by JA Huss
Huck looks over his shoulder at me. “Don’t get what?”
“Why?”
“Just drop it, Brooke,” Joey says.
“Look,” I say, turning to him, “if you don’t want to talk about what happened to you back there, fine. Shut up and brood like a jerk. But something happened to me too, you know. They just told me in no uncertain terms that my life was a lie. And OK. Fine. I get it. It was a lie. I knew it was a lie. But there were real parts too. Miklos was the only father I had. And maybe it’s true. Maybe he did buy me. Maybe that daughter of his never existed. Maybe he wanted me for sex.”
“Brooke,” Wald says. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Don’t have to do what? Face reality?” I laugh. “Believe me. I’ve been there, done that. That’s all I’ve ever done is… pretend!”
“If you loved him, and he loved you, then why does it matter how that love happened?” Huck asks.
“I’m not saying it does. I’m just saying… my world, OK? My fucking life just blew up in my face. I didn’t have much. And I’m not talking about money, or cars, or homes, or food, or clothes, or jewelry, or anything like that. I’m talking about love. I never had much love. But I had a little. I had just enough,” I say.
I have to pause and swallow hard. There is a tight, thick lump in my throat that somehow always appears when you’re about to cry and you’re holding it in.
It’s like a lump of sadness made out of heartbreak.
Tears well up in my eyes. I’m not a crier. I’m really not. But fuck it. I let them fall.
And then I take a deep breath and whisper, “I had just enough to get through it. That’s all I want to say. Just enough. And then… and then he died on me. And the ‘just enough’ went down to zero.”
Joey reaches for me. Pulls on my arm until I give in and lean against him.
“And then you guys were there. Like a fucking genie popped up and said, ‘You get three wishes, Brooke. What do you want?’ And I could not have wished for anything better. You three are my wishes.”
Joey leans down and kisses my head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize you had all this bottled up inside you.”
“It’s not even that,” I say, wiping the tears off my cheeks. “It’s just… I just… why?” I squirm in Joey’s embrace so I can look him in the face. “Why did they have to come back and ruin it for me? Why couldn’t they just let me be?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - JOEY
I would like nothing more than to shut up and never have to talk again. Never have to think about this day again. Maybe even rewind the last six fucking years and take back Charlotte and everything that came after.
Never go to that party. Never meet her. Never fuck her in the bathroom. Never get her pregnant. Never put myself out there and make a grand gesture.
Never walk away from Maisy.
But how would that be any different? How would that actually change things?
It wouldn’t.
I’d have to go all the way back to the day I was born and just… never happen.
But then I’d have to go back further, even. Wouldn’t I? To the night my mother got pregnant.
That’s the moment my fate was sealed. That instant my life sparked into being. That’s when this day was written.
Except… I get the feeling that even if I was granted this wish of nonexistence it wouldn’t include changing the actions of others.
And this is when it hits me.
I have no control over any of this. My fate was sealed the moment my soul was born.
I am Joey Boston and the only way to stop being him is to die.
But there is another choice here. One I’ve been fighting for as long as I can remember.
That other choice is… be him to the fullest.
Be the Joey Boston everyone thinks I am.
Be the bad guy. Be the evil one. Be the filthy, dirty, lying, cheating thug all those people back in that ballroom already expect me to be.
Be like Johnny.
And here’s the other sad realization I came to today. That whole time I was sitting there at that table and all those people were coming up to me to drop off checks I didn’t want and didn’t ask for, I was thinking about Maisy.
Not just Maisy.
Me, too.
Me, back when Johnny left Jesse and me behind to go to high school and how, just a few days ago, I’d figured out that’s where it all went wrong. We were a team before that. We didn’t understand what was happening, we just knew it was and there was no way to stop it. And we knew we were in it together.
But when Johnny left something happened. I guess it could’ve just as easily happened to me or Jesse, but it didn’t. It happened to Johnny.
They got to him.
I’ve been kidding myself all these years. I do know what we are. I do know what we do. I just… I just wanted to pretend.
But seeing Maisy today with her sister…
I’m going to be my father. This realization hits me so hard, I have chest pains and have to take very slow, very careful deeps breaths so I don’t have an actual, honest-to-God panic attack.
I’m going to rip Maisy away from her sister. And one day Malinda Conner will be telling her fucked-up story about how her sister is an angry, messed-up freak, and she’s going to think back to this birthday party and say, That’s the day they got to her. That’s the day it all went wrong.
I take a deep breath and say, “That day we came back from Japan.”
Everyone kinda turns towards me. Wald looks over his shoulder. Huck turns all the way around in his seat in front of me. Brooke pushes up and away from my embrace.
“What about it?” Huck asks.
“That day I went to the Bossy Building to see Jesse.” I look at Brooke because she doesn’t know any of this and Huck and Wald know a little. “Jesse is my little brother. He’s been the black sheep since he was born. And he was in the tabloids the day before—something about a kidnapping. Those women who own Bright Berry Beach Cosmetics were all Jesse’s exes and they wanted revenge, so they bought him at a charity auction, and… and…” I shake my head.
