by Amy Faye
Her hair barely showed under a lacy black mantilla, but what he could see was bright pink, but instead of her usual high spikes, she wore it long and loose, pulled back behind her ears. He masked a smile as she lined up on Mom's side of the altar.
Dani came next, second-to-last alongside cousin Jim, who bore a little pillow. Brett was glad to see that his sister looked as happy as a little peach, spreading flower petals ahead of herself as she walked. It was probably a job for a younger girl, but she was too young for a maid of honor, and it would have been a mighty shame to leave her out of the ceremony.
Jim stepped up to Brett and he took the rings from the pillow, like he'd rehearsed. He tried not to look across the aisle, but he couldn't resist a little peek, trying to make it look as if it were part of the ceremony.
Amy was pretty when she smiled, he thought, a faint smile spreading over his own face in spite of the uncomfortable clothing and the awkward formality of the ceremony.
He'd done this three times already, though this was his first time old enough to serve as the Best Man. He hoped it would be the last time, for Mom's sake. And then the music paused for an instant and started again, more celebratory if it were possible, and the movement started at the door.
Mom walked alone. Brett's face twisted up in a tiny frown that he fought to hide. It was an unpleasant reminder, having no one to escort his mother. Maybe he ought to have been the one to do it, instead, but that would have meant turning down the very polite invitation to serve as best man.
She stepped up to the altar and the music died down, and Brett waited for his next job in the ceremony, keeping his eyes on his feet. He couldn't keep himself from looking across, if he kept his eyes up. It was only natural to look at Mom and Jerry, and if he did, it was only a little glance in Amy's direction.
If he let himself look at her for a moment, he feared, then he'd be distracted by her in an instant. He couldn't afford that, not on Mom's day. Whatever he felt about her, whatever he thought about the relationship they didn't have, he couldn't think about her, about any girl, during the ceremony. And no matter what he knew, no matter how much he couldn't afford, he knew too that if he let himself take one look at her then he'd be lost in her.
The officiant–they hadn't gone to church since Mom's last husband left the Lutheran community less than friendly, and it left them without a priest to go to–spoke the words. Brett had heard it all at the rehearsal, but it sounded even more familiar than that. He paraphrased the same vows that had been said at the last weddings, the same vows that every television or movie wedding spoke.
He hoped that it meant more than a television wedding, more than the last vows that had been spoken. That would be up to Jerry, though, he thought. Mom would put up with a lot. But no matter how much you're willing to put up with, you can't stop someone who wants to go.
His lips pinched together. He needed to stop, before he let his foul mood show to the bridal party. And if it were visible enough to be seen from the pews–he forced a halfway smile onto his face. Not too much, but enough to show that he was happy. The officiant spoke the words, asking for the rings, and Brett pulled his hand out of his pocket, though he'd never let them go.
One went to Mom, the other to Jerry. And then the words were spoken and then Mom kissed Step-dad number 3, and sealed whatever hopes he should have stamped out a year ago for a chance at something with Amy. With luck, college would be enough to put her out of his head.
He hoped so, at least, because nothing else had worked.
19
Amy
Present Day
It suddenly occurred to Amy that there were some real parallels to the dinner that she'd had with Brett and Dani going on. They needed to get along with Dad. She always would, and she was sure that Brett wanted to, regardless of his needs.
But there was a certain amount of 'have to' involved with Dad. Their little… whatever it was, it probably had no future at all. It was probably a mistake. The thought ran through her head too casually, too dismissive. No, it was a mistake–she made herself repeat it.
Nobody wanted to leave things the way they were, though. Nobody wanted to keep all this bad blood between people who were, effectively, related. So they needed to figure everything out even if nobody really wanted to. That was just how it had to be.
Dad wasn't exactly making it easy, though.
Ten years, it had been. Ten years, and not a word. Not a word from either side of the family, though Brett's time in college hadn't exactly been a bastion of communication.
With just Amy and her estranged-step-brother-slash-old-flame, things had progressed slowly. They'd spent plenty of time not talking, then over days they had gotten a little more comfortable.
Then, she thought with a blush, they got a little more comfortable still. She could hear Dad in the other room asking whether or not Brett still worked out a lot–exercise in general, even the slightest amount, had been a subject that Amy had studiously avoided even on the best days.
Ten years was a long time, but she knew that if she smashed her hand right now, never able to play again on the brink of getting what she had fought for almost half of her life, then it would take more than ten years to get over it.
She pinched her lips together. He thought he was being friendly, though. And Brett's response, too quiet to hear the words but loud enough to get a sense of the tone, wasn't as rough as she'd expected.
Amy poured the coffee into three cups and held them steadily in one hand. It was a skill, and one that looked much easier once you knew what you were doing than it was to actually do it. But she'd had to pay for school somehow, and going to a conservatory wasn't exactly a winning bet from the beginning.
"What are you two boys talking about now?"
Dad had turned on the television–she realized with a start that she hadn't seen seen anyone turn on the big TV in the front room in the week that she'd been here. Not even Jim, for that matter. Whether he'd changed the channel or not, she couldn't say, but it was on so quiet that even standing right there, she had to strain herself to hear it as more than background noise.
