Birch

“Cyprus, wait!” Yelling, I jumped up from the table, ready to chase her out the door.

“Let her go, Birch,” my father barked, lunging forward to grab my arm. “Just let her go.”

Jerking my arm free, I glowered in anger. I felt my cheeks heat and my muscles tighten as we stared at each other.

I was angry with my father because all of this was his fault, and he couldn't fucking see it; either that or he was too stubborn to want to see it. He never listened to me when I told him he would regret everything we did. I wish he had.

Every single thing that was happening had been because of him and the choices he had made. I hadn't asked for any of this, this was the hand I was dealt. But he could have given her options, he could have done things so much differently. He didn't.

My father claimed it all came from someplace good, a place that was warm and full and didn't have any shadows like the world we lived in. He tried to tell me that he was giving her something better than what she already had, but who was he to judge?

I didn't need her to tell me what was bothering her, I already knew.

It was written all over her face, embedded into her body language and the distance she put between us. When I looked her in eyes as she sat at the table all I could see was sadness. Her gaze was flat and cold, lost in thoughts I hoped she would never have to experience.

But here we were, the silent battle raging in unspoken words and soundless gestures.

She fucking knows. . .

“Don't you see what's happening? Can't you get it through your thick skull that this isn't what you think it is? This has nothing to do with the police questioning her, it goes so much deeper.” Shaking my head, I chewed up my words and spit them in his face. “This is all because of you. I'm going after her, I won't let you stop me. Someone has to fix what you broke.”

His eyes crinkled, mouth twitching at the corners. He didn't speak, he stood stone still, hands opening and closing by his side. I thought he was going to hit me again, but he stepped back, nostrils flaring wide as he nodded his head with a light flick.

With firm strides I started for the door, only to be stopped in my tracks. “I know you love her, and I know she loves you. Hopefully she can forgive me, I never meant to hurt her.”

Looking back over my shoulder, my father's eyes had softened. The black globes that were normally there had turned gray, his shoulders rolled forward and his body slumped. I knew he felt what he was saying. He might not ever speak the words out loud, but he knew that he fucked up all those years ago.

He tried to make up for it, he tried to give her as normal of a life as he could. He wanted her to start over, to escape and find solace with us. But that came at a cost, it came with thin emotions that were so brittle a single cough could snap them in half.

“Her forgiveness isn't up to me, Dad.”

I didn't wait for him to answer, and I didn't really care if she ever forgave him or not. All I wanted was for her to understand that despite what she knew now, I loved her, I've always loved her since the very beginning.

How I felt about her wasn't part of the scene we created. My feelings were real, I felt them in every inch of my being. I couldn't live without her.

The lie my father created had nothing to do with what we built together. I didn't pretend for all this time just to keep her close, I didn't fake these emotions to keep her thoughts from floating back into the past.

I loved her. It was that simple.

Searching the yard, she wasn't by the pool or my mom's flower garden. When we were growing up and Cyprus felt sad, she always gravitated to my mother's garden. I'd find her sitting in the flowers, staring up at the sky, her cheeks cloaked in the sadness my father created.

And I never said a fucking word to her. I'm such an asshole!

She had told me once that it made her feel like she was being hugged by her birth mother. She couldn't explain why, all she could say was that it felt like her mother's arms were the petals, soothing her skin.

Scanning the trees, the thought crossed my mind that she might have gone out to the pond. It was quiet there, a good place to collect your thoughts and ground yourself again when it felt like the world was spinning on its axis, trying to throw you off.

“Cyprus!” calling out, I followed the game trail through the thick trees, listening for her.

Where the hell is she?

She couldn't have gotten that far. The woods around our home were thick and dense, you had to stay on the path or they'd gobble you up. Then it hit me, and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it to begin with.

Shit, I know where she is.

With tender feet, I crunched through the leaves and debris, doing my best to not be too loud. There was no doubt she knew I was coming and would find her eventually, but I didn't want to scare her off.

Rounding a few thick trees, I stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. Cyprus was sitting on the ground, running her hands over the earth around her thighs.

“Figured you'd find me here at some point,” she said with her back to me. “What do you want?”

“I'm surprised you stayed then.” Walking to her side, I sat down beside her, cupping my hands in my lap. “Why didn't you run when you heard me coming?”

