Beloved Ink

by Ranae Rose

  Still sitting on the couch, she wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. She couldn’t stop thinking about the gun and Dylan’s promise to talk to Ben about it. Did he plan to do that while Hannah was there?

  Apparently, he did. Shortly after Crystal and Emily walked out, he cut to the chase.

  “Ben, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Sitting on the edge of a recliner arranged cattycorner from the sofa, Dylan looked as troubled as Hannah felt.

  A pang of sympathy sailed through her. She cared about Ben – a lot – but Dylan was his brother. He’d known him his whole life. This had to be agonizing for him.

  “What?” Ben asked, sitting beside Hannah on the couch, their thighs almost touching.

  “How long have you had the gun in your room?”

  For several seconds, there was a silence so profound that Hannah’s ears rang.

  Her anxiety increased, until she could feel her pulse racing, each beat distinct. Would Ben be angry?

  Probably. He’d probably be angry with her. She’d gone to his brother before going to him. It wasn’t something she expected him to appreciate.

  Still, she was glad not to have to handle this herself – glad to have an ally who also cared about Ben. She wouldn’t have known how to handle this on her own.

  “A while,” Ben eventually said. His voice gave nothing away.

  Hannah, on the other hand, could feel herself breathing too quickly.

  “Why do you have it?” Dylan asked.

  “Why not? Lots of people have guns in their houses.”

  “Yeah. But not you – not that I knew of, until today.”

  Ben’s expression cracked, and he narrowed his eyes, then closed them and rubbed his forehead with one hand, like it ached. “Do you have a problem with me having it?”

  “Yes.”

  Ben shook his head. “Why do you even know about it?”

  Dylan’s gaze shifted to Hannah, and so did Ben’s.

  “I found it,” she said. “By accident, before dinner. A piece of my clothing got caught on it, and I went to pick it up...” Her face heated, and she looked at Ben instead of Dylan. “I wasn’t trying to snoop.”

  “So you told Dylan?” He didn’t sound as angry as she’d imagined he would.

  That made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. If he wasn’t surprised that she’d been worried enough to go to his brother, did that mean she was right about his motivations for keeping a gun so close?

  Was he really considering hurting himself?

  “Yeah, I did. I was worried – it didn’t seem like you to keep a gun within reach.”

  “It’s not like you,” Dylan said. “And I’d bet every dollar I’ve got that you haven’t had it for long.”

  Ben sat back on the couch, bracing his hands on his knees. “All right. I bought it a couple weeks ago. But that’s no crime. So can we stop talking about it?”

  “No.” Dylan looked just as miserable as Ben, and it was clear that neither of them relished the conversation. They wore similar frowns and radiated agitated vibes, looking more alike than ever before.

  Hannah felt like the world’s most awkward third wheel, and yet, she was glad to be there. Going home after finding the gun was unimaginable.

  “You having that gun scares the hell out of me,” Dylan said. “I want it gone. And more than that, I don’t want you to feel like you need it.”

  “We all want things we can’t have.” Ben’s voice was dead-calm. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  He’d flattened his hands on his thighs.

  Hannah’s were clenched into fists again.

  Dread settled into her bones as she tried to decipher the subtext of the brothers’ conversation. She wasn’t stupid – she saw that Ben had bought the gun out of desperation. She also sensed the dark emotional undercurrents running through his thoughts, even now. But she got the feeling there was more, something she didn’t know.

  “Jesus.” Dylan put his head in his hands. “I can’t do this again.”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything.” Ben stood, and the couch shifted beneath Hannah. “I can take care of myself – there’s nothing I won’t do, if I have to. That’s why I bought the gun.”

  He finally sounded angry.

  As his words hit, Hannah’s heart nearly stopped.

  Her first instinct was to shrink away from the awfulness of Ben’s declaration. At the same time, she wanted to reach out and touch him, pull him close enough that the sound of his heartbeat would drown out the noise of his devastating words.

  But all she did was sit, stunned and frozen, as he turned toward the door.

  “You don’t have to go,” Dylan said.

  “I’m going.” Ben didn’t even look back at him.

  “Ben, where?” She found her voice, and then her legs finally had the strength to move.

  She hurried after him.

  “I need some air,” he said.

  He got to the door before her, and shut it in her face.

  She opened it and followed him, hurrying down the stairs and across the parking lot.

  “Ben!” She kept her voice at a level she hoped wouldn’t make a scene. “Please slow down. I didn’t mean to—”

  He finally turned to face her when he reached his Mustang. His jaw was tense, and his pulse jumped visibly just below it.

  His eyes seemed darker than ever, and the circles below were a lurid purple in the daylight.

  Jesus, how had she thought he was doing okay?

  She was naïve. An idiot.

  “I meant what I said about needing some air,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, so don’t make me. I’ve already fucked up everything; don’t make me make it worse.”

  “Can’t I come with you?” He’d never pushed her away like this before.

  “No. You’ll be better off here until I’m back – believe me.”

  Back. The word provided a scrap of comfort.

  “Do you swear you’ll come back, that you’re not going to do anything … drastic?” She’d almost said crazy, but had bitten her tongue at the last second.

