowers?” Cal turned his anger on David. “The entire time we were growing up, I never could figure out why you were always so damned cold. Nothing ever mattered to you. I didn't understand how you could always be so completely dispassionate about everything and everyone, but now I understand. Once you've watched enough horrible things happen, nothing really fazes you anymore, does it?”
“Well, it's not-.” David seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
Cal just rolled his eyes at him. “Even when Casey died, you didn't really care. She was just another problem to you. One more nasty little nuisance that needed to be dealt with.”
“That's not fair-.”
“Shut up. I'm not done.” Cal was practically spitting the words at him. “You watched your mother die when you were a kid. You watched Ricky fucking kill her. We both watched Ian run over Casey. We pulled her crushed, mutilated body out from under that truck together. We put her in the toolbox of your truck and you tossed me the keys, like it was nothing. Go bury her, Cal. That's what you said. Go bury her somewhere no one will ever find her.”
“Cal, please.” Gracie's anger was rapidly dissolving into a mixture of horror and dread. She didn't want to hear the words that were coming out of his mouth, but it was like a dam had broken inside of him and everything ugly was spilling out.
“I buried her, David. God so help me, I buried a little girl in the swamp because I was more worried about saving my own sorry ass then about being a decent human being. I was too worried about ruining my family's good name to consider what a monster I was.”
“You're not a monster,” Gracie said softly.
“I think the monster is in the eye of the beholder.” Cal began to pace back and forth across the room.
“Cal, we've only done what we had to do,” David said.
“Did we really have to hide Casey's body? Or how about the other one? The guy you chopped into pieces with a chainsaw and fed to the gators?” Cal was so mad he was shaking. “Or how about Curtis? I blew his fucking brains out all over Kerry's driveway. Funny how no one ever wants to talk about that. I pulled Pappy's .357 and I blew Trish's husband's brains out and no one said a word. Its almost kind of surreal.”
“Curtis was going to kill us,” David pointed out. He looked a little bit rattled by Cal's outburst. “He'd already shot Addison and killed Grover. You didn't have a choice.”
“Didn't I?” Cal asked. “He was hurt. I probably could have disarmed him, but I didn't try. It was easier to go for the kill shot and rest easy that everyone I cared about would be permanently safe from him. I chose to end his life, David. Maybe you don't have any qualms with that, but I'm willing to bet that Trish still has a few.” Cal looked intently at Trish. Her eyes widened and she took a deep breath.
“No one-,” David started.
“Maybe,” Trish said at the same time. David glanced at her, clearly surprised.
“See?” Cal smirked at David. “I told you so. Your girl thinks I'm a monster.”
“I don't think you're a monster,” Trish said quietly. “I think I'm the monster.”
The silence that hung in the air was nearly as still as the water in the bayou would get before a big storm.
“What?” Cal frowned at Trish.
Trish took a deep breath and then held her chin up. She met Cal's eyes dead on. “I knew Curtis was dangerous, but I lied to everyone about him. I even lied to myself. I was selfish. I cared more about my own skin than I did about protecting other people from the monster in my life. My grandfather died because Curtis followed me to Possum Creek. Addison got shot because Curtis thought I was sleeping with him. Kerry got buried alive because of me. You have blood on your hands because of me and my own inability to deal with the consequences of my mistakes.”
“Curtis would have killed you,” Cal said flatly.
“He would have killed me,” Trish agreed. “Just me. Curtis would have killed me and no one else would have had to suffer or die. My grandpa would still be alive. For that matter, Curtis would probably still be alive. Addy would never have been hurt. You don't think I feel horribly guilty about what happened? People are dead because of the choices I made. Maybe you pulled the trigger, but honestly, I put Curtis in front of your gun. He wouldn't have been here if it weren't for me and my own desire to live.”
David wrapped his arms around Trish and pulled her into his chest. “You were a victim, Trish. You can't blame yourself.”
“I can and I do,” she replied, even as she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I ask myself all the time if it could have ended differently. The answer is yes. I could have died instead. Two lives would have been saved.”
Cal stopped pacing. Some of the anger seemed to have gone out of him. “You can't feel bad for saving your own life,” he said.
“Then why do you feel bad for saving me?” Trish countered.
Cal sighed. “I don't know. I guess I just never thought I would be the person I've become.”
“Did any of us?” David asked. He was still holding Trish. “You say I'm cold and I don't show any emotion. That's bullshit. You, of all people, know that's bullshit. How many nights did I wake up screaming when we were kids?”
“You had night terrors,” Cal used the official name the psychiatrist had given Miss Loretta for David's condition.
“I had night terrors because I'd watched my Dad murder my mother when I was a little kid. The nightmares came back after Casey died and they've never completely gone away. I sleep better now than I used to, but I still don't sleep well. I don't think I ever will.” David took a deep breath before continuing. “We did what we did for a reason. Maybe we were wrong and maybe we shouldn't have done what we did, but we've always managed to protect the people who matter the most in our lives. That has to be worth something. I don't like waking up screaming, but I'd rather have nightmares every night for the rest of my life than lose Trish. Or Gracie. Or anyone in this room.”
Cal swallowed and then sighed. “I'd die for everyone in this room. No questions asked.”
“Then why are we fighting?” David asked him.
“I don't know,” Cal admitted. He stared up at the ceiling, almost as if he were praying.
“We're fighting because you don't care about our wedding,” Gracie reminded him.
Cal turned and looked at her, his eyes shining. “I'd die for you. How can you say I don't care? After all the hell we've been through, how can you think I don't care?”
“Someone is trying to ruin our wedding and you're not even upset about it.” Gracie wanted to go to him but she didn't.
“Gracie, there is nothing that can ruin our wedding for me. You can walk down the aisle in a bikini and boots and it would still be the best damned day of my life. I don't care if half the town shows up to the wedding or if no one shows up. It doesn't matter to me. I don't care if we have food at the wedding. The menu's not important. I just want you by my side for the rest of my life.”
“Cal, I love you,” Gracie was fighting back tears.
“I love you too,” he said. “I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a cold-hearted asshole. Normally that's Breedlove's job, but I've been looking at life from a different perspective ever since people started to drop dead around me. Any day that we can walk away from is a good day in my book. I'm sorry that someone is trying to screw up the wedding, but I'm not about to cry or lose sleep over it. I still have you and you're the only part of the wedding that matters. I don't think I could keep on living without you.”
He held his arms out to her and Gracie flung herself into his chest, sobbing. He held her tight against his chest, stroking her hair and muttering soothing words into her ear.
“Now we can leave.” David stood up and pulled Trish to her feet.
Katie frowned at him as she picked up her uneaten plate of food. “I do have one last question.”
“For me or for them?” David gestured at Gracie and Cal, who were still clinging to one another.
“You. Whose body did you chop up and feed to the alligators?” Katie asked him.
David grimaced. “Trust me when I say you're better off not knowing.”