Two years later, my parents’ divorce was finalized. My mother would take permanent residency in Manhattan; my father would station himself in Boston. No battle for custody—I was already of age. My parents decided to give the house to me instead of selling it and dividing the profits between them.
I was angry. My parents had decided to abandon the house…the happy house where Thomas and I had grown up! Where they last saw Tom! I refused to let the memories go. They could divide all their properties except this house…I could not believe they were walking away from it and all the memories it had.
I was in my room, and as always, I decided to channel my emotions onto the canvas. I didn’t know what I was painting. But it was a mixture of dark blues, blacks, violets, swirling around in angry patterns. I was on the brink of crying. That day marked the end, not just of a chapter of my life, but of a whole story.
I swirled the violet paint on the canvass angrily, not knowing what I was really painting, but somehow expressing how I really felt. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I refused to let a whimper escape from me.
Just then, I felt strong arms encircle me, pulling me away from the canvas.
“Stop it,” Travis whispered behind me. He took the paintbrush from my hand.
I stared at his handsome face, and then I completely broke down.
Travis bent and scooped me off my feet and carried me to my bed. I couldn’t stop crying. I knew my parents’ marriage had crumbled a long time before. But the finality of it brought up so many sad and angry emotions that I almost couldn’t face.
I felt Travis’s lips on my head. “Sssshhh…” he said in a soothing voice. “I’m still here.”
The following years, my life was a series of ups and downs. People came and went for the next five years. My mom trained me to manage her art galleries.
I dated guys and had two relationships. One didn’t end well.
Eric.
He was wonderful, smart, and funny. We jived a lot, and it seemed like I was talking to my girl best friend every time I was with him. He was very comfortable. In fact, too comfortable. We’d been seeing each other for three years, and I decided to take it to the next level. I thought he would do it, but three years without initiating intimacy was just plain weird.
I planned a night for us in my apartment. I lit candles, set the mood. When he opened the door and I was wearing a silk nightgown in front of him, he broke down to tears.
Not good, I said to myself, and I went to him to ask him what was wrong.
“I’ve not been honest with you,” he said. “I was…probably just using you…to deny what I really wanted. What I really am!”
“What are you talking about, Eric?”
“Brianne, I’m gay.”
I almost fainted. No wonder we’d been seeing each other for so long and he’d been dodging intimacy as much as I had…maybe even more!
So I wasted three years there when I was actually a ticking time bomb. I had to be married by the time I was thirty-one. Well, I would be, anyway…to Travis Cross, if I didn’t find my own guy.
As for Travis, he’d built his own company that was set to compete with his father’s. It seemed like a game of chess between the two of them. One man trying to teach the other a lesson, the other trying to show the other that he was much smarter.
Travis stayed mostly in Manhattan, but he also traveled a lot. But no matter how busy he was, he never failed to see me on my birthday. He would show up for a day, give me an extravagant present, like a piece of diamond jewelry, and then we’d spend the whole night talking and catching up, and it always felt the same. Like we were together all year long.
Eric didn’t mind Travis. In fact, he liked it when Travis dropped by and joined us for dinner. Now, I think Eric might have been interested in Travis more than he was ever interested in me.
“But I do love you, Brianne!” Eric said. “Just not in an intimate way. And I promise I’ll always be here for you. I’ll always be your friend.”
So instead of making love, Eric and I spent that night in bed. I was locked in his embrace, my head on his shoulder, and he told me the secrets he couldn’t tell anybody else.
Now, Eric and I are still very good friends. He dates once in a while, trying to find his own Mr. Right.
I then dated a guy named Christian. He was a tall, dark blond guy with startling green eyes. He was very cute and very ambitious. He was a lawyer with dreams of becoming a partner in his law firm one day.
I wasn’t painting much. Chris made me see that money came faster when you managed a business. It takes a while to sell a painting for a good price, but buying and selling other people’s paintings brings home the money faster. And I needed the money. I had a wedding I needed to save up for.
With Chris, I didn’t have a problem with intimacy. He was the best friend of my old friend Cindy’s brother. We met at a party Cindy threw. He asked for my number, and he asked me out the next day.
We’d been dating for two and a half years. The future seemed very bright for me. I was beginning to think I might not need Travis Cross to enter into a ceremony he completely didn’t believe in.
When I started dating Chris, I had been successfully managing one of my mother’s galleries. I learned the commercial side of the business. Instead of painting my own masterpieces, I learned the logistics and the financial side of managing a gallery. I did miss painting, but I needed time for this. And time seemed to be quite a luxury for me at the moment, especially with a guy like Chris, who seemed to be living in the fast lane.
