The Way We Break

by Cassia Leo

  James’s office smelled of leather and hardwood. It reeked of money, with the tufted leather armchair behind the mahogany desk and the walls lined in bookshelves and certificates. Light poured in through the window painting a silver glow over every gleaming surface. But that was only the first impression. Upon further inspection, an uneasy feeling rippled through me.

  The stain on the mahogany desk didn’t match the stain on the mahogany shelves. And the leather chairs appeared worn, as if all these pieces were scrabbled together from purchases made at a used office furnishings warehouse. I tried to determine what this said about James, but I didn’t know if it meant he was pragmatically frugal, or maybe he took on a lot of pro bono cases. Did that mean I should admire him? The man who was once an activist, fighting for the rights of the wrongfully accused, until he settled down and had a family.

  Before I went off to college, I barely noticed Rory, and I sure as hell didn’t notice her father. But I’d had six years to consider how I felt about what happened between Hallie and James, and I still couldn’t figure out why I was so angry. By all accounts, Hallie’s letter made it clear she had pursued James for two years before he gave into her advances after her eighteenth birthday. I guess what made me most angry was knowing that, in the end, he rejected her. Not the other way around.

  “Have a seat.” He spoke cordially, his face somber as he motioned to the guest chair and took a seat behind the desk. As if I were there to discuss litigation instead of his illicit affair with a teenager. “Let’s talk.”

  I glanced at the chair James motioned to, but I didn’t move. “No, I’m going to talk. You’re going to listen.” Glaring at him across the desk, I waited for him to challenge me, but he simply nodded. I found this a bit disappointing. “You took advantage of my sister.”

  “It’s not—”

  “I’m talking!”

  He clenched his jaw, his gaze falling to the desk as he leaned back in his chair. “Do your worst.”

  “This is far from my worst. I’d much rather be throwing you out that fucking window.”

  His nostrils flared as he bit back a reply.

  I took a deep breath to slow the frantic pounding of my heart, then grabbed the back of the chair in front of me. “What happened with Hallie is over. I can’t get her back and your sneaky lawyer brain made damn sure you couldn’t be prosecuted. But there’s still one person who deserves a massive fucking apology from you.” I gritted my teeth against the twist of emotion in my gut. “Rory lost her best friend. And she’s lived almost six years not knowing why because my sister was too ashamed to tell her.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat as he finally met my gaze. “I hope that’s remorse I see in your eyes, because Rory’s in a world of pain right now. And, God help her, you’re the only one who can make it right. So you’d better come out of your dark closet and get down on your knees for her. Or the next time I come here I won’t be so fucking polite.” My entire body was trembling with rage. I knew my only option was to leave before I did anything stupid. “You have six weeks.”

  That meeting in his office took place last week. I’ve spent every day since then hoping Rory will call me and tell me her father went to see her. That he’s apologized and she’s ready to let me back into her life. But I haven’t heard anything from her.

  I’ve avoided showing up at her apartment or cornering her at work. The last thing I need is to give Tessa another reason to go after Rory. But once this divorce is finalized in the next four to six weeks, I’m going back to her. And her father better have made amends with her, or at least attempted to, by then. Though I’m not exactly sure how he’s supposed to make amends with Rory when I’m still trying to figure out how to do that with my mom.

  Rory and my mom are the collateral damage of this affair. As much as I want to show my mom Hallie’s suicide note, I don’t know if I have it in me to break her heart when it’s just beginning to heal again. Just last week, she showed me a vase she made in her new pottery studio in the garage. She’d painted it pink and orange, Hallie’s favorite colors, and used a new shimmering glaze to make it glitter in the sunlight. A year or two ago, she would have shown me that vase with tears in her eyes, but last week she held it up to the light shining through her kitchen window and smiled broadly, as if the vase were the very embodiment of my sister’s lustrous soul.

  I don’t think anyone has judged my actions, and inaction, these past years more harshly than I have. No one understands the burden I’ve carried. The power to destroy someone emotionally is not the kind of power I wanted bestowed upon me. But that is the gift my baby sister left me. And it’s all I have left of her.

