Wounded

by Abby Brooks

  I narrow my eyes. “No?”

  “Oh, no.” She leans forward, elbows on the table, and runs a hand up her arm. “Not even close.”

  “I’m not building you a patio. It’s just not happening.”

  “We’ll see, McGuire. We’ll see.” She twists her lips and stares at me and I swear I could fall into those eyes and never find my way back out.

  She slaps the table, startling me. “Now. You finish your coffee and meet me in the bathroom. I’ll rub some vitamin E into that scar. You’ll be good to go in no time, looking like your old, sexy self before you know it.”

  Bailey stands and heads out of the kitchen, leaving me to stare after her and wonder if maybe I’m going to like living with her after all.

  BAILEY

  August fourth.

  One hell of a shitty day.

  And it has been for the last eight years.

  Year after year, anxiety riddles me the week or so leading up to every single August fourth. I snap at people for every little thing. Fight with them for no good reason. I’m a total bitch and I know it. And as much as I feel bad about it after the fact, I couldn’t change it if I wanted to. So, I bury myself in work all day only to come home and lose myself to the piano each night. And then the fourth arrives and I implode, folding in on myself to lick the gnarled scars that ache and throb along my heart.

  Lexi’s there for me every year. It doesn’t matter how nasty I get, she won’t let me sit at home and wallow in my grief. I know without asking that her mom’s watching Gabe tonight, and that Lexi will show up on my doorstep at some point to drag me out of the house. She won’t even bother to call first. She never does. She just shows up and marches me out to have drinks with her at Smitty’s. Sometimes we sit quietly. Sometimes I get mean. Sometimes—but not often—she manages to make me laugh. Regardless of my behavior, year after year, she’s always here for me.

  This year, thanks to Liam being in my space, it’s the worst August fourth in a long time. He’s spent the last week lounging around my house and being in my way every time I turn around. When I want to play the piano, he’s in there, dicking around for hours. When I want to come home and relax before bed, he’s spread out on the couch, eating chips, and staring at the TV. I barely acknowledge him when I walk in from work at night or when I leave again in the morning. He’s a shitty houseguest, but right now I’m a shitty host, and I’m not in the mood to deal with him. Maybe next week, when I’ll inevitably be able to think straight again, I’ll figure out how to either kick his ass out or into gear.

  He’s in the den, what used to be my bedroom when I was a kid, playing the piano, when Lexi shows up. She knocks gently before letting herself in.

  “Hey you,” she breathes and shuts the door against the humid evening air lumbering in after her. “That’s nice.” She gestures towards the music coming from the den. “Not at all like the stuff he sings on the radio.”

  I nod, too hollow for small talk.

  “Well, come on then. Let’s get you out of here before the ghosts get too loud.” She maneuvers around the worn couch, one that’s been here since I was in grade school. The day my parents brought it home, I worried that our old couch felt abandoned. I was so sad to see it sticking out the back of Dad’s truck. I spent days wondering if it was sad, too. Being replaced and thrown away like that after being part of our lives for so long.

  Lexi offers me a hand and helps me to my feet. I attempt a smile but it’s no good, so I drop it and let her lead me out of the house and into her car. A spectacular sunset explodes in warm shades of gold and pink, streaking up and away from the horizon. I watch as darkness presses down on the light, squashing it until the sun gives up and fades away.

  She pulls into the parking lot at Smitty’s, the only bar in Brookside worth a damn. “You ready for this? Feel like drinking a little too much tonight?”

  I shrug and then nod, letting a long breath out through my nose. “Probably.”

  Lexi covers my hand with hers and gives it a little squeeze before grabbing her purse and sliding out of the car. I follow suit, humidity punching me in the gut and running away with my breath. The air is so thick it’s like trying to breathe through a damp towel, and I can feel a thin sheen of sweat on my forehead.