“And what?” Brooke asks.
“And there was security footage of them kidnapping Jesse from our lake house and Johnny… Johnny sold it to the tabloids. He caused that whole shit show.”
“What?” Huck says.
“You never told us this,” Wald adds.
“I know,” I say. And I’m a little out of breath right now, so I stop and suck in some air. “Johnny called me, told me to come home, so we fueled up the jet and we came home. I didn’t tell you because this part doesn’t even matter. Not really. Johnny’s been selling out Jesse to the tabloids for as long as Jesse’s been doing tabloid-worthy things. He says he did it to protect him. So they didn’t get to Jesse the way they did Johnny. He says that’s why he told me to go away and never come back. So I wouldn’t end up like him. So I didn’t have to be a part of this.”
“Who?” Brooke asks. “Who are we talking about?”
“Just listen for a minute, OK? Because there’s a lot more, Brooke.”
She nods at me. Her eyes still red from her own earlier tears. “OK. I’m listening.”
“So whatever. Johnny’s a dick. If that’s all there was to say about that night, I’d just…” I take another breath. “I’d just shut up about it and forget the whole thing. But that’s not all that happened that night I got home.”
Huck and Wald trade a glance.
“Johnny was trying to explain shit. Explain why he is the way he is. But there really are not words to describe my older brother. I mean, psychopath comes to mind. And that’s probably a succinct way to sum him up. But he told us to go up into the Bossy Building spire and watch.”
“Watch what?” Huck asks.
“What just happened back there in the ballroom, it’s happened before. It happened that night up in the spire too. Not quite the same, it was Johnny taking the money, not me being off
ered it. But it was the same. And in the end there was something like… I dunno. Twenty billion dollars. Checks inside white envelopes.”
“Why?” Brooke asks.
“Why?” I echo. “I don’t know.”
“Who were the checks made out to?” Wald asks.
“Us,” I say.
“You?” Brooke asks.
“Yeah. It was for us.”
“Was this a one-time thing? Or—”
“No,” I say, cutting Huck off. “No. Every month.”
“What?” all three of them say together.
Then Wald—“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Huck asks. “People write you twenty billion dollars in checks every month and you put that in your little bank account for safekeeping, and you don’t even know why?”
“Didn’t you ask Johnny?” Wald asks.
“Of course I asked him. He doesn’t know.”
“How could he not know?” Brooke asks. “This makes no sense.”
“It was something my father and uncle set up, I think. Or maybe my grandfather and great-uncle. Or hell, their grandfathers. I don’t really know. He doesn’t know. My uncle died when I was eleven and my father died when I was thirty-one. And those fuckers took it to their grave. Johnny’s spent the last five years searching through documents up in our building trying to find answers and meanwhile, those assholes in the white masks keep showing up every month to hand us checks. And meanwhile meanwhile, they are getting sick of this shit, you guys. They are getting pissed off. I don’t fucking blame them. I want to end this to. But something tells me that Michael Conner is about to blow this shit up in a very big, bad way and I have no idea how to stop it.”
“Stop taking the money!” Huck yells. “For fuck’s sake, Joey. Just tell Johnny to stop taking the money.”
“Don’t you think that if it was that simple, he’d have done that by now?”
“Did he try?”
And this… this is the secret that will ultimately bind us.
If I choose to reveal it.
This one last detail, this one last revelation, this one last disclosure will alter my relationship with these three people forever. Because once they know this about me, they will never be able to unknow it.
I choose to tell it. “He did try. He told me he tried.”
“And what happened?”
“With him? I dunno. He didn’t tell me that part. Jesse told him that too. Jesse said just… stop taking the money. And Johnny looked at me, and I looked at him, and we knew.”
“Knew what?” Brooke says.
“I don’t know what he knew. I just knew he did.”
“You’re not making any fucking sense,” Wald says.
“Joey,” Huck says. “Stop fucking around and tell us what’s going on!”
He doesn’t say ‘or.’ He doesn’t. But I hear it at the end of that sentence.
Tell us… or we will leave you. Tell us… or we will stop being loyal. Tell us… or this is all over.
So I take a deep breath and say, “I saw something once. Twice, actually, now that I think about it. Once when I was very small. Like three years old. And once when I was seventeen. Forget about what happened when I was three. I don’t even know if I remember it correctly. But right before I left for college, right before I met you guys, I was up on my father’s floor in our building. In the secret stairwell, because… well, that’s a long story. But I saw something and didn’t tell anyone about it because I was leaving for college the next day, and it was… ugly, and made me afraid, and my father was hurt, and I didn’t understand it so I just…” I swallow hard. “I just… didn’t tell anyone. I made myself forget. But that night, when Johnny looked at me, and I looked at him, I knew he knew why we could not stop taking the money.”
“What did you see?” Brooke asks.
“I saw…” I look at her. I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want anyone to know this secret. But I have to.
There is only one way out now.
Be me.
Stop pretending and be me.
