by L.J. Shen
“What?” I elbowed him.
“I mean, honestly? Who hasn’t fucked up? I fucked up with Emilia so many times. I did things that were far worse. But she wasn’t sick. That’s the only difference. She was there to accept me when I finally pulled my head out of my ass and started groveling.”
“And you think Rosie is not going to make it?” I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t choke, and there was not enough air in the fucking room as I waited for his answer.
He looked down. “I’m not a doctor, but I’d be lying if I said her prognosis is good.”
“I have to speak to her.” I angled my body to face him, clasping both his shoulders and forcing him to look at me—look at my grief. “You need to help me, Vic. I can’t not see her right now. You realize that, right?”
He measured me, silent and cunning. His lips were pressed together. He was thinking.
“What do you want?” I scrubbed my face. “Name your price.”
Holy fuck, we were doing this again. This. Negotiating each other’s happiness. Fine. Whatever. Everything had a price tag. Especially in Vicious’s world.
“What would it take for me to get to her?”
Nothing was a hard limit. I think he knew it.
“I want fifteen percent of your shares in Fiscal Heights Holdings.” He served me my own medicine and shoved a good amount of it down my fucking throat. I didn’t even think about his request before the words left my mouth.
“Take them. They’re yours. Now get me up there. I need to see her.”
“Twenty,” he said. Fucker.
Straight-faced, I said, “Yours.”
“Twenty-five. All of your shares. Mine. Sign it tomorrow morning.”
“Take all my shares. Take my clothes and my apartment and my inner organs. Let me see her. Reason with the LeBlancs.”
He got up, finished his coffee in one gulp, and set his cup down.
“The thing is, Mr. Cocksmacked, I don’t need any of your shit. But I’ll help you. This is the hard part, by the way. Even if her parents would let you see her, the LeBlanc sisters don’t go down easy.”
I stood up, finally allowing a smirk to grace my face.
“Well, then it’s a good thing I’m a very good tackler.”
What makes you feel alive?
The struggle. To breathe. To live. To not let go.
THE MUTTERS BEHIND THE CLOSED door awakened me. Whoever stood there lost their patience quickly. The stomping on the floor tipped me off. Then the voices started bleeding into my ears and the puzzle pieces fell into place.
Mama raised her voice. “I don’t actually care. My daughter is very sick, and you were well aware of that. You know her, after all. Now go away, boy, and don’t you come back here. Rosie is fighting for her life, and make no mistake, I blame you for it. What makes you think she’ll want to see you?”
“Mrs. LeBlanc.” His voice had an edge I couldn’t decode. Dean Cole wasn’t the groveling type. “I apologized. Let your daughter decide for herself. I assure you, she wants to hear me out. Ask her.”
“She’s asleep.”
I opened my mouth with the intention to call out to them, but nothing came out. The unwelcome transformation my body had gone through in recent hours left me speechless. Literally. No longer able to move my head, I found myself fighting for my next blink. Everything was sore. I had to take shallow breaths purposely, to make sure that my ribs wouldn’t crack. I needed to tell the nurse to up my painkiller dose. But I didn’t complain. Morphine would only make me sleep more, and there was so much going on around me, I didn’t want to miss a thing. The other reason I didn’t want to be given more narcotics was naked, raw fear. What if I died in my sleep? My eyes were heavy, but I fought to stay awake.
I was desperate to see Dean again. Did he screw up? Yes. Badly. Was I mad at him? Sure. Furious. But when you were on your deathbed, there was no time to be mad. Vindictiveness was thrown out the window, along with any other soul-eating, negative trait that was ingrained in us. When you were on your deathbed, time reminded you just how precious it really was. Feelings were bare and open for the world to see, poke, and dig into.
“Charlene.” Vicious interfered from the hospital hallway outside my door. “Rosie loves Dean. He has a reason for not meeting her in the Hamptons yesterday, and I can tell you that his reason doesn’t suck. At least ask her if she wants to see him.”
