I knocked lightly at the door, cracking it open at the same time. “Stewart?” I called quietly.
I peeked inside to find my little brother asleep in the middle of his small bed, on his side and facing away. At the sound of my voice, he slowly stirred, groaning as he rolled over. He blinked incoherently before he sat up and rubbed his sleepy eyes. When he dropped his hands, he quirked up the most radiant smile. “Samantha.”
It didn’t matter how terrible I was feeling inside, there was no stopping my smile, which spread out to match his. Stewart was my happy place.
I pushed his door open the rest of the way and stepped inside and set the bags of three different kinds of fast food down on his messy desk. I’d made a mad dash, doing rounds through the drive-throughs of all his old favorite places.
Taking the four steps to bring me to the side of his bed, I dropped a swift kiss to his temple, ran my hand over the top of his bald head. “Hey there, Stew. Sorry to wake you.”
He didn’t hesitate to lean into me, hugging me fiercely around the waist, or as fiercely as Stewart could in his weakened state. I wrapped my arms around his frail shoulders. I was both swept away in sadness and bolstered in spirit.
My little brother just had something about him, something magical and kind, as if he understood things long before they happened, as if he knew when someone needed an extra smile or a tighter hug.
He must have known it now, because he held on to me for the longest time while I clung to him.
“Nah,” he mumbled softly, “I’m just bored out of my mind. I don’t have anything better to do, so sleep it is.”
I winced, knowing it was only half the truth. On the phone this morning, Mom had told me his last round of chemo had really knocked him flat, zapping him of all his energy, and he’d either been sick in the bathroom or curled up in bed for the last three days.
He released me, and I edged away, but not far enough away that I couldn’t cup his cheek. I searched his face. “How are you feeling? I mean, really feeling? Not what you tell your doctor and Mom and everyone else you don’t want fretting over you.”
A short chuckle rocked from him, and for a second, his blue eyes gleamed with mischief. “Like shit.”
“Hey, watch your mouth,” I warned through a giggle.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, trying not to laugh outright. “What? You asked for the truth, and the truth is that I feel like shit. There’s no other word for it.”
I knew I sheltered him too much, treated him as if he were years younger than his seventeen. But it was so hard to let that little boy go, because he’d missed so much of his childhood that it seemed impossible he was almost eighteen.
“We need to get you past that, don’t we?”
His face fell a little, flattening into something too bleak for my taste. “Hope so.”
I forced a bigger smile. “Know so,” I promised.
He reached up and squeezed my hand, which was still on his face, a silent conversation transpiring between the two of us. I knew he was scared and just all around sick of being sick, but he also didn’t want to waste his days complaining about it. We both smiled knowing smiles, before we seemed to let go of a heavy breath, putting all of this aside.
Which would have been a whole lot easier for me if I wasn’t still reeling from what had happened last night. If I wasn’t feeling raw and wrong and completely unsettled. Inhaling, I made a valiant attempt at tucking all of those unbearable thoughts into the quiet corners of my mind. Because this was Stewart’s time, and I didn’t want to waste it on my stupidity and foolishness, on that reckless and impulsive move I’d made that set me on a collision course with a man I would have done well to have long forgotten.
I gestured to the greasy bags sitting on his desk. “Are you hungry?”
He shrugged. “Maybe later. Mom made me drink one of those milk shake things a couple hours ago. Not sure I can force anything else down right now.”
I nodded, though I hated to hear it.
He rested his elbows on his knees, his legs crisscrossed in front of him. “So tell me something… anything… I need gossip… drama. I’m about to lose my mind here. It’s pretty sad when I have to live vicariously through my twenty-three-year-old sister, who acts more like a forty-seven-year-old crazy cat lady.”
My mouth puckered in offense, and his deep laughter ricocheted around his room.
“You are such a punk,” I accused through a tease, before I went for a look of sophisticated arrogance. “I’ll have you know I went to the store three times this week. And I drank an entire bottle of wine. By myself.”
Did I leave out all the stuff about Aly? About Christopher? About how incredibly pathetic and sad and heartbroken the whole situation made me feel? Yes. Yes. And yes.
I wasn’t about to go there with him. It wasn’t prudent and it most definitely wasn’t important.
Or at least that’s what I was trying to convince myself.
“Really… three whole trips to the store, huh? You are such a rebel.” He considered me when I fidgeted, and his blue eyes narrowed. “You sure there isn’t something more exciting you want to share with me?”
“No. Of course not,” I hurled out way too fast.
