Sin With Me (Bad Habit)

by J. T. Geissinger

  He pauses. “Just a totally uneducated guess because I don’t know the guy, but your boy doesn’t seem the type for a Madonna-whore hang-up, and he doesn’t seem confused about which gender he prefers. So my money’s on guilt.”

  “I was asking about you, not him!”

  His tone turns dry. “Sure you were. Because you know how often I tell women I want to fuck that I’d like to be friends to get to know them better first.”

  “Couldn’t he just be being a gentleman?”

  Marcus pauses before answering. “That was a joke, right?”

  I’m hit with a memory. In the hospital on Valentine’s Day as we were all waiting for Chloe to have the baby, listening to Nico ask Brody about the stop he’d said he made on the way to the hospital, and watching Brody squirm over the answer.

  Strange. It was strange.

  But this whole friends first proposal of his only happened after the condo situation. He was gung ho for me before. Wasn’t he? Or did I sense some ambivalence before that?

  I can’t recall.

  “You’re not talking, Grace. It scares me when you’re not talking.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “I know. That’s what scares me.”

  Flanked by a pair of towering palm trees, the large iron gate that opens to the driveway to Brody’s guest house appears around the curve in the highway ahead. “Marcus, I have to go. But thank you. You’ve given me something to think about.”

  “More thinking,” he mutters. “Poor Brody.”

  “Hey! Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, lady. Always yours. You know where to find me if you need a friend.”

  Before he hangs up on me, he adds, “A friend who’ll never have guilt about fucking you, by the way. Something to keep in mind.”

  When I pull into the driveway and turn off the car, I’m surprised to see rows of white votive candles flickering down both sides of the pathway that lead to the front door of the house. Brody must have lit them in anticipation of my arrival.

  How sweet, I think, only to hear Marcus in my head shouting, Guilty!

  “Shut up, Marcus,” I mutter. I grab as many bags as I can from the backseat and head inside.

  The front door is unlocked. More votive candles line the baseboards in the foyer, bathing the walls in a warm, romantic glow. “Hello?” I call out.

  No answer.

  I drop the bags on the floor and head into the living room, where the pathway of votives leads. They flare out and surround the large L-shaped leather sofa and glass coffee table in a circle.

  On the coffee table are two wrapped presents, tied with red bows.

  I’m touched. It’s obvious Brody put a lot of thought and care into this. I glance around, expecting him to be peeking around a corner, watching me with that roguish grin, but I’m alone. I sit on the sofa and tear into the first gift.

  It’s a Polaroid camera.

  “I haven’t seen one of these in years,” I muse, balling up the wrapping paper and tossing it aside. My first thought is that Brody must want to take pictures of me naked, without leaving digital files on his phone. Celebrities get their private email and phone accounts hacked all the time.

  This is smart of him. I approve.

  When I open the other gift I understand what the camera is really for.

  It’s a large, rectangular book, bound in brown leather, thick with creamy parchment pages. Embossed in fancy cursive script on the front cover are the words “Making Beautiful Memories.”

  It’s a scrapbook.

  A memory book.

  For me.

  With trembling hands, I open the cover and flip to the first page.

  In gold stickers attached to the top of the page are the words “A Look Back.” A cutout newspaper story about me opening my practice in the famous Two Rodeo building in Beverly Hills is glued to the page, along with my black-and-white photo, fierce and unsmiling at twenty-five, that accompanied the article.

  I wrinkle my nose. I always thought that picture made me look like Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. There isn’t any life in my eyes.

  Next to the article is a picture of my graduating class at Stanford. It must be a printout from the internet. There’s a URL in the white part in the upper left corner.

  I look at my scowling self, third from the left in the second row. “Jesus,” I whisper. “Did you even know how to smile?”

  I trace my finger over the grainy picture of my face, one of nearly identical hundreds in cap and gown. The commencement ceremony was held outdoors in the stadium on a blisteringly hot Sunday in May. I was sweating and unhappy in that black polyester gown. I got a sunburn that made my nose peel for weeks. Unlike my classmates, none of my family attended the ceremony.

  The dead aren’t really good for that kind of thing.

  After the ceremony I went straight back to my apartment and finished packing for my move to L.A. I left that night and never looked back. I didn’t keep in touch with any of my classmates. I didn’t leave a forwarding address. I haven’t thought about college since.

  That ruthless lack of sentimentality I developed after the accident has served me well.

  Until now.

  I flip to the next page.

  More gold stickers at the top of the page declare “Besties Forever!” Beneath is a collage of photos of Kat, Chloe, and me, taken in various places over the years. The pictures are cut in different whimsical shapes: hearts, ovals, squares with scalloped edges.

