Lane
Six months later
I’d gone for a run in my neighborhood rather than driving down to the beach. I was learning to be at home without panic and nightmares, and sticking around my house was part of my therapy.
The house in Florida had never been a hot button for me until everything went to hell. Before Bess came into my life, my past remained in the Northeast. Now it was a frequent flyer, following me wherever I went.
It was fall, but the Florida heat didn’t get the memo. Although it was the end of the day, the air clung to the warmth from the sun earlier in the day, and I was sweating quicker than I’d expected.
Rounding the bend, I wondered if the leaves were changing back home. By home, I wondered if it was cold where Bess was—in Pennsylvania.
Of course it was.
A chill wormed its way through me despite the pace I was pushing in eighty-plus degrees. The street was clear and bright in Miami, but in Pennsylvania—and Ohio—they were slick and littered with leaves. An accident waiting to happen. Like my parents.
Except with them, it wasn’t the leaves.
I arrived at the end of my driveway at the same time a cab pulled up to the gate, not allowing me to dwell on that awful day so many years ago. Coming to a quick stop, I brought my hand to my face, wiping the sweat out of my eyes, curious about who was going to step out. My beard bristled under my hand. Another change I’d made—I wore a beard and jeans now instead of my suit of armor.
Was it her? No, she wouldn’t come back here.
Then dispelling any hope that it was Bess, a large form similar to mine opened the back door of the cab.
“Jake, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, I decided two months of my brother being MIA was enough,” he said, wrapping his big arm around my sweaty body.
I shrugged his arm off. “I’m fine, and you know it. I told you I was getting better but needed space, and yet here the fuck you are.”
Jake shot me a quizzical look. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
I didn’t want to. The last time I invited someone in from the bottom of the driveway, it went catastrophically bad.
“Come on,” I said, punching the code in the gate.
After opening the front door, I showed Jake the kitchen and excused myself for a shower, more so I could gather myself than get clean.
Standing under the spray in the guest bath—I didn’t use my master one anymore—I closed my eyes and fought back the emotions of my past. Calling forward my newfound strength, I took deep breaths, allowing the water to wash the sweat away.
Rubbing shampoo through my new beard and the hair I’d kept long, I thought about that night like I did every time I showered.
I’d watched the town car with Bess tucked in the backseat pull away like I’d watched the ambulance drive away so many years ago. Except this time, I’d been the one who needed help, screaming inside for someone to rescue me. And Bess had been trying to be strong enough, sticking around, letting me use her, giving and not taking.
Unlike me, who had run away or literally pushed her out of my life. It made me hate myself even more for my past transgressions.
I’d stared into the night until the taillights became tiny pinpricks, hating myself more with each passing second. When they were gone, I didn’t go back inside. I’d laid down on the concrete driveway and looked at the sky, enamored with the universe, its largeness. It was all consuming and I was nothing but a small chess piece in its game of life.
Even if life hadn’t been manipulated or altered in the way I knew it was all those years ago, maybe the outcome would have been the same.
What ruled our existence, I thought. Fate? Or our own decisions?
This line of thinking was too existential for me. My world was one of cause and effect. Clients paid me, then I installed my systems at their hotel and they made better money. That was all I knew, like Bess knew waitressing and collecting tips on the morning shift, going to meetings, and walking her dog. It was how we survived, lugging around the burdens of our youth, and we each had our own ways of dealing with it.
But Bess was growing out of it. I didn’t know how or when, but she was. She was strong and I was weak.
When I’d stood up with the intention of going back into my big, empty house as dawn broke, I’d decided I wanted to be strong. Not just a facade of strength, but complete. Whole.
And I’d called a number I hadn’t used in a few years.
The shower water began to cool, shifting my attention back to the present.
I wanted to touch myself, but I didn’t dare. Aside from the fact that Jake was downstairs, I couldn’t find relief the only way I’d grown to know. I’d spent years losing myself in women and climaxing—using my brother’s leftovers, my own conquests, Bess, and my own hand.
Now I knew I needed to surrender to the pain and relieve myself of the responsibility, rather than masking the pain with substitutes. That was the only way I could move on.
And that was what I’d been doing until Jake showed up.
“So, what do you want, Jake? Money? Help with your latest piece of tail? What is it this time?” I asked as I walked back into the kitchen.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” I said as I opened the fridge. Grabbing a bottle of water, I guzzled it and tossed it into the trash.
“Well, what is it? Why you so quiet all of a sudden?” I asked Jake.
