Rules

by Doe, Anna B.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  BROOK

  “Max!” Lia calls his name and rushes off.

  It takes me a while, but I finally see him. His shoulders are slumped, the dark mop of hair on his head a mess from running his fingers through it. Black jeans and shirt wrinkled. He’s a hot mess, and there is no hiding the stiffness of his shoulders or overall tiredness.

  Not that I can blame him. It’s late, and we’ve been here for hours.

  Lia runs to him, throwing her arms around him and pulling him into a hug that he returns almost instantly, wrapping her much smaller frame into his body.

  Jealousy I didn’t know I was capable of comes out of the blue. It’s eating at me, intense and unforgiving, but I do my best to push it away.

  They’re just friends, I reassure myself. Lia’s with Derek.

  It’s not Lia’s feelings you’re worried about, the little devil on my shoulder taunts me.

  Forcing myself to move one leg in front of the other, I move toward them.

  Her lips are moving as she talks, and I can see a slight nod in acknowledgment on his part.

  Lia must have mentioned my name, because the next thing I know his head shoots up, exhausted gray eyes meeting mine from the distance. There are bags under his eyes, and the stubble covering his jaw is darker than I’ve ever seen before.

  His lips move rapidly, and I see Lia’s curls bounce on her shoulders as she nods her head yes. Quickly, she turns around and shoves her finger toward the ceiling, letting me know she’s heading upstairs.

  She’s going up to see Jeanette. Alone. Leaving me to deal with Max.

  I gulp down hard, nervousness itching at my skin, but I wave her away.

  Whatever reason Max had for me to stay, I didn’t need her to witness it.

  Lia mouths “see you in a bit” before she turns around on the heels of her feet and goes to the elevator.

  Even with all the noises around me, I can hear it ping. People rush out while others elbow their way in, Lia being swept by the current of the moving crowd.

  All this time, Max and I stay glued to our spots. Everybody’s going on their merry way, bodies moving between the open space separating us, but we don’t break eye contact.

  I don’t know how long we stay like that, simply starting at each other.

  It could be seconds, it could be days, but I’m not going to be the one to make the first move.

  If I’m being honest, I didn’t even want to be here. I feel like an imposter, but Jeanette was hurt in an accident and knowing her state… well, I got worried. Lia and I both did. Jeanette has been through so much, and now this on top of everything else. We had to come and make sure she was okay.

  Finally, he gives up on the staring game and moves toward me.

  The need to turn around and run is strong, but I push it down, forcing my feet to stay glued to the floor.

  “How is Jeanette?” I ask as soon as he’s within hearing distance.

  “Alive.” He rubs his hand over his face. “Concussion, broken arm and ribs, bruised all over, but alive.”

  I nod my head in acknowledgment. What is there to say? The girl was in a freaking car accident. She’s lucky to be alive, but with those injuries… I open my mouth, but he stops me before I can say anything else.

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?” My head flinches back in surprise, mouth falling open.

  His cloudy gaze narrows as he stares at me.

  “Don’t play games with me, Taylor. There were two tests, and you were there with Anette the day she wasn’t feeling well. If you’re pregnant, I need to know. You can’t just exclude…”

  “I’m not pregnant!” I whisper-shout, turning around to see if anybody’s listening in on our conversation.

  “You’re not?” He falters. “But…”

  I want to run my fingers through my hair in frustration, but realize it’s pulled in a high ponytail. My arms fall down, and I cross them over my chest. “Where is this coming from?”

  “When I went home to get Jeanette’s things, I found two pregnancy tests, and since Andrew…” He gulps down hard. “When he came out of Jeanette’s room after she fell asleep… I asked him, about the baby, but he told me there isn’t a baby. Jeanette was never pregnant.”

  My eyes fall shut as my gut clenches tight, sorrow washing over me.