In an attempt to hide the cringe that pinched my face with that blatant lie, I turned away from him and crossed my arms over my chest as I studied the rows and rows of wood shelves that were bracketed on his walls. All of them showcased his prize possessions, trinkets, memorabilia, and character dolls from all his favorite video games and books. My chest tightened when my attention landed on his most cherished keepsake of all – the signed copy of his favorite childhood book.
I’d never forget the day it’d arrived in a padded package all the way from the UK. Mom and Dad had both been skeptical when a deliveryman had shown up needing a signature for something that was from out of the country and addressed to Stewart.
Forever I’d cherish the expression that had taken over Stewart’s face when he’d ripped into that box and came to realize the significance of what he held, that it was signed to him with an inscription telling him to Never stop believing in magic.
It wasn’t just happiness.
It was a deep-seated joy, something so precious to him that it’d stolen his breath and sent silent tears streaming down his face.
It was a survivor’s prize.
God, I was so thankful he’d been given something so special, the gift so thoughtful that it’d crumbled the last bits of my resistance.
After I’d asked around, Ben had admitted he’d been the one who had it sent, and it was that book that had finally won me over.
“What’s up with you today?” The concerned voice shook me from my faraway thoughts, and I looked over at Stewart, who was watching me with too-keen eyes. That was the problem when you were this close with someone. It was really hard keeping secrets from them.
“Have my Nerd Lair powers taken you hostage and that too-smart brain of yours is being held captive in another realm? Because you definitely aren’t acting like yourself.”
I coughed over the abrupt laugh that found its way out, because only Stewart would name his room after one of his favorite games. Apparently I had been sucked away to another realm. A realm that had always been a fantasy, impossible, wrong, because Christopher had always been wrong for me.
Bad for me, really.
That knowledge didn’t really matter, though, did it?
I’d already known the end result of hanging out with Aly. Had wanted it even, somehow thinking that seeing Christopher again would shut that chapter in my life that had never seemed to close.
He’d left something gaping inside of me, and stupidly I thought seeing him would close it.
I should have known it would only rip it open a little wider and pour on a fresh layer of pain, one that was blended with a whole ton of confusion and mixed with zero clarity. His words had been a harsh contradiction to the temptation of his touch, and every single thing about the encounter had left my head spinning and my heart hurting.
Oh, and my body burning.
Uncontrolled redness flared to my cheeks.
So intense I could feel it heating up my insides.
That was the reaction I’d hated most, that Christopher could control me with just a brush of his hand. Never again would I allow him that, the power to sway me physically.
I knew better than that.
I was better than that.
Ben’s face flashed like an errant bolt of lightning in my mind, striking me in the most loyal place in my conscience. Lying next to him last night had seemed unbearable, because it was the last place I’d wanted to be. When he came stumbling into our room after two this morning, he’d rained a trio of sloppy, drunken kisses to my cheek, my jaw, and then my mouth.
Guilt had almost cut me in two, and I hadn’t even done anything wrong.
I bit back a bitter laugh. I could just keep telling myself that and continue pretending it wasn’t a lie. Because Ben still had no clue where I’d been or what I’d been up to, had no idea that another man had again broken my heart when he should have had no dominance over me to do it. He had no idea that I’d muffled my cries in my pillow as I mourned someone there was no question I wanted, one who with the slightest touch had left me bound by unseen chains, burning from the inside out, wishing for his touch even when I knew that touch would ruin me.
Blatant worry screwed Stewart’s face up in concern. “Seriously… what’s up, Samantha? You’re acting weird.”
I lifted both shoulders to my ears, held them for too long before I dropped them helplessly. “Just tired and trying to get settled into a new routine with work.”
“I thought you loved your job.”
“I do.”
“And you look like you have enough energy that you could run a marathon.”
I huffed in frustration. He was too perceptive for his own good. Or maybe for my own good.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
His smile was smug. “You’re about the worst liar I’ve ever met.” He leaned back against his headboard. “But if you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, that’s fine. I’m here for you whenever you do, though. I mean, if you can take all my awesomeness and profound advice.”
I grabbed a pillow and chucked it at him. His boisterous laughter was unrestrained, and he deflected my attack by lifting his arm up to protect his face. Cautiously, he let his arm drop. He grinned victoriously at me when he found me unarmed, again radiating all that beauty and positivity, a lightness that shouldn’t be there after everything he’d been through.
There were few things that made me as happy as seeing him that way.
My movements were slow as I went to him, lay down at his side, and curled up next to him. I rested my head on his shoulder. “I know you’re always here for me, Stewart. You’re the best. You know that, don’t you?”
He squeezed me around the shoulders, and there was no mistaking the hoarseness that came with his tease. “Of course I know I’m the best. You really are lucky to have such a great brother.”