  December 4, 2014

  The first two hours of our road trip to Silicon Valley pass fairly quickly. We stop once to let Skippy and Sparky have some water and stretch their legs. And Liam can’t stop talking about how much I’m going to love Mountain View, California. He’s been there for business trips at least half a dozen times and he claims it’s a Mecca for tech-savvy grown-ups. One of my favorite things about Liam is that he refers to adults as grown-ups.

  I wish I could say I feel like a grown-up, but I feel quite the opposite today. The truth is that I agreed to come to California with Liam on a crazy whim. And if Houston hadn’t shown up while my mom and dad were at my apartment five weeks ago, I may not have said yes.

  When I opened my front door and found Houston standing there, with my father standing just a few feet behind me, it was the first time I had seen Houston since he’d handed me Hallie’s suicide note. He wore a black Barley Legal T-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders, and a smile as warm as a speck of dust caught in a sunbeam. I hadn’t seen that smile since the day at Wallace Park, when he told me that everywhere we’re together is the only place and moment that exists. And that was exactly how I felt as I stood frozen on my threshold.

  He held up the stack of papers in his hand and proclaimed, “It’s over.”

  His voice was softer and clearer, as if his soul had been brushed clean of everything that had been weighing him down. I tried to imagine what he meant by this phrase, but in his presence, my brain wasn’t operating on all cylinders.

  “What’s over?” I asked.

  “My marriage,” he replied, tempering his smile as he seemed to realize the need for less hubris. “We need to talk, Rory.”

  “Is that Houston?” my mom called to me from the kitchen.

  Houston’s smile vanished. “Is your mom here?”

  My pulse raced as I tried to figure a way out of this. “Yes,” I replied, stepping over the threshold toward Houston as I tried to sneakily shut the door behind me.

  “Who else is in there?” His blue eyes narrowed as I tried to close the door. “Rory, who’s in there? Is it Liam? I saw him talking to you yesterday at the opening.”

  “You were there?” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to smack my own forehead. Of course he was there. He owns a fifty percent stake in the wine bar. So I wasn’t imagining things when I thought I saw him.

  “Don’t change the subject, Rory. Is Liam in there?”

  I chuckled nervously as I pulled the doorknob. “What? No. Liam’s not here.” The door clicked shut behind me, and I leaned back against it to keep from collapsing. “No, it’s just my mom. She came over to talk.”

  His gaze fell to the floor, disappointed. “It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

  My fingers gripped the doorknob so tightly my knuckles cracked. “Yes.”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched as he drew in a sharp breath through his nose. “Did he apologize to you?”

  “He… He just got here.”

  He looked me in the eye, his brow furrowed with confusion. “You haven’t spoken to him until now? But… it’s been eight weeks since I gave you that letter. I told him eight weeks ago that he needed to apologize to you.”

  “You what?” I shrieked, unable to believe what I’d just heard.

  “I told him to apologize to you
.” He looked even more confused by my anger. “Yes, I went to his fucking office and I told him to make things right with you or he’d have to answer to me.”

  “He’s my father, Houston. My relationship with my father is none of your business.”

  “Your relationship? What fucking relationship? It took him eight weeks to talk to you about this. He hasn’t even tried to see how you’ve been doing?”

  “Neither have you!”

  The doorknob turned and I fell backward a little as the door opened. Then the sound of my father’s voice filled me with dread.

  “What’s going on out here?” he asked. “Are you okay, Rory?”

  Houston’s face contorted with rage when he saw my father. Before I could stop him, he shoved my father back, but with me in the way he was only able to make contact with one hand.

  “Eight fucking weeks!” Houston roared. “Do you have no fucking conscience?”

  I pushed Houston back into the corridor, but it was like trying to push a bull back into a pen. “Stop it!” I shouted at him, gripping his T-shirt like reins, trying to steer him away from the door.

  “Get off me,” he growled as he attempted to pry my hands off his shirt.