  “I know we were careful, but I had to ask. You’ve been hanging with Jeanette a lot, so maybe…”

  “It’s not me,” I rasp, opening my eyes and looking at him. I can still see those same grays looking at me with a mix of dread and excitement, wonder and fear. “We both took the test. Jeanette was scared, so I took it with her. Mine was negative, and hers…”

  His eyes fall shut, a wrecked sound erupting from his throat. Like a wounded animal. Max covers his mouth, his body shaking slightly.

  Tears that I’ve been holding in until this moment gather in my eyes. Sorrow and loss I didn’t think possible overwhelming my senses.

  My fingers itch to move forward.

  To touch him.

  To wrap my hands around him.

  Hug him and tell him it’ll be okay.

  Offer him the comfort he so obviously needs.

  But something is holding me back.

  Not something. Me.

  I’m holding me back.

  A jaded, broken girl with the heart full of darkness.

  But the part of me that aches for him, for both Max and Jeanette, fights it. Fights the darkness within.

  I can’t be what he needs, but right now, I’m the only thing he has.

  So I do the best I can.

  Gripping his hand, I pull him through the mass of moving bodies.

  Away from all the people and all the noises, I take us to the corner, hidden away.

  Sliding down against the wall, we touch the ground and I watch the carefree boy I know break in front of my eyes, not once letting go.

  * * *

  “Jeanette said that doctors believe her pregnancy test was a fake positive.” I barely register Lia’s softly spoken words, but the word pregnancy catches my attention.

  I’m emotionally and physically exhausted. Seeing Max break was just too much. I’ve never felt that kind of pain, never witnessed it, but seeing him fall apart was like being pulled into a tsunami. The pain he was feeling was simply too much for one person to bear. Falling over him and pulling him under. Him and everything and everybody else that stood in its wake.

  After spending the better part of an hour with Max, just holding on to his hand while he cried, I didn’t have it in me to go up and face Jeanette too. Thankfully, Lia came down just as we returned to the foyer, saying visiting hours were long over and giving me an excuse to go home.

  “What do you mean, a fake positive?” I look at Lia, my damp hands curling into fists by my side.

  Max’s question comes back in full force. Are you pregnant? I didn’t feel pregnant, but apparently, you can feel pregnant and not be pregnant, so couldn’t it be the other way around too?

  You were careful. I try to reason with myself. There is no need to worry.

  “They did the blood one when they admitted her.” Lia nibbles at her lip. “It didn’t show any signs of pregnancy.”

  My thoughts go instantly to the day we took the tests. We couldn’t have swapped them, could we? One was positive; one was negative. Both the same. Both sitting on that damn bathroom counter waiting for three minutes to pass.

  This can’t be happening.

  My mind is going one hundred miles per hour, buzzing in my ears intensifying with every heartbeat, but even through all that haze, somewhere in the distance, I can hear Lia speak.

  “Poor Jeanette. She really wanted that baby. I could see it in her eyes how crushed she was because of the news. She could barely even talk…”

  “I have to go,” I rasp out, stopping her mid-sentence.

  A small frown appears between her brows. “Right now?”

  “Yes, righ
t now.” I look around to see in which direction is the bus stop, and when I spot it, I can’t walk fast enough. “I have something to take care of. We’ll talk later.”

  “Wait, Brook! Let me give you a…” But I’m not listening anymore.

  Turning on the heels of my feet, I hurry toward the bus station. My heart is still beating frantically in my chest, my breathing labored.

  What if I messed up? What if I switched the tests? What if the test wasn’t wrong at all?

  When I get to the station, I see that the next bus is in fifteen minutes.

  Too damn long. I can’t wait that long.

  So without a second thought, I start to walk.

  Pharmacy. I have to get to the pharmacy.

  I have to find out the truth. And I have to find it now.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  MAX

  “Jeanette!” A panicked voice has me jumping in the chair as my eyes fly open. The bright light of the room blinds me temporarily, but I do get a glimpse of our mother running to Jeanette’s bedside.

