by Tamara Lush
It’s a distinct possibility, I have to admit, and it makes my stomach feel like it’s loaded with cement. Family’s important to her. Why would she want to be a part of one that hurt her?
The moon’s full tonight, and I plunk my ass on the sand, knowing it will crack my heart in two if I lose Natalia.
NATALIA
This gel eye pack is the best thing in the world right now. My head feels like it’s going to split open, starting in the vicinity of my left sinus. That’s how my tension headaches always start, in my sinus cavities.
Two hours of being around Chad and his mother nearly killed me. Or at least it feels that way. Even though we exchanged less than twenty words, I could feel his evil permeating every molecule in the air. At some point, I realized it was a stupid idea for me to stay.
Sure, it was good meeting Matthew’s sister—she seems like a normal, cool person. And it was fun watching videos with Chloe. Matthew, though, spent most of the two hours looking shell-shocked.
Probably because it was sinking in that the woman he’s been sleeping with also screwed his half-brother.
I moan out loud. Is this situation messed up, or what? I shift on the sofa, my sinus throbbing as if there are small hand grenades going off in the cavity.
Right now, I can’t think about what will happen between Matthew and me. No, I need to stay extremely still so that the aspirin kicks in. So that the pain will go away. I reach for my weighted blanket—it helps when I’m anxious—and I cover my body.
I slip into a fitful, tense doze, and just as Chad’s face visits my nightmare, I’m roused by a knock on the door.
I sit up with a gasp and push the gel eye mask to my forehead. Dammit. It’s probably Matthew wanting to talk. And I’m not sure I’m ready. Even so, I hope it’s Matthew and not Sadie, who I ushered out of my apartment an hour ago with the promise that I’d tell her everything once my headache went away.
Pressing my eye to the peephole, I whimper when I see who’s at the door.
“Natalia?” he calls out.
I swing the door open and step aside so he can walk in. “Matthew, you didn’t have to come over.”
I return to the sofa, pulling the weighted blanket over my legs. Since it’s made with buckwheat pellets, it makes a soft, crunching noise. Matthew doesn’t notice because he’s pacing the living room, pushing his dark hair back with his hand.
He stops and stares at me. “You okay?”
“Headache. Migraine.” I tug the eye mask off my forehead.
I study him. He looks unusually red in the face. “You okay?” I ask.
His hands ball into fists then relax. “I punched him.”
A jolt of adrenaline shoots through me, almost enough to quell my headache. “What?”
“I punched Chad. After you left.”
I crumple forward, my hands covering my face. “No,” I whisper. I lift my head. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.”
Matthew comes to the couch and sits. He moves the edge of the blanket and scowls at it.
“Weighted blanket,” I explain, adding, “for anxiety.”
“I feel like shit for making you go through that.” He turns and reaches for me but doesn’t quite touch me. His hands hover near my shoulders, and then he pulls back, as if I’m going to break if he touches me.
“How could you have known? Stop apologizing.” I probably sound more cross than I should. “And don’t punch him again. Although, I can’t say that it hurts my feelings that you did pop him once. Did you break his nose?”
“I wish.”
“Did he try to fight back?”
Matthew snorts. “Hell no.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching Sin bat a grey toy mouse across the floor.
“Chad started to talk about you. And. I. Couldn’t. Stand. It…” His voice trails off.
I press my lips together. The heavy blanket’s making me sweat so I push it off, drawing my legs up so that I’m sitting in a ball. Matthew’s on the other end of the sofa.
“Chad and I met in eighth grade. He’d just transferred into school here. He bullied me badly back then. Would trip me in the hall at school, leave shit in my locker. Called me ‘The Maid” because someone found out and told him that I worked with the housekeepers at the hotel in the summers. When I first told adults about the bullying, they said that he did it because he liked me.” My voice is calm and small. “He didn’t come back freshman year, and it was a relief. Everything was great until junior year, when he returned. And at first, it all seemed okay. It seemed like he did like me. For real.”