“Fine, but not right now,” Mama huffed, and I heard her smacking her thigh. “As I said, she really is asleep right now, and I’ll be damned if something like this nonsense wakes her up while she should be resting. Go. I will call you when she wakes up.”
“New York is three hours away, ma’am.” Dean tried to reason with her.
“And that’s a long journey, huh, Mr. Cole? My daughter made it to see you here. You didn’t even bother to show up.”
That shut both of them up. A few minutes later, the door opened and Mama walked in. I didn’t know where Millie or Daddy was, but I guess they were all taking turns to watch over me. Every single waking moment was spent with someone else. It made reaching out to Dean by a text message or a call impossible. Asking for personal space wasn’t fair to the people who stopped their lives to cater to me.
The mattress dipped as my mother came to sit by my side.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
I opened my mouth and tried to talk, but my words came out as a desperate hiss. “Been better.”
She laughed and sniffed, wiping away a couple of tears. I wondered if all families were messes of epic proportions when a youngster was dying, or was it just mine? I wasn’t a kid anymore, but I was used to being everyone’s baby. Vicious called me Little LeBlanc. Dean called me Baby LeBlanc. Everyone else, Rosie-bug. And so a part of me came to foolishly believe that I had more time.
“Everyone’s keeping you in their prayers. I go to the church down the road every day. Baron is talking to a fancy pulmonologist from England. He is going to fly him here if things don’t get better soon. But they will, my dear girl.” She stroked my forehead, tears running down her face. She was no longer trying to hide or wipe them. “Sweetheart, you will get out of here walking. I know you will.”
Her forehead met mine, and I closed my eyes, feeling warm tears leaking under my lashes. I didn’t want to cry, especially not in front of Mama, but I didn’t feel like being strong anymore. Being strong sucked. Wanting to be independent and strong was what got me here in the first place.
Being strong made me weak.
“Mama,” I sniffed, “I’m going to be okay, right? I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about Todos Santos. I know you meant well. I just wanted to stop being babied.”
“I know, honey. I know, I know,” she repeated, kissing my forehead and my tears again and again. It didn’t escape me that she didn’t answer my question.
It did not escape me at all.
I was perched on the porch outside the Hamptons’s mansion I had rented, letting the rain crack at my fucking face, because I deserved it.
Just to make sure that I was a full-blown loser and not a half-assed, miserable idiot, I drank vodka straight from the bottle, trying to feel how she felt when she was locked outside for fuck-knows how much time.
I earned it. Each and every piece of shit life was handing me. Fair and fucking square.
I shouldn’t have drunk three bottles of vodka in twenty-four hours. But I did. Because that bullshit they feed you about hitting rock bottom and seeing the light? It’s just that. A load of crap. In reality, when you hit rock bottom, you lie there for a long, extended nap, because rock bottom is still solid ground. Especially when the rest of your world is hanging on by a feather for balance. Being an addict whose life crumbles in front of him is tiring. More so than being the darling son, the sharp businessman, the manwhore who would give you four orgasms before he even touched you.
I found that out the hard way.
Truth was, weakness invited more weakness. And knowing that Rosi
e was dying didn’t throw me into knight in shining armor mode and help my drinking problem disappear. It served as the heavy brick that drowned me into the depth of misery.
Sprawled on the steps of the mansion’s entrance with a bottle to my lips, I stared at leafy trees trying to fight the wind away and laughed at how pathetic I had become.
It was a Monday. Noontime. The rest of the world was buzzing with life. I was buzzing with anger. I needed to think of a way to get her back. Vicious’s word with her parents didn’t help one bit.
I didn’t bother to answer my parents when they called. The one thing I did do was show up at the hospital at random hours, demanding to see Rosie. At first they kicked me out because she was asleep. Later on, it was because I was too drunk to function.
At least I had somewhere to stay while I was waiting for Rosie to see me. Oh, yeah. Karma is not the only one who is a bitch. Irony has a twisted sense of humor, too.
Vicious tried to be there for me, but I shut him out. Trent was worried, but he couldn’t leave Luna, and Jaime was pissed off, because neither Vic nor I told him what made me go batshit crazy on the world and bail out on my girlfriend.