  “Don’t you touch my daughter,” my dad warned Houston, and I wished I could turn around and slap him for even thinking he had a right to try to defend me.

  “You shouldn’t have touched my sister!” Houston shouted back at him.

  The tears stung my eyes and I didn’t realize I’d let go of Houston’s shirt until my hands fell to my side. “Stop it,” I whispered. “This is my family, Houston. Not yours.”

  “Keep your fucking family.”

  After he walked away, I assumed that would be the last time I ever saw Houston. But he began texting me apologies that same night. And he’s showed up at my apartment three times in the past five weeks. All three times I pretended I wasn’t home. Though I almost opened the door on the third instance when I heard Mrs. Vernor from across the hall threatening to call the police on him if he didn’t leave me alone. I would have told her the police aren’t necessary. But he left pretty quickly after she threatened him and he hasn’t been back since. Not even today, on the anniversary of Hallie’s death. I thought for sure he’d come today.

  I guess I didn’t really give him the chance to since I left my apartment this morning at nine a.m. to get my tattoo. But I’m probably the last person he wants to see today. I’m sure he’s probably spending the day with his mom. I wonder if she knows about the letter yet.

  “Can you change the playlist?” Liam’s voice pulls me back to the present.

  “Which playlist do you want me to put on?” I ask, opening up the Spotify app on my phone.

  “My Halloween playlist.”

  “What? I don’t want to listen to Halloween music.”

  “It’s not Halloween music,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It’s music they played at the Halloween party.”

  “Oh” is the only response I can muster as I turn on the 80s playlist.

  Liam’s brother’s Hipster Halloween party in October was our first official date and our first kiss. Liam tends to make too big of a deal about it. It’s not like we’re teenagers anymore. On November 30th, four days ago, Liam took me out to Ración for the one-month anniversary of our first kiss. But the restaurant was so busy that we got pretty terrible service. So when Kenny texted me midway through our meal to ask if I wanted to meet up for drinks, we jumped at his offer.

  We arrived at Kells Brew Pub around 9:30 p.m. with three drinks in our bloodstream. We found Kenny and two of his hottest pals sitting at a table near the back of the dark pub. Kenny leaped out of his chair at the sight of me. His ash-brown hair was freshly cut and I swear he looked even taller and stronger than the last time I’d seen him. He was working with a new personal trainer to gain muscle, though he freely admitted to fantasizing about blowjobs while he was bench-pressing.

  I gladly accepted Kenny’s bone-crushing hug. “This is not your typical hangout,” I said, squeezing his waist tighter, just the way he likes it.

  He planted a loud kiss on my cheek before he let go. “Nope. We’re trying something new tonight. We just left Timber Stadium, where we were watching Gastón Fernández get fondled—I mean fouled by David Beckham. So hot. Anyway, we thought we’d try to hook us some soccer fans, but it’s kind of Deadsville in here. Then I thought, Hey! My fabulous friend Aurora lives in this neighborhood.”

  “I love being your last resort,” I teased him as I took a seat on his right and Liam sat next to me.

  “Honey, if you had a penis, you would be my first… woman with a penis?”

  I laughed as I reached for the pint of beer in front of Kenny. “Is this yours?”

  “It’s yours now, gorgeous. John, get us all a round of shots,” Kenny said to his blond friend with the obscenely long eyelashes.

  “So, if I had a penis, I’d be your first woman with a penis. Does that mean I wouldn’t be your first woman without a penis?”

  Kenny bit his lip as his gaze fell to the table. “Guilty.”

  “Oh, my goodness! When was this? You have to tell me so I can fantasize about it.”

  He smacked my arm. “Shame on you! You have a handsome someone to fantasize about right here,” he said, waving his hand in a flourish, as if Liam were a brand-new car on The Price Is Right. “Besides, that was a very dark and confusing time in my life. I’d rather not go there.”

  One beer and three shots later, I was seeing double. I excused myself to the restroom, and when I returned, Kenny and Liam were singing “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. The notes blended together in my sloshy drunk mind, or maybe Kenny and Liam were slurring. Either way, by the time they were done, I was smitten.