Brett wore a casual veneer over a tightness all through his body that she didn't want step within a mile of. She wondered idly if he could have possibly looked less at-ease than if she'd sat in his lap right then and there.
"Jerry was just asking how I liked Detroit." If he managed, however thinly-veiled, to hide his discomfort from her eyes, he didn't hide it in his voice well at all. "And I was telling him that it's pretty much the same as it was."
"Well, I mean, this is Ann Arbor, too," Amy added. His fingers brushed hers as he took the coffee from her hands, and for a moment his smile had a genuine warmth that was gone a moment later when the discomfort slipped back in. "So it's a little better."
"Sure," Dad agreed. If he detected any of Brett's attitude, he didn't show it. "But I mean, you could say the same for Grosse Pointe, too, right?"
"Sure. But I like it around here," was Brett's reply. A little dismissive, maybe, but Amy brushed it off. "But you wouldn't go wrong with Grosse Pointe."
"Yeah. So they got water here, or you guys just, you know, like in Flint?"
Dangerously close to politics, Amy thought with a frown. Get Dad talking about that, and they might actually come to blows.
"Dad, don't be like that. You know full well that the water here is full of all kinds of poison–fluoride in the drinking water, maybe a trace of LSD to keep the population under control–" she paused, enjoying the long looks from both of the men in the room. "But no lead, thank God."
Sidelong glances were exchanged for a long stretch of seconds, then, before Brett finally broke and let a sharp breath out his nose that she thought signified a laugh. "Sounds about right."
Dad seemed to catch it, then. He blinked like he'd just seen clearly for the first time, and all of a sudden Amy wondered what it was that he thought he saw. Her heart suddenly felt thunderously loud in her ears.
She had
n't been too friendly, or something, had she? She hadn't acted in a way that would hint at… at what they'd done, had they?
She shot a severe look at Brett, hoping he would take notice. He glanced up at her when he saw her head turn, his smile broadened ever-so-slightly in a near-invisible indication that he saw her.
She'd expected this to be easy. She'd fallen into trouble with him, sure. She should have expected it, but the truth was that she'd been denying herself the forbidden fruit since high school. It was about time that she tasted it, so she didn't mind one bit that she'd let herself.
But she should have easily been able to turn it off, so that nobody would ever have to find out. So they wouldn't know about… about what they had done. But whether she could or not, she realized, she was never going to know.
Every little thing set her on-edge, and Amy suddenly was starting to realize that whether she liked it or not, she might be in deeper than she had realized, and the only life-raft she knew how to grab at was sitting barely more than arm's-length away, too far to ever reach again.
2003
Amy was halfway to asleep even while she sat there, staring out over the crowd. The sun beat down on her as they sat on the football field, and the Principal was saying something, but she wasn't listening. It didn't occur to her that she should be listening, even, until someone beside her nudged her elbow.
She didn't take a long time looking around, once she realized that everyone else was moving to get into line. She hoped that nobody else had noticed her slip, stood up and walked to her place in line, her head held on straight.
Graduation was supposed to be a big deal. And it was, she supposed, though she wasn't freaking out about it. She was, though, freaking out about college applications. She was still waiting to hear back from her top two choices. Brett had already gotten offers from a dozen schools by the time he walked across the rinky-dink little stage to get his diploma handed to him.
Maybe she wasn't some kind of football star, that was true. But she ought to be able to hear back from schools, too, right?
The thought that Brett had his pick of schools brought her mind back to the same thing that had been distracting her the entire day. He was back. They said that when you went off to college, you gained 15 pounds.
It was probably a made-up number, she guessed, and maybe he had gained weight. But if he had, it hadn't been in his gut. Every little line of his muscle still showed where she could see, and where she couldn't, his tee-shirts rarely left much to the imagination.
She shut her mouth with a click and tried to push the thoughts out of her head. Even as a Freshman, even though he probably felt out of place, a guy with his looks would have his pick of women. He wasn't thinking about her, and she should have moved on herself.
But she hadn't. Her body moved mechanically to keep up with the line. The entire ceremony would be easier if she thought of nothing. Definitely don't think about what was going on at the head of the line, because that would mean noticing the idiots goofing off as they walked across the stage. Posing like morons.
They had to know what they looked like, right?
She wasn't going to do anything like that. Then again, that was probably because she wasn't an idiot. She pinched her lips together as the line in front of her got shorter and shorter. Then it was her turn to walk stiffly across the stage, shake the Principal's hand, and take a diploma from him.
At least it was him, and not the Vice-Principal. He seemed like a nice old guy. Vice-Principal Marcus and her, they had a… strained relationship, she supposed. Strained for reasons that were only partly her fault.
But you don't get to make first impressions twice, and–she cut the thought off, making sure to hold a smile as best she could as she climbed down the steps on the opposite side.
She walked back to her seat, as the boy before her had done, and as the girl behind her did a moment later. The ceremony was slow. People giving speeches that amounted to nothing, trite lines that sounded good coming out of their mouths and would fit perfectly on a greeting card, but didn't mean anything.
