Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2)

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

She didn’t tell me about her fiancé—so what, I would’ve done the same thing.

  She didn’t come back for me, but for her mom—why she came back doesn’t really matter, what matters is that she did come back.

  And for a little while, all the planets aligned and she was the most beautiful star in my universe once again. I wouldn’t give that time up for anything.

  We’d burned brighter than a fucking supernova, even if we weren’t meant to last.

  All of a sudden, Quinn shouts and spins around, sees me and freezes. I straighten my shoulders, not sure what to expect.

  She squints her eyes, as if she doesn’t believe what she’s seeing, then buries her face in her hands and drops to the ground.

  She starts rocking back and forth.

  I go over and stand next to her, and suppress the urge to hold her—I don’t know what she needs.

  “Ten years ago,” she begins in a strained tone, “I never said goodbye to you because … I didn’t want it to be final. I was going to come back—I wanted to come back—but it was just too much.” Tears stream down her face.

  I think back to when she came home from the hospital. She wasn’t the same, even after she’d physically healed. She had terrible nightmares nearly every night; her bloodcurdling screams would wake everyone in the house. After a while, she began trying to stay up all night so she’d exhaust herself, in hopes of sleeping without dreams. She’d startle and jump at the smallest noises and cry at random times.

  She blamed herself, she blamed her mother, she blamed the angel and the social worker who dropped her off with no one home and no cell phone … but she never blamed me.

  But I did—and still do.

  “When I came home, I was like a cripple. Everyone stared at me with this mix of pity and pain—especially you!” she barks. “I knew you were thinking you could’ve stopped it or made it right if you had somehow been there. You weren’t there! And you couldn’t have been there! And it doesn’t even matter, because what happened, happened, and it couldn’t be taken back, and it couldn’t be undone or fixed! It just was. Just like now—the circumstances we’re in, it just is.”

  She takes a second to wipe her eyes.

  “The silence at the dinner table became torture. Playing Frisbee or volleyball outside, no one would touch me, everyone was afraid they’d hurt me. Group became unbearable—they all wanted me to open up about it—how the hell could I? Vince and my mother stole everything from me! Including you and the only home I’d ever known.” She stares at the ground. “I couldn’t stay.”

  Dear God, her admission kills me—my heart crumbles in my chest.

  I think of the inexplicable damage Vince did to her mind and body—how it demanded retribution—and how I had wanted to be the one to mete it out. But that revenge was taken from me when he was murdered in prison by a rival gang member. At least he was dead—I’ve always imagined it was slow and painful.

  Quinn sniffs back more tears. “We were only kids. And how does anyone heal from that? You actually did so well—loving me again, holding me, touching me—as if I wasn’t soiled.” She cringes at the word.

  You were never soiled. I try to say it, but my mouth won’t move to form the words.

  “But no one knew how I felt!” Quinn almost shouts the words in exasperation. “Every time I closed my eyes, they were there; and every time I heard a noise, I knew they were coming for me … again.”

  “I knew how you felt.” It spills out of me—like the beginning of a reluctant, but long overdue confession.

  She shakes her head. “You only think you know.”

  “I know more than you think.” And isn’t this where I blame myself the most? “After years of Cade’s help, I came to terms with the idea that what happened wasn’t my fault. And that I couldn’t have stopped it. But what was my fault—and still is—is that I never told you.”

  She looks so tired, and I’ve got a hunch she didn’t sleep last night. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Liam.”

  “Of course you don’t.” I swallow the fear down—it tastes like bitter regret—as I face the monster I’ve never told anyone about. “If I had … shared with you that I did, in fact, know how you felt … you may have found the peace or strength you needed to stay. I know it would’ve made a difference. But I was scared, Quinn, and selfish—”

  “You’ve never been selfish,” she says, as if correcting me.

