by Amy Faye
Her body cried out in protest, but she forced it on until her lover let go with his hands completely and wrapped his arms around her chest, pulling her in tight and pressing a kiss against her neck. She could feel him stiffen and hold himself still, and knew exactly what it meant.
Her body started to cool down from the adrenaline rush that she'd subjected it to, and everything started to come back into focus the way it always did when she came down from the high of an orgasm. She rolled herself off, laying on her back, sweat glistening on her skin and making the entire room feel uncomfortably humid.
"Brett?"
He heaved a few deep breaths before he responded. She enjoyed the way that he looked after, the tiredness that made all of his muscles relax, and yet somehow only accentuated them.
"What's up?"
"We need to talk."
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his chest still heaving with the fatigue of all the physical activity that they'd just done.
"Okay, sure. What's up? You look a little–"
She didn't need him to finish his sentence to know what he was thinking. She looked a little bit upset, and she was upset. She'd thought that she was smarter than this.
Ten years ago, she'd seen the writing on the wall. More than that. Twelve. There wasn't going to be anything between them. Now it had been ten years. More than that, even. She'd forgotten that lesson that she'd learned all the way back in high school. She'd let herself start pretending, and if anything ought to have been a wake-up call, it was Dad coming back.
But apparently it hadn't been enough. She forced her face to straighten in spite of the doubts that were surging through her. She had to be firm about this, and clear about it.
"We can't keep doing this."
His face twisted into a kind of halfway smirk, one that said that they'd already had this conversation. One that said that after they had the conversation, she'd come to him and hadn't exactly said no to getting something started again.
"I'm serious, Brett. I'm not going to be some kind of–" She stopped talking and stood up, pulling her clothes back on instead of finishing her thought. He could figure out how she was going to end it on her own, she thought. He was a smart guy.
"Some kind of what?" She allowed him a look back, weighing the expression on his face. She didn't like the way that he seemed stung by the very idea of… of whatever it was that she was suggesting.
"You're my brother," she said simply. "I'm not an idiot, you've got a life. Hell, I've got a life myself, if you could call it that."
He looked like he wasn't sure what part to respond to first.
"Hey, I'm sure you nailed that audition, babe," was where he decided to go. Her face softened, and for an instant she thought that she might be able to figure out… something. Then she decided to live in the real world.
"But be real, here. We're not going to get married, and even if we wanted to, it's not exactly an option. So it's just temporary. I don't want to live with that, Brett. I'm not going to be satisfied with some temporary thing, and you're too smart and too good a catch to be satisfied with it either."
She finished buttoning her shirt, halfway expecting that he'd have something to say. Something that would talk her out of walking away. She didn't let herself hope, but it seemed so typical for him if he did. Then she walked out and tried to forget that any of it had ever happened.
If it had worked once, then it would work again. It had to.
2005
Dani had a look on her face that said that she wasn't sure about any of this, and if she was being honest, Amy wasn't too sure that she could disagree with her little sister. Or, whatever Dani was to her. 'Little sister' still felt strange even after two years.
Being away had only made it that much stranger–she imagined that this must be what Brett felt like, but it was even stranger for her, since there were two people coming back, two people for Helen to fuss over. At least, it was supposed to be two people.
Dani's expression was sour, but Amy couldn't imagine that it was that much more sour than her own must be. It was lucky she hadn't thrown something out the window. Her jaw tightened and untightened again, like she was chewing on her own frustration. It did little to make the feeling go away.
She'd always suspected that he was dating someone, or that he would, or that he was thinking about it, or that he was just fucking floozies on the side. Having him bring one around, though, was an entirely different thing. Different enough that she hadn't even considered it.
She tried to keep her face pulled into a smile, but she suspected that it was a rictus grin–closer to a grimace than a smile, and if anyone thought to look closer than a casual glance, they would see right through it. Well, if she could hide her anger, then she would have done it already. She hadn't because she couldn't. She wasn't sure whether or not she hoped Brett knew that.
He leaned in and said something to 'Sam' too quietly to hear. She turned very slightly and nodded. Whether it was agreement, or acceptance, or what, wasn't clear. What was clear was that they didn't want her to hear.
Dani, for her part, was sour for entirely different reasons. Her brother might have been part of the problem, but Sam wasn't. Dani liked Sam–more than she seemed to have ever liked Amy. She tolerated Amy. Sam, on the other hand, was quiet and sweet and friendly and everything Amy couldn't be even if she tried.
Dani seemed to like those things. What she didn't like was the same thing that she hadn't liked for the past three Christmases. There was a right way to do things, she said–and there was a wrong way, as well.
Getting a gift the night before? Wrong way. How dare Dad and Helen let her pick out a present to get early! That it was a tradition for Dad generations back, while Helen didn't care one way or the other, didn't seem to factor in.
Amy's smile–if she was willing to call it a smile, even to herself–slipped a little at that thought. She forced it back on even if it was going to kill her, and at that rate it just might. She wasn't going to ruin Christmas for anyone.