It was funny, because you’d think my standing Sunday dates with Stewart were meant for him, that I was sacrificing my day off to spend time with him, to keep him company and to keep his spirits up. But right then, closed in the quiet of his tiny room, surrounded by collector toys, game consoles, the walls smeared in childish posters, I was pretty sure it was him who was comforting me.
I pulled into the driveway, parking my blue Escape next to Ben’s large SUV. I situated the sunshade against the windshield, giving myself a little pep talk before I went back inside.
Yeah, last night had been a mistake, but maybe it was one that had to be made, a lesson that needed to be learned as an adult and not through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old girl. I’d told myself before I went that I just needed to know.
Now I did.
Christopher was still an asshole, mean right down to his very core, all too happy to play with me until he squeezed the life right out of me. I hadn’t misunderstood. He was just as vicious now as he had been the night he’d completely ripped me apart.
Images slammed me in quick succession – his face, his hands, that body. Brighter than all of them were his eyes. He was devastating, so beautiful it hurt to look at him. That hadn’t changed, either. The years had only made it worse.
But all of that would have to be ignored if I was to focus on the moral of the story.
And that was that I had to stay away from Christopher.
I shook my head through my pathetic laughter as I got out of the car and headed for the front door. Right. He’d made it clear enough he didn’t want anything to do with me, anyway.
How absurd was it that his words had stung worse than him flaunting himself with that slutty girl?
Ludicrous. Ridiculous.
Downright dangerous.
I fisted my hands and marched right through my unlocked front door. It was quiet inside, the shimmery drapes pulled wide, allowing the early afternoon sun to slant through the large window, pouring natural light and warmth into the open family room.
“Ben?” I called. Metal clattered against wood when I dropped my keys onto the small table under the window, and I slipped my flip-flops from my feet.
“In the office,” he hollered back from down the hall. In reality the office was a glorified man cave, replete with blackout curtains on the windows and a leather couch that cost five times my monthly salary.
In the office meant he was busy, scouring the Internet, stalking Facebook, or playing a game, all of which took up a huge chunk of his day.
Good.
That meant I had some time to clear my head and put myself back together.
Before I had even crossed the room, the doorbell rang. I froze. I stood there, considering not answering it, because somehow I already knew who it would be.
The ring was followed by a soft knock, like the person standing on the other side of my door was asking for entrance with a genuine please.
A sound of resignation left me, and I turned back to the door, guarded as I drew it open. Aly stood there with her fist halfway to the door, and it was pretty clear her next knock was going to come with much more force than the last. Beside her on the stoop, Ella was all tucked and protected from the sun in the comfortable shade of her fancy stroller, lost in the sweet abyss of sleep.
“Samantha,” Aly whispered on a sigh. It was pure relief all bundled up with a silent apology.
“Hey,” I said, chewing at my lip, not knowing exactly what to say or do. The sane part of me told me to tell her to go away, to just leave me alone and let bygones be bygones instead of dredging up the past, because I didn’t think I could handle feeling this way much longer. From the moment I spotted Aly in that store little more than a week ago, a disturbance had settled over my life, my axis shifted and my foundation rocked.
I needed to get back on solid ground.
The insane part of me widened the door.
She fidgeted, dipping her chin as she inclined her head. Those same deep emerald eyes – eyes just like his – that had hounded me in my thoughts and chased me in my dreams since I’d run from her house the night before were doing their best to get a read on me. “I was just in the neighborhood,” she finally said, her voice cracking as she went for a joke, and Aly split a pleading, hopeful smile.
And there was nothing I could do. Soft, affectionate laughter trickled up and out.
“You were, huh?”
She swayed innocently, widening unassuming eyes as she went for it. “Figured since I was already nearby and I just happened to notice your car in the driveway, not that I was keeping tabs or anything, I should stop in and say hi since I wasn’t sure when I’d be in the area again.”
My heart did that erratic thing, that quivering tremor that stoked the anticipation of impending change, a feeling that rang as a promised warning that I knew clearly I should heed.
I knew I should.
Instead I stepped out into the heat and pulled the door shut behind me, all the while berating myself for once again being drawn to Christopher’s sister. I couldn’t help it. There was something good and whole about her, something lacking in all my other acquaintances, something that made me sure she really cared.
Somehow, even under all these nasty circumstances, I knew she was truly my friend.
Sunshine poured down from overhead, and Aly lifted her face toward it, drawing in a deep breath of air, before she leveled the most earnest expression on me. “I am so sorry, Samantha.”
Her apology made all the chaos inside me rise to the top. Moisture grew in my eyes, and I did my best to blink it back, but it was no use. I found myself swatting away the tears that slipped down my cheeks.