  “M-mom!” Jeanette protests. “You’re strangling me.”

  Scratching the nape of my neck, I cover my yawn as I look at the two of them. Mom is sprawled over the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around Jeanette, her face burrowed in the crook of her neck.

  “Don’t you dare scare me like that ever again!” she scolds but doesn’t let go.

  With all the commotion, Andrew is awake too. He still looks like crap, not that I feel much better. Then again, a night spent in a hospital will do that to a guy.

  Jeanette looks at us, pleading silently to do something. I chuckle but move closer.

  “We want her to keep breathing, Mom,” I say. Placing my hands on Mom’s shoulder, I slowly tug backward until she disentangles her body from Jeanette, but not without a fight. “Maybe you should give her a little space.”

  “Give her a little space!? All I did was give her space and look where that got her.”

  “It was an accident, Mom,” Jeanette says quietly.

  Was it really? I want to ask her. I really do. The words are on the tip of my tongue when the doctor and nurse, different from the ones last night, come inside.

  “Can you please give us a moment?”

  Nobody is happy, but we let them be. Well, all except Andrew. I’m not sure if he’s left her side with the exception of those few minutes when Jeanette just fell asleep and he joined me in the hallway.

  As soon as we’re outside, Mom asks: “What happened? When your dad…”

  “I would like to know too.” I interrupt her, not in the mood to listen about Dad. I haven’t seen him since he left with that nurse. And while Jeanette obviously didn’t want him in her room, he could have at least waited here in the hallway. Instead, he disappeared without a word.

  It pissed me off. He’s supposed to be here. He’s our dad, and he left her without a care in the world after she was in a car accident.

  This time, the doctor leaves in a few short minutes, and as soon as he’s out the door, I go back inside.

  Andrew is helping Jeanette sit up in the bed, rearranging the pillows so she has better support behind her back.

  “What the hell happened, Anette?” I ask, not wanting to wait a second longer to find out the truth.

  Her head snaps up in surprise. My tone is sharper than necessary, and she can hear it. She can see the boiling anger just underneath the surface.

  Sighing, she knew this moment was coming, yet she tried to push it back as much as possible. “Sit, I’ll tell you.” Gray eyes look around the room, staying glued to every face for a few seconds. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  We do as asked, both Mom and I taking a chair while Andrew sits on the edge of the bed, Jeanette’s hand clasped between his.

  My stomach is uneasy, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to calm down, my leg furiously patting the floor.

  Her eyes find mine—for reassurance or strength, I’m not sure. My throat goes dry, and hers must be too because she clears it before she starts speaking. “It all started freshman year of high school…”

  And then she tells us everything. After it all originally happened, I found out things, bits and pieces here and there that helped me glue the picture together enough to understand, but now I realize I didn’t know shit. Even after those secrets almost cost Jeanette her life, she still kept them hidden inside.

  “Then, one day, while I was waiting for Max to be done with practice, I went to visit Dad at the hospital.” Back in the day, she used to do that a lot. She swore she was going to be a doctor, just like our dad. I don’t think I’ve seen her enter the hospital in years. Not until today. “And I f-found him…” She looks at Mom, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, just like our mom’s. “He was with another woman.”

  There is a loud crash in the room, and until all eyes turn to look at me, I didn’t even realize I did it. I stood up, knocking down the chair in the process.

  “What?” This can’t be true. Not Dad. But from the look the two of them share, I know, deep down, I know it is. “You’re wrong.” I turn to Mom. “Tell her she’s wrong.”

  Mom sobs, shaking her head. Her dark hair is swaying from side to side, and for the first time, I see how disheveled she looks. I don’t remember seeing her with her hair down in years. Tears fall down her cheeks, leaving a black trail from her makeup.

  And the look in her eyes… resignation. “You knew?”

  “S-suspected,” she hiccups. “I suspected it for a while.”

  I take a step back. Am I the only one who didn’t know? Didn’t see?