She should have been happy. Brett was back. That was enough, all by itself, to lift her spirits, until she remembered that it was all a big damn lie anyways. She was his sister, and she had been for a long time, now. Their brief little flirtation with maybe having something was a tiny blip on the radar of the time they knew each other.
But it still stung at her, even now. A thorn in her side that no amount of telling herself to get over it was going to get rid of. She was glad when they finally got to stand up and go meet their families.
Brett scooped her up in a hug that pulled her feet off the ground. She dutifully acted like she hated it, but she couldn't. Not in truth. He held her a little bit longer than was absolutely necessary. She didn't hate that, either, though he really shouldn't tease her like that. She frowned, and then pulled her face into a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
It would have been nice, if it wasn't all fake. It all would have been wonderful. But she couldn't fool herself, and no matter how much she wanted to try to lie to herself and pretend that it meant something when it didn't.
All it would do, in the end, would hurt more. She'd spent a year not thinking about it, and then with a little luck maybe when she went off to college she could avoid coming back except for holidays, and even then if she found work she could try to claim that she couldn't get out of it.
Brett set her down again and Amy could finally breathe again. Her face felt flushed and she hated it. Hated all of it, everything about herself and the situation and… just, all of it.
"How do you feel," Dad asked.
She shrugged, silent. Dani tapped at a phone without speaking much, the way she always seemed to whenever Amy entered the room. Helen pulled her in for a hug as well. It felt strange, and Amy thought that it probably always would.
All she could think of, though, was when she could go home and lay down and forget about everything. Until that happened, she was just going to keep riding the roller coaster, and she was more than tired of it.
20
Brett
Present Day
Brett laid his head back against the headboard and closed his eyes, pretending he could sleep with the lights on. He'd been tired enough before, but he had a feeling that being tired of dealing with his step-father wasn't going to be enough.
There were other problems too, of course. Amy couldn't seem to decide what the hell she wanted from him. Get along with Jerry? Sure. Play God dammed charades with her? That was fine, too.
Navigating the minefield of figuring out what innocuous comment she wanted him to avoid making? Impossible, not with everything else along with it. He was an architect, not a trained monkey. There were some things that were simply outside his power to do.
When they got the call, and the subsequent forwarded flight plans, it hasn't left a great deal of time for figuring out a story to keep straight. He and Amy had spent all of an hour on it, the hour before his flight arrived, specifically, and all that planning had given them a story slightly more in-depth than "we didn't fuck at all."
Even that, Brett thought, neither was that committed to. According to the looks Amy kept shooting him through his entire effort to struggle through a conversation with a man he'd never once gotten along with in the past, he was beginning to suspect that she either wanted to get something started, or she thought he was brain dead.
He let himself enjoy either thought for a minute. She wasn't the kind of woman who would do something like that to hurt his feelings. Not for an instant. No, she'd think he was an idiot with the specific intention of avoiding hurting his feelings, if that were even possible. He smiled at the idea.
A knock at the door pulled him out of his reverie, his eyes shooting open. He looked around a minute, uncertain if he'd slept after all. He'd lost track of time, that was sure. But nothing had changed. The lights were on, the room still in… well, basically in order.
"One second," he
called out. His voice was hoarse and rough, but he forced himself out of the chair and across the room.
The door opened a crack, and on the other side, Amy leaned in. "Are you going to let me in, or what? I don't really want to get caught out here."
He raised an eyebrow quizzically, but he let her inside nonetheless. She stepped through like she was worried that she might be chased through by a burglar. He shut the door behind. Maybe it was the other one after all. If she was in the mood for something then he was hardly going to tell her no.
"Good evening to you, too," he said, leaning his back against the door. His amusement was plain on his face, and he left it that way on purpose, enjoying the way that Amy turned and gave him a pointed look.
"Can't you be quiet?" She sounded angry. It was a good look on her. He stepped in close to her, enjoying the way that she looked at him, thinly veiled anger in her flat expression.
"I can be as quiet as you like, babe, but it seems like you're the one who's got the problem with that."
His arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her hips in towards his. She didn't quite manage to pull away with the zeal that he would have expected. He'd had girls play hard to get more seriously than how she acted now, with every intention of giving in at the end of the night.
"Are you–" her voice dropped into a harsh whisper. "Are you crazy?"
Brett's eyes flicked across the room, as if he could see through the walls and into the room where Jerry was staying. "Did you forget about that sound system of mine? I have to keep thinking pretty well-insulated around here. Plus it saves on the energy bill."
"That's hardly the point–"
"That's absolutely the point. He's not going to hear a thing."
"That doesn't change that you're acting like a horny teenager, and he's going to figure out what's going on at some point."
"Horny teenager? When I was a horny teenager, I ignored you most of the time. You were too young, then–but now?" His head dipped and he tasted the sensitive flesh of her throat. It was slightly salty and he found himself wanting more. His teeth scraped a line across her neck, biting down on the other side.
