Briar

Day Eight

My parents are coming. It took them an entire week to check the voicemail that the doctor left on my mom’s cell phone, informing them that their daughter was hospitalized. To their credit, they hopped on the next flight out, as soon as they heard. The utter despair I’ve been feeling for the past week shifts into anger, and my blood boils thinking about my dad’s part in all this. My father isn’t the softest man in the world, not by a long shot, but I didn’t think he was capable of something like this. Especially not when it hurts his own children. But, clearly, I was mistaken.

I stretch out my legs from the fetal position I’ve spent the majority of the past week in and yawn. I’ve done nothing but sleep and watch Tombstone from my bed. I can’t even use the media room anymore because it hurts too much. He managed to ruin my favorite place.

“Fucker,” I mutter under my breath.

I’ve called the funeral home, but they didn’t have any information on services planned for John. He wasn’t a bad man. He was a man who sometimes did bad things. A man who couldn’t deal with all the hurt inside him, so he pushed his son and everyone else away while he quite literally drank himself to death. My worst fear is Asher suffering the same fate. I thought I could be that person for him. I thought I could make him happy. Because even through all the dysfunction, the sneaking around, and the lies, he made me happy. He made me whole. I promised myself I wouldn’t let him complete me. I didn’t want to fall in love. Falling in like, and then losing him, was hard enough.

I hear the shrill, neurotic voice of my mother coming through the front door, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors. My father is silent, but I know he’s with her. I blow out a deep breath, rolling onto my back, bracing myself for them to come barging through my door. Swinging my legs over the side, I sit up on the edge of the bed.

“Briar!” Mom shrieks, running into my room. She bends at the waist, taking my face in her hands, checking to see if I’m still whole. And I am, on the outside, save for some stiches and some gnarly bruises. But the inside is another story. I don’t speak. I don’t move. I’m limp as I stare straight at my father while she checks me over. He’s foreboding in his sharp suit and crossed arms. He looks ruffled. Concerned. But it’s all an act. His tall frame takes up the entire doorway, but he doesn’t intimidate me one bit. Not right now. A loaded gun wouldn’t scare me at this point.

“Sweetheart,” Mom says, tipping my chin up to force me to look at her. “What’s going on?”

“Ask him,” I say, jerking my chin out of her bony fingers.

My dad doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty. He arches a brow, jaw clenched, and straightens his tie.

“What is she talking about?” Mom asks, looking genuinely confused. Maybe she wasn’t in on it. Maybe he didn’t even tell her.

“That’s a good question, Nora. Because I don’t have a goddamn clue.”

“Oh, so you didn’t have Asher sent away?”

“Asher?” Mom questions. “What does that boy have to do with anything?”

I roll my eyes at her referring to him as that boy when she’s known him for years.

“Of course, I did,” he shocks me by saying, not an ounce of apology in his tone. “I get an anonymous email, at work, no less, containing a photo of my fourteen-year-old daughter lip-locked with the trash of the town.”

“Excuse me?!” Mom interrupts.

I’m fuming. My face and ears get hot, and my nails dig into my palms, leaving bloody, little half-moon indents.

“He was nearly an adult, preying on my child. A drug addict. He was corrupting both you and Dash. I could’ve had his ass thrown in jail. Probably should’ve. I was pretty generous, if you ask me.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I stand, walking closer to him. He appears slightly taken aback. Like I’m overreacting, and he hasn’t a clue why.

“You have no idea what you set in motion. What your actions caused. He thought I betrayed him this whole time. That I sent him away and used you to do it.”

“No, dear daughter, that was all him. He’s responsible for his own actions.”

“You almost got him killed!” I scream, unable to stay calm any longer. “You sent him to someone even worse than his father, and he almost didn’t make it out alive.”

My mom’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of us, like she’s watching a tennis match, as she struggles to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“How could you just play with someone’s life like that? You think you’re God? You’re a coward hiding behind money and power. And you’re not the man I thought you were.”

I’ve finally broken through that cool exterior. He takes a calming breath, nostrils flaring, as he steps closer, pointing a finger in my face.

“Not God. But I am your father. And I will do what I think is best for my children, regardless of how it rates on your moral meter. He’s bad news, Briar. A predator. And I wasn’t going to wait around until you figured it out for yourself.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, batting the angry tears away from my face. God, I’m so sick of crying. “Because you’ll never be half the man he already is. He’s kind and good and loyal and resilient. He’s overcome more in his twenty-one years than you could even dream of.”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, and his reaction pushes me to hammer in the final nail in my coffin. What’s the worst he could do? The damage has already been done.

