Friends with Benefits

by Amy Brent

  Emma had walked outside to pick up the newspaper and was looking right at me.

  I got out of my car while she slowly backtracked. I hopped up onto the sidewalk as I saw her turn her back. She ran for the door as I strode after her, my entire body beckoning for her to just stay put. The door slammed in my face as I got up to it, and I immediately began banging my fist against it.

  “Emma, please open up.”

  “No,” she said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “Please, Emma. Please just give me one last chance.”

  “You’ve had enough chances, you sleazebag.”

  She was irate. I could hear it in her voice. I continued knocking on the door, hoping my incessant pandering would make her open up. Like calling Sarah repeatedly until she would finally answer her phone for me. I knocked until my fist was sore, and then I simply switched hands.

  My sister hadn’t given up on me, and now was my chance to show her I wasn’t giving up on her.

  “I could do this all day, Emma.”

  “Just like you could do my best friend?”

  She ripped the door open and connected her heated gaze with mine, and for the first time in my entire life, I had no idea what to say.

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Please? Just to talk.”

  “What do you not understand about the word no?” she asked.

  “Everything about it,” I said.

  “Now I see what Sarah was talking about,” she said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “She said you kept bothering her even when she ignored your calls and told you no. I’m starting to realize what she was talking about.”

  She turned away from the door but didn’t shut it in my face. I walked into her home and breathed in the scent of apples and oranges as I shut the door behind me. Emma had planted herself on the couch before letting out a massive sigh, and I saw that she was watching the news.

  The news that kept flashing that fucking photograph of Sarah and me.

  “You can’t be upset with Sarah,” I said.

  “You don’t get to lie to me, hurt me, deceive me, and then tell me how I feel,” she said.

  “It was my idea to keep this from you. Not hers,” I said.

  “Lie number … hell, I don’t even know at this point. I’ve already talked to Sarah. I know it was her idea. Her suggestion. Thanks for not trying hard enough to talk her out of it,” she said.

  “Emma, we didn’t know. When we first started this whole thing, we didn’t know that her best friend and my half-sister were the same person. I’m serious.”

  “And when you did find out, you decided to hide it from me and play coy all Wednesday night. I feel like such an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot, Emma. We’re the idiots,” I said.

  “You’re damn straight you are. I don’t like the fact that you two are together.”

  “And why not?” I asked.

  “Because you’re sleazy. Always have been.”

  “You hardly know me,” I said. “Something I’m trying to change, by the way.”

  “What? Me not knowing you or the sleaziness?” she asked.

  “Both,” I guess.

  “So, you admit you’re sleazy?”

  “Yes. No. Emma, come on. This is nuts. Sarah’s been through enough. I’ve been through enough. We’re sorry.”

  “Sarah’s got her own shit to deal with without you coming into the picture and messing her up further.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Emma, what are you talking about? What’s happened with Sarah?”

  “What the fuck do you care?” she asked.

  “Because I do!”

  I yelled louder than I ever intended to, and it scared Emma right off her couch. Her eyes were wide and filling with tears as I clenched my fists. I could feel my entire body trembling as I stood there in the middle of her home. What had happened to Sarah? Was she all right?

  “You’ll have to ask her if you want to know,” Emma said breathlessly. “I may be pissed at her, but I’d never betray her like that. Ever.”

  “I just want you to forgive me, Emma. I want to try and get to know my sister a little bit,” I said.

  “And a few days ago, I was all for it, but now that I understand you’re still capable of lying and deceiving me, that comes with a condition.”

  “Emma, don’t.”

  “You want to get to know me? You make up with Mom,” she said.

  “Emma, that’s not happening,” I said.

  “Then you don’t get me.”

  “Come on. This is nuts.”

  “This entire thing is nuts. The only person in my life I ever truly trusted lied to me about dating when I told her it was a shit idea when it turns out the person she’s screwing is my sleazebag, lying sack of shit brother who’s broken my heart more times than I could imagine. And then, I had to find out by seeing a photo plastered of the two of them about to suck face in a restaurant parking lot.”

  “That photo was obtained illegally, and maybe if you supported Sarah in her need to step out and find some sort of companionship so she doesn’t feel so alone, she wouldn’t feel the need to keep it from you,” I exclaimed.

  Emma was panting for breath as tears poured over the surface of her cheeks. My fists were clenching so hard I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms. I stood rooted in place, determined to hash this thing out with Emma. I didn’t care if she wanted a relationship with me anymore. I wasn’t going to allow her to throw her relationship away with Sarah over this.

  Not because of me.

  “Sh-she’s lonely?” Emma asked.

  “More than you could ever imagine,” I said. “She’ll never say it. She’ll never admit to weakness because of her pride. But she is. We-we both are. Were. I don’t know anymore.”