  “Hey. Hold on.” Lexi grabs my wrist and turns me to face her. She smooths back the little wispy curls that have broken free from my ponytail, fighting the natural disaster that is my hair. “There,” she says after a bit more fussing. “Much better.”

  Three beers later and I’m feeling a little more talkative. “I miss them,” I say, swallowing hard. “Still.”

  “I know.” She runs a finger along her beer bottle.

  “Every year I think it’s going to be different. That I’ve grown up and healed enough for it not to hurt so bad. But I still blame myself. For all of them.” I plunge into my guilt, wear it like an old coat, tattered and worn and frayed around the edges, but too familiar to give up. “They’d all still be here if it wasn’t for me,” I say, peeling back the corner of the label on my beer.

  Lexi sits back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. “That’s bullshit and you know it. Nothing that happened that day was your fault. Not one single thing.”

  “I could have stopped it. They’d all still be here if I had been a better girlfriend to Tyler.” I take a drink. I know better than to fall down a huge hole of self-loathing in the middle of Smitty’s but it looks like I’m about to do just that. Somewhere behind me, a woman laughs and it makes me flinch. I take another drink.

  Lexi, my bastion of patience and understanding, sighs heavily. “How could you have stopped it, Bailey?” she asks, not sounding quite so patient anymore. “What on earth could you have possibly done differently?”

  Her question drops my jaw, a rush of air zooming through my open mouth. “Everything.” The word is fire and I hold out my hands, tilting my beer crazily through the air. “If I’d been paying enough attention, I would have noticed what Tyler was going through. I could have stopped it all if I’d just been a better girlfriend.”

  Lexi leans forward. “We go through some version of this year after year, Bay. Don’t you think it’s about time to move on?”

  I sit back in my chair and scowl across the table. “Fuck you.”

  My brother Michael staggers over and collapses into a chair beside me, missing most of the seat and clutching at the table to avoid falling straight to the ground. “If it isn’t my basket case of a sister and her sidekick, Super MILF.”

  “Great.” Lexi laughs into her hands before running them down her face. “What do you want?”

  He leans forward and widens his eyes. “Good to see you, too, Alexa,” he says before swiveling his gaze back to me, his eyes swimming in and out of focus until a smile smears itself across his face. “Just thought I’d come join the celebration with my dear sweet sister.”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “I’m not celebrating.”

  Michael laughs. “Right.” He points a finger at me and drags it through the air to my beer. “Me neither.”

  “You’re not helping, Michael. Are you here alone? Did you drive?” Lexi scans the back of Smitty’s in search of any of Michael’s limited list of friends.

  “Of course I’m helping. What my big sister needs right now more than anything is family. Especially in the face of such tragic loss.” His words are so slurred they’re barely recognizable. He raises a glass of what’s probably straight tequila. “Happy death-aversary. Thanks for killing our parents.” My brother—once a sweet kid with a stupid cowlick that kept his hair sticking straight up from his forehead, the kid I did my best to raise right after … everything—slams his glass down on the table and sneers at me.

  Tears well in my eyes and Lexi pushes her chair back from the table, hauls my brother to his feet, and disappears out the front door into the night, dragging his drunk ass behind her. People stare as I fight to catch my breath. Everyone here knows my story. The whole damn to
wn knows every gory detail. More than they should. More than they deserve. And the best part is that everyone here will tell their friends who will tell their friends and this awful night will be one more scene in the soap opera that is my life.

  I swipe at the tears with the back of my hand and glare at anyone still bold enough to look at me. I am not part of their Friday night entertainment, thank you very much. By the time Lexi comes back, I’m halfway through my fourth beer and am probably drunker than my brother.

  “I got him a cab and made sure he got in it,” she says, the weight of the evening showing in the slump of her shoulders.

  “You know what it is,” I say, waving my beer in front of me. “I’m cursed. Everyone I care about ends up broken. Or worse. Tyler shot himself. He. Shot. Himself.” I lean forward, elbows on the table. “And I didn’t even know he was depressed. We’d been together for two years. How could I not know? And my parents…” I swallow hard and close my eyes, still not ready to talk about them.

