Fade Back (A Stepbrother Romance Novella)

by Brother, Stephanie

  “Hey, I’m not going to stop you. Whatever, I’m just warning you not to come crying to me tomorrow when you roll over and realize your hangover is the size of Texas.” Jerome laughed and Becka nodded along, still dumbly oblivious to the sincere truth at the heart of her friend’s flippantly theatrical warnings. She was aware she wasn’t thinking coherently, and a tiny part of her suggested going home right now, and eating a whole cheese pizza. But whenever Becka got drunk, she remembered that feeling of being a teenager, and nerdy and so lonely and unable to do anything about it. With the right amount of alcohol, she regressed to that girl so filled with loneliness and did what she would have done then. She was driven tonight toward that decadent oblivion by feeling confused about Fitz’s reappearance in her life, and she was proving she was a grown-up. She could make stupid decisions. She could make mistakes.

  Becka was proud of this thought and tried to tell it to Jerome, but it came out like this: ”I want to make my mssstakes all over that guy’s face tonight.” And she couldn’t understand why Jerome wouldn’t stop laughing. Whatever. It was a long night.

  Jerome scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Allllright. Lessgo.”

  The two hot young things burst into the chilled night air and hailed a cab, pouring themselves into the back seat and passing out the minute they landed, so the driver could only stare stony-silent in the front the whole ride. He tossed a bottle of water at them when they reached Becka’s place, waking them up long enough so they could make it through the front door.

  When she woke up the next morning, Becka felt more certain of what she really wanted, certain that Fitz was the one for her, despite their step-relationship. It wasn’t illegal, right? She was confident that she could get her dad on her side, once he was back. Eleanor was going to be a different story—Becka had no clue how her stepmother would react. She would find out soon enough. What she was certain of now was that she could say she loved Fitz. It took some wild, crazy, and probably unnecessary partying, but Becka could finally understand why Fitz had only had four girlfriends at his sage age of thirty. She totally got it. And now she wanted to show him. Thank goodness she didn’t go home with some guy from last night. Thank goodness for Jerome.

  In a few hours, she’d call and explain her sudden disappearance, she’d apologize for her broken appointment and beg for another chance. What mattered now was their future, not the unfortunate fact that their parents were married to each other. She’d show Fitz she knew what love was now.

  While these thoughts and more jumped the fences of Becka’s waking mind, Jerome rolled in her bed next to her, fully clothed—just like she was. And, cradled in each other’s arms, the two best friends fell asleep again for a few more hours.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was mid-morning when Becka woke up again and shifted her sleeping bedmate from her arm, shaking out the pins and needles. She stepped into the shower, and with the hot water way up, letting the swirling mists swallow the old Becka and have her emerge like new, scrubbed herself clean and ready for a new kind of life, with a new kind of person.

  “Hey, Jere, you want some breakfast?” she called down the hallway, nonchalantly strolling back into the bedroom after her shower, wrapping a towel around her skinny frame. Then she froze. In a twisted tableau vivant of yesterday’s horrifying scene, Jerome was trawling through her phone, a surprised look on his face, a tweezed eyebrow raised, and a slapable smirk twisting his pretty lips. He glanced up at Becka, who was still stunned and aghast in the doorway, and continued scrolling.

  “You had a LOT of messages from Fitz last night. And from your dad. How come you didn’t tell me that Fitz was your stepbrother?”

  “Whoa, wait-wait-wait! I texted with my dad last night?”

  “Yeah, you told him, but you didn’t tell me, girl. I’m offended.”

  “Shit. Now he’s going to tell Eleanor, and Eleanor might say something to Fitz. Although, they don’t really talk…” Becka was trying to concentrate through the fog of her hangover. “What did my dad have to say about this? Let me see myself.” She grabbed the phone from her friend’s hand. Furiously scrolling over her drunken texts to her dad, which began with asking him about Jerry and then transitioned into more and more lurid and inappropriate territory, she finally came to the end of the string of messages.

  But dad, I thnk I lve him.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. And there, glowing green like a toxic fire, was her father’s reply.