“Listen, Lane. Honestly, I’m just worried about you. Have been for some time.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, unable to keep the anger from my tone. “That’s how Bess ended up on my doorstep before I tossed her out like the trash. That was your fucking fault. I wanted to be alone.”
I sat on the stool across from him, both of us with our elbows on the island, mirror images of each other except for the hair . . . and beard. I was doing everything in my power to separate myself from that fuck.
“Bess is doing okay, by the way.”
I stood, slamming my hands onto the counter. “What the fuck? How are you still seeing her?” Agitated, I spun around and started pacing. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
He completely disregarded what I said and answered anyway. “She’s been spending time with Camper, who got the job with me. We’ve all hung out a little. She worries about you constantly. Even when she’s not asking, I see it in her face.”
Jealousy raged inside me, whipping and licking at my skin, fighting to come out and play.
“Shut the fuck up, Jake. You don’t deserve to hang out with her. You don’t deserve to be here, either. Because if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this god-awful place. My soul is black because of you. Our whole lives were ruined by your mistake, and I’m supposed to take that shit to the grave?”
My brother stood up, matching my height inch for inch. “That’s another reason why I’m here. I need to say I’m sorry for that.”
“Sorry?” I yelled, sweeping my hand across the island, sending napkins and little knickknacks my housekeeper always left out flying across the room. “For what, Jake? Say it,” I said, taunting him, knowing the words would never make it over his lips.
“You know.”
“See! I fucking knew you couldn’t say it. Say it, Jake! Say what you’re sorry for!”
We were in each other’s faces, our eyes the same, our noses exactly alike, but our hearts were not. His was lifeless, like always. Dead. I wondered if he even had a pulse. While mine was shattered and glued back together just enough for me to function in day-to-day living.
“Why do I have to say it?” he yelled back.
“Because you have to own it, Jake. I’m sick of walking around with it in my back pocket.” I was so furious I was practically foaming at the mouth. I could feel spit flying around my beard, my hands were shaking, and my knees were weak.
Suddenly done with it all, I said, “Oh, fuck it, what the hell does it mean now. Great, you’re sorry.” I stepped back, dismissing Jake. “Go back home.”
He walked forward, gripping my shoulders with his hands, caging me in with his arms. “I’m sorry, Lane.” And then through gritted teeth, he said, “For doing what I did. I shouldn’t have done that. I was just playing, and I didn’t know any better. And well, you know . . . Shirley fell asleep and you didn’t want to play with me.”
“Say it, Jake.”
I was losing patience; I’d never loved and hated another person more in my life. We shared blood and some innate bond as twins, so I couldn’t cut off my caring for him. But compassion was hard to find when it came to Jake.
He broke free from me, taking a step backward and then another. “It was my fault. All of it. The accident. It was all me. I played with the car, pretended to be fixing stuff that I had no business messing with, all because I wanted to be like Dad. Oh shit. Dad . . . he’s gone because of me.” Then he bent over like a runner trying to catch his breath after a race, and said between raspy breaths, “Okay, you happy? I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m not okay,” I spit out. “I’ve carried that shit around with me for years. When I was little, I worried they would take you away from me. When I was older, I was worried others would judge me like I’d judged myself all these years. I’m so ashamed. We killed our own parents.” Doing my damnedest to hold my shit together, I sat down and cradled my forehead in my hands.
Jake stepped next to me and rested a hand on my back. “You were an innocent bystander. A kid, Lane. We were the same age. I did what I did, and you had no power over me to stop me. You were the well-behaved brother, the one who went in our room and played Legos while I single-handedly ruined our lives while Shirley slept. Speaking of her—”
Not allowing him to finish, I interrupted. “That’s what my therapist has said since I moved here, that I was an innocent bystander. But I needed to hear it from you.”
“You don’t think I don’t walk around with this in my soul, burning my gut all the fucking time? It was me!” Jake said softly, almost a whisper in my ear as he bent over and leaned on the island.
“I see it. It’s why I’m always cleaning up your messes, excusing your lousy behavior. I can’t imagine . . .”
My eyes stung, and I felt tears fill my eyes. It had been a long time since I’d felt that. Looking up at my twin, I saw that Jake’s eyes were wet too.
Right there in the middle of my kitchen, my brother and I finally had a reckoning that was twenty years in the making. We fell apart, dissolving into bits and pieces of emotion that scattered around the room.
As I lifted my hand to swipe away my tears, I wondered if we would be able to put ourselves back together.