Matthew’s staring at his hands, which are threaded together.
“Do you want to hear all this? I assume that’s why you really came over, to find out what actually happened.”
He shrugs without looking at me.
Part of me is pissed that Matthew wants to know the details. But I also suspect that if I want to have a chance in hell at a relationship with him, I need to be honest about what happened with Chad. Not for Matthew’s sake, but for my own. So that my conscience is clear. So that I don’t feel like I’m hiding anything from a person I really care about.
“Nat.” His voice is soft. “I want you to know that I didn’t know Chad well back then. Those were the years I was mostly estranged from my mother and only saw her a couple of times. Chad was a virtual stranger back then. In fact, I haven’t seen him in a couple of years until recently. He came to the island for a visit when I first moved here. We had lunch on his way to Miami.”
“So, you’re friends with him. Or were.”
Matthew shakes his head. “Not really. He had meetings in Tampa and Miami, some real estate investment thing. So, it made sense for him to stop to eat with us. Chloe was with me that weekend, and because I’m always trying to keep the peace with her and my family, I thought it would be a good idea for us to spend time together. Honestly, it was awkward. We ate at that place on the waterfront with the stone crabs, then walked around a little. Oddly…” He stops speaking.
“Oddly what?”
“It was Chad who suggested that I apply for the photo shoot. We saw a flyer for it at the restaurant and he pointed it out.”
I blow out a breath but don’t respond. The serendipity is almost too much to bear. My biggest nightmare is the reason I met my dream man. What are the odds?
“You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to. I’d never force you to relive something terrible,” he says in a hushed tone.
I shake my head. “I’ve relived it a lot and thought I was finally over everything. At least until tonight. And I’ll be fine once I get rid of this headache.”
A lump forms in my throat and my words come out thick and phlegmy. “When he first came back to school, Chad was nice to me. He asked me to a school dance. He was more popular than I was, and at the time, it seemed important that I hang with the cool kids. So ridiculous, right? But I said yes. And one thing led to another, and…” my voice trailed off. “He was my first. He later told me that he’d made a bet with his friends that he’d take my virginity.”
I hiccup in a breath. “And from there, things got…toxic. We’d fight and break up and get back together again. Since he was rich, he ran with a bunch of really arrogant assholes. I thought I was being glamorous by partying with them. It was also kind of a rebellion against my parents. I was sixteen and stupid, Matthew. We drank a lot.”
“Who wasn’t stupid at sixteen?” he says softly.
I shrug. “Things took a turn for the worse the summer between junior and senior year. He started to become, ah, physical.”
Matthew’s cheeks become redder and he swears under his breath while scrunching his eyes shut.
“I thought that if I just tried to do everything right, he’d calm down. But he was drinking a ton and doing coke. I didn’t do drugs, just drank, but I thought I could change him. I was pretty screwed up.” A shudder escapes my chest. “He forced me to…”
Matt
hew opens his eyes, turns, and scoops me into his arms. “Shh. You don’t need to talk about it. Not now, not ever.”
He rocks me for a few minutes. The memories of Chad return, fierce and ugly. Dammit, this was why I went to years of therapy, to handle things like this.
I pull out of his embrace, trying so hard not to cry. “It ended when he tried to strangle me at a party. For talking to another guy. I wasn’t flirting, I was being polite. Then he put his hands around my throat. I was so scared, Matthew. So scared I was going to die. When I got away from him, I finally told my parents what was happening between us. All that time, I’d kept Chad’s abuse from them because I was ashamed.”
The muscles in Matthew’s jaw bunch and he blinks.
“I thought my dad was going to kill him. And my brothers. They were so angry. Remy especially, who’s normally so laid back. But I got a restraining order and then Chad’s mom, your mom, sent him to private school in New England. That was the last I saw of him. Until today.”