Helen filled her wine glass, and Amy said nothing. Dad took the bottle from her and filled it himself. He didn't drink, not often. Apparently not never, either. That was a surprise. She couldn't think of a time that he had. There were a lot of times that Amy couldn't think of, but she couldn't think of one time that he'd drank a drop of alcohol.
She wondered whether that meant he was doing better or doing worse. Maybe something was wrong. Something upsetting him. But maybe she was being paranoid, for that matter. There wasn't any reason to just assume that. He'd been a single parent for as long as she'd known him. That had to be a challenge, and not one that let him loosen up.
She clicked her teeth together. That was it, had to be. She re-tightened her smile. Well, if Dani was going to make a big deal out of it, then Amy wasn't exactly going to start something. But she didn't say anything. Dani guessed that maybe the entire fight had already happened, before any of them arrived.
Who knows. Maybe that was the reason that everyone seemed to be in a down mood. Whatever it was, though, it was like an oily stain on the entire night, and one that everyone was trying to ignore.
"So, Sam, uh–" Helen raised her eyebrows and seemed to be trying to decide whether or not to continue. Whatever she did decide, she spoke again a moment later. "What are you studying?"
She blinked and stared like she hadn't thought about being asked. Like she had to summon up an answer out of the ether only now.
"I'm studying, uh, sports medicine." She rubbed at her palm and only barely managed to look up, as if it cost her a great deal of energy. Staring at her cost Amy no energy at all. It only cost a great deal of something else, and she'd already decided to pay the cost, no matter how dear it turned out to be.
And so, with Dani frowning and Helen and Dad drinking until their cheeks started to redden, and Brett hanging his arm around a perfectly shy tramp, there was a deep silence.
"Amy's still not sure what she's going to do," Helen offere
d. "Did you have some moment when, I don't know, you 'knew?'"
Amy clicked her teeth again, trying to calm herself. It worked about as well as anything else she'd tried–not well. But she did it in spite of its lack of effect, because the alternative was to make a fool of herself in front of some floozy girl.
Sam looked up at her without turning her head up, through her heavy gray-dyed bangs. Maybe under different circumstances, the two of them could have gotten along, but they weren't going to in this life. Amy resisted the temptation to touch her own hair at the thought, currently colored a bright, emerald green. Then she shrugged.
"I used to be a figure skater," she said. Her voice was soft, but in the awkward silence of the morning, no one could have avoided hearing her. "I mean, I was never going to the Olympics, so I figured… it was a good fit."
"But not any more?" Amy was surprised to hear herself speaking. She'd already decided to ignore the conversation as best she could. But apparently she'd changed her mind.
"Figure skating?" The gray-haired girl, who couldn't have been a day older than Amy, spoke slowly. Thoughtfully, almost. It was like she was the exact opposite of her. Then, a minute later, like she'd been waiting for an answer that didn't come, she shook her head. "Not any more. Expensive, and there's no future in it for me."
Brett piped up as if he were being helpful, though his face didn't have any light in it. "She does still go out on the ice sometimes, though."
Amy thought she saw Sam wince, but if she did, it was subtle. "For fun," she agreed.
Amy took a deep breath as the room went quiet again, and she was left to her own devices. Some small voice in the back of her mind whispered that she ought to do something to lighten the mood, or get something started. She knew for a fact that they had a Trivial Pursuit box in the closet, and somewhere in the garage, they had Clue, Monopoly, and Risk. Something.
But she didn't. She said nothing, sat back with her forced smile and tried to keep it there. Helen set her glass aside. It wasn't quite empty, but she'd managed to make decent headway in the twenty slow minutes or so since she'd refilled it. By the end of the night she'd have it finished. That was if she didn't make sure to keep it topped up.
"Well, does anyone want to do presents?"
Amy was feeling sour enough that she watched close, hoping for some wobble as Helen rose, but there wasn't any, and she felt guilty for wishing. She leaned down at the waist; Amy thought she imagined Sam wincing again.
"What do you want, Dani?"
Dani sniffed angrily. If she wanted anything, then it wasn't clear what it was. Helen picked something up and walked it over, apparently deciding for Dani. It was her daughter–Amy couldn't exactly complain, could she?
Dani took the present and looked at it dubiously, rapping her fingers on the hard cardboard sides. A box, apparently. In spite of the decidedly un-Christmas-y mood, Amy could feel the old urge that she'd always had as a little girl, trying to figure out what things were.
Her head hurt thinking about it. As a kid, everything was a surprise. Where she was supposed to find surprises now, she didn't know. Something told her that there was something wrong with the way she looked at things, but she didn't have an answer.
Her chest heaved as they waited. Danielle still looked like she was thinking of leading the revolution of 'Christmas presents can only be opened on Christmas morning,' eyeing the brightly-wrapped box in her lap with distinct doubt. But finally she seemed to decide to play along. Maybe she thought that she was doing all of them a favor. Maybe she was right.
She tore the wrapping slowly, and Amy watched with at least as much curious as Dani seemed to be showing. A black box, smallish and square. Then she tore the rest of the way and Amy thought she saw an iPod on the front of the box; Dani turned it too quickly to see for sure. Amy couldn't help smiling a little, recalling her own mp3 player. She hadn't gotten one that young. Didn't have any when she was 11.