  Rebecca: you are to stop this nonsense immediately. Jerry is your stepbrother, and it would be completely inappropriate for you two to date each other. Plus, Eleanor would be devastated. She hadn’t heard from Jerry in months, and to get some news of her son in this manner would be heartbreaking for her.

  Becka gasped and sputtered with rage, her eyes wide and teeth exposed at the menacing text splayed across her screen. Her vitriol was barely contained by her narrow frame, the veins in her temples throbbed, and her red-rimmed eyes bugged out, bruised and defiant against the ghostly pallor of her skin.

  “Oh, Jere, what am I going to do now?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Becka thought about making coffee but she was too shaken up already. Instead, she paced for a bit, then paced again after sending the hungover and unhelpful Jerome home, while rereading her dad’s messages. It wasn’t over with that first horrible message. There were more.

  And the most upsetting thing about it was that Becka was too drunk last night to form coherent or meaningful responses. Just a string of crude emojis and several mortifying ‘lols’, so out of keeping with Becka’s normal texting style. Now her dad was never going to take her seriously.

  Becka couldn’t bear it. After a while, she stopped pacing and started cleaning, then realized she’d cleaned her apartment top to bottom yesterday and she still didn’t feel any better about this whole situation. She needed to make this right, and not just in her usual way of not thinking about it until the problem went away. She didn’t want this problem to go away. She didn’t want this person to go away. She wanted to see Fitz, not just today, and not just for her tattoo. She didn’t want some other artist filling in the color, admiring the work, and moving on. Becka wanted Fitz to finish what he started with her, and that meant tattoos and a lot more.

  She was getting dressed, determined to march down to the Emporium and wait until Fitz would see her. She didn’t care if she had to watch fifty fat guys get skull tattoos across their flabby mid-sections! Why, she’d—

  Her phone was ringing. Becka scrambled across her kitchen to grab it before it stopped ringing, nearly crashing over her open dishwasher drawer thanks to her slippery socks. She saw her dad’s photo glowing on the screen and composed herself for a second before placing the receiver to her ear and breathing deeply.

  “I…”

  “Before you say anything, Rebecca, please, let me speak.” Becka breathed out sharply on hearing her father’s strict voice, but the hint of coldness stopped her dead. “I discussed this situation with Eleanor. This is completely unacceptable, kiddo. No way. You two are almost siblings, and what happened between you was okay, since you ostensibly didn’t recognize each other—though both Eleanor and I find it hard to believe. But it has to stop. Now. Your stepmother tried to reach Jerry too, but he didn’t answer, so she sent him a long text, she said.”

  Becka was silent, too stunned to do anything but breathe. She thought she’d be dealing with harsh remarks about her inebriated state last night, with defusing the upsetting phrasing of the text and the crude comments about her sex life. She was like an idiot child playing at grown-up emotions.

  “Yes, but dad… I really like this guy!“

  “Well that’s just… that’s just an unfortunate thing, Becka. You cannot be with him. Eleanor and I do not see how this would be appropriate on any level at all.”

  “I really didn’t think you’d be this upset…”

  “Upset? You’re practically siblings, for chrissakes!”

  “I… but what a
bout my feelings, dad?” Becka wanted to curl up and die. She sounded so stupid. She heard her father sigh, a heavy, sweet, pained burst of breath hissing across the airwaves and piercing Becka’s heart with sorrow. It sounded like he didn’t expect to hear more protests from his daughter, and realizing this, Becka felt, for the first time in her short life, true fear. Fear of losing the first guy she’d ever truly loved.

  “No, Rebecca, no. Just no.”

  “Well… I better go, dad. I can’t talk to you right now. Not anymore.”

  “Why do you think it’s acceptable to date your stepbrother? Jeez, Rebecca, what kind of a daughter did I raise?” Her father was starting to sound heated; the flare in his voice was threatening, the sarcasm biting, and Becka just wanted to curl up in her bed and make everything go away somehow. But something in her knew this wouldn’t be that easy. That nagging voice, back in full force, told her nothing worth having ever is. She bit her lip and sniffed back the tears she felt edging their way down her drawn cheeks.

