Untamed

by S. C. Stephens

  “You lied…again. You went behind my back…again. Why? Why would you do that? We’re supposed to be honest, Griffin! We’re supposed to talk things out!” Tears were welling in Anna’s eyes; the pain in them was killing me. I was such a fucking idiot. “You’re supposed to want to include me. You’re supposed to care.” The tears fell to her cheeks. Each one that dropped felt like a sledgehammer across my chest.

  Gibson was crying now; Mom silently swept her from the room. “I do…I do care.” My voice came out weak and warbled. I hated it. I’d done all this for her…she just didn’t know that. “I didn’t have a choice, Anna. The album was the only way…” I paused to scrub my eyes; they were stinging so much I could barely see. “Everything was riding on this, and now…we’re so fucked.”

  Swiping her cheeks dry, Anna asked, “How much do we owe, Griffin? How in debt are we?”

  “Fifty,” I whispered. At least, that was where it was at the last time I looked.

  Anna looked confused. “Fifty…dollars?”

  Guilt, remorse, and fear welled up in me, making it impossible for me to look her in the eye. I should have told her. I should have talked with her. I shouldn’t have fucked this all up. I should have been honest from the start. Avoiding her gaze, I stared at the shattered case on the ground. Broken. Just like every single one of my dreams. “Fifty thousand,” I finally admitted.

  The room erupted in gasps of disbelief. As I looked up, I saw Anna standing there with her mouth wide open. Her cheeks were flushed with anger, and she was cracking her knuckles like she wanted to hit something. Wanted to hit me.

  “Why the fuck would you get us fifty thousand dollars in debt for an album when you’ve got a show…” And just like that, the light flicked on. She brought her hands to her mouth, then slowly lowered them. “There is no show…is there?”

  I felt like my chest was going to explode as I took a step toward her. “Anna…” Please understand, I did this for you, for the girls, for our future. Fuck. No, I didn’t. I did it for me.

  She put a hand up to stop my pathetic attempt to placate her. “All this time, the facts were right in front of me, but I didn’t want to believe them, because I didn’t want to believe that you would lie to my face, day in, day out.” She started trembling in her rage. “Is that what happened? Have you been lying to me? For months!”

  I felt like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. I didn’t know how to explain myself, didn’t know how to tell her how freaked out I’d been, how goddamn miserable it had made me to keep her in the dark, how alone I’ve felt trying to fix something that wasn’t fixable. But breaking her heart…losing her faith and support…Lying had been a way to avoid doing that, and like the lazy, self-absorbed asshole I was, I’d taken the easy option. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. The show got cancelled and I panicked…I didn’t want to let you down.” Please understand, I silently begged. You’re always so understanding. That’s why we work.

  All the color drained from her cheeks but flared in her eyes. “Jesus…how long have you been lying to me? How long have I been in the dark?”

  My heart was pounding. I was such a fucking idiot. Maybe at the beginning I could have convinced her, but there was no way she’d understand and support me now. None. The sham was over. “The show was cancelled…right after the VMAs.”

  Her eyes widened in shock again, and she opened and closed her mouth, but no words came out. With glistening eyes, she looked around the silent room, then she turned and stormed off to the bedroom. I followed as quickly in her wake as I dared. When she got to our room, she slammed the door. It felt like the wind from the motion slapped my face. “Anna?” I knocked again when she didn’t answer. “Anna? You’re gonna have to talk to me sometime. It might as well be now.” Please don’t shut me out.

  The door flew open so fast I again felt the breeze. “Talk to you? Why should I talk to you? You don’t have the decency to talk to me. Or even tell me the truth! You make all these plans behind my back, then you fill me in on them when it’s too late to change them!” She slugged me in the arm. “You lied to me for months? And you lost everything we had! What the hell were you thinking?”

  I tried to step into the room and close the door so I could put at least a small buffer between us and everyone listening, but with Anna not letting me inside, it was difficult. I finally managed to step in and edge the door shut behind me though. “I’ll fix this, Anna. I swear.” How, I had no fucking clue.