  He must have asked the girls for these. When? I pull my lips between my teeth and blink hard several times.

  On the next page is a single picture of Brody. It’s a selfie. A Polaroid. He’s lying in bed, smiling gently, his eyes heartbreakingly soft. The gold stickers at the top of the page are what finally cause the water in my eyes to crest my lower lids and slide down my cheeks.

  They read “My Knight in Shining Denim.”

  His eyes in this picture . . . it’s all right there in his eyes.

  The rest of the pages in the book are blank. The Polaroid camera is already loaded with film, ready to make more beautiful memories for me.

  Bowing my head, I hug the book tightly to my chest. I’ve never received a gift like this, one so full of hope and kindness. One so full of love.

  I don’t know how long I sit there like that before my phone chimes with an incoming text. I swipe at my eyes with my fingertips, set the book carefully on the coffee table, and retrieve my phone from my handbag where I left it near the door.

  It’s a text from Brody.

  Magda asked if you’re coming over here for dinner or if she should bring it over there. What voodoo magic spell have you cast, Slick?? The woman hates everyone but you’ve got her waiting on you hand and foot. I must know your secret.

  I text back. What happened to our date? Wining and dining? Picking me up in your car?

  His reply is swift. You try telling Magda you’re going to a restaurant after she made a seventeen-course meal.

  I smile. It’s so adorable that he’s this big shot rock star but his life is run by his ironfisted housekeeper.

  I approve of this, too. Every man needs a strong woman to keep him in line, no matter how powerful he is.

  I text him that I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Then I change into a dress I bought this afternoon, a sexy green sleeveless number with a belted waist and a flowy skirt that hits just above my knees, and head over to the main house.

  By the time I get there, I’m shivering with cold. February at the beach is different than February in the city. I should’ve bought a jacket today. Item number four thousand to go on the to-buy list.

  When Brody opens the front door, my eyes devour him. He’s more dressed up than I’ve seen him, with the exception of Kat and Nico’s wedding. He’s in a fitted pale gray button-down shirt, open at the throat to reveal his golden skin and rolled halfway up his forearms, a pair of beautifully cut charcoal-gray slacks, and black leather dress sh
oes. His normally air-dried and finger-combed hair is damp, slicked back from his face, perfectly neat. Contrasting these polished details are the hint of tattoo peeking from below the second button of his shirt, the small silver earring in his ear, and that leather cuff he likes to wear around his wrist in lieu of a watch.

  He looks partly like a king of Wall Street, and partly like a bad boy with a dominant streak.

  In other words, panty-melting hot.

  The first thing he says is, “You don’t have to ring my doorbell, Grace. Just walk in.” He reaches for me, pulls me over the threshold, and takes me into his arms. “You’re freezing cold!”

  Shivering, I burrow against the heat of his chest. “I know. I forgot to buy a coat today.”

  Brody closes the door behind us with a kick of his foot. Rubbing his hands up and down my bare, goose-pimpled arms to warm them, he grins down at me, eying my dress. “I see you went shopping. Nice.”

  Smiling, I wind my arms around his neck. “You’ll think it’s even nicer when you see what’s underneath.”

  His green eyes bright, he raises his brows. “I can hardly wait,” he murmurs. Then he looks at my face more closely. “Are you okay?”

  My smile wavers. I whisper, “Radical honesty?”

  Tension invades his body. His arms tighten around me. “Yes. Always. What’s wrong?”

  I hide my face in his neck. “The present you got me . . .”

  “You didn’t like it?” He sounds devastated, which makes my heart throb.

  “I loved it. Brody, it’s amazing. I’ve never had anyone do something like that for me. It’s so . . . romantic. It’s so you.”

  He exhales a relieved breath. After a moment he says, “I didn’t do anything majorly stalkerish for the first part, I just searched your name on the internet to see what I could find to include about your past. There wasn’t much except the pic from your graduating class at Stanford and that newspaper article.”

  When I don’t respond, because there’s a very good reason there’s not much to be found about me on the internet, Brody continues.

  “I got the idea from the movie The Notebook. I started a journal, too. I’m calling it ‘The Story of Us.’” His voice falters, gets quieter. “In case, you know. There comes a time when I have to remind you who I am.”

  Fuck.

  I keep my eyes closed, my face pressed to Brody’s neck, and just breathe.

  “Hey,” he whispers, kissing my temple.

  “I’m okay,” I lie. Then I blow out a hard breath and tell the truth. “Actually, Brody, I’m not okay.” I lift my head and stare into his eyes. “I’m terrified.”