  “L-look, dad. I’m sorry. I gotta go.“ She pressed ‘End call’ before she could hear any more of her father’s protests, so when the phone rang again, almost immediately, she reluctantly answered without looking at the screen. She’d never before hung up on her dad.

  But it was Fitz’s voice on the other end.

  “When did you know, Becka? Before our date? Or only when you found those photos on my phone?”

  “What? You’re crazy. I didn’t recognize you at all. How many years has it been? Plus, you look completely different now, and so do I. I only realized it when I saw those pictures on your phone. And I wanted to talk to you about it, I did. I was just too shocked. I didn’t think our parents would put up this much fight against this.”

  “No. No, you couldn’t predict their reaction. Look, I think maybe we should just take a second and take stock, you know? I’m as confused as you are, but… I think we should listen to our folks. We’re practically siblings, Becka.” She felt her heart squeeze so tight she almost passed out. “I want to finish your tattoo, too. And don’t worry, I’m an adult and a professional. It will be exactly what you paid for. I finish the things I start. Set up a time when you’ve calmed down a bit.” And he hung up.

  Becka’s screen went blank, damn phone not even giving her the comfort of a dial tone to cling to. She was left in silence, leaning against the kitchen island bench, holding herself in her own shaking arms, finding little comfort in the slack grip. She’d always wondered what lay beyond this life she’d enjoyed up until now, and she’d finally glimpsed it for herself. She wanted it back. She wanted Fitz back and while she didn’t know how she was going to do it, she knew she was going to give it everything she could to make things work with the low-voiced drifter who saw life in such bright colors and who burned with a fire that warmed Becka’s very soul. Even if he was her long lost stepbrother. And even if everyone in the world seemed to think that their being together was a terrible idea.

  She had to find a way to get him back, somehow…

  Chapter Thirteen

  Three long weeks passed before Becka could handle the thought of facing Fitz again, and as the days stretched on interminably, she barely recognized herself.

  The old Becka, the one from before she ran into Fitz and got a glimpse of what love could be, would have gone out every day and night until she’d forgotten that guy’s face. She’d have danced and strutted and preened in the wide mirrors of every club in town, rub up against strangers and for all intents and purposes used her dismay as fuel for getting over him. A break could, under the right conditions, be the greatest fun a gorgeous young thing like Becka could have.

  But not this time.

  Her apartment was pristine at first. The adrenaline from her confrontations with her father, first via that phone call and later via an in person conversation at their scheduled brunch, and that brief but heartbreaking talk with Fitz, drove her to herculean efforts of hygiene. She cleaned everything she could get her hands on, and when the whole house shone and gleamed like an Ikea catalogue photo shoot, she sat down, and the anxiety, the apprehension, and misery immediately started lapping at her feet. That was when the cleaning stopped, and Becka became mired in her own sloppy unhappiness.

  She didn’t dare call Jerome or Mick, despite her friends leaving one rambling message after another, at first oblivious to Becka’s pain and then probing and then outraged at the radio silence. While she couldn’t absorb her friends’ wise words of reassurance before hurricane Fitz tore apart her life, she was all too aware of them now.

  Jerome would help you, he’s your friend, she kept telling herself. Mick too. But despite this perfectly reasonable argument, Becka froze when she picked up the phone. She knew Jerome would immediately offer his services to relieve any physical tension, whether that meant punching someone or help her clean her place once again. Mick would be all cerebral and pick apart her predicament till there was nothing to pick apart. But the act of swallowing her internal turmoil and staying strong enough to endure her friends’ advice was too much for her battered resilience.

  In the meantime, she couldn’t bring herself to take any action. She just knew she wanted Fitz back—to feel him, to smell his hair and the warmth of his breath against her cheek. And since he was on her dad’s side in all of this, Becka just felt miserable.

  She watched daytime TV, and late night TV, and dozed in between, fretfully dreaming of Fitz. She’d wake up sticky and strangely sad, surrounded by pizza boxes and delivery containers in the same pair of sweatpants over and over. She took days off work, for the first time ever, and when she went back in, she was a shadow of her former self, smiling like an automaton, yet nobody there noticed. With this fresh perspective on the scene, Becka realized how shallow her interactions were. She may be one of the golden goddesses of clubland but it was lonesome up there on the pedestal.

