His mouth twists up in the beginning of a smile. “And how useful would an apology be for all those ‘other things,’ dear Lilly? The reason for this…” He gestures behind him, at the rows of empty bottles surrounding his seat.
Jesus, but I didn’t even see them before!
“—is because I’m afraid you and I have regressed horribly over the course of a single night. No one apology is going to do it.”
“So you’re drinking out of despair,” I say. “How very uncharacteristic of you, Jeremy.” I turn away. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you when you won’t remember half of what I say in the morning.”
“No,” he says.
A chill of fear runs through me. I do my best not to let it show.
“No?” I ask.
“No, Lilly, dammit. I’ve waited too long for you to wake up to be turned back now.”
“I have no desire to speak to you.”
“Your desires be damned!” he snaps. “Can’t you see what I was like? What do you think I’ve been doing all this time, other than waiting for you to wake?”
“How long has it been?” I ask.
“Two days.”
I frown. Huh. That actually doesn’t seem that bad. At least, not compared to what I was expecting.
“All right, Jeremy,” I say to him, turning back. “You want to talk? Let’s talk. But I get to ask the questions here, not you.”
“Fair enough,” he says. He settles in a new seat across from my bed. “What do you want to know?”
“Start with Rose,” I tell him. “Who is she?”
“You cut right to the chase,” he mutters.
“No evasions this time, Jeremy. I want the truth. I want it all. Who is Rose, what does she have to do with you, what does she have to do with your father? Why did Charles react the way he did when he saw them? What type of dirt do you have on Rose to make her your housekeeper for twenty years?” I pause to take a breath and continue, ”Why? I know she is not the person you want to make her seem.”
“That’s quite a barrage of questions,” Stonehart muses.
“Answer them or get out. Your choice,” I say. “Unless you’re feeling informative, I have absolutely no inclination to speak to you right now.”
“Fine,” he says. “Fine, Lilly, that is fair enough.” He stands. “I’ll come back to you again in the morning.”
“Wait, what?” I stumble. “You’re leaving? You can’t just leave, Jeremy!”
“Watch me,” he says, sounding all the more like a bratty teenager.
It must be the drink.
“No! You said it yourself. You’ve waited so long.” I’m grasping at straws. But, this is a rare opportunity. For all the time I’ve known Stonehart, I’ve not once seen him drunk. Alcohol loosens everybody’s inhibitions, no matter who you are, or how well you might think you can hide it. If Jeremy leaves now, I’ll lose out on a glorious opportunity to learn things about him that might otherwise never come out.
Fuck!
Then I catch myself again, thinking of him as Jeremy instead of Stonehart. Dammit, I can’t do that. I can’t succumb to the feelings of safety and familiarity that his first name evokes. I’m not safe around him. The latest evidence is my arm.
But hell, it’s damn exhausting to keep thinking of him as two different people.
A light bulb turns on in my head.
Jeremy or Stonehart—what does it matter? There is only one of him.
Chastising myself for not sticking to the distinction nets me nothing. It’s a meaningless distraction. Let him be whomever he wants in my mind. His name matters not. It’s his actions that are important. They stem from the same place. They stem from the same man.
So I’ll call him whatever name comes naturally to me. Trying to decide whether to call him by his first or last name is the stupidest struggle in the world—especially if it’s ongoing. All I have to do is dissociate the sentimental symbolism that I’ve attached to either title, and reattach it to a single man. To the person watching me. Waiting for me to speak.
To the person who broke my arm.
“If you leave now,” I tell him, “You’ll have wasted all that time. And how often have you told me how you hate repeating yourself? Wasting time seems even worse.”
He stops to consider my words. Then he chuckles, and shakes his head. “You know me too well.”
The tension oozes out of me.
Safe, for now. I have recovered my fumble.
He walks to retrieve an unopened bottle, however, before returning to his seat. He settles down and looks at me.
“So,” he says. “Rose.”
“Yes, Rose.”
His eyes scan the room. “Where do I even begin?”