“You don’t have to apologize, Aly. I knew what I was getting myself into, going over to your house.” I glanced behind me at the latched door, dropping my confession to a whisper. “Part of me wanted to see him again. I just didn’t know it was going to hurt so badly. It was a mistake. One I’m willing to take responsibility for.”
One I wouldn’t repeat.
She flinched. “Don’t say that.”
“How could it be anything else?”
But I guessed Aly couldn’t have known the way things transpired, the cruelness Christopher seemed to get off on, his words meant to bite and sting.
The guy was a straight-up pig. A deviant asshole.
“Everyone there last night loved you, Samantha.”
A mean streak of pettiness pounded through my veins, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “Everyone except for your brother and his girlfriend.”
The second I spouted it, I felt bad, because that wasn’t me. That was part of the problem. Christopher fueled unnatural things in me, a passion that was too strong. So strong it made me bitter and weak.
I hated him for it.
“Maybe,” she admitted with an unsure lift of her shoulders. “I honestly have no clue what was going through my brother’s head last night except for the fact that he was just as upset as you were.”
Flustered air shot from my nose. “I seriously doubt that. Your brother doesn’t care anything about me.”
Aly scoffed. “I know Christopher very well, and I can most definitely assure you that he cares.”
A dispute was on the tip of my tongue, where I let it die, because there was no sense in arguing what I already knew to be the truth. My voice softened. “None of it matters, Aly. Like I told you before, what’s done is done. I never should have gone to your house. Your brother broke my heart.” I fisted my hand at my chest, allowing myself to be the most honest I’d been in a long time. “He broke me. I never should have acted like it was okay to set foot back into his world.”
“But what if I want you in my world?”
“Last night Christopher made it perfectly clear he doesn’t want me anywhere near you.”
And for my own health, I knew I shouldn’t be anywhere near him.
It seemed to be anger that pursed Aly’s lips. She shifted her feet, her words hard and pleading. “That’s not Christopher’s decision to make, Samantha. I like you. My entire family likes you, and so do my friends.” I went to protest, and she cut me off. “And don’t say Christopher doesn’t. You know I’m not talking about him.” She shrugged as if the rest of the circumstances didn’t matter. “I want us to be friends…” Her tone tightened with strain. “It feels like we need to be.” Sadly she shook her head. “And honestly I don’t know how to make that work if Christopher’s not a part of that equation, too.”
I blinked through my confusion. This time it was my turn to try to get a read on her. “Let me get this straight. You’re asking me into your life, knowing by doing so I’m making the conscious decision to get in your brother’s line of fire?”
“You have a boyfriend, Samantha… who you’re living with. Obviously you’ve moved on. But it’s also obvious both you and Christopher are harboring a ton of resentment toward each other. I’m asking you to make an effort to let that bad blood go so both of you can truly move on.”
I choked over bitter laughter. “Let it go?”
That was impossible.
Glancing to her feet, she seemed to contemplate what to say, then lifted her sincere gaze back to me. “I’m not asking you to hang out with him. But I am asking for you to hang out with me and be okay if that sometimes means he might be there.”
This was crazy.
“I don’t understand why you care so much, Aly.” There was no outrage in the question. I just needed a straight answer.
“There’s just something nagging at me not to let this go. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, worrying about you and how to handle this, because I felt like I lied to you after I invited you over and promised Christopher wouldn’t be there. I felt your good-bye last night, and I know you meant it to be permanent.”
Intently she stared at me, as if she was trying to get me to see something that was so clear to her. “I have to believe there’s a reason for all of this… you living less than a minute away from me. Don’t you?”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence.” A terrible, brutal, breathtaking coincidence.
An ironic smile spread over her too-pretty face. “No. I don’t believe in those.”
Neither did I. But that didn’t mean fate was always on my side.
“This morning Jared and I had a long talk about this.” She paused before she drew in a deep breath and continued. “I’m inviting you to come back to my house next weekend.”
That dreaded anticipation balled up in my chest, making it difficult to breathe.
“Jared’s little sister, Courtney, is coming to spend the week with us to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. And before you ask, yes, Christopher will probably be there. But so will the rest of our friends and family, and we want to make this the best birthday Courtney has ever had. We’d love for you to be a part of it. It would mean a lot to me if you were there.”
God, for a second I was wondering if Aly might be just as manipulative as her brother, luring me in with kind words formulated to sway my trusting heart.
I felt guilty just for thinking it. Aly was sincere, even if she might be blind, too good to see the bad in her brother. She struck me as the type who refused to see the negative, believing instead that there had to be some sort of positive in every person, in every situation, even when it was so objectively obvious there was nothing there worth redeeming.