“I love him.”

My dad’s face reddens, and I think his teeth might crack under the pressure of his steeled jaw. Without saying a word, he turns on his heels, slamming the door behind him. He slams it so hard that the framed picture of Dash, Ash, and me falls from the shelf next and shatters onto my desk below it. My mom scurries over to clean it up, sweeping the shards into her hand.

“Mom. Stop.”

She doesn’t.

“Mom.”

She bends down, picking pieces out of the carpet.

“Mom! I don’t care about the fucking glass right now!”

That finally gets her attention. Her head snaps up, eyes wide.

“Of course, you don’t. You’ve never cared about making messes. Someone has to care about the mess!”

I get the feeling that she’s not talking about the state of my room. She looks like she’s holding back tears, and I wonder if something else is going on. Her tone softens when she sees my shocked expression. She drops the glass into the trash can next to my desk and brushes off her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I was so worried about you when I got the message. And then I felt like the worst parent on the planet. What kind of a mother doesn’t know her own child is in the hospital?”

“It’s okay,” I’m quick to assure her. “I had Dash.” But the truth is, it’s not okay. And I don’t know why my first instinct is always to placate her.

“I envy you, Briar Victoria. Your brother has the title of being a rebel, but you… You’ve always marched to the beat of your own drum, even when it drove me insane.” She laughs bitterly.

She couldn’t shock me more if she decided to slap me in the face.

“Doing the right thing comes naturally to you,” she adds. “That’s why I wasn’t worried about you staying behind when we moved. Knowing the right thing is easy. Doing it is the hard part. You’ve never had that problem. So, if you think that Asher is worth your heart, then I have to trust that. I know better than anyone what happens when you don’t follow your heart.”

This is the first time my mom has ever, in my life, said something like this. She’s always been so closed-off, and though I’ve never once doubted her love for me, I never felt like she understood me. She’s prim and proper, and everything is black or white in her eyes. I’m messy, and I see the world in shades of gray. But seeing her this raw and unfiltered humanizes her. I feel like I’ve seen the first glimpse of Eleanor Vale the person, not the mother.

Closing the distance between us, I wrap my arms around her neck, hugging her tightly. She’s stock-still for a moment before she hugs me back just as tight and kisses the uninjured side of my head.

“So, where is he?” she asks, pulling back, wiping the wetness from under her perfectly lined eyes.

“Asher?” I ask.

“I’m assuming he’s the one who’s been staying here? It was his truck that was in the driveway that day, wasn’t it?”

I nod, feeling guilty for the first time about keeping it from her.

“And to say that he’s why you disappeared from the fundraiser would be a safe assumption?”

I clear my throat and look away and sit down on the bed, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Like she knows exactly what happened up on that balcony.

“I figured as much,” she admits, raising a brow. “You were always close. A little too close. And very protective of each other.”

I almost laugh, because it’s true. Asher has always been that way. But I’m just as protective of him. I’ve always felt the need to come to his defense and shield him from the condescending comments and judgment from the people of Cactus Heights, even when I know he’d rather I kept my mouth shut. He always thought he wasn’t good enough, but the opposite is true.

“That’s because he’s worth protecting. I knew it even then.” I feel those stupid tears stinging my eyes again, and I pick at the nonexistent lint on my duvet.

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Mom confesses, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. “Why are you upset?”

“John Kelley died the night I was in the hospital.”

“Oh my God,” she says, sitting down beside me on the bed.

“Ash didn’t take it well.” I don’t know why I’m telling her any of this. It doesn’t feel natural, like I need to keep my secrets and feelings guarded. I keep waiting for her disapproving look or her condescending tone. But at the same time, I so desperately want to have this kind of relationship with her. She made an effort, so now it’s my turn. “This time it’s over for good, and I’m scared to death about what that means.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He thought you sent him away, right? And he still came back to you.”

“He didn’t,” I argue. “He came back for his dad.”

“That’s not what I said. He may have come back for his dad, but he came back to you.”

It doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s a moot point. If he cared, he wouldn’t have left me in that hospital room after I begged him to stay. Even if he did decide to come back, it’s too little too late. I could forgive him, but I couldn’t ever forget.