The relationship was comfortable, cozy, and smooth sailing. Christian was a standup guy with a lot of principles in life. He was ambitious, and he guided me in managing one of my mom’s galleries. Sure, he was uptight most of the time, but he taught me to be tougher and to go after success. I might not succeed in painting my own masterpieces, but at least I had galleries to manage in the future.
The only time I felt I was being artistic at all was when I joined Sarah’s dance group. They had dance shows once in a while, and I always managed to get a part in one of their performances. I begged Chris to watch me, but he always had a case to work on whenever there was a show. I could tell he was not really thrilled by my dancing. I told him that he just must think that it was a form of exercise for me to keep my muscles toned and my heart healthy.
Travis caught up with me every once in a while. Whenever he was in town, we’d have dinner together. He was also been quite a busy man. Whenever I saw him, I couldn’t help throwing myself in his arms. Being with him felt like I was still the old me. Careless and carefree.
We never talked about Chris or Travis’s own women. When we were together, it was like there was only the two of us in the world. In two years, I only got to see Travis about one or two days a month. So whenever we saw each other, I felt like I was always running out of time and I had to make the most of it. I told him things I couldn’t tell Chris or Sarah. My dreams, my fears…what was left of the old me.
“What are you doing with a guy who changes you so much?” he asked me once. We were on the balcony of his hotel suite. I was sitting beside him, and he had an arm around my waist with my head resting on his shoulder.
I sighed. “I have to make something of myself, too, Travis. I have to survive on my own. I’m not trust-funded like you. The minute I graduated college, I was on my own in this world. I can’t afford to paint and dance all the time and expect that money will just come pouring in on a daily basis.”
“But are you happy?” he asked.
I stared up at him. He was studying my face, reading all the hidden emotions behind the façade I’d been putting up for years. “If I didn’t have a roof over my head and I starved to death, I would certainly be sad, Travis,” I said.
He smirked. “You’re crazy if you think I would allow you to get that far!” he said under his breath.
I laughed. “I know you won’t,” I said and rested my head on his shoulder again. “But, Travis, I have to survive on my own, you know.”
I felt him shake his head. “No, you don’t,” he said. “Your fate is tied to mine, remember? So that means you never have to be alone for as long as you live.”
“For as long as you live,” I corrected him.
“No,” he said. “I’ll find a way to take care of you even in the afterlife.” He chuckled.
I felt a heavy lump in my throat. Suddenly, hearing him say that broke my heart. I couldn’t…and I mean couldn’t…imagine living my life without Travis in it. No. Just thinking about Travis dying was just too painful for me.
I didn’t know it, but I was crying silently. Suddenly, Travis pulled away from me and tilted my chin up so he could look at my face.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
I shook my head. I wiped the tears from my cheeks. I pulled away from him and looked at the view of the city in front of us.
“Brianne,” he insisted. “What did I say wrong?”
I stared at him. How could Travis say it like that, as if he didn’t think he meant a lot to me?
“That I would lose you one day,” I murmured.
His expression softened. He reached out and pulled me into his arms again. I felt him kiss the top of my head. “I’m sorry,” he said. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him to me while I continued crying on his chest. “But there are things beyond our control, cherie. I’m just saying that even if I’m gone, I’ll make sure you live a comfortable life.”
“I don’t need a comfortable life, Travis,” I said. “I need you to be in it…always. And promise me you will be!”
“Ssshhh…” He took a deep breath. “I promise, princess. You won’t lose me.”
“I love you, Travis,” I whispered and I felt him kiss the top of my head.
He took a deep breath. “I love you, too, Brianne. Promise me I won’t lose you, too.”
I smiled. “I promise.”
Chris hadn’t met Travis yet. Chris knew that my parents and I weren’t close. He knew that I had an old friend whom I constantly kept in touch with, the only other person who reminded me of the happy family I used to have. And somehow, Chris never seemed interested with my “oldest friend.” I tried to tell him about Travis, but he seemed so uninterested and he usually changed the topic. So I just stopped trying over the years. Whenever I disappeared for a day, I would tell him that I was catching up with an old friend, and he’d tell me to go ahead and knock myself out, just don’t do anything silly.
It’s good that he trusted me, not that I intended to do anything silly with Travis. Travis and I were no longer teenagers with raging hormones who couldn’t get their emotions under control.
“Why don’t you ask your old friends to come with you?” Chris said whenever I asked him to come to my family reunions with me.