“At the start?” I suggest.
“No.” He shakes his head. “We’ve done things that way already. It bores me. Instead, let’s play a game.”
“A game?” I ask, my voice portraying every bit of skepticism that I feel. “What sort of game?”
“One in which the stakes are quite high,” Jeremy intones, swirling the golden liquor around in the bottle. “Have you ever gambled, Lilly?”
“No.”
“A shame. Winning at the table gives you a thrill unlike any other—especially because, in certain games, you know it’s nothing but luck.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in luck.”
“Chance, then,” he says. “Roulette is a game of chance. Don’t you know?”
And then—my eyes widen in absolute horror. Jeremy reaches into the inside of his jacket and pulls out an antique revolver.
He turns the weapon over in his hands. “I… inherited this… from my father,” he says softly. His fingers run over the barrel, the hammer. “He liked to show it to us when we were in trouble. Of course, it was mostly just me sitting there in his office, and never my siblings. But I remember one time…one time, he was in a particularly bitter mood. I’d just been framed by my older brother, Robert for something that I did not do. Or maybe I did do it, that doesn’t matter. I don’t remember. What I do remember, is this:
“I entered my father’s office. He was, as he always seemed back then, an impressive man. He would sit in his high-backed chair, larger than life behind his massive oak desk—the very one, did you know, that I now keep in my home office?
“Anyway. You’ve been on the other side of it. You know what it’s like. Now imagine that in the eyes of a ten-year-old child. A child who has nothing but fear for the man he’s about to face.”
Trust me, I think, I know that feeling better than you’ll ever understand.
“Now, imagine that same child coming into that room and discovering his mother there, huddled by the side of that desk, crying. Imagine the fear, the guilt, the anger. Imagine all that, rolled up into one little ball of hate in that child’s head.
“His mother does not look at him. She turns away, almost ashamed to be caught in a position like this by her youngest son.
“What would you do if you were that little boy? Would you run to her? Would you want to comfort her? Of course. But could you do it? No. Not with the other man present in the room.
“My father greeted me. ‘Ah, Jeremy,’ he said. ‘You’re just in time.’ I knew something was terribly wrong, much more than usual. I could feel it in the air.
“The doors closed behind me, making me jump. My father laughed. I hated showing fear before his eyes. But the sound had startled me, dammit!
“My mother looked at me then. ‘Jeremy,’ she said. Then she turned to my father. ‘Hugh. Please. Don’t. Not with him here. Not with—‘
“He silenced her by pulling a gun—this gun—from under his desk and aiming it at her head.
“He smiled at me. ‘Come here, Jeremy,’ he said softly. ‘Come here, my boy. I want to show you something.’
“So I walked, paralyzed by fear, almost in a trance, around the desk toward my father. My mother had stopped crying. She stared at Hugh with mascara staining her f
ace.
“’Yes,’ my father beckoned me. ‘Yes, Jeremy, right here. Come closer. Tell me, have you ever held a weapon before?’
“I bit my tongue and shook my head, too afraid to speak lest I start crying.
“’Here,’ he said, putting an arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer. ‘Here. I’ll let you try now’. He placed the gun into my hand, his fingers still on the hilt, still pointing it at my mother.
“He looked at me then. His eyes were wide and glossy with zeal. ‘Feels good. Doesn’t it? Makes you feel powerful, does it not? Like you can control people. Like you hold the key to life and death in the palm of your hand.’
“Of course, I was too terrified to speak.
“’Well?’ he demanded. ‘Answer me!’
“I shook my head, trembling, so afraid of what was going on.
“’GAH!’ My father spat. Without warning, he backhanded me across the face.
“I fell to the floor. My mother cried out. A shot was fired. I yelped, gasped, screamed, and scrambled as fast as I could back to my feet. I was expecting to see my mother dead, lying in a pool of her own blood, and such an inferno of rage was woken up within me…”
Jeremy chuckles. “Well, dear Lilly, even ten-year-olds have a bit of strength in them. I flew at my father, ready to attack him with everything I had. My mother’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
“’Jeremy, no! You’ll only make it worse!’
“I froze, dumbfounded that she was somehow still alive. My father had not aimed at her. He’d just fired the gun to show that it worked.
“In that second, I was struck down again, the metal connecting with my jaw with enough force to make me fly to the side.
“’Hugh! No! Stop it! Don’t hurt him!’ my mother screamed.
“‘SHUT UP!’ my father yelled, his control extinguished. ‘SHUT UP, you ungrateful whore, he’s my son, and I will treat him how I see fit!’
“He came to me. I shied away. But he smiled and offered me his hand, ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Do you see what you make me do? I’m sorry, son. Come here. Stand up’.
“I took his hand, and he pulled me up. I was trembling.
“He went to his knees to be at my eye level. He stroked the side of my face. ‘You’re hurt,’ he said, and he sounded genuinely crestfallen. ‘Oh poor Jeremy. You’re hurt. What did they do to you?’
“I just stood there, staring at him, shaking.
“’Here. Here, we’ll make it better,’ he said. He showed me the gun. He opened the cylinder and took the bullets out. Then from his palm he picked up only one.
“He put it back and spun the cylinder. He placed the gun in my hands. And pointed the muzzle at his heart.
“’One shot, Jeremy, if that is what you want,’ he said. His fingers pressed into mine, tightening my grip on the gun. ‘One shot is all it will take, and then you and your mother will be free of me for good. One shot, little Jeremy. Do you think you can do it? Do you have what it takes?’
“”Jeremy…’ my mother said.
“’Stop it!’ My father yelled. He turned on her in a rage. ‘One more word out of you, woman, and I’ll fire all six rounds at your head. Luck won’t save you then!’
“I didn’t know what my mother said. I still held the gun. But the yelling awoke something inside of me. I acted without thought.
“I pulled the trigger.
“And…click. Nothing happened.
“My father turned on me then. He looked shocked beyond shock. The barrel of the gun still pointed at his heart. His eyes moved up the length of my arm and then met mine.
“And I, for whatever reason, dropped the gun. I lost my nerve.
“But the showing only energized my father. He leapt down and picked it up.
“’You did it!’ he exclaimed. ‘You tried to kill me! You did it. I didn’t know you had it in you, but you did it, Jeremy! You did it, you’re not a boy anymore!’
“And then he did the one thing that terrorizes me to this day. He put the gun back in my hands. And moved my arm toward my mother.
“’Her turn,’ he said.
“’No. N—n—n—no.’ I had a stutter back then, you see. One more thing you now know about me, Lilly.
“Well, as you can imagine, my father was none too pleased. So, using force, he made me aim the gun at her. He made me do it. And I—bless my little, uncorrupted heart—I couldn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t shoot a woman.
“But years have passed since then,” he tells me. “And I have changed.”
Slowly, he turns the pistol at me.
“Now?” he asks. “Now, I have no such problem.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Boom,” Stonehart whispers.
I gasp. The blood drains from my face. Jeremy laughs.
“Scared yet?” he asks. He lets the hand holding the gun fall to his side. “You should be! Those are the exact same words my father uttered to my mother as I stood there, holding the gun. ‘Are you scared, yet, you fucking whore?’
“And she lifted her chin and met his eyes. More was said in that one look than can be communicated in a thousand words. Then she turned to me.
“’I love you,’ she said. ‘No matter what he makes you do, I will always love you, Jeremy. Don’t be afraid.’
“My father, suddenly enraged, ripped the gun from my hand and pointed it at her. He fired.
“Click. Nothing happened.
“He snarled. Then he pointed the gun at my chest and shot once more.
“Click. That hollow sound.
“He spun around. ‘LEAVE ME!’ he roared. My mother ran to me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me as fast as she could from the room.
“Just before the doors closed, however, I remember the rising sound of my father’s hysterical laughter.”
Jeremy stops. He looks at the bottle in his hand, then the gun in the other. My breath catches. There’s a lump in my throat that makes it impossible to speak.
“So you see,” Jeremy continues after a long pause. “This gun and I…and Hugh…we have a long, tangled history. Three lives could have been lost that day. Instead, three lives were spared. Why? Nothing more than blind luck, Lilly. Nothing more than chance.
“But! But, but, but.” He chuckles. “My father taught me a valuable lesson that day. He taught me never to rely on luck. He showed me how fickle it can be. He taught me, in more ways than he’ll ever know, that men make their own luck that are the ones to be envied. That we are better than those who strike it rich by mere fluke. That incident, when I was ten, perhaps, more than anything else, spurred me to make my own luck. To become the man I am today.”
He nods at me in a dismissive way. “I can see you’re scared. Don’t be. I did not bring this weapon here to use it against you. I brought it to give you the same choice that was given to me by my father.”
He lurches to his feet and crosses the distance between us like a tidal wave. “Take it,” he rasps. He wraps my free hand around the cold, metal shape. “Take it, and have your shot. Have your chance. Kill me—or try to kill me. My life is yours, sweet Lilly. More than I deserve. You are more than I deserve!”
I try to push the gun away. “Jeremy, no…”
“No?” he sneers. “No, you don’t want to kill me? No, you don’t want the chance?
“I know you do,” he rages on. “I can see the loathing in your eyes. I can see the way you look at me. The way you recoiled when you awoke.”
“Jeremy, you’re drunk!” I protest. “You’re drunk, and you don’t know what you’re saying!”
“Oh, but I do, dear Lilly. I do, I do, I do!” He’s rambling and it scares me. “The same choice, Lilly, that my father gave me. I now offer it to you. Do it! Don’t be a coward! Do it, shoot me through the heart!”
I stare at him, bewildered.
“No?” He asks. He’s becoming frenetic now. This type of fervor scares me. It terrifies me. He is not at all himself.
“Then together,” he says.
He brings his head to the side of mine. He raises the gun to the side of his head. “Through me, to you, my dear Lilly-Flower. Through me, to you. It will be our glorious escape. Or our glorious salvation. There is one bullet there. Do it! Take your chance! Have your shot.”
“Jeremy—Jeremy, no!” I try to pry my hand away, but he’s got it caught in an iron grip. The gun is pointed right at his temple.
“Don’t be a fool!” he snarls. “This is what you want. I know it is. It is what you need. Take the shot, Lilly! This is your chance. This is your opportunity. Free us. Free us both. It has to be you. Because I would rather die with you still in my grip than live a single day apart.
“And you? You can’t get away. I know that, now. You know that, too, Lilly. This our release. This can be your freedom. Do it, Lilly. Pull the trigger!”
“No.”
“Pull it. Pull it. Pull it. Pull it!”
“I said, NO!”
With all the strength I have in me, I rip the gun away from Jeremy’s head.
At exactly the same moment, he releases me. I move with too much force and hit the wall behind me. I grunt. The sound is lost in the most ear-shattering explosion:
The gun. The gun goes off.
I pulled the trigger inadvertently. A shot was fired. And the barrel was most definitely loaded.
I can still feel the force of the bullet pulsing through my body.
I stare at the ruined wall across from us. The bullet had been in the barrel. I could have killed us both.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
“That was your chance,” Jeremy says. He lifts off me, turns, and exits the room.
Chapter Fifteen
My heart keeps pounding like a jackhammer long after Stonehart leaves.
The gun is still on my bed. Forgotten. I eye it as if it were a poisonous snake.
The shot went off, is the one thought that ricochets through my head. The shot went off.
If I had pulled the trigger when Jeremy had it pointed at himself…he’d be dead.
If I had done it when he forced it to the side of his head…we’d both be dead.
Eventually, I muster the courage to pick up the pistol. I have to know. I have to know if there was only one bullet in the cylinder. Or if all of them were loaded.
Uncovering You 9: Liberation Page 10