Matthew’s eyes are glistening with tears, and my chest feels like it’s going to explode with all the pent-up emotion. “I’m so sorry, Natalia.” He repeats that several times, and I climb off the sofa so I can grab a tissue in the bathroom.
I blow my nose and take a huge breath. As I look in the mirror at my blotchy face and red-rimmed eyes, anger takes over. This is ridiculous. I’m thirty-two and I’m sobbing over something that happened in high school. Screw this. All of it. I need to move on with my life. I run a resort. I design jewelry. I have friends and a full life.
I’m bigger than my past, right? Or am I not? I have no freaking idea. I’m so confused and angry and upset right now that I don’t know which way is up. My therapist says that trauma and PTSD reverberate for years. I never quite believed her, despite all the nightmares over the years. Never wanted to believe.
Back in the living room, Matthew’s holding his head in his hands.
“Hey,” I say curtly.
He looks up. “Hey.”
“I think I need some time alone. Time to think. Okay? This is too much for one night.”
It kills me to do this, because all I want is to spend the night in his arms. But the reality of our situation is so much more complicated, and a night of sleep and sex with him will only make it more so.
He inhales. “Natalia… You know you can tell me anything. Can talk about anything.”
“Please,” I say firmly. No way will I tell him more. He’s probably already disgusted with me.
Nodding, he gets to his feet. We walk to the door and I don’t look at him. As I suspected. He probably wants to get out of here, fast.
“I’ll call you.” I crush the tissue in my fist.
He gulps in a breath then kisses my forehead tenderly, which makes my heart crack. “You sure you’re going to be okay alone?”
“I have Sadie next door if I need anything,” I whisper, my hand on the door. I close it a few inches. If he doesn’t leave now, he’s going to witness a meltdown of epic proportions. And no one, least of all me, wants that.
“Okay. Good. Hey, Natalia?”
“Yeah?”
“You can always call me to talk. I care so much about you. I hope you know that. I’d never have put you through today had I known.” His face is etched with pure anguish.
“I know. Just give me some time, okay?”
He nods, I nod, and my hand pushes the door shut. After a few minutes, when I’m certain he’s gone, that’s when I fall apart for real.
Chapter Twenty-Two
MATTHEW
The day after the party, I go to the tacky mansion to say goodbye to Mother. Chad’s already gone, thank God, having caught a private jet back to New York or hell or whatever rock he’s crawling back under.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Mother says as she opens the door.
As usual, her husband—my stepfather—is on the phone, working on some business deal. He scurries away, never one to deal with her wrath.
“Hello, Mother. Nice to see you, too.”
“I can’t believe you punched your brother.” She’s wearing a deep blue muumuu and is weighted with gold jewelry. She’s in thick, black glasses today and they match her hair. She jangles as she turns toward the kitchen.
I follow her. “I can’t believe you let him get away with the shit he did in high school.”
In the kitchen, she turns to me and shrugs. “Boys will be boys.”
I gape at her. “No. What Chad did to Natalia was abuse. And probably rape.”
Mother winces.
“And you enabled it, didn’t you? You allowed him to act like a little, arrogant jerk because he was your baby boy. You enabled him and let him leave here without facing any kind of consequences.”
I’ve never spoken to Mother in this kind of harsh tone before. Our relationship’s always been frosty, and I’ve always held her at arm’s length. All of the old, simmering rage over her leaving Hailey and me comes roaring back. I’m shaking, I’m so furious.
Mother begins to cry. I can’t tell if she’s doing it for effect or if the tears are real.
“I would have never brought Natalia here if I’d known about her past with Chad. I had no reason to think they knew each other. And the way you acted toward her. Jesus, Mother. How could you?”
She sniffles. “Ever since he was born prematurely, I’ve always bent over backwards to protect Chad.”
“No shit,” I mutter.
We stand in the kitchen, a tense awkwardness between us. “I just came to say goodbye. Look, I know things have been tense between us for years. I’m not anticipating an explanation or an apology for years past. That ship has sailed. But if Natalia’s going to be in my life…”
My voice fades. God, I hope she’ll be in my life. I hope she doesn’t want to break it off.