Well, Travis was always invited to our reunions anyway. But I wanted Chris to meet him and my family. But somehow, he was always busy impressing his bosses and his clients. I got how ambitious he was. I just wished that he would pause for a moment to come to my dances or my family reunions.
He couldn’t really blame me for being disappointed. The most important male figure in my life had set the bar really high for my future boyfriends. Travis probably earned about a hundred times more than Chris, and he still had time to come to my family reunions.
My first Christmas with Chris was a disappointment. I was so looking forward to it, but, unfortunately, he told me that he had to go to work. The CEO of one of the companies they were working on to hire their legal services held a major Christmas Eve party and his boss nominated him to attend for their firm. He was eager to impress and ditched our holiday plans of renting a cabin in the woods.
Since Chris waited until the day before Christmas to tell me that he’s bailing on me, it was too late to fly out to where either of my parents were to spend Christmas Eve with them. So when Sarah told me she was having a ‘singles Christmas Eve’ party at her place, I decided to go. I could tell she truly felt sorry for me. But I tried to smile as much as I could, and pretended I was having the time of my life.
“Give me a real smile.” Sarah teased as she handed me a cocktail.
“I’m okay,” I said to her, taking a sip of my drink.
“No, you’re not,” she said. “You’re disappointed. I know you’d rather be spending this evening cuddling up with a guy who would envelop you in warmth… and comfort and love.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, Sarah.” But I know she was right. Christmas Eve is a pretty good time of the year to spend with someone you love.
My phone rang.
“Cherie,” Travis greeted me cheerfully on the other line and for the first time since Chris told me he was cancelling our holiday plans, I smiled for real.
“Hey you!” I greeted back. “So, how does a business mogul like Travis Cross spend Christmas Eve? Are you at some VIP Christmas party in Manhattan or some VIP club that only allows entry to the rich and the famous?”
It took a while for him to answer. Then he said, “Actually, I’m standing in a snowy street in front of a line of apartments that has a coffee shop on the corner and an old bookshop that only sells travel books.”
For a moment, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. And then it occurred to me that Sarah’s apartment has a coffee shop in the corner street and a travel bookshop.
“In Connecticut?” I asked.
“George Street, to be exact,” he replied.
I couldn’t believe what he said. I didn’t know what to say, but I felt like tons of frustration and sadness were lifted off my chest. I actually ended up laughing. Sarah looked at me like I was out of mind.
“Okay. I don’t know why you find that amusing, but I would appreciate it if could come out of your friend’s apartment.”
When I finally stopped giggling, I hung up the phone and stared at Sarah.
“What is going on with you?”
I gave her a big smile and then I hugged her. “Merry Christmas, Sarah. Thanks for inviting me and trying to cheer me up.”
“Where are you going? Is Chris outside? Did he cancel his plans?”
I shook my head. “Not Chris. Travis.”
She gave me a teasing look.
“Stop that. Travis is family. Anyway, catch you later.”
When I came out of Sarah’s apartment, I found Travis standing across the street. I didn’t hesitate. I ran to his arms and he caught me. When I pulled away, he looked at me and smiled.
“How did you know where I was?”
“I was in town. I got an invite to this party. I got bored after thirty minutes and excused myself. I went to your place, but nobody seemed to be home so I tried Sarah’s.”
“I could be at Chris’s.”
“You could be. Except that I think I saw him at this lame party without you. I did the math.”
“You haven’t met Chris. How could you know how he looked like?” I asked.
He just raised a brow at me but didn’t answer.
I rolled my eyes. Immediately, I knew he had him checked out when he found out I was dating him seriously.
He smiled at me apologetically. “Sorry, cherie. I can’t help it.”
“I’m sure,” I said dryly.
“You asked me how a busy businessman like me spends Christmas Eve. Well, there you go. Attending a prestigious VIP event, talking and laughing with a lot of people I don’t really know or care about. Talking about politics or Wallstreet. Listening to a bunch of phony people talk about their latest shiny cars or luxurious yachts. You could say I should be a hero for lasting thirty minutes.” He grinned. Then he pulled away from me and intertwined our fingers. “Now, let me show you how I really want to spend my Christmas Eve.”
We walked for a couple of blocks until we reached the park. The trees were covered in Christmas lights and we can hear faint sounds of music from afar. There was a skating rink in the center.
“Ice skating?” I asked him, laughing.
“It’s been a while.” He grinned at me boyishly. “You up for it?”
I smiled at him widely. “You bet.”
We spent an hour skating. It had been months since I last saw him and it was a good time to catch up with each other. We teased each other, chased each other around the park in skates. For a while, it felt like we were kids again and we didn’t have a worry in the world. And when the snow started falling, I laughed like I did that one time when I was eleven, when Tom, Travis, and I had a snow fight in our front yard.