  Apparently the answer to that is yes.

  “And you didn’t call him out on it?”

  “What was I supposed to do, Max?” she asks, wiping away the tears. “Call him on it and then throw him out?”

  “Yes!” I shout back at her.

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it.” I point my finger at her. “If you had called him out on it, maybe none of this would have happened.”

  She inhales sharply, like I knocked all the air out of her lungs. The guilt comes instantly, and then the shame. Rationally, I know it’s not her fault. None of us are at fault. This all is on Dad and his inability to keep his dick in his pants, but I’m angry and I need somebody to blame, so I lash out at the first person who’s in my way.

  The silence that follows is almost deafening. The only thing breaking it is the sound of machines still connected to Jeanette’s body and my heavy panting.

  “It’s my fault,” Jeanette whispers softly.

  “Anette…” I turn toward her, most of the anger gone.

  But not the guilt. The guilt I was feeling before only grows stronger. We never talked about what happened after that. After Jeanette was discharged from the hospital with an eating disorder, she went straight into therapy, and like always, we let it slip away. We didn’t pressure her to talk about it with us, we didn’t ask questions. Maybe if we had, we’d have found out about Dad sooner. Maybe if I hadn’t been so stuck up my own ass, I’d have known too. Maybe if I’d paid attention to her, to my family, I’d see the secrets they’ve been hiding. Secrets that Jeanette’s been carrying for way too long all on her own. Secrets that ended up ruining her.

  “You’re right, Max.” Jeanette shakes her head stubbornly. “If I would have told somebody, you or Mom, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are now. Maybe if I would have said something earlier, he wouldn’t have done it again and I wouldn’t have ended up in this accident.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask slowly. She couldn’t be serious, because if she is…

  “Yesterday, Mom called me to bring some papers to the hospital for Dad, and I did. Only when I got here, I saw him. With a nurse. Again.” She hiccups lightly, brushing away her tears. The pit in the bottom of my stomach growing bigger and bigger. “He saw me storm out. I needed some time to regroup, time to realize what a part of me already knew—this h
ad to stop. I had to tell you guys. So I waited for him to come home to confront him. I never intended for it to go this way. I—”

  “It’s not your fault.” I grip her free hand in mine, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

  “You’re right.” My back stiffens when I hear his voice. “It’s no one’s fault but mine.”

  Slowly, I turn around. My hands are clenched by my sides as I hold on to my anger.

  “I think you should go,” I suggest calmly. Too fucking calm.

  He’s standing in the doorway in the same, rumpled clothes from last night, looking like a train wreck about to happen. He gives me a hard, disapproving look. Too late, buddy, too fucking late.

  “Not before I say what I came here to say.”

  “I don’t think anybody is in the mood to listen to your selfish excuses with a side dish of petty lies.”

  “Maximillian!” Mom gasps.

  I can see his jaw work in frustration, but he doesn’t back down. “You might not be in the mood, but I’m still your father and you will listen.”

  He looks around the room, noting every person inside. His discomfort is clear. He fidgets, shifting his weight from one leg to the other before he settles for standing straight.

  “I did a lot of selfish, unforgettable things. Things that hurt the people I should love most in my life; I won’t deny it. I was a shitty husband and a lousy father, but after you ended up in the hospital back in California, I vowed I’d do better.” He looks at Jeanette. “What you saw in the office the other day was a reflection of the past. I did not cheat once after you caught me that first time. I don’t blame you for coming to conclusions like that. That’s also my doing. I should never have asked you to keep my secret like that. Never. And I can understand that none of you believe me now, but I want us to be a family again. No secrets. No lies. A family. If and when you’re ready.”

  The room grows quiet, nobody saying a word, and he stays standing like that in the doorway. I’m not sure if he has something else to say or if he’s waiting for one of us to speak. Whatever it is, he doesn’t get what he’s looking for, so with one final nod, he turns around and walks away.