  I plopped down in the chair next to Liam and curled my arm around his, locking elbows with him. The alcohol swimming through my veins washed away all thoughts of Houston. It even numbed the lingering discomfort in my belly, which seemed to reside there whenever I spent time with Liam.

  “That was incredibly sexy,” I murmured.

  “You should see me sing Christmas carols,” he replied, then took another sip of his beer.

  “We should totally sing Christmas carols!” Kenny replied with way too much excitement.

  I shook my head as I reached for Liam’s beer. “Oh, my God. That reminds me. Zucker’s is having a Christmas party this year.”

  “What!” Kenny shrieked. “Oh, girl, you and I are going to crash that thing into the ground like a couple of terrorists.”

  “Nuh-uh. I’m taking Liam,” I slurred as I nudged Liam’s shoulder. “That will be, like, the one-month-twenty-five-day anniversary of our first kiss. Maybe we can go to second base, eh?” I wriggled my eyebrows at him and he shook his head. “What? You don’t want to hang out with me and my awesome coworkers? Come oooooonnn.”

  “I would like nothing better than to score a home run with you, but I won’t be here for Christmas.”

  “What?” I replied, my face slackening with confusion.

  Kenny laughed as he pointed at me. “Oh, my goodness. The look on your face when he said that.”

  I shushed him as I turned to Liam. “Why aren’t you going to be here?”

  Something about the sober look on his face combined with his lumberjack beard made him look even more serious than I thought possible.

  “I need to talk to you about something.” He scratched his beard as he pondered how to answer my question. Digging for wisdom in his fur was what I called this gesture. “Actually, I need to ask you something.”

  Kenny and his friends’ voices melted away into the clamor of drunken chatter that filled the bar. The amber glow of the bar lighting seemed to dim on all sides of us, spotlighting our table. My nerves sparked with curiosity and I shivered as I waited for Liam to continue.

  “Rory, do you want to move to California with me?”

  A needle screeched across the record in my mind as Kenny and his friends turned to me wide
-eyed. I could hear the noise in the bar again, now that our table was eerily quiet. I didn’t know what was worse, the pressure of having Liam ask me something like this in front of so many people or the fact that my immediate answer wasn’t no.

  I barely knew Liam. We had been dating for a month and we hadn’t slept together yet. Our first kiss was questionable, but after a few make-out sessions, I had trained him to kiss more like—like the way I wanted to be kissed. But the best thing about Liam was that he didn’t just listen to me when I talked. He asked questions.

  He wanted to know what happened with Houston and me. I didn’t tell him everything, but he knew enough to know what he was getting into. The fact that he was asking me to move in with him, in another state, told me he didn’t think I was as screwed up as I thought I was. Maybe there was hope for me after all. With Liam.

  Still, this was not the kind of question I was expecting Liam to ask.

  “But…” I swallowed hard, trying to ignore Kenny’s penetrating glare. “I live here. I work here.”

  Liam grabbed my hand and leaned toward me, his face inches from mine. “You can take some time off to write while you look for another job.”

  Glancing sideways, I saw Kenny’s lips pressed together, anticipating my response. He knew as well as I did that Liam had just said the magic words. I didn’t want to work at Zucker’s grocery store for the rest of my life. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six years old, lying in my bed with a big book of fairy tales, twisting my hair around my chubby finger as I imagined one day creating a story as magical as the one I was lost in. And now, just like in those fairy tales, Liam was offering to be my knight in shining armor. He was offering to make my dreams come true.

  “Yes.”

  Liam looked confused by my response. “Really?”

  “What?” Kenny shrieked.

  “Yes, I’ll go to California with you.”

  My phone vibrates in my hand, and the sensation pulls me out of my memories, but the soft buzzing sound is drowned out by the ’80s music blasting through Liam’s car speakers. I turn the phone over and my breath hitches at the sight of the name on my screen: Houston.