I stayed in Travis’s suite that night. He gave me a pair of earrings with diamonds and colored precious stones. We stayed up almost all night talking. And just when I thought my day would suck, in the end, I got to spend Christmas Eve cuddled up with a guy who enveloped me with comfort and love.
The following Christmas, Chris came through. We did rent a cabin in the woods. By twelve midnight, I sent Travis a text message that says, “Merry Christmas, Travis. I hope you’re having a great time wherever you are. Miss yah. Lots of love.”
After a minute he replied, “Merry Christmas, cherie. I’m having a nice time, but nothing beats last year’s Christmas. Miss you too. I’ll see you soon.”
After our little trip to the cabin, Chris finally agreed to come with me in our family reunions. He wasn’t available the last time we had one and this year, he said he will definitely make an appearance. My Aunt Victoria would be having an anniversary celebration. Chris filed his leave in advance and made sure he was all mine that day.
The day before we were set out to take a road trip to my aunt’s place, I found Chris in my apartment after I came home from the studio.
“Hey,” I greeted him, giving him a peck on the lips. “Not busy with a case today?”
He shook his head. “Finished all my work yesterday. Remember, we have your family reunion tomorrow?”
“What did your boss say about you being on leave for a day?”
He shrugged. “He’s fine with it. I work overtime all the time. I was hoping to make partner in three years.”
I smiled at him. “And I’m sure you will. You’re great!” And I knew that with all the hard work he put in, it wouldn’t be long before he achieved his goal. Chris was two years older than me. Being a partner at his age would be a great achievement. I knew it would make him really happy.
I noticed a package sitting on top of my table. “What is this?”
“Oh, delivery came for you,” Chris replied.
I looked at the box.
“Who is Travis Cross?” Chris asked.
My face brightened at the mention of his name. I excitedly opened the box. Inside it, there were two smaller boxes. There were cards on top of them.
I read one.
Please send Aunt Victoria and Uncle Boons my apologies. I won’t be able to make it to their wedding anniversary. But please send them my love with this present.
I opened the box for Aunt Victoria. I was surprised to see a matching pair of his and hers gold and diamond bracelets. One for her and another for Uncle Boons. “Wow!” I breathed. The gift looked expensive.
“Cousin?” Chris asked as he read Travis’s note for my aunt and uncle. He looked at the box with the bracelets. “Rich cousin?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “A dear friend. Family friend.”
I picked up the note on top of the other box.
Brianne,
I saw this and thought of you. I may not be with you all the time, but know that you’re always in my thoughts.
Love,
Travis
I opened the box and found a gleaming diamond tennis bracelet inside it. My breath caught in my throat. The bracelet was absolutely beautiful.
“Please tell me this family friend of yours is as old as your Aunt Victoria!” Christian muttered under his breath after reading Travis’s note and seeing the bracelet he gave me.
I giggled. “Don’t be silly!” I said to him.
I took the bracelet from the box and put it on. The fit was perfect—no need to be resized, and it looked amazing on my wrist.
When I looked up at Christian, he was reading the guarantee card that came with the bracelet, certifying the clarity and carats of my diamond bracelet.
“How old is this guy?” Christian asked again.
I didn’t figure Christian to be a jealous guy, but I answered him wearily. “Does he have to be old?”
“To afford to give jewelry as expensive as this?”
I sighed and put the jewelry back in the box. “He’s twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine!?” Christian looked back at me disbelievingly. “How…do you know this guy?”
“We grew up together, Chris. Remember the ‘old friend’ that I always catch up with?”
“Your old friend is a guy?”
Oh, shit!
“He was my brother’s best friend,” I replied. “He’s family to me. In fact, when my parents decided they didn’t want to be a family anymore after my brother died, Travis was the only family I had left.”
“But his message in the card is too mushy, too cheesy to be just friends!” Chris muttered.
I laughed. “You can’t seriously be jealous, can you?”
He sighed and then he pulled me into his arms. “I guess I am,” he said. “I love you. And I want to stick around for a very long time. I want to be the only guy in your thoughts!”
I smiled at him. “And you are,” I said. “Travis is a dear, dear friend. He sort of took my brother’s place in my life when Tom died.”
Chris smiled. “Okay. But next time you go out with this guy, I want to go with you.”
I smiled widely. “Sure. I’ve been wanting to introduce you to him for years,” I said. “He’s like a brother to me, Chris. It would mean a lot to me if you would be on good terms.”