  He looked her dead in the eye. “I swear.”

  Her heart kept speeding, but the sound of blood roaring in her ears slowly faded. She believed him – he’d never lied to her. Even inside, he hadn’t lied about the gun.

  But she still doubted enough to be afraid. Doubted his capacity for more stress, more burdens, if not his honest intentions.

  He climbed into his Mustang and backed out of the parking space. When he drove away, she finally realized how cold she was in her thin shirt.

  Feeling numb, she turned back to the building and climbed the stairs to the apartment. What else was she supposed to do? Ben had picked her up.

  Inside, she found Dylan where she’d left him. He wore a pained expression, like he’d been hit.

  “Why didn’t you try to stop him from leaving?”

  “If he wasn’t going to stay for you, he wasn’t going to stay for me.”

  Her eyes widened. “But you’re his brother.”

  “Since when do little brothers ever listen to their siblings?”

  Little brother. Ben would definitely have seemed little to Dylan when they’d been growing up – there was a noticeable age difference.

  “Still… You’re huge. You could’ve stopped him.”

  “Maybe. But that would’ve meant starting a fight, and his life went to shit last time he got caught up in one of those. There was nothing I could’ve done.”

  Hannah bit her lip. “He promised to come back.”

  There was no telling whether that made Dylan feel better, but she hoped it did. Because now that she was back in the living room, she could see that his eyes were wet.

  Her conscience shriveled up and began to crumble into a mound of pure, concentrated guilt. Why had she questioned Dylan, who knew Ben better than anybody? It was obvious he cared enough to do whatever he thought was best.
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  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just freaked out.”

  “You and me both.”

  “I can’t believe he’s been sleeping with a gun under his bed.”

  Dylan finally raised his gaze and met her eyes. “I can.”

  A shiver raced down her spine. “Has he done this sort of thing before?”

  Dylan nodded. “Yeah, but he was doing great. He was doing great, and it won’t mean fuck-all if those charges aren’t dismissed in court.”

  Hannah’s head spun. “What happened? Before, I mean?”

  “Ask him. I don’t think he’d want you to hear it from me.”

  Hannah stopped herself from arguing. Dylan was right.

  “Is this because he’s bipolar? I don’t know what else would make him think he’d need to do something like that.”

  “It’s part of it. Stress makes it worse, and medication is a lot of things, but it isn’t magic. The worst part is that this doesn’t even surprise me. I should’ve been checking his room for weapons myself. He’s feeling trapped. I see where he’s coming from, even if I hate it – even if I don’t agree.”

  “How can you see where he’s coming from? I know he’s afraid, but dying … that seems scarier than anything else.”

  “Maybe for you. Not for him. There are times when bipolar disorder can make any other option seem like a mercy.”

  “So you definitely think that’s what has him thinking this way?”

  “You can’t be bipolar without getting hit with bad times. And when things get really bad, desperation can carve trenches in your mind. If shit hits the fan later … you fall back in. And it feels like where you’re meant to be – where you’ll always be. Your old ideas come flooding back and it’s hard to think any other way.

  “He may not be the lowest he’s ever been, but he’s running on thoughts and solutions from times when he was.”

  A heavy feeling filled her gut, and she blinked hard. “Are you sure?”

  “Dead sure. It’s genetic – we both have it.”

  She swallowed, her heart and head aching as Dylan’s words washed over her. She’d played internet detective after Ben had told her he had type two bipolar disorder, and she grasped what it was from a practical standpoint. But the medical articles she’d read didn’t describe things like Dylan did.

  She’d thought she understood. But she didn’t.

  “What can I do?”

  “Don’t think too badly of him. He thinks you’ll be pissed. He thinks you can’t understand. Hell, he thinks those things about me too. I’m sure that’s why he left. But I’m trying to understand. If you can too, I think that’ll help. If we blow this into a huge fucking deal – if we fight with him – I think we’ll make it a hundred times worse.”

  “I don’t think badly of him. I couldn’t.” Despite her horror, despite his problems, she still adored him. How could she not? He was caring and honest. Loyal. Hell, the whole reason he was in this mess was because he’d jumped into a dangerous situation to protect her at great cost to himself.

  “I doubt he realizes that.”

  She frowned. Thinking that Ben had fled to avoid her judgment made her feel like a failure. She said so to Dylan, and he let out a humorless laugh.

  “That makes two of us. I said the wrong thing, fucked up. Me and my big fat mouth – maybe he’d still be here if I’d kept it shut.”

  Silence stretched for a little while, leaving Hannah feeling more and more anxious by the second.

  “I don’t mean to impose,” she eventually said, “but would it be okay if I stayed until he gets back? He picked me up, and also… I can’t stand the thought of going home and not seeing him again today, after all this. It’d feel like abandoning him.”

  “Stay as long as you want; this is Ben’s place as much as it’s mine, and he clearly wants you here.”

  She wasn’t so sure. But she wanted to be there. At the moment, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, unless it was by his side.

  * * * * *

  Ben drove in no particular direction until the stars came out. The city was behind him, but he couldn’t escape the scene he’d left.