  I turned my back and raked my hand through my hair. I had no idea how to piece this back together anymore. All I could do was offer up the only truth I knew.

  My own.

  “I’ll get over things with Sarah,” she said. “I just get to be mad about it for a while. But you. You need to see Mom.”

  “I’m not fucking seeing that woman,” I said.

  “Well, you should.”

  “And why’s that?” I asked as I spun around.

  “Because she has cancer.”

  The word hit me like a ton of bricks. Cancer?

  My mother had cancer?

  “Is she?”

  “She’s not dying. Not yet, anyway. It’s her second battle with it,” Emma said.

  “Her second?”

  “Yeah. First, it was breast cancer a few years back. Now it’s liver.”

  “She has liver cancer,” I said.

  “She does. You should go see her. It’s been years, Mason. And I’ve watched the wonderful woman who raised me tear herself to pieces over whatever it was that happened between you two.”

  “She left,” I said.

  “She did. Did she ever tell you why?”

  “No. She wouldn’t even take my fucking calls,” I said.

  “Why don’t you come with me? You can ask her,” she said.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I said.

  “Then grow a pair of balls and meet me at my car. I’ll drive us.”

  I stood there in the hallway of her townhome for what seemed like ages before I drew in a deep breath. I straightened up my coat before I turned and walked out the door, heading for Emma’s Jeep as I shut the door behind me. The drive to her childhood home was long and winding. I had no idea what town we were in or how far away from Dallas we were, but by the time we pulled up into the driveway of a modest two-story home, I could see the tears twinkling in Emma’s eyes again.

  “Just brace yourself,” she said as she parked the car.

  Without another word, we headed into the house
. A dog came rushing to my feet, sniffing at my shoes and jumping up onto my leg. Emma scooped the dog up and held it close as we walked all the way to the back of the house, bypassing a pristine kitchen that didn’t look like it’d been used in years.

  We walked out onto a screen porch where a frail woman was sitting in a rocking chair, but even with her stringy hair and her protruding shoulder blades, I recognized her.

  Her scent.

  Her presence.

  It was my mother, and she was withering away.

  “Hey, Mom,” Emma said as she crouched down beside her. “How’re you doing today?”

  “Better than most,” she said weakly. “Not sleeping as much, so I’m getting to enjoy the view of the backyard.”

  It was littered with trees and flowers and butterflies. Her backyard was alive with health and beauty and colors. It was as if someone had dropped a secret gateway to Eden in her backyard, and I stood in awe of it as Emma looked up at me.

  “I brought someone to see you,” Emma said.

  “Oh, really? Please tell me it’s a handsome male friend of yours. You’ve been alone for far too long, pining over that asshole you can’t seem to let go.”

  I smiled at my mother’s statement. She was always so full of fire and determination. Even in her frail state, her tongue spoke thunderous words of truth I couldn’t help but side with.

  “She’s right,” I said as I walked up to her. “You’ve been pining over that loser for far too long.”

  I heard her suck in a sharp bout of air as I walked around to face her.

  “Hey there, Mom.”

  Her eyes looked up at me. Eyes I saw in the mirror every time I looked at myself in the morning. Tears fell from her face as her jaw began to quiver, and I crouched down in front of her, so I could take her hand and bring it to my lips. She was cold. And clammy. Every bone in her body could be seen and her veins protruded from underneath her skin. I closed my eyes as she cupped my cheek, a tear slipping out and tumbling over her skin.

  How I’d missed the touch of my own mother.

  “My sweet boy,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, my sweet, beautiful boy.”

  “Why did you leave, Mom?” I asked. “Why did you not come back for me?”

  I raised my eyes to hers as another tear slipped from my gaze. Both of her hands cupped my cheeks, brushing the tears away I’d refused to cry for so many years. I’d hated her. I’d hated everything about her. Everything in my life was fueled by my hatred for this woman that was withering away right before my very eyes.

  And yet her stare boasted of a strength I’d only ever seen in one other person.

  Sarah.

  Sarah reminded me of my mother.

  “I loved your father so much,” she said.

  “Then why’d you leave, Mom?” I asked.

  “Because love isn’t all it takes to make a marriage work,” she said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A marriage takes commitment. Dedication. Patience. Perseverance. It takes compromise to a point where you no longer believe you could compromise any more of yourself. It takes a will to want to make things work. It takes a dedication that is sometimes blinded by the very rage you have toward the person you claim to love. Mason, it takes more than love to make a marriage work. And your father and I, we didn’t have it.”

  “Then why didn’t you take me with you? Why didn’t you talk to me? Or come back to see me?” I asked.