  Anna echoed my thoughts. “How the fuck are you going to fix this, Griffin? We have nothing, and we’re fifty thousand dollars in debt with no possibility of paying it back with income from your sure-to-be-a-hit show. I should have known it was crap the second you told me they weren’t paying you until it aired. God, I am such an idiot.”

  She obsessively started smoothing back her hair while she paced, like she was frantically trying to calm down. I could tell from her expression that it wasn’t working though. Her eyes were watery with pain, but her cheeks were red with anger. All the torment I’d been trying to keep away from her was hitting her all at once. Watching the struggle was choking me up, but anticipating the outcome was making me sick.

  “No, you’re not,” I said in a hoarse whisper. I am. Defeat settled around me like a toxic cloud, choking every last remnant of hope I had. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. The album was supposed to fix everything. It was supposed to be amazing…”

  “Well, it’s an amazing piece of shit.” I snapped my eyes to hers and she shrugged. “I can’t sugarcoat this one, Griffin. It’s not well-produced, it’s not well-written, it’s not well-anything. It’s terrible, and you’re going to be a laughingstock when it releases.”

  I was so shocked by her brutal honesty, I didn’t know what to say. What I did say was probably something I should have said months ago. “Okay…so what do you suggest I do now?”

  Anna crossed her arms over her chest. “You call the guys and beg for your job back.”

  Bitter heat temporarily blanketed the mountain of guilt that had been suffocating me. Lifting my chin, I firmly stated, “No.” Begging was not an option.

  Anna narrowed her eyes as she nodded. “Of course that’s your answer,” she sneered, her voice shaky with rage and pain. “You and your goddamn pride.”

  Stopping right in front of me, she stared me down. There were flecks of gold in her green eyes, and they flared at me as brightly as the sun. “I’m sick of this. I’m sick of the people, the city, the I’m better than you attitude. I’m even sick of the weather, and I’m not even sure how that’s possible.” She lifted her hands in frustration, then dropped them with a long exhale. “And it’s weird, because L.A. never bothered me before. Honestly, I think the real reason I hate it here is because it’s not where we’re supposed to be. We should be home…in Seattle.”

  Like all of her strength was gone, Anna collapsed onto the bed. “Do you know why leaving Seattle was so hard for me?”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I knew anything at this point. “Your sister?”

  With a wistful sigh, Anna nodded. “In part. But it was so much more than that. For the first time ever, I finally loved every aspect of my life. I was completely happy with where I was and with who I was, and I didn’t crave more. I was just…content. And then you ripped me away from everything I’d grown to love, and I felt like I would never get that feeling of being completely satisfied back. But I tried to be a loving, supportive wife anyway, because I felt like that was what I was supposed to do…but what thanks did I get for my loyalty?” She shot up off the bed and thrust her finger into my chest. “You lied to me! Over and over! Just so you could keep doing what you wanted. Well, I can’t do this anymore, and I don’t want to be here anymore. This isn’t home to me. Seattle is home. The D-Bags are home.” She said their name slowly and deliberately, like she wanted that to sink in.

  Hating this conversation, hating that she was unhappy, and hating that she
was telling me what I already knew—that this was all my fault—I defiantly crossed my arms over my chest and let the darkness inside me shift my shame into a shield. “Because we were loaded when I was with them? Is that why you were so ‘content’?” I wanted to slap myself for saying it. Anna wasn’t a gold digger, and I knew that, but I was humiliated and scared, and being defensive was easier than being kicked while I was down.

  Her lips flattened into a hard, thin line while her eyes narrowed into daggers. I knew that look. It meant I was so far off the mark, I was about to get verbally slapped back on target. “No, you know it’s not about the money,” she started, her voice icy. “Even when I lived in a crappy apartment and worked at Hooters, it was better than being in that fancy mansion, waited on hand and foot. I would have returned to that life in an instant if you’d asked me to. But instead of admitting defeat and returning to Washington, you lied to me. You pretended to go to work, just so you could keep living your fantasy. Don’t you see how fucked up that is?”