Nina stopped calling, now that she had the money—at least I had that going for me—although I couldn’t even appreciate her absence from my life, because after all, essentially, my biological mom stopped giving a fuck the minute I paid her to.
Holy shit, asshole. Your life is a hot mess.
A rental car pulled up in front of the mansion’s door, and I didn’t need to see the occupants’ faces to know who they were. Volvo. Always with the fucking Volvo. The fib of white picket fence and three perfect kids they were trying to feed the world. I actually bought into this shit. Until now.
Fucking Vicious gave him the address. He must’ve had, because I sure as fuck didn’t.
My mother was the first to get out of the car. She didn’t open the umbrella in her hand, just light-jogged the distance from the silver vehicle to the front porch, rubbing her arms, even though she was in a tailored, pink wool coat.
“Sweetheart.” Her face was made up, her hair perfect, and she didn’t look nearly as crushed as I was by what my father had done. Same father I could see behind her shoulder, throwing the vehicle into park and sitting in the driver’s seat.
Fucking coward.
“We have to talk, honey. We can’t go on like this.”
“We can, and we are. Go away,” I groaned. I looked like shit. I acted like a little one, too. And I was drunk off my ass, which she could see. My mother ignored me, took the stairs to the door, and pushed it open. “I’m making some tea. You should join me, dear. It’s cold out.”
My mother still acted like the loving parent that she was, even when I put her through hell. Even when she was the very last person I should be mad at, because every time she looked at my face, she saw her husband’s unfaithfulness with her sister. In my eyes, which were Nina’s. My lips, which were his. My very being was supposed to be a thorn in her heart. But somehow, she always made me feel like that heart beat for me.
And that was what made me scrape my ass from the porch and jerk a finger, pointing directly at my dad.
“Stay where you are.” I raised my voice. “She’s fine, but you’re not welcome here, you cheating piece of shit.”
Two minutes later, she wrapped a quilt around my shoulders, and I was sitting in a stranger’s kitchen drinking strong tea for the first time in my life. What man under sixty drinks tea willingly? Me, I guess.
“Listen to me, honey.” Mom propped forward in her seat across from me and took my hand in hers. She was still warm. How was she warm? Well, not sitting outside for hours upon hours trying to atone for your behavior had something to do with it. “I know that you’re mad and confused. You have every right to be. And if you think for one second that I just rolled over at the time when it happened and let him get away with it, you’re dead wrong. I filed for divorce, Dean. I didn’t want your dad after I found out what he did. And, frankly, I did not want you, either.”
Ouch.
“You’re still here.” I sneered, my eyes dead.
“I am.” She smiled. “Because of you. You were worth it. Once I realized that you were mine to take care of, I wanted you. So much so that I was willing to give Eli another shot, even though he did not deserve it. Your father messed up. Big time. But things are not always as they seem. You should know that better than anyone.”
She referred to Millie and Rosie. And she was right. Even though I didn’t truly love Millie, and she didn’t truly love me, it still happened.
“It was your idea that I should bond with her. I spent my summers on her farm,” I ground out.
Mom shook her head. “Dean, you were begging to go. You said you loved it there. From my point of view, she stopped using drugs and was living on a farm. She sold us lies. I figured that you would tell us if you didn’t like it there. I asked you, Dean. Every single summer, I asked you if you liked it there. You always said yes.”
“I wanted her to love me.” I swallowed, darkness clouding my expression. “Jesus, I sound pathetic. Even to my own ears.”
My mother’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears. I hurt for her as much as I hurt for me, but not even close to as much as I hurt for Rosie.
The front door opened and closed, and my mother stood up and looked behind her shoulder, her face serene.
“You have a lot to talk about, you and your dad, but I will say one thing, Dean. Love is not perfect. Life is not perfect. Yet, they’re both extremely beautiful things you should treasure every day. I’m happy with your father. And whatever happened in the past belongs just there—the past.”
Eli walked into the country-styled yellow kitchen and took the seat my mother occupied a second ago. I took off the mask I put in front of Mom and gave him my douchebag face. The one I now knew I got from him.