Chris leaned forward and gave me a passionate kiss on the lips.
I was in Chris’s arms that night. His touch comforted me, made me feel warm. I know this man, I thought. I longed for the comfort of his arms…to know that he would be there in my future. He might not always hit the spot, but it was the cuddling after that I looked forward to most of the time. After all, that’s what intimacy is all about.
The next day, I introduced Chris to all my relatives. I sincerely hoped this would not be the last time Chris would come with me.
“Tell Travis Cross I won’t be able to forgive him!” my aunt Victoria said. “His presence is much more wanted than his present.”
I laughed. “But that is a lovely present, Aunt Vicki!” I argued.
She beamed. “Oh, it is! Look at the cut of these diamonds! Leave it to Travis Cross to gift in style!”
“Comes with the money!” I giggled. “Travis has tons!”
“I cannot believe this is your aunt’s twenty-fifth anniversary. She seems…so young,” Chris said after my aunt left us alone.
I laughed. “We have a tradition in the family,” I told Chris. “All women should marry before they turn thirty-one, or earlier. But definitely not after.”
“And what happens if you don’t get married by that time?”
“We turn into frogs,” I replied.
“What?” He looked at me seriously.
I forgot that Chris almost didn’t have a sense of humor. He was a person who was serious about life, and nothing about that was a laughing matter.
“Just kidding. I think we’re…‘cursed’ and are a disgrace to the family. I don’t know if it’s true. But somehow, some of my cousins and aunts have gotten bad luck in love and relationships after they disregarded the tradition.”
Chris fell silent for a moment.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then he looked at me and gave me a smack on the lips.
My mother made a late appearance.
“I’m sorry I’m late, sweetheart.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Where’s Travis? Did you come together?”
I shook my head. And then I took Chris’s arm. “I came with Chris, Mom,” I said. “Remember, I told you about him.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry.” She shook Christian’s hand. “I forgot you had a boyfriend now. I guess it was just force of habit for me. I was so used to you and Travis being together all the time, and you always come to these gatherings with each other. Where is he?”
I shook my head. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was somewhere in Europe, buying out one of his dad’s companies. Or in a bedroom with a woman. You know him. Business and women are all he cares about.”
My mother narrowed her eyes. “I beg to disagree,” she said. “I think there’s nothing he cares about in this world more than you. He almost raised you when your father and I weren’t there for you, remember?”
“I’m a big girl now, Mom,” I said to her. “But yeah, Travis did great doing your job!” I knew there were pain and anger in my voice. But I couldn’t help it.
My mother bit her lip, but instead of saying something back, she just nodded and then stepped back and joined my other aunts.
“That was…rude,” Chris said behind me.
I sighed. “I know. Disrespectful. But I couldn’t help it. I’m harboring all these bad feelings toward my parents. When I lost Tom, I lost them, too. They chose to mourn in their own worlds and left me behind.”
“And this Travis character didn’t leave you behind?”
I shook my head. “He promised my brother he would look out for me. For a while, he was the only family I had left.”
“Sounds like a real hero,” he muttered.
I looked back at him. “Chris, please. Don’t! I can’t let you antagonize Travis. He’s too dear to me…he’s like the brother I found when I lost Tom.”
“We’ve been dating for two years and that name never came up,” he said. “And now, he’s all over the place.”
“I always told you about him,” I said.
“Yeah. Formerly known as ‘old friend.’” Chris rolled his eyes.
“Chris…Travis is like my brother.”
“But he isn’t,” Chris pointed out. “It feels uncomfortable to know that there’s another guy who isn’t a blood relative checking up on your girlfriend, you know.”
I sighed. Travis had mentioned this to me years ago. He had said that not all my boyfriends would understand the kind of relationship that we had.
“Travis may not be a relative by blood, but he has been more like family to me than any of my blood relatives ever were,” I argued. “Please? Let’s just drop this? I don’t want to argue about Travis. I never had a problem with him being in my life with any of my previous boyfriends.”
“That’s because your previous boyfriend was a fag,” he muttered.
“And I’m not going to let you talk about Eric that way, either,” I said to him. “He’s a decent guy.”
Although Chris tried to hide it, I knew that things weren’t perfectly fine. He was quiet on the way home.
I invited him to spend the night with me, but he shook his head. “I have an early meeting tomorrow. It’s best I stay in my apartment. It’s closer to the office. I’ll see you Wednesday.”
I nodded and kissed him goodnight. When I closed the door, I couldn’t help feeling that something was off between us. I wished I would understand exactly what and why.