Her face hung low, chin dipping into her chest. “I don't want to run, I want to learn.”

“What do you want, Cyprus? What do you want me to say?”

Her head twisted side to side, lips turning down. “I don't want you to say anything.”

Letting out a deep breath, I tipped my head back to look up at the sky. “Tell me what you know. What did they say to you?”

“Birch, don't.”

“Why? Why won't you tell me? If I knew then I could—”

“You can't do anything. I need to figure it out for myself.” Her eyes finally came up to mine, and for the first time since we came home I finally felt like she was going to be honest with me. “I want to learn on my own, I want to see it on my own. I need my memories. That's the only thing that will help right now.”

I understood what she meant when she said it. For so many years she knew nothing, but she knew it was stored someplace inside her head. She had told me that she felt like her brain was on mute, and she wished there was a button to turn everything back on.

It hurt me to know that I had the answers she needed and couldn't give them to her. I almost had several times, when I found her crying alone, filled with so much pain. I just couldn't do it.

When I was younger I kept it in because my father told me I had to, but as we got older, I did it because I had lost the strength to expose him for what he had done. She was happy to have our family, for all the wrongs, my father had done what he set out to do. He gave her her life back.

It wasn't just her relationship with him that kept me from telling her. I didn't tell her because I was scared she'd run away, that she would leave if she knew the truth. The thought of her leaving, that cut me deep.

And then one day it all stopped. Cyprus stopped crying over the family she couldn't find, she stopped questioning her past. I thought that maybe she had finally given up, that the prison her memories were encased in had ultimately locked its doors for good.

I was wrong. I don't think it ever really went away, it went dormant, waiting idly by for the perfect moment to spring back.

My only worry now was what she felt about me. I didn't want her to doubt us or to fall out of love with me. . . because we were real.

Besides keeping my father's secret, everything else we shared was the truth. My feelings, my fears, the laughs and arguments; all of it.

“You know I love you, right?” Picking up a small bushel of pine needles, I started plucking them free one by one. “I really do love you.”

“I don't know what to believe right now.” Blinking slowly, her brows folded as her eyes searched mine. “There's so much that's still missing, and so much that's been put in its place.”

“Why did you come here?” I asked, dropping the bushel and resting back on my palms.

Cyprus looked around, stopping at the tree we had told her I had found her under years ago. “Because this is where it started. This was where I met you for the first time, this was where my memories began and ended all in the same breath.”

My heart pounded with her words, taking me back to that day, that moment, the instant her eyes opened wide and her new life began. All I ever wanted to do was save her.

I wanted to save her then and I wanted to save her now.

“Do you think knowing the truth will really help you?”

“Yes. Why the hell wouldn't it? Wouldn't you want to know?”

Shrugging my shoulder, I shifted on the ground and scooted closer to her. “I don't know, maybe. I guess I just don't understand what you think you'll gain from knowing. What if what you learn hurts you more? How will you feel then?”

“I'm already broken.” Lowering her lids, Cyprus pursed her lips. “How much worse could it get, Birch?”

How the hell do I answer that?

“Do you want me to tell you the truth or what you want to hear?”

Glaring, her mouth snarled, cheeks flushing crimson. “Fuck you.” Grabbing a handful of dirt, she threw it in my face. “Fuck you!” Screaming at the top of her lungs, she started to stand.

Her hands dug into the ground, fingers stabbing the earth like spikes. She had made it to her knees, wobbling as she started to cry and gasp for air.

I knew she was trying to run, that she wanted nothing more than to be as far away from me as possible.

“I didn't say that to upset you, I swear.” Lunging forward, I snagged her forearm and held her steady so she didn't fall. “I would never hurt you purposely.”

Whipping her face in my direction, tears streamed down her cheeks, falling like heavy raindrops to the forest floor. “It's a little too late for that, don't you think?”

“No, it's never too late to fix mistakes. Not for us, not for what we have. What we have is real, Cyprus, we were meant to find each other.” Holding her tight, I kept her in place, refusing to let her go.

I wasn't going to lose the best thing to ever walk into my life because of something my father had done. Decisions were made, choices that could never be taken back. But we had found each other, that was all that mattered to me.

“Let me go, Birch.” Her small fist balled tight, arm tense and locked in place. “I just want to go.”