  I lift my hand to stop her. “Please, this is hard enough. I was selfish. I may have been able to help you heal—and heal myself—but I didn’t. At first, I could blame myself. But then, when you never came back, I hid behind the blackest part of my heart, justifying my feelings and turning the blame on you for leaving. I’m sorry for that.”

  “Please don’t be sorry. I had to go … I always thought I’d come back, but then time just kept passing, and all too soon it had completely gotten away from me.” She shrugs her shoulders. “You lived in my heart, Liam … I would pretend or think back to what it was like when we were together. Sometimes I would trick myself into thinking that I could actually feel you there. When I finally got the courage to call you or write to you … I couldn’t bear to know that you were with someone else. Or that you had fallen in love again. I couldn’t face that. So, I avoided you entirely.”

  Hearing her finally talk about this—what she felt like and what she went through—is shattering me. “I was never with someone else. Not seriously.” I take off my outer coat and lay it on the cold, wet ground. “Move over and sit on this.” She does and I slide next to her. “And I’ve never loved anyone except for you.”

  She lays her head on my shoulder and sobs. “I’m sorry I took so long … and as more time passed, I figured … you didn’t even want me back.”

  I don’t even try to stop when I break down and begin crying. “You live in my heart, Quinn. Always have, always will, no matter what.”

  I pull her over onto my lap so she’s wrapped around me while we cry into each other’s shoulders.

  “The funeral finally gave me an excuse, a reason that was viable …” she gets out.

  “I understand,” I promise.

  “I fucked up everything by running away.”

  “Please, let me finish what I was going to say before—it has to be said,” I tell her.

  “Say it.” I feel her physically tense as she braces herself, as if she’s terrified of what I might tell her.

  I hold her gently, lovingly, trying to reassure her that it isn’t her. But her body doesn’t relax.

  I try to live in this second, this moment. I concentrate on her love and on her fear, so that this can be all about her and I can keep myself separate from what I’m about to tell her. “Remember when I told you that I didn’t know my father?”

  “Yes …”

  “I knew my dad, Quinn,” I say, point-blank. “He is … was my grandfather—my step-grandfather.”

  She falls silent.

  “He regularly raped my mother when she was young. When she got pregnant with me at fifteen, my grandparents kept her hidden until I was born. After she had me, she ran away and left me with them.” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you remember the drawing of the boy in my sketchbook? The one with the monster crushing his skull?”

  She whispers, “Yes.”

  “When I was about six, he began coming in my room in the middle of the night, telling me he wanted to play a game with me and how good it would feel. He’d bring me a candy bar during the day and explain how I had to keep the game a secret … and if I didn’t, something very bad would happen to me and my grandmother.” I push through the vivid, full-color memories. “After the preliminary touches, he’d hold me down with my face in the mattress to muffle my cries, smothering me with his huge, heavy body as he raped me … almost nightly for years, until he died when I was eight.”

  A sob racks through my chest as I get the last words out, and for the first time it feels as if I’ve unlocked the cage and let the beast g
o.

  But, I realize it wasn’t my father in the cage at all, it was a little boy who looked a lot like me.

  “If I had told you then—that I more than knew your pain, but shared it—it could have changed everything. It could’ve kept us together. You wouldn’t have felt so alone. I’m sorry, Quinn. I feel like I failed you in so many ways.”

  She doesn’t say anything, but crawls up into my lap, faces me and wraps her body around mine. We hold each other as we both cry.

  “I never told anyone about that.”

  “Thank you for trusting me with it,” she says. “And I remember the drawing too. Liam, saying that I’m sorry doesn’t express what I feel … it’s not enough. What he did—what they did—was reprehensible. Your own father … and your mother and grandmother knew! They could have saved you.” She presses her eyes shut, and fresh tears streak down her face. “Oh God, I hate them all right now.”

  For a little while, we simply and quietly hold one another. The warmth of her soaks through me like the rays of a spring sun.

  I’m so grateful—for this chance to be with her one more time, to finally confess what has eaten away at my soul for decades, to have been able to love her again even though I know it isn’t our forever.