  Becka thought about grad school. About changing her job. About geometry. She didn’t look in the mirror much lately, and she didn’t try to read the lines of ink on her torso like Braille any more. She didn’t do much of anything for those long, miserable weeks.

  Eventually, her friends had enough. Jerome called Mick, and Mick dragged the normally belligerent Karen along to Becka’s apartment. They brought air fresheners, garbage bags, and a salad. Jerome brought a bottle of Bacardi. All three of them turned up outside Becka’s door one afternoon, banging away and shouting at her from her talk-show induced stupor. She peeked through the peephole, even though she recognized their voices instantly, and considered pretending she was out until she heard Jerome grumble through the thick wooden door:

  “We know you’re there, and we don’t care how pasty and gross you look. I can smell you from here.”

  And for a split second, Becka smiled, the first expression beyond a pained grimace she’d managed in all that time. She opened the door, and like particles filling a vacuum, her friends swarmed in, even Karen, who beyond the confines of the tattoo parlor was more than capable of dropping her scowl. The sight of her holding Mick’s hand, her assorted rings and bracelets chiming, their casual intimacy… it made Becka want to cry. And worse, she remembered how things like that used to make her sneer and scoff with derision. Love is for cowards, she’d proclaim to anyone listening, for the wimps, ugly, and dull. She realized all those times she’d simply been describing herself, or her worst fears for herself.

  Mick noticed Becka wiping off a tear as he swept arm-loads of detritus from the surfaces, while Karen and Jerome together tackled the clearly two-person job of fixing a round of Bacardi, lime, and sodas. He left the two tattooed freaks to argue the finer points of lime wedges vs slices and sat himself down beside his friend. Rumpling her caramel-colored hair, he didn’t make a face when he felt its greasy lankness. He wiped a tear from Becka’s face and sighed while he rocked her gently.

  “You party girls are really shitty at this stuff, huh?” he coaxed in a voice he normally reserved for dealing with children and dogs. �
�Come on Becka, is this really the first time you’ve been in love? You’re used to have all these men at your feet every day.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just thought I was… you know, tougher… than anyone else because I never let anyone close.”

  “You didn’t! You were the queen of never letting anyone close!” Jerome trilled merrily as he rammed a mason jar of foaming cocktail in his hands like it was succor for a bombed-out family in the blitz, and Becka received it in that spirit.

  “Yeah, well, I guess I realized there wasn’t anyone who was worth it. I just liked all those guys because I wanted to feel hot and admired, but there was never any love.”

  “Well, now that you know what it’s like, I guess you’ve got a couple of choices,” Karen said. She sat down in the armchair opposite Becka and crossed her illustrated legs under her miniskirt, resting her chin on her palm and cradling her cocktail in the other like some punk psychologist. “You can either make a resolution to heed your parents’ warnings. Or you can say ‘screw it’ and just do the nice, safe, casual flirty thing you’ve been enjoying up until now. Or, and this is my personal recommendation, girlfriend: you could get your god damn tattoo finished and talk to Fitz like a god damn adult.” She nodded resolutely and took a long drink, then leaned back and let loose an extravagant ‘ahhhhh’ of satisfaction.

  Mick raised an eyebrow at her and sighed, receiving a playful slap on the knee for his trouble. Becka wanted to weep again, but instead Mick started talking. “Karen may be a bit glib about it, Becks, but she’s right. Those are pretty much your three choices, and whatever you want to do, we’ll help you do it.”

  “Hear hear!” Jerome interjected saucily.

  “Not that kind of help, Jere. Not more going out till you pass out. I mean we’ll help you talk to Fitz, or your dad, or we’ll help you find a new job, or whatever it is you decide needs to change after this. But one thing is for sure: you are too bright, too sweet, and way too cute not to bounce back from this. He’s just one guy, and you will meet more of them in your life, trust me.”