The youngest girl in the room looked at it quietly, her expression unreadable. Helen finally decided to speak up. "Do you like it?"
She chewed her lip as she looked up, her eyebrows furrowed together like she wasn't sure about something. "Thank you" was all she said, but the way that she said it sounded like she meant it. Almost like she was having trouble keeping herself together. Amy decided not to think about it.
"Of course," Helen said. Her smile was sweeter than Amy thought she was capable of, and she pulled Dani into a hug that lasted a minute or so, and then looked around the room with that same sweet smile. "Who's next?"
Brett spoke for nearly the first time since supper. "I have something."
Dad looked at Helen, who shrugged. "Sure."
He reached back and grabbed something from the floor beside the love seat, and then he was across the room in two long strides and putting it into her hands.
22
Brett
Present Day
Brett's eyes hurt. Badly, if he were being honest, but dealing with the pain meant that honesty was the last thing on his mind. It would be easier the less honest that he was. The truth was that he felt like someone had punched him right in the eye, but he couldn't have said it to anyone.
He rubbed them, then forced himself to stop, the whole time regretting staying up late. A little voice inside him, one he couldn't quite bring himself to quash, reminded him gently that it wasn't exactly like he'd chosen to stay up.
Amy left the room. It was going to happen eventually; she wasn't going to sleep in his bed. And she was right about all of it, too. He'd let himself think of it as something more permanent than it was, and regardless of what he said, he suspected, he'd continue to think of it that way.
But when he rose and switched off the lights, padding back across the room to his bed, he couldn't help but feel as if there was something more to it. A thought that he couldn't put his finger on, almost more like a feeling.
Every time he'd thought that sleep might finally be within reach, that thought was there to claw at the recesses of his mind, as if he might have left the door unlocked, or might have forgotten to answer an important email.
He knew it was her, that he was worried about her and how she was feeling. But what he didn't know was how he was supposed to deal with it. He'd already dealt with this once, and the answer was to ignore it. This time it didn't work, and whatever he was going to do to get around that, he didn't fucking know.
That would get fixed eventually. Somehow or other. What wasn't going to get fixed was Jerry staying in his second guest bed. There was no need to have one, and until now he'd never used it. But there was no other use for it, and an architect staying in a studio apartment looked bad. Like you didn't know your own business. The money was there for the house, and the house had the room, so he had two guest beds.
But what he didn't have was a way to get rid of a step-father that he'd barely known his entire life. He frowned and rubbed his eyes again, stopped slowly for the red light. He looked over at Jerry with a sidelong look that wasn't supposed to be noticed.
"Nice place," he said. His voice was almost bored. Brett wondered what was running through his head, but he wasn't stupid enough to ask. Whatever it was, he seemed like he was just waiting for his chance to tell Brett all about it.
If he had some way he wanted the conversation to go, then Brett wasn't going to press him, particularly not on the road. Particularly not today. Particularly not after getting barely five minutes of sleep the night before.
Jerry coughed. It was forced and sounded about as unnatural as anything, but Brett kept his eyes on the road, fatigue dragging him down. Where the hell was this place supposed to be? He cursed himself silently for never going into downtown Detroit.
For that matter, how did he have such a hard time getting out there, when he lived in the area, when Amy hadn't complained one bit? He cocked his jaw off to one side, driving with tired eyes scanning the sides of the street as best he could, all while keeping his eyes focused ahead enough to see the red lig
hts of an impending accident come on soon enough to avert disaster.
It was in the midst of stopping for some asshole up ahead who thought he was going to make a light, that Brett's eyes caught something that said 'Orchestra.' That time, he did curse out loud. His eyes flicked naturally, helplessly over to Jerry, who thankfully made no sign of making any response. He was chewing on whatever the hell he was thinking about.
"Missed my turn," he said anyways, by way of explanation. It might have been easier to use his phone to navigate, but he didn't have one of those phone holders, and he didn't know how Jerry would feel about him fussing with a phone, even if it were only at red lights.
Again, Jerry made no sign that he was even listening. His expression had changed from contemplation to one of vague frustration, maybe even anger. Brett forced his eyes back on the road. He went past the road and took a right, hoping that he could get a convenient turn around without too much complication. Finally, as he jammed the nose of his car into a spot that barely seemed large enough, Jerry decided he was ready to speak.
"So, you and Amy getting along?"
Brett's eyes moved over reflexively. He tried to play it off as if he were just looking at the road. "Sure."
Brett thought he saw Jerry's eyes move over for an instant, but he had the road to watch, not just his step-dad's expressions.
At least, that was what he told himself. There was a surprising amount of attention that he could afford to pay to his step-father's expression, as it turned out. Even with his eyes burning and his entire body sore from tiredness, a tiredness so deep that he was surprised he could keep both hands on the wheel, his mind suddenly filled with wondering what kind of question that had been–small talk? Something more? His blood pressure suddenly spiked.