  “Bailey, you’re not cursed.”

  “And just look at Michael. Do you remember how sweet he used to be? Do you remember how much potential he had? I ruined him.” I stare off towards the door after my brother. “I ruined him.”

  “You were eighteen. Coping with more than you needed to. You kept him out of the foster system and did the best you could.”

  “And just look how it paid off.” I sneer and consider taking another swig of my beer. But I’m drunk enough as it is and as much as I hate August fourth, I’m not interested in paying for it on August fifth.

  “You’re not cursed, Bailey. You had a lot of bad things happen to you and they just keep on happening, but none of it is because of you.” She gives me a weak smile. “Besides, if you were cursed, don’t you think it would have hit me by now? You love me and I’m doing just fine.”

  I make a sound that’s meant to be laughter but since I can’t see through the tears in my eyes, it might be a sob. “I do love you,” I say. “You’re too good to me.”

  “Nope. Not even half as good as you deserve.” She places her hands on the table. “What do you say I get you home and into bed before we give the peanut gallery here anymore to talk about behind our backs?”

  I haul myself to my feet, swaying as the world spins in four different directions at once. “Probably a good idea.”

  Lexi drives me home, not even complaining when I roll down the windows and let the wind come rushing through to dry my tears. It’s still humid outside, even as late as it is, but the roaring wind drowns out the litany of grief in my head and the humidity is a small price to pay for the silence. You’d think after eight years I’d be better than this. And most days I am. It’s just that August fourth isn’t most days. When we pull into my driveway, the crunch of the gravel and the glow of the porch light welcomes me home as it has for all twenty-six of my years. It soothes me at the same time it hurts me. The pain of my loss wrapped up in the familiarity of everyday life.

  I roll up the window and turn to my friend. “Thank you,” I say and then drop my head into my hand as the word stretches and echoes through the car. What in the world made me think I could drink four beers and be okay?

  “No need to thank me. Just make sure to drink some water and take an ibuprofen before you fall into bed.”

  I climb out of her car and pat the hood, wave as she reverses out of the driveway, and then drag myself up the front steps and into the darkened house. I hate it here. With their ghosts all around me. Everything just the way they left it. Well, everything except my room and theirs. I couldn’t live in either space after they died. My room felt too much the same, too normal. I couldn’t sleep in there with my mother’s laughter and my dad’s smile wrapped up in every single thing I owned.

  So, I moved into their room, but that was no good either. The bed sheets still smelled like them. They smiled at me from the wedding pictures on the nightstand, accusing me of stealing the rest of their lives, of ruining everything they built for our family. One day, while Michael was at school, I got rid of it all and moved my stuff into their room. The only things I kept were their pictures. I couldn’t throw them away. I just couldn’t.

  I close the front door behind me and head straight to the piano. Sit at the bench and stare out through the open window and play.

  I play for them.

  I play for Tyler.

  I play for who Michael and I were, and for who we’ve become. The music rips itself out of me and tears fall from my eyes, dropping on my hands, but still I play.

  Before long, I sense movement at the doorway. My fingers slow and then stop, cutting off the melody on a harsh note.

  “Don’t stop.” Liam sounds groggy. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It hurts,” I say, sniffing.

  “Ahhh.” There’s more movement and then he’s sitting next to me, his shoulder pressing against mine, his sleep-warmed skin almost too hot for me in my agony. “That’s why it’s beautiful.”

  I pull my hand from the keys and put them in my lap. “There’s nothing beautiful about pain.”

  “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.” Liam puts his hands on the keys, lets them wander around a melody. “I think Bob Dylan said that.”

  The urge to lean into him, to borrow some strength from his size and his warmth is so strong I almost succumb to it.

  Almost.

  Instead, I put my hands on the keys and wind my melody around his.

