Begin Again

by Nicole Pyland

  “Riley’s out of town this weekend. She’s working on a case in Las Vegas. I’m all by myself. I can talk to the sellers today and see if they’re up for it. If so, I can swing by and pick you guys up.”

  “Great. Thanks. I’ll talk to Chris about it tonight. We have a date, but we’ve spent every night together recently. I’m not sure if she’ll want to stay in our own places tonight. It’s strange. I’ve never dated someone with a kid before. Wes, obviously, isn’t a child; and he’s her brother, not her son. But, in a way, he is her kid. I don’t know how it works, though. I want to respect their relationship and how important it is to her. I want her to know that it’s okay if we have to spend the night apart so that she can have a night with her brother.”

  “But you also know you’re going to miss sleeping next to her?” Kinsley asked.

  “It’s weird, right?” Paxton asked. “It’s only been a few days. We went to Seattle together, but we weren’t together then. I would say, we only started to flirt at the very end there. Now, we’re a couple. I want to be with her every night already. I’m not codependent or anything, but I do know that I want her to stay with me or for me to stay with her as often as possible.”

  “My story is different than yours, but I know what you mean. I met Riley in college.”

  “I thought you two hadn’t been together all that long,” Paxton replied.

  They were sitting in Kinsley’s office. She’d called Paxton that morning to let her know that she had a few more listings for her to check out. Paxton had sent the links to Chris almost immediately. They’d texted about two in particular that they would want to see. It felt, oddly enough, completely normal that they would be looking for a house together, despite the fact that it was only Paxton who was actually looking to buy. Paxton had stopped by Kinsley’s office after grabbing them both a coffee. Paxton, truthfully, was using Kinsley. She’d been bored. Chris had her lunch and movie date with Wes. Adler and Morgan were off doing some couple things. Reese and Kellan were in San Francisco for the weekend, visiting Kellan’s friends. Kinsley said Riley was out and she was killing time at the office. Paxton had joined her.

  “We haven’t been,” Kinsley confirmed. “But we met in college. Riley was a freshman. I was a senior. I liked her then, but she didn’t like me.”

  “Really?” Paxton asked.

  “Well, she didn’t really like me or not like me. She was in her own little world back then. We would see each other every so often. I dated other people. She dated other people. She was actually in a long-term relationship when she moved back to Tahoe.”

  “Scandalous,” Paxton said.

  “She didn’t cheat or anything.” Kinsley laughed. “But I knew I wanted more than friendship. Eventually, she realized she did, too.”

  “And you’ve been together ever since,” Paxton finished.

  “And I hope we always will. I mean, we’re getting married,” Kinsley replied. “She’s the one I’m supposed to be with. I guess I always knew that. I just thought it was a crush back then, when it was really much more.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Did you feel that with Chris?” Kinsley leaned forward.

  “I felt like she hated me,” Paxton replied with a chuckle and took another drink of her cold coffee. “I think she thought I was stuck-up, or just an asshole. It was kind of hot, though, watching her freak out in that street when I accidentally stole her parking spot.”

  Kinsley laughed and asked, “It was hot watching her freak out?”

  “Kind of. Okay, it was definitely hot. Her nostrils flared, and I may have thought about what would happen if…” Paxton widened her eyes.

  “If they flared in a different situation? Got it.” Kinsley nodded.

  Paxton’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, looked down at the screen, and caught Chris’s name.

  “Speaking of the devil,” Paxton said. “I should take this.”

  “Tomorrow?” Kinsley asked as Paxton stood.

  “I’ll text you,” Paxton replied. “I’m in. I just want to check with her.”

  “It’s like you’re already married,” Kinsley joked.

  “Maybe one day.” Paxton waved at her, put her phone to her ear, and said, “Hey, babe.”

  “Hey. Can you come over?”

  “Are you okay?” Paxton asked after closing the door behind her.

  “No, something happened. Can you come over?” Chris sniffled.