  She stood taller, prouder, and even though she was smaller than me, I suddenly felt dwarfed by her presence. “I didn’t want any of this. I tried to make the best of it to keep our family together, but I just can’t anymore. Our entire family isn’t together, and being here has brought us nothing but misery. I want to go back to Seattle.” She put a hand on my arm. “Call the guys, Griffin. Tell them your situation. Apologize.”

  Rage and betrayal waged war within me, and I jerked my arm away from her. “Apologize? What the fuck for? I didn’t do anything to those assholes.” I pointed toward Washington, the last place I wanted to return to. “They’re the ones who fucked me over. They’re the ones who should apologize. They’re the ones who should be begging! Not me!” They cast me aside. I can’t go back.

  Her eyes started watering again, and her hands curled into frustrated fists. “You always say the guys were the ones holding you down, but you are so goddamn blind.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I challenged. I didn’t want to lash out at her, not after everything I’d done, but the guys weren’t an option. That bridge was burned long ago.

  Face firm, she told me, “You hold you down. Your pride, your ego, your refusal to dig deeper and do the hard labor. That’s what holds you down. The only person you can blame here, Griffin, is you. And I’m not going to let you drag down this family any further. I’m taking the reins before you plunge us right off the cliff…if you haven’t already.”

  She pointed at the space between our feet, marking a line in the sand, so to speak. “I’m captain of this team now. And as captain, I say we’re making the right decision for once, and we’re moving back to Seattle. I’ll get my old job back, and I’ll provide for the girls…alone, if I need to. Now…are you coming with us or staying here to drown?” She extended her hands, clearly offering me a chance to back down and accept her will…or cross over the line.

  Something painful in my chest started expanding outward. It hurt so bad, I wished I could take a baseball bat and have her thwack me across the rib cage with it a few times. That would feel infinitely better. Breathing was hard. Standing was hard. Being in this room was hard. Fuck. This was exactly why I didn’t do relationships. ’Cause feeling this vise closing around me fucking sucked. What do I do?

  Clearing my mind, I said the first thing that came to me. “I’m not done…I can’t leave.” I can’t be done.

  Anna sighed, but she didn’t look surprised. “No…you won’t leave. Your pride will be the end of you, Griffin.”

  She started to move around me to get to the door. A surge of panic swept through me, and I grabbed her arms. “Dad’s got a Ping-Pong set in the garage. Let’s play to win. Let’s negotiate.”

  Calmly, Anna removed my fingers from her arms. “This isn’t a game, Griffin. And I’m not negotiating this time. You lied to me, you kept me in the dark. You disrespected me and our relationship, and I’m done. I’m going home. End of discussion.”

  She put her hand on the doorknob, and I put my palm against the door. “Anna…come on.”

  When she looked up at me, I saw the tired defeat in her eyes. She really was done with this…done with me. The swell of panic shifted to terror. She couldn’t leave me. She and the girls were my entire world. Her hand came up to my cheek; the softness of her skin only made the hollow feeling in my gut worse. No fucking way she was really saying goodbye. Not to me. We were a team…

  “I hope it works out for you, Griffin. I really do.” A tear fell from her eye and splashed onto her cheek.

  My throat tightened, my eyes stung, and a wave of pain was rolling around my stomach so hard, I felt like I was going to throw up. I hated feeling shit like this. I avoided feeling shit like this. Shoving down the agony rising within me, I hardened my face, hardened my heart, and hardened my soul.

  Stepping away from the door, I put on my armor of indifference. You can’t hurt me. “Fine. Leave. Whatever. You know you’ll be running back in a week anyway.” I grabbed my junk. “I mean, who else is gonna fuck you as well as me?”

  Anna’s expression turned to ice as she wiped the tear trail off her cheek. “Thank you,” she said, her voice cold. “You just made this so much easier.”

  Opening the door, she slammed it shut behind her. Now that a panel of dark wood was separating us, I screamed, “You won’t actually leave me, Anna! I know you won’t!”