“I saw news clippings. And pictures. And there was footage, you guys. Playing on a big screen TV in my father’s office. It was wars. All over the planet. And bodies. In mass graves. Torture, and rape, and mutilation, and kids, and every bad thing that has happened… shit going back more than a hundred years.” I stop and look at her. Because her mouth is open in shock.
I’m going to lose her.
I’m going to lose all of them.
“It was us,” I say, sealing my fate. “All of it. Everything that’s happened all across the globe. It was us. That’s what that money is for. We fund global wars. And in my father’s office that night were a whole bunch of… Johnnys. That’s the only word I have for them. They were just like Johnny. So they were accomplices, or they were good little soldiers, or who knows, maybe those dudes run this shit.”
It’s only now that I notice Wald has pulled over to the side of the highway and the truck is idling. He’s gripping the steering wheel tight. Huck is hidden from my view. Looking straight ahead.
Brooke is staring off into space.
“We’re the bad guys,” I say. “Michael Conner was right. We are the bad guys. But here’s the thing. I don’t think we’re in charge. I think there are people out there even more mental than Johnny Boston. Because my father was beaten to within an inch of his life that day I went up to his office and saw something I shouldn’t have. They beat him because he wanted to stop. That’s what they kept saying as they were kicking him in the stomach and pounding his face into the floor. “You wanna quit? You think you can quit?” That’s what they were yelling while I was hiding in the stairwell like a goddamned coward.”
Cars whiz by on the highway. Shaking the truck.
And then I whisper, “It’s not our money to stop taking.”
I look at Brooke. Right into her pretty brown eyes. “So maybe you’re right. Maybe that place is where Maisy belongs. Maybe I should remain no one to her. Maybe this whole fucking thing is just stupid. Maybe we should all go home, get back to work, and forget I even have a daughter.”
“What are you saying?” Brooke asks.
“I’m saying…”
I see the fear in her eyes. That if I don’t get what I want out of this bargain, she won’t get what she wants either.
But the words come out anyway.
“I’m saying we’re done.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - BROOKE
There is no more talking.
Joey’s last words were final.
I have to be honest. When we moved into this house on Wednesday it didn’t feel much like a home. We’ve spent a total of two nights here.
But when we drive through the gate and pull the truck up in front of the garage and watch the gate close behind us, there is an identifiable sense of relief.
There is that sense of home. That everything is better now, even though nothing has changed.
We don’t even talk when we go inside. No one makes any decisions. We just all walk to the master bedroom and start taking off our clothes.
Maybe it’s because we don’t want to be alone. Not after the revelation that evil runs the world and one-fourth of our foursome is directly involved. Or maybe it’s because there’s a whole lot of ‘we just lost a major battle’ feelings going on and we need each other like salve on wounds.
Or maybe Joey was being literal and we are done?
Maybe this is over and we all know it? But we want to cling to this short new beginning just a little bit longer?
But I’m an optimist these days so I choose another explanation.
We are a thing now. We are a team. We are friends, we are lovers, we are committed.
We will win or lose together.
I don’t give a fuck about the deal we made on Tuesday. I don’t even have a fuck to give about my mom and her stupid boyfriend. And while I might still have a spare fuck for Miklos’ initial betra
yal, it’s not a true fuck.
It’s really just simple forgiveness.
Because fine. Miklos was bad too. Whatever. He did his best and you know what? That’s all anyone can do. Their best. This life isn’t fair. No one promised me a goddamned parade. No one is responsible for my actions just as I’m not responsible for theirs.
But beyond that, no one is responsible for my happiness. Not anymore. Not since I decided to live Miklos’s lie and make the most of what I was given.
I made this decision. And I don’t care what anyone says, when it comes to love there are no rules. It’s all dictated by the heart.
I loved Miklos like a daughter loves a father and I’m not going to apologize for that.
“Hey… Brooke?” Joey says, slipping his tie through his shirt collar.
“Hmm?” I ask. Turning to smile at him.
“You’ve never mentioned your real father. Who was he?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Never met him.”
“Did you ever miss him?”
Oh. Shit.
I pause. Because I know what he’s asking. Hell, I’m the one who planted the idea of staying away from Maisy in his brain in the first place. Me and my stupid fairy tale fantasy.
“Brooke?”
I glance at Huck and Wald and find both of them looking at me with uneasy cocked heads, and squinty side eyes, and it’s possible they’re holding their breath.
I should lie. If ever there was a time to lie, it’s right now.
But Joey would spot that lie so fast and part of being loyal is also being truthful. Like Wald told me the other day. I can lie to whoever I want, I just can’t lie to them.
“No,” I say. “No. I never missed him.”
Huck and Wald both let out a long breath. And I don’t mean to catch Wald’s eye when I go back to undressing, but I do.
He approves.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - JOEY
I stare at Brooke for a few seconds but I’m not really seeing her. I’m picturing Maisy and her life with Michael Conner on that estate. I don’t really understand what that place is. It’s not just the Kane family home, that’s for sure. It’s almost like… it’s almost like all the families involved in the Boston money-making ceremony banded together and now use this place as their sanctuary.