“If Natalia’s going to be in my life, and in Chloe’s life, you’re going to have to accept her. And be kind. Or at least not be rude. I thought you were awful to Yvette, but man, that was nothing compared to how you behaved yesterday with Natalia.”
Mother looks up at me. “I haven’t been the best mother to you and Hailey. Or to Chad. But I’ve tried to be a good grandmother to Chloe, in the hopes of making it up to you.”
I’ll begrudgingly admit that she is a pretty solid grandma. “Then be polite to Natalia for Chloe’s sake, okay? So we can all get along. Don’t treat Natalia like you treated Yvette, okay?”
She nods, haltingly, and sniffles. I bend down and kiss her on the cheek, hoping to God that everything’s going to work out with all of us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
NATALIA
It’s been a week since I’ve talked with Matthew. Well, sort of. It’s not like I’ve cut off all communication. We’ve texted in short bursts, mostly of the how are you doing and I’m well, thanks variety.
He also messaged me a photo of a sign that said DANGER, ALLIGATOR with an alligator lying beneath it, and I texted one back of a bumper sticker that said WTF-Welcome to Florida.
It’s not that I don’t want to see him. I do. So much. I miss his humor, miss talking to him, miss his kisses. God, I miss sleeping in his arms. I practically ache every time I think about it. I’ve fallen in love with him, that’s for certain.
But something’s holding me back. A practical something. I need to decide whether I’m willing to run the risk of encountering Chad again if I stay with Matthew. It’s a bit of a Faustian bargain—a relationship with a perfect man in exchange for being part of a family that has been the source of my anguish.
There’s also Chloe to consider. If Matthew and I are really going to do this, have a relationship, I’ll be a part of her life, too. Am I ready for that?
And so, I’ve been silent. I go to work at the resort and teach my Bead and B*tch class. I attempt to work on a new necklace with some freshwater pearls, but I can’t focus for long enough to make it look right. I drink too much wine by myself on a few nights, sloppily telling Sin my thoug
hts. (Spoiler alert: Sin doesn’t care.)
I don’t tell any human about any of this. Not what happened at the party, not the conversation Matthew and I had afterward. I’m silent around Sadie and don’t spill to my family. Don’t want to color anybody’s opinion of Matthew, in case we end up working out as a couple.
Today I’m in my office, going over the final plans for the nudist — sorry, naturist — convention contract. At Max’s insistence, I’ve tacked on the extra cleaning charge they’d offered to pay. He seems to think that they’ll sweat all over every available surface.
The door swings open, and it’s my brother, Remy.
“Hey,” I say, barely looking up.
He hurls his big, tanned body into a chair on the other side of my desk and scoops some candy out of the glass bowl.
“Make yourself at home,” I say, not looking up from the spreadsheet on my computer.
“Hey sis, how’s it going?” he asks while chewing.
“Good. Busy.”
“How’s Matthew?”
“Good. Busy,” I repeat, then rub my lips together. What’s he doing, asking all these questions? “Shouldn’t you be out fishing?”
“I heard about what happened at his mom’s party.”
A startled zing goes through me and I finally look my brother in the eye. “Oh, you did, did you? How’s that?”
Remy’s chewing on his bottom lip, a sure sign that he’s nervous. “One of the caterers overheard some things. Well, and they saw Matthew punch Chad.”
I roll my eyes. “This freaking island. Seriously. Can’t a woman have privacy? Did you come here to tell me that everyone knows my business?”
“No. I came here to apologize.”
I rear back. “Huh? Why?”
“Look, don’t get angry. I know you’re on edge. I can feel the emotions coming off you in waves.” He holds his hands up.
“You know that’s a sure-fire way to get me mad.” My jaw hardens. Remy has always been my most pain-in-the-ass sibling. I love him like crazy, but lord, he can be annoying.