  When she didn’t respond, I started hyperventilating. Fuck…she was leaving me…and I was letting her go. What the fuck was I doing?

  There was hustling, bustling, and a flurry of conversations in the house, but I did my best to ignore them. It got hard to do when I heard Gibson calling my name and Anna shushing her. Sitting on the bed, I rocked back and forth with my hands covering my ears. My only defense against the onslaught of agony battling its way through me was to repeat, It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. None of this matters.

  What felt like hours later, when my body was purged of all emotion, good or bad, I finally opened the bedroom door. With robotic steps, I made my way toward the kitchen. I needed a drink. Hopefully one strong enough to make me forget everything about my life.

  Mom and Dad were whispering together. They silenced the minute I entered the room. Cigarette in hand, Mom asked, “How…are you?”

  “Great. What do we have to drink around here?” My voice was coming out so monotone, I didn’t sound like me. I wondered if that was permanent. Maybe I’d forever sound like a lifeless corpse. I was fine with that. That was what I felt like.

  Puffing out a long stream of white smoke, Mom told Dad, “Get him the good stuff.”

  Dad immediately started rummaging through a cupboard that had always been locked when I was a kid. It wasn’t anymore. Good thing too. I’d probably break it open if it were. He started pouring scotch into a glass half-full of ice.

  After he handed it to me, I thanked him and started shuffling into the living room. Mom and Dad cast each other worried glances, then followed me; Dad was still holding the scotch bottle.

  “Son…you want to talk about…anything?” Dad’s voice was hesitant. Like most of the men in my family, he didn’t do “talks” or “feelings” or any of that girly shit. He wouldn’t have even asked me if Mom hadn’t rapped him on the shoulder. But I didn’t need to talk. I needed scotch, so he’d already done all he could for me.

  “Nothing to talk about,” I stated.

  I sipped my drink as I looked at them. Wanting them to stop looking at me like I was some fucked-up science experiment, I calmly asked, “What? Do I have something on my face?”

  Mom directed me toward an open chair. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’m going to make a salad for the lasagna. It’s been done for a while now…” She started to leave once she forced me to sit. The sight of another woman turning her back on me made a flicker of something dark start to squirm its way to the surface. I buried it with a long gulp of scotch.

  Before she left the room, Mom turne
d back to me. “In case you were wondering, Anna and the girls are staying with Chelsey. Dustin is still gone, so she’s got room…”

  I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, that I didn’t care what the hell Anna did or didn’t do, but she was my mom, and I couldn’t say that to her. Plus, acknowledging the fuck-fest that was my life was something I didn’t want to do at the moment. Numbness was all I wanted. I raised my glass in answer. I hear you and I understand, so stop talking.

  She left the room without another word. Dad refilled my scotch while he and Liam glanced at each other. They were making go-ahead motions, like they were volunteering each other for a task none of them wanted.

  Face mournful, like someone had died, Liam finally said, “Sorry, man.”

  I waited for an add-on to his comment, something insulting like, I knew you weren’t good enough for her, or Guess I won the pool on that one, or Mind if I date her, now that you’re through? That last thought made my fingers tighten so hard around my glass, I was positive it was going to shatter. If anyone fucking touched my wife, I would kill them—brother or not.

  “That it? No snarky joke? No witty comment? Not even a putdown to go with it?”

  With my tone, which was no longer dull and lifeless, I thought Liam might get ruffled, but he only shook his head. “No, just…sorry.”

  My throat constricted so tight I could feel it in the back of my skull. As I nodded at him, I wished he’d made some jackass comment. His sincerity was painful.

  It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. None of this matters.

  Wanting to be alone, I yanked the scotch away from Dad and trounced back to my room. Once I was inside, I slammed the door shut and started taking long pulls directly from the bottle. The room still smelled like Anna, and her things were everywhere—a shirt here, a bra there. Tiny reminders of my monumental loss. Or her loss. She was the one throwing in the towel and giving up. She was the quitter here, not me.