  “You wouldn’t take my calls. You were so angry, and I couldn’t blame you. You were settled into your schools, and you had your friends already established. You were a thriving sixteen-year-old boy. I couldn’t yank you from your life like that. Stick you in another school halfway through your high school career. What kind of mother would that have made me?” she asked.

  “Why didn’t you pick up the phone whenever I called? Why didn’t you call me back?” I asked.

  “Did your father not tell you?” she asked.

  “Tell me what?”

  “The agreement between us was to split all of your costs down the middle. Fifty-fifty. The only job I could find was working third shift in a factory. I couldn’t ever call at a decent hour, so I took to writing you letters. Did you not get my letters?”

  “No. I-I never got any letters,” I said.

  “Well, your father’s never been perfect,” she said as she dropped her hands.

  “You wrote me letters?” I asked.

  “Every morning after I got off work. I’d get them in the mail before I went to bed to sleep before my next shift.”

  My mind was spinning. All this time, I thought my mother had abandoned me. I thought she hated me, that she didn’t want me. I thought she left because of something I’d done and wanted nothing to do with me. But all this time, she was just a woman in a marriage that wasn’t working. A woman who wanted to spread her wings but couldn’t.

  “Why didn’t I get your letters?” I asked.

  “I suppose your father probably has them. He was so angry with me leaving. He wanted me to stay, but he didn’t want to do anything to make it work. He didn’t believe in therapy or re-dating or any of the other things I suggested,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom,” I said.

  “It’s not your fault. It never was your fault. I could’ve done more. I could’ve come by more to see you. But I knew it would spark arguments with your father, and I didn’t want you to see us fighting. I never wanted you to see any of the hurt we’d caused one another over the years,” she said.

  “I get it, Mom. I get it. It’s all right, okay?”

  I took her hands within mine and brought them to my lips again. I stood up and wrapped my arms around her, pulling this frail woman close to my chest. She cried for me, and I cried for her, setting free the emotions we’d kept back for so many years. But even as we cried and even as she stood to hold me in her weakened arms, Emma’s words kept chanting in the back of my mind.

  She’s got her own shit to deal with.

  I needed to know what was going on with Sarah. I needed to know what was crumbling my strong, beautiful counterpart. I helped my mother back down into her chair and gave her a kiss on her cheek, and the words that came flowing from her mouth were startling.

  “Whoever she is, that’s where you need to go next.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I may not be the best at many things, but I know when I see someone in love. Whoever she is, that’s where you need to go now.”

  I stood there, rooted to my place as Emma darted her head over to me. At once, all the foreign emotions I’d been feeling slowly slipped into place. My need to be around Sarah. My incessant pandering to try and find what hooked me to her. The ecstasy I felt buried between her legs. The pull to always be around her. To always know what’s on her mind. This desperation to know what was plaguing her.

  I was in love with Sarah Williams.

  I walked back into the house while Emma talked to our mother. I used my mother’s phone to call Sarah, hoping she would pick up. It didn’t shock me when she didn’t.

  Did she have my mom’s number? May be she was busy…or hurt…or unwell…

  Even though, we made an agreement to have some space from one another for a couple days, I needed to talk with her.

  I needed to see her.

  I needed to tell her everything.

  “I can take you into town,” Emma said.

  “I just need you to take me back to my car,” I said.

  Emma raced us back over to her townhome, and I immediately jumped into my car. She was bombarding me with questions, but I didn’t have time to answer any of them. I flew down the road heading back into Dallas as I reached back for my phone. I ignored all of Tony’s missed calls and messages and tried getting Sarah on the phone again, but all it did was continue to ring. I pulled up behind her apartment complex and slipped in when someone slipped out, rushing up the steps to get to her floor.

  Soon, I found myself
banging on her door like I had Emma’s.

  “Sarah, open up. We need to talk.”

  I listened for anything. Any sound or any grunt that might tell me she was there. I started banging again, trying desperately to get her to open up as my heart flooded my body with nerves and adrenaline.

  I needed to see her now.

  “Sarah, please! Come on, open up.”

  But still, no one came to the door.

  I kicked it, frustrated at the position I had now been put in. The one woman I wanted to see, the one woman I wanted to wrap my arms around, was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t taking my calls, she wasn’t answering her door, and I had no idea where the fuck to go next.

  I stood there with my heart in my hands, and I had no one to give it to.

  Chapter 31

  Sarah

  I should’ve opened the damn door. I sat there in my room, listening to him bang down my door, and I just should’ve opened it. We had an agreement, right? An agreement to take some time away from one another. He said he would follow my lead, and I trusted that. I trusted that he would stay away, no matter how hard it was.

  But he sounded so desperate, and I almost caved.