“Thought I told you not to leave the car.”
“Thought you knew better than to go around firing orders at your father, Dean Leonard Cole.”
I unfolded my arms and leaned back in my chair, smirking.
“Guess I owe you a thank you for finally telling me I’m your biological son. If I throw in a few hundred more grand, are you going to give me more details about it? Maybe where I was conceived? And, of course, if Nina is a screamer.” Not that I didn’t know the answer to the latter. Nina had a thing for making me feel uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I couldn’t recall one summer where I didn’t catch and/or hear her and Owl getting it on. It made me gag, but I couldn’t do shit about it. Thin walls. Plus, sometimes I would walk into the kitchen or the living room and they’d be porking each other and grinning at me. No wonder I loved lying on the hay outside so much.
“I can help you.” My father ignored my bullshit, which was rare for him. He never let me get away with being a dickhead. Not even at thirty.
“With what?” I laughed.
“With your self-destructive spiral. And with understanding the truth better.”
“Your truth cost me six hundred thousand dollars.”
“You know money isn’t the issue here. It never was, Dean. I had no indication that you were ready for the truth to come out, so I left it for you to decide. Son,” he placed his glasses on the table, pressing his thumbs to his eye sockets, “your mother and I miss you. We want to make this right.”
I looked down at the phone on the table. Vicious texted me that morning saying he still hadn’t managed to defrost the LeBlancs and talk them into letting me see Rosie. I had nothing else to do, anyway. Might as well burn the time by listening to my piece-of-work dad.
“Hold on, asshole,” I muttered as I got rid of the quilt and turned the heater on.
Dad watched as I tucked a blunt into my mouth and puffed a cloud of smoke, pursing his lips. He didn’t like it. But this time, he was going to have to suck it up.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I asked when he stared at me for a minute straight. What th
e hell was wrong with him? He looked like he’d been crying, which made me feel uneasy. Not that I thought that men who cried were pussies—okay, I’ll rephrase: that depends on the amount of crying, situation, and circumstances—but it felt odd to think that Eli Cole produced actual human tears. Normally, he looked so unflustered by the world. While he could be sentimental, he was always collected. Extremely so, down to the smallest bone in his body. And right now he looked very, very scattered.
Dad shook his head. “Nothing.” He tapped the round, oak dining table, ignoring the healthy amount of F-bombs I showered him with. I tried to keep my language PG-13 whenever I was around my parents, but I wasn’t feeling very respectful toward my dad at that moment.
“I’m always in awe of how alike we are.” He pinched his lips together.
“You have a weed and alcohol problem, too?” I laughed, tipping the ash into an empty vodka bottle and taking a sip from a half-empty beer can.
“I did,” he said.
My jaw almost dropped at this revelation. That was definitely news to me.
“Elaborate.” I took another hit of the blunt, before he snatched it from my hand and put it out.
“Hey.” My eyebrows pulled together. “What the fuck?”
“The fuck is that I’m your father, and you’re going to act in accordance with the social codes we ingrained in you from a young age, at least around us. That means you don’t drink or smoke weed in front of me and cut back on the F-word, Dean. It doesn’t make you tougher. It makes you sound like a goddamn thug, and I spent a lot of money on your education. Enough to assure that you’re not a thug. So, while I am content with indulging you when you and your preppy, trust-fund baby friends talk the big talk behind closed doors, to me you will be polite and straitlaced. Understood?”
Hello, bucket of ice to the face, thanks for sobering my ass up.
Dad stood up, snatched a can of beer from the table, and started walking around the kitchen, pulling a small trash can and throwing all the vodka bottles, rolled cigarette butts, and beers into it as he talked. “Back to our main topic—addiction. Yes, Dean, I was an addict like you. Not weed. Where I grew up in Alabama, weed wasn’t a rich man’s vice. But after I graduated from law school and married your mom, I had a lot on the line. I had my own father to impress, and he was far less thoughtful and supportive than I am. The only way I could take the edge off of all the pressure was to drink. So I did that. Excessively. Every. Single. Day.”