  “I’m on my way. Chris, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  “But you’re okay? I mean, physically? Wes?”

  “I’m okay. He’s okay. I just need you,” Chris said, sniffling again.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Paxton replied.

  ◆◆◆

  “Babe, what happened?” Paxton asked, walking straight into Chris’s bedroom.

  Wes had opened the front door. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just looked upset. Paxton wasn’t sure if it was angry-upset or sad-upset. He’d only opened the door to her. Then, he’d walked back into his bedroom and closed the door. She’d proceeded into Chris’s room, wondering what the hell was going on.

  “Where’s Wes?” Chris asked, looking past her toward the open door of the bedroom.

  “In his room.”

  “Can you close that?”

  “Yeah. Chris, what’s going on? You’re kind of scaring me,” Paxton said as she closed the door and moved to the bed, where Chris was sitting back against the pillows. “What happened?”

  “My grandmother stopped by today, out of the blue,” she replied.

  Paxton sat next to her and asked, “I thought your grandparents were–”

  “Dead? Remember how I told you my mom was raised in a cult?”

  “Oh, those grandparents. Her mom came here today?” Paxton asked.

  “She did. I wasn’t even sure she was still alive.” Chris wiped her cheeks.

  “What did she want?” Paxton reached for Chris’s hand and took it in her own.

  “She said she just wanted to get to know us. She left the cult, I guess.”

  “Wow. She left?”

  “She said she left a few months ago.”

  “That’s good, right?” Paxton asked; she had no idea what to say to someone in this situation. “She’s safer now, probably.”

  “She was married to my grandfather, who was the leader of the stupid thing. She was always safe. She joined as an adult. She was twenty when she drove from Baltimore – where she’d been raised, out west – where she found the place she still lovingly refers to as a church. He swept her off her feet, I guess. She was wife number seven of thirteen.”

  “I can’t imagine having thirteen wives… I can’t imagine having more than one,” Paxton said.

  “But you do want one, right?” Chris asked, seemingly changing the subject along with her expression.

  “What?”

  “You want that, right? Marriage? One day?”

  “Yes, Chris. I would like to get married one day. I’d just like the one wife, though.” Paxton smiled lovingly at her. “Are you okay with her just coming here like this?”

  “No,” Chris replied. “I never thought about it as a possibility. My mom escaped for a reason. I never thought my grandmother would leave. I thought she’d die there. I knew I’d never go visit. I’ve kept Wes from most of this.”

  “He looked upset. Did something happen between the two of you?”

  Chris rested her head on Paxton’s shoulder. Paxton kissed the top of it, squeezed Chris’s hand, and waited for her to say something.

  “He’s mad at me because I wasn’t very nice or forgiving to her. I guess he wants to get to know her. I don’t. He doesn’t understand.”

  “You don’t want to get to know her?” Paxton asked.

  “No. Why would I?” Chris lifted her head and looked at Paxton. “She took part in teenage marriages, statutory rape, branding, and about a million other terrible thi
ngs.”

  “I’m not saying you have to forgive her for any of that, or even excuse it. I’m just asking. She made mistakes; that’s obvious. She’s still your grandmother, though, Chris.”

  “So, I’m supposed to pretend like she didn’t do those things?”

  “No, I just mean…” Paxton sighed. “It’s like when there’s a killer that has kids. Sometimes, the kids have a hard time separating the killer from their father. They say that they still love him because he’s their father, but they don’t condone what he did. I’m not saying your grandmother is a murderer, obviously.”

  “She might be; I have no idea what they do there. They could be killing anyone that doesn’t comply with their rules.”

  “What are you going to do about Wes?”

  “I don’t know…” Chris exhaled deeply. “He’s seventeen. He was young when our parents died. Mom told me some of what happened there, but I know she left out a lot, and I was an adult. I’ve only told him some of what she told me. I didn’t want him to know most of it until he was old enough. It hasn’t even been something we’ve talked about in years. I was honestly hoping he’d never ask so that I’d never have to tell him.”