I used to see things the same way.
Until her brother crushed all my belief.
“Please, Samantha… just give it a chance. If it turns out you and Christopher can’t stand being in the same room together, then we’ll keep our visits to coffee and, if you’ll have me, here at your house.”
I chewed at the inside of my lower lip, willing myself to form the correct response.
No.
Instead I said, “I can’t handle your brother treating me the way he did last night. It was horrible, Aly.”
“I’ll talk to him. I promise I won’t let that happen again.”
And I found myself uttering that fateful word again. “Fine.” And again, I wanted to run, to escape inside and never have opened the door.
But what I wanted most was the chance for a redo. To get that answer I’d wanted, because the only thing last night’s encounter had done was left me confused.
God, I had to be completely out of my mind.
She threw her arms around me and hugged me. She rocked us as if she couldn’t get me close enough. “I always liked you.” Her statement was almost urgent.
“I always liked you, too,” I whispered hoarsely.
A gust of disquiet whipped straight through me. This time I didn’t feel just unbalanced and lost. I felt as if I’d been pushed over the ledge and was in a free fall.
Aly pulled back, all traces of heaviness erased, and she squeezed my upper arms in her hands. “See… we were supposed to meet. Target has everything… lost friends included.”
I giggled in spite of myself, wiped away some of the residual tears I could feel drying on my face with the back of my hand. “You’re ridiculous. You know that?”
Deep laughter rolled in her chest. “You have no idea.”
Then she took a step back, her brow lifting in question as she released the brake on the stroller. “Saturday?”
It wasn’t so much a question as she was looking for confirmation.
“Saturday.”
She swiveled the stroller, ambling casually down the sidewalk.
I watched them until they disappeared, listening to the soft incantation of Aly’s voice as she quietly sang to her daughter.
On a weighted exhale, I opened the door and stepped back inside.
Ben stood at the end of the hall. “Who was that?”
“A salesman.”
The lie left me before I had the chance to think it through.
Ben harshly shook his head. “You’d think those assholes would get a clue from the NO SOLICITING sign in the window.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“That’s because you’re too unassuming.”
I wanted to laugh. Unassuming didn’t come close to describing it.
He raked an easy hand over his head. “Let’s get out of here and get something to eat. I’m starving.”
“Sure.”
I was still feeling antsy, and getting out of the house was the best idea Ben had had in a long time. I slipped on my flip-flops, grabbed my keys and bag, and headed out to my car. I slid into the driver’s seat, because Ben preferred for me to drive so he could mess with his phone.
Once we were both settled, I turned over the ignition and backed out onto the street, carefully easing through the quiet neighborhood and rounding the corner. I did my best not to bring any attention to Aly, who was still two houses away from her own, the large wheels of the stroller eating up the sidewalk as she took long strides behind it.
Not that he’d notice anyway, the man absorbed in his phone.
Maybe it was time he did notice. Because if I was going next week, then Ben was going with me. I was finished with Christopher making me a liar. He’d always had me lying to those who mattered most.
Not anymore.
A gasp flew from me and I slammed on the brakes. A big monster of a truck squealed to a stop when the driver did the same, and we came to a screeching halt less than a foot away from each other, the truck pointed at the front left quarter panel of my car. I’d been too occupied with my own thoughts to notice the stop sign that intersected the street running along Aly’s and the main one that led out of the neighborhood. I’d almost hit this truck, which could probably run right over the top of my hood.
Stupid.
That gasp died in my throat when I locked eyes with the driver – emerald eyes that sparked wild and fierce before they darkened to a dangerous obsidian, deep enough to match the ebony of his hair, harsh enough to make my heart thrum savagely at my ribs.
“Would you watch where you’re driving, Samantha?” Ben scolded, shaking his head as he turned right back to his phone. “I swear to God, you’re the worst driver I have ever ridden with. Why I even let you drive, I don’t know.”
I gulped down my shock and completely ignored Ben’s assholery, and instead focused on trying to quiet my thundering heart. I pressed down on the accelerator when Christopher didn’t seem to be going anywhere. His hard stare was fixed on me, clearly urging me to make the first move and go.
As if he were again demanding that I get out of his life.
A downpour of confusion rained over my head when he refused to break away from my eyes, like he’d done last night, keeping me trapped in this tangled web of a man who I knew would suck the life right out of me.
I drove around his truck, both of our expressions stretched wide in blatant shock and outright hatred, flexing in something else I didn’t want to recognize. Something that spread like a wildfire beneath the surface of my skin.
I tore my eyes away and forced myself to focus ahead, trying to ignore the throb that took a straight descent to the juncture right between my thighs.
Foolish, foolish girl.