  His gaze burning into mine, he cradles my face in his hands. “Sweetheart. Why?”

  I can’t find the right words. I stare at him for a moment, my heart pounding, my stomach in knots, until finally I do the only thing I can think of to make him understand.

  I take his hand and press it flat over my chest so he can feel the chaos inside. “Because of this. Because I’ve never felt this. Because before you I had nothing to lose.”

  With a soft groan, he takes my face in his hands again and kisses me. It’s hard and desperate, a kiss like a promise. A kiss like a vow, which his next words repeat.

  “I’m never gonna hurt you, Grace. Never. I swear to you. All I want to do is spend every day making you happy.”

  “And if something happens with my memory?” I ask, searching his face.

  “You said you could wake up one day and not remember me.”

  He says it like a statement, but there’s a question behind it. I nod, waiting for the rest.

  “Have you had any problems since your accident with losing new memories?”

  “No,” I admit. “But the doctors told me I could—”

  “But you haven’t,” he interrupts firmly. “And I’ve been thinking. When was the last time you saw a doctor about your memory?”

  “Ten years,” I answer immediately. I remember the exact date.

  Brody repeats slowly, “Ten years. You know what? It’s time to get another opinion.”

  I shake my head, wanting him to understand how little hope there is. “Nothing will have changed—”

  “Or maybe everything will have. Maybe there’s new technology. Maybe there’s even something that could be done to help with regaining your old memories. A decade is a long time in the medical world, Grace. A decade is forever.”

  He makes it sound so reasonable. He makes it sound so possible. He makes it sound like it could be a storybook ending, that my knight in shining denim will be able to make everything right inside my head when no other force in the universe has been able to up to now.

  But he’s trying. He’s hoping. He’s not giving up, which is more than I can say for myself.

  I gaze at him in wonder. “How are you so perfect? How do you not have one single flaw I can find?”

  Darkness crosses his face. It’s like a curtain being drawn across a window, or a storm cloud passing over the sun. In a voice I’ve never heard him use, a terrible voice choked with self-loathing and regret, Brody says, “I have flaws. I just haven’t told you what they are yet.”

  Something about those words makes me go stone cold. My thoughts fly back to the day in the hospital, to the strange way he acted when Nico asked what had delayed him, his odd, shifting gaze and red face.

  My pulse picking up its pace, I say, “If we’re really practicing radical honesty, now would be a good time to prove it.”

  Briefly, his eyes close. When they open again they’re filled with darkness to match his voice. “Which do you want to hear first? The worst, or the least worst?”

  “The worst,” I demand, pulling away so I can get a better look at his expression.

  Brody stares at me in silence so long I think he might not answer at all. But finally, in a harsh, bitter whisper, he says, “I’m a coward.”

  Everything inside me rebels against this judgment. “No. That’s not true. That’s not true at all.”

  A muscle in his jaw flexes. He swallows, hard. His eyes shine like he has a fever. With horror I realize it’s because they’re full of tears.

  I touch his face. He looks away, ashamed.

  “Brody. I want you to tell me what you mean.”

  He closes his eyes and inhales a deep breath through his nose. His hands drift to my shoulders. He gives them a squeeze. “I will. I promise I will. Just . . . not tonight. I want tonight to be about you, not about me.”

  “You said you didn’t have any secrets!”

  His headshake is full of sorrow, like his eyes when he opens them again and focuses his gaze on my face. “Not like you meant. I don’t have a secret life, illegitimate kids, a hidden drug problem, any of that. But . . . I . . .”

  He trails off. This is excruciating for him to talk about, that much is obvious. Which makes my curiosity and my growing panic all the worse.

  Blinking rapidly, he takes another breath. “I once did something, when I was very young. Something stupid.”

  My relief is huge, like a wave of water breaking over me. “Oh, Brody,” I whisper. “Everyone did stupid shit when they were young.”

  “Not like this.”

  The way he says that, the flat, absolute certainty of it, convinces me that he believes whatever he did is unpardonable. I can also tell he’s punished himself for it a thousand times over, in a thousand different ways.

  Guilty, whispers Marcus inside my head.

  I say slowly, “Okay. We’ll talk about this later, when you’re ready. But I do have one question for you now.”

  Brody stands in tense silence, watching me, waiting.

  “Are you sorry?”

  He answers without hesitation, his voice breaking over the words. “Every minute of every day.”

  He’s telling me the truth. It’s in every tortured look, every tremor in his body, every telling crack in his voice.

  I frame his face in my hands. Deliberately, looking deep into his eyes,
I say, “Then I forgive you.”

  He stops