  “But he’s asking now?”

  “He put her phone number in his phone. After she left, he got angry with me for, as he called it, ‘acting like a child.’ He’s not entirely wrong. I was mean. I knew it, and I did it anyway. I just didn’t care. Wes yelled at me. He said we should get to know our only family member. I told him she’s not family to us. He said she’s blood, and that’s all that matters. I said some more things. He said some things.” Chris paused. “I don’t know what to do. Those people are dangerous. She’s dangerous.”

  “She’s an old woman, and she’s your grandmother. Is she really that dangerous?” Paxton asked.

  “He’s young,” Chris argued. “What if she convinces him to go with her?”

  “Chris, she left the cult.”

  “You don’t ever really leave those places. My mom had escaped, but she never really left. She and my dad fought all the time about it, in the beginning. Her nightmares caused her to go to therapy for years. I think they almost got divorced once, because of it. Honestly, it was right around the time she got pregnant with Wes. I’m convinced, had she not gotten pregnant, they might have split up. And that was years later.”

  “Okay. But I can understand why he’d want to get to know his only family outside of you, Chris.”

  Chris stood and replied, “I’m not wrong about this, Pax. You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I’m not saying I do,” Paxton argued. “I’m just saying that I understand his desire to get to know his grandparent.”

  “And what if she’s still involved in the cult? What if she takes him to lunch one day and decides to go on a drive to their compound? What if she keeps him there by force, or even just convinces him to stay?”

  “Chris, you raised that boy. Do you really think he’d just leave you to join them?” Paxton asked and hung her legs over the side of the bed, facing her girlfriend.

  “I never told him how bad it was there for our mom. He has no frame of reference. I’ve left him defenseless.” Chris ran a hand through her hair.

  “No, you haven’t. You saved him from knowing terrible things your mom went through. You had no way of knowing this would happen, Chris. You just have to trust him. He’s smart, and he’s old enough to know–”

  “My grandmother was old enough to know, too, Pax.” Chris’s voice grew louder. “You can’t know what this is like; what’s going through my head right now.”

  “I guess not,” Paxton replied, defeated. “What do you want me to say, Chris? What can I do?”

  “Just go,” she said softly, motioning with her hand toward the door. “I need to think, and I can’t do that with you here.”

  “You asked me to come over. Let’s just keep talking, babe.”

  “No, Pax. I need you to go. I need some time alone. Then, I need to talk to my brother,” Chris replied.

  “Fine.” Paxton stood after wiping her hands over non-existent wrinkles on her pants. “I’ll leave you alone to take care of everything yourself; seems to be how you like things, anyway, Chris. Call me if you want to talk about any of this.”

  Paxton walked out of the bedroom past Wes’s closed door. She made it to the front door, took the doorknob in her hand, waited a moment in hopes of Chris asking her to stay, after all, and opened the door. When it closed it behind her, she walked to her car slowly, still giving Chris time to catch up to her. When she started the car, she waited a few more seconds. Then, she backed out of the driveway and hit the road.

  CHAPTER 23

  Chris HAD knocked on Wes’s door once. She’d made them dinner. He didn’t come out. She knocked on his door again later, but only heard his loud music blaring through the speakers. So, she left a plate in the microwave for him, thinking about the date she had missed with Paxton because of the events of the day. She knocked on the door one more time before she went into the bathroom to take a shower. She then went to bed, trying to figure out what she should have done differently that day, to at least make it so that her brother would talk to her. She tried to think about what she should do with the multitude of messes she’d created.

  She’d had a night of restless sleep and finally gave up on it around eight in the morning. She’d made a pot of coffee and drunk about half of it. She’d try to talk some sense into her brother by being a little more open to his thoughts than she had been the day before. She’d sit him down, apologize for getting upset, listen to his opinions first, and then, state her own. Chris knew she didn’t want him spending any time with their grandmother, but she also knew that, ultimately, it would be up to him to make that decision for himself. She knocked on his door around ten, deciding to let him sleep in a little.