“Do you love me? Do you still feel it like I do?” Searching her eyes, my heart stopped beating while I waited for her to answer.

Fuck she still looked so beautiful even in her rage and sadness. Her lips were puffed up as she took in ragged painful breaths. The small freckles across her nose began to disappear as her skin flushed bright red, and her nostrils flared.

“I love what we had, I loved the man I thought I knew. But now I'm stuck wondering where the lies end and the truth begins.”

“How can you say that? Can't you feel it? Don't you feel it?” My voice begged her to listen to her heart, to what we shared and felt.

I knew it was still there, it wasn't gone. There was no way that the love we experienced could just vanish in a day. It wasn't possible, what we had was too strong for that.

Right?

Even if she doubted what her past was made of, she had to know that our love came from someplace whole.

“I feel betrayed, I feel like my entire life has been a goddamn lie.” Thinning her lips, her teeth clenched as years of pent up anger fed her words. “I feel like the man I thought I trusted fed me bullshit as easily as he fed me dinner. What I feel hurts more than I think you could ever realize.”

Lifting my hand to her cheek, I brushed her skin, wiping away the tears she continued to cry. “I love you, that's not a lie, and it's never been a lie.”

Leaning in, I attempted to kiss her, but she turned her face so I couldn't. “Don't. I can't do this right now. I can't take the idea that you spent all these years lying to my face.”

“Tell me what you know, just tell me so I can make this right.” Holding her chin firmly in my hands, I forced her to look at me. “I want to make this right.”

Just tell me what you know!

“Don't fucking give me that shit.” Shoving my hand away, Cyprus pushed herself off the ground and rose to her feet. Her arms flailed in the air, waving erratically. “You knew! You knew and you chose to say nothing!”

Holding out my hands, I didn't get up. I wanted her to have this moment, to feel like she had some form of control. She needed that, she needed to stand on the pedestal and let the world hear her cries.

“How could you do this to me?” Water poured from her eyes, and she looked so fragile and young all over again, just like she had that day; when she woke to a world she couldn't remember and faces she had never seen. “How come you never told me?”

“I couldn't.” My heart broke as I watched the woman I loved crumble and dissolve before me. It hurt, it hurt more than anything I could have imagined.

“You couldn't. . .” Pausing, her body went limp, arms hanging lifelessly by her sides. “Of course you couldn't, you're too much of a fucking coward to stand up to your father.” Thinning her lips, her chin crooked hard. “I'm glad that what he told you when you were a child still means something today. That says a lot, Birch, really it does. You say you love me, but I'm not even sure you really know what that word means. If you loved me, you would have done the right thing long before now.”

Wiping her cheeks, Cyprus took in deep long breaths through her nose. She didn't say anything else, she just stared at me, her eyes boring a hole into my heart.

She was right. I was a fucking coward.

I could have told her everything so many times, and I chose not to. Not because I didn't want her to know, but because fear kept me from speaking.

When we were kids, yes, my father was the voice of reason. He wanted a clean slate, he wanted her to never know about what happened so she would willingly stay with us. I hadn't agreed then, and I didn't agree now.

But as time went on and the years slipped between our fingers, it became something I didn't want to share because of fear. I was afraid of how she would react. I was afraid she wouldn't look at me the same and I wasn't sure I could deal with that.

It didn't matter. Cyprus found out. What she knew exactly I still wasn't sure, but regardless, she knew more than I had ever spoken out loud to anyone other than my father.

The fear I felt began to spiral and transform. Panic was setting in and my mind began to race with all the things she could use against us. With just her testimony she could put my father and I away for life.

“Let me fix this, Cyprus. Let me tell you the truth, all of it.”

“No,” she barked, cutting the air with her hand. “I don't want anymore lies. I'll find the answers myself, I'll see it in my head and learn it on my own. I don't want to have anymore lies shoved down my throat. I'm done with this shit, Birch. I'm out, I'm not one of you, I never was.”

With quick steps, Cyprus stormed back towards the house, her arms stiff and rigid as they swung in tandem with her feet. She didn't look back at me, she never turned to give me one last glance. She just walked with purpose.

In that moment I knew everything just got a whole lot harder.

I was losing her. You fucking lost her.

I needed her back. Good luck, you might as well have killed her parents yourself.

I won't let her go. That's not your choice to make.