  Inevitably, it needs to be said, and when I gather the strength, I tell her, “Losing you nearly killed me. I miss you so fucking much!” My fingers are tangled in the back of her hair as I hold her against me. “You were my world, Quinn. You were the first person to believe in me, the first person to love me … you were my best friend and, even though I love my brothers, no one could ever fill the void you created when you left—and when you were gone.

  “And … I know you’ve moved on with your life, and I understand that, and honestly, Quinn, I’m happy for you. But I can’t let this moment—or you—go without telling you how I feel.” I choke back the emotions I’m drowning in.

  I hadn’t meant to get like this, I had meant to stay hard and focused—like the fighter I am—but I can’t fight Quinn; or the storm; or the calm after the storm she’s created—just like after a violent storm has passed and the sun breaks through the darkened sky, and the clouds recede and make way for the vibrant expanse of blue you thought you’d never see again, and the light it brings infuses everything with hope—that kind of calm is what she’s given me … again.

  Gently, I untangle us and move her to where I can see her beautiful face. “I want to read you something.”

  She nods as she gazes at me with eyes that radiate love.

  Talon would say to take the moment as a gift.

  I reach my hands up and wipe the tears that still rain down. “Please don’t cry anymore. We’ve both done too much of that.”

  I’ll let this moment heal me, as I hope it heals her, with no expectation of a future. Because this weekend with her has resurrected me, and I’m so fucking grateful to her—to the universe, to God—for bringing us together.

  At least this time we’ll get to say goodbye.

  “I want to read something to you.” I reach into my inner suit coat pocket and take out the envelope that she must have seen when rummaging through my old wooden box where she found the photograph.

  I can’t help but smile. “I don’t know how far you spied into my stuff but I …” I shrug and pull up my suit cuff to reveal the bracelet she gave me for my sixteenth birthday.

  “Oh, Liam, you still have it.” Her soft fingers grip around the band and my wrist. “I would’ve never dreamed you kept it … after what I did.”

  “Baby, you didn’t do anything wrong. I understand everything—you needed to go—I don’t blame you anymore. And I can tell you I forgive you if it makes you feel better, but you really have nothing to be forgiven for. You were in a pain most people can’t fathom and you did what you had to do … I’m just so fucking happy you came back, even if it’s not forever, even if it’s just right now—baby, I’ll take it.”

  She smiles through fresh tears.

  “You know, this was the first birthday gift I ever received.” I acknowledge the wristband—the wood and silver beads faded with use and age.

  “How can that—?

  “They didn’t celebrate my birthday. I was an abomination to them.” I think back. “I remember the night you put it on me and lit a candle in that cupcake. It’s one of the best moments of my life. In fact, all the best moments in my life include you.”

  Her fingers comb through my hair and down my jaw.

  “Let me read this,” I say, lifting the envelope again. “I wrote it a few years back, in autumn, when all I could think about was how much I missed you and would always love you, even if you never came back.”

  Carefully, I tear the corner of the sealed envelope, rip it down the crease and remove the crisp, folded paper inside.

  “I had been going dark-side, and a worried Cade gave me a few books of poetry. I especially got into Frost, Hemingway and Kerouac. Reading their works was therapeutic and helped me—clumsily—express some of what I was feeling by writing. I wasn’t any good, and I never showed it to anyone, but it helped me cope.” I shrug. “I wrote this, thinking about you, and stashed it away in the sealed envelope. I told myself that someday I’d find a way to give it to you. And this, here, is so much better. Can I read it to you?”

  She nods and more tears gather and spill from her eyes.

  “‘We are entrusted with the most precious gift one human being can give to another. Love. And even after we’ve been given that gift, we don’t understand how to hold it and how not to damage it—which we seem to have a very high propensity for doing. In fact, it seems that more often than not, we do just that. We squeeze it too tight, or get hurt when we doubt it’s really ours; we fumble and drop it because it moves and changes and alters and redesigns … love is a real, living being—tangible matter that we stomp on, ignore, violate, misuse, mistreat and offend.