  “Wes, can we talk?” she asked calmly through the closed door. “I know I messed up yesterday. Can we just sit down and talk about it?”

  He didn’t respond. There was no sound coming through the room. She’d always done everything she could to respect his privacy. There was a lock on his bedroom door. Chris had never had a problem with him having the door closed or locked, knowing that teenage boys often did things in private that their adult sisters did not need to walk in on accidentally. Chris waited another few seconds. Then, she reached for the doorknob. She turned it, noting it was unlocked, and opened the door. Wes wasn’t in his room. She headed out to the living room and peeked through the windows out into their small backyard. He wasn’t there, either. Then, she went to the front of the house just as her phone chimed with a text. Chris had had it on do not disturb all night and often left it on do not disturb well into the morning on weekends. When she glanced out the window, Wes’s car – recently repaired and returned from the shop – was not in the driveway. Chris swallowed at the thought that she had no idea where her little brother was. Then, she remembered the text message. Thinking it was from Wes, telling her where he’d run off to, Chris made her way back to her bedroom, picked the phone up off the bedside table, and checked the read out. She then exhaled deeply and dialed.

  “Hey, there you are,” Paxton said. “I’ve been calling and texting all morning.”

  “I had my phone on do not disturb. I was in the kitchen. It was in the bedroom. He’s with you?”

  “He came over to my apartment around seven and knocked on the door. I didn’t know what to do. I fed him breakfast and tried to call you without him knowing, because he asked me not to.”

  “He’s never done anything like this before,” Chris replied.

  “Has he ever had anyone to run off to before, though?” Paxton asked. “I guess his friends… But, I mean, an adult that he knows and trusts.”

  “I guess not,” Chris said, sitting on the end of her bed. “Should I come over and pick him up?”

  “I think you should just give him the day, Chris. He doesn’t seem angry anymore, but he is upset, and he
’s trying to think. He doesn’t want to disappoint his big sister, but he’s also looking for a way to connect with this person who knew his mother. I’m about to meet with Kinsley, to look at a couple of houses. I asked him if he wanted to come with me. He said yes.”

  “Houses?” Chris asked.

  “I was going to invite you to come with me last night, but things didn’t work out how I’d hoped,” Paxton replied.

  “Me neither.” Chris sighed. “Listen, Pax. I’m–”

  “He’s coming out of the coffee shop. I sent him in there when I saw you were calling. I’m by Kinsley’s office. I’ll keep an eye on him today and try to convince him to check in with you, okay?”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Bye.” Paxton disconnected the call.

  Chris looked down at the phone, taken aback by the abrupt ending to their call as well as the fact that her brother had sought comfort from her girlfriend instead of from her. They’d always been each other’s person. She trusted him. He trusted her. He had his friends from school and tennis, but Paxton was right: he didn’t have any other adults he trusted. She was happy he’d found that in Paxton but also hurt that he needed to go to her for something like this at all.

  ◆◆◆

  “She’s my girlfriend’s sister, Chris. I can try to be objective, but it’s hard.”

  “I know,” she told Morgan. “I just needed to get out of the house. I saw your car outside the store and thought I’d stop in and unload my troubles on you.”

  “But they’re troubles with Adler’s sister. Paxton’s basically my sister-in-law. She will be one day, when Adler and I get married. This kind of stuff should probably be brought up with Kinsley and Riley, or maybe Kellan and Reese.”

  “I don’t know Kellan well enough to talk about this stuff with her. Plus, she and Reese are trying to get pregnant now. Kinsley is with my girlfriend right now, taking her on tours of homes. Riley’s busy with work whenever she’s not with Kinsley. I don’t know her all that well, either, yet. You know I’m mainly a private person when it comes to family stuff. You know the most.”