  His heart pounded like he was running instead of driving, and he had a bitch of a headache. Why had he been such a fucking idiot?

  He should’ve hidden the gun better.

  He’d wanted it close so he could feel like he had a fallback, a disaster plan at his fingertips.

  At times, the sight of the gun had made him feel sick. But when he was really down, it lost its menace and he liked having it there. Was that so fucked-up?

  Maybe. But so was he, and he couldn’t change that, no matter how many pills he took. He could only hope to mask it.

  But there was no way he could make Hannah see that the gun wouldn’t be an extreme measure if he was convicted. It wouldn’t even be a choice. It was just what he’d have to do if things got too bad.

  He’d use it out of the same desperation that compelled people to make fatal jumps out of burning buildings. You were going to be destroyed either way, and one way was a little quicker and hurt a little less.

  The only person in his life who might be capable of understanding that was Dylan.

  How could anyone else even begin to comprehend? How the hell could people who’d always be better off alive than dead understand that some people came with a built-in safety switch, whether they liked it or not?

  Hannah didn’t know how bad he could get. Didn’t know how the imbalance in his brain could cheat him out of anything and everything, even his sense of self. And he didn’t want her to know.

  He’d thought he could hide it, keep it under control with medication. But now he’d given her a hint and she probably thought he was crazy.

  The thought punched a hole in his chest, because thinking about ending his life wasn’t the worst of it. No, being out of control was worse. Saying and doing stupid things he didn’t even fully understand and had to live with the aftermath of was worse. A lot of things were worse than dying, than it all finally being over.

  Most people didn’t see it that way; most people thought of life as sacred. He didn’t. How could he, when his had been twisted by something that was capable of stripping away everything he was, everything that mattered? His bipolar disorder was a rabid bulldog; it had a hold of him, and it wouldn’t let go until it was put down.

  He lived in fear of the next shake, the next tear. And he needed to have a way to make it stop, if the destruction went beyond what could be lived with, what he could bear.

  It all made sense in his head, but he’d seen the way Dylan and Hannah had looked at him. He wished he could take the day back, hide the gun somewhere else. But he couldn’t, and now his worst fears and most desperate desires were exposed.

  They were ugly. He knew it. Now Hannah knew it. And he’d have to look her in the eye and see how it’d changed the way she saw him.

  CHAPTER 22

  Hannah didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until the sound of voices woke her up.

  The voices were male and familiar. She rolled over in Ben’s bed, immediately awake.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Ben’s voice was rough and tired-sounding. “Jesus, Dylan. I don’t want to argue about it.”

  “I’m not arguing. Fuck, I hate that you bought that gun. But I’m not blind, or stupid, or ignorant the way other people are about this.

  “I know it’s not something you want to do. I know the decision can come as easy as breathing – so easy it doesn’t even seem like a decision at all. And I know that right now, the idea of jail time seems like a life-ender to you. But what I don’t get is why you bought the gun when you’re probably not going to be convicted of anything.”

  Silence.

  “Is it something else?” Dylan eventually asked. “Am I wrong – is this not about the charges?”

  “No. You were right – it’s that. No one else was ever supposed to know about the gun. I don’t want to use it. But thinking about b
eing convicted had me so fucking torn up that I had to do something to make myself feel like there was another possibility – anything other than that. So I bought the gun, and I could finally breathe.”

  “Shit.” For a long time, that was all Dylan said. “There were already other possibilities, Ben. Chances are, you’re not going to be sentenced to prison – your lawyer seems pretty damn confident about that. You fixated on the worst-case scenario and chose an irrevocable solution to an unlikely problem. Can you see that?”

  “Maybe it won’t happen. And if it doesn’t, I’ll never touch that fucking gun. You won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “The hell I won’t. I’ll worry about it because I’ll know that’s the kind of plan you’ll jump to make if you even think things might get bad. Do you think I can just brush that kind of knowledge off?”

  “You’ll have to.”

  “The hell I will. I care about you. There are only two other people in the entire fucking world I care about like I care about you. I can’t sleep, can’t live, can’t fucking breathe thinking that I might come home and find you dead. It’s my worst goddamn nightmare, and you’re telling me I’m supposed to live with it?”

  “I know it’s shitty. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were born into a shitty fucking family, and that I’m part of the problem when I should be your ally. But I can’t change the way I think.

  “Things this bad, they just… They eat me alive until I convince myself there’s something I can do to stop them, if I have to. I feel like shit when I think about leaving you behind. But that doesn’t change anything. I figured you were the one person who’d get that.”

  “You can too change the way you think. That was the whole point of seeing that therapist you quit going to: to identify your fucked-up thinking patterns and learn how to reshape them.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “You didn’t want it to; you only went because I pressured you into it. You need to go because you really want it to work, and stick with it. Please.”

  Something shattered in Dylan’s voice, and a sharp pain slipped between Hannah’s ribs. There was desperation in that final word that sounded every bit as deep and broken as the desperation that’d driven Ben to sleep with a gun at his fingertips. It was at complete odds with the man she saw when she looked at Dylan: large, strong, capable. He sounded like a broken man, and that broke her heart into two distant halves.