  “‘I just want to hold your love, quietly, feel it pulse in my palm like a delicate and thriving heartbeat. I want to keep it close so I don’t lose it or damage it. But I’m human and fuck up.

  “‘And obviously, we don’t learn from our mistakes, or the whole human race would be damn close to perfect by now.

  “‘But here we are, holding out that gift, willing to take the good with the bad, the pleasure with the pain and the joy with the sorrow … why? Because love is a two player game—it’s meant to be shared; given, received and reciprocated.

  “‘And even though love can hurt like hell, the good is so damn good you’d do anything to experience it again.’

  “I’m always going to love you, Quinn, but the most important thing to me, is your happiness …”

  “Could we be together again, Liam? Could we try? Would you take me back?” Her voice is so broken it rips me apart.

  I laugh a little manically before I have to pull away and hold back the violent howl that quakes through my chest. “Oh, baby, I’d take you back in a heartbeat … but—”

  “Oh God, not but,” she says, stopping me. “I can’t handle that.”

  “Quinn, I met James.”

  “What?”

  “James was at The Core this morning looking for you. He said his flight came in late last night, and when he couldn’t find you at the funeral—”

  “I’m confused,” she interrupts and looks at me quizzically, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m saying.

  “Jesus, Quinn, you’re going to make me say it?” My voice breaks. “Your fiancé. He took off work to be here with you.”

  She shakes her head. “My fiancé, James?”

  “Quinn, stop it.”

  “I’m not en—” Slowly, realization, along with a huge grin, paints over her countenance.

  A second later she’s smiling. I’m dying and she’s smiling!

  “Blond hair, kinda short?” She’s still smiling.

  “Yeah, the son-of-a-bitch looked like that.” Is she trying to kill me?

  “Liam, I definitely do not
have a fiancé,” she says. “That was James Marshall, my best friend Shellie’s brother. I’m so sorry.” Quinn says it with a burst of giggles. “They were both going to come and support me, but fate had final exams for Shellie and a client emergency for James—who’d promised me that if he was able to come he would … tell everyone he was my fiancé so I could save face and deflect some of the hurt if you were in a serious relationship with someone. I didn’t think he was coming, so I never let him know the plan was off. And I told Shellie that you were with Adrienne, so she probably thought—”

  She stops and gives me the funniest look—humorous and apologetic at the same time.

  “So … you’re not engaged?” I ask slowly, not sure if I understand what I think she’s saying.

  “No, Liam, I am not engaged. I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

  I let go of the breath I’ve been holding in relief. “You do now!”

  The tension and pain is fully released as her sweet laughter echoes through my ears, and my heart, and my soul.

  In a moment I’m laughing too.

  “Oh God, I love you Liam!” she cries and smiles.

  I hold her beautiful, happy face in my hands and quote Frost. “‘Was there ever a cause too lost? Ever a cause that was lost too long? Or that showed with the lapse of time to vain?’ Not ours, Quinn … we’re immortal.”

  Epilogue

  May 17, 2015

  Liam

  I’ve been waiting ten years for this moment.

  I’m standing on what looks like the top of the earth on the polished wood deck at the Summit Chalet, overlooking the Lutsen Mountains. It’s spring, and the lush green mountains go on for as far as the eye can see.

  The music begins and I feel myself begin to tremble.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Talon’s smile—as if he knew all along.

  He was right

  Jonah comes down the aisle first. He looks brilliant in his coal black tuxedo and yellow cummerbund. Poor guy’s so nervous, but he agreed to do it anyway. I couldn’t be more proud. His hands shake as he tries to keep the white silk pillow steady. And although I can’t see the two gleaming gold circular eternity bands Quinn and I picked out together, I know that they’re there and that they represent our forever.