  “What’s wrong, Bailey?” Liam keeps his voice low, almost a whisper.

  “It’s just a bad day,” I whisper in return.

  His fingers chase the melody towards mine. His skin brushes mine and chills rush through my body. I stop playing and stare up at him.

  “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “Maybe I’m still mostly asleep.” Liam smiles, the moonlight streaming through the window catching the scar winding down his face.

  Without thinking, I run my finger along it. My touch light, just a whisper of contact. “Does it still hurt?”

  Liam leans into my hand, pressing my palm against his cheek, and closes his eyes. “Deeply.”

  The low rumble of his voice touches the aching part of my soul and I know he’s not talking about the scar. I pull my hand away and study his face as he opens his eyes and stares down at me. The space between us takes on a life of its own, shrinking and contracting with each and every one of our breaths. I lean into him, needing contact. Needing sensation and oblivion and a reason to step outside of myself for a while.

  “Today’s the day they died.” I blink several times but don’t look away. “My parents.”

  “How?”

  I shake my head and the world spins drunkenly. It hurts to be this exposed, as if my whole body is a raw nerve, our words grinding against it until the pain forces me to cry out.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, bringing his hand to my cheek and threading his fingers into my hair.

  I lean into him and close my eyes, swimming in grief and guilt, desperate to feel anything but the way I’m feeling right now. I lick my lips. Open my eyes and find him close. So close. He drops his hand from my cheek, his eyes searching my face.

  There’s a moment. The two of us knowing what’s about to happen and trying to decide if we should let it, and then Liam kisses me. His hands slide up my arms and clutch my shoulders. His lips are warm and supple against mine. Our breath fills the room, twining with the rustle of fabric as I bring my hands to his back and grip his shirt in my fists.

  I breathe him in. His clean skin and the scent of his cologne are so foreign to me. They’re unlike any of the smells that I sometimes imagine still linger around this house, triggering memories with the power to bring me to my knees. Liam is different. Nothing about him reminds me of my past, and there’s salvation there. Safety in his newness. In his total lack of knowledge of me from before. I can be anything with him.

  Our kiss deepens, the stubble of his beard scraping the delicate skin on
my cheeks. I open to him, lean into him, and his tongue darts out to meet mine.

  He pulls back but keeps his hands on my cheeks. “Have you been drinking?”

  I nod. “It’s a bad day.”

  Liam’s eyes burn into mine, moving across the planes of my face. He takes a breath like he wants to speak, only to close his mouth and look away. “I’m sorry, Bailey,” he says after a moment. “I don’t want this because you’re drunk and hurting. And I know, deep down, neither do you.”

  And then he stands and walks out of the room, leaving me to stare after him, cold in the wake of his fire.

  LIAM

  I’m awake before Bailey. After waking to find her in front of the piano, after hearing her play, after that kiss—holy shit, what was that kiss?—I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I left the den and crawled into bed, trying to understand how I could kiss her and walk away. She was drunk. Desperate. Ready to give herself to me. And I just walked out of the room without taking any of it.

  I tried to pretend I didn’t know why for the first couple hours I spent stretched out on my new bed. Tried to imagine how stunned anyone who knew me would be if I told them the story. Tried to come up with a good reason—hell, any reason—other than the real one.

  But truth is hard to deny and I finally gave in and admitted it.

  I respect Bailey Schultz. And the pain I saw in her last night? The pain that ran down her face and poured out of her soul into that piano? I recognized it and I understood it and…

  And what?

  I kissed her and walked away?

  I don’t care how true any of that is, I don’t understand a lick of it and after a whole night of trying to get to the bottom of what it all means, I gave up and came out to the kitchen to make breakfast. When Bailey gets up, she’s going to find a pot of fresh coffee, some scrambled eggs with the proper ratio of yolks to whites, and one hell of a plan to get that patio started. The Internet is a glorious place, and after hours of research and online shopping, I think we’re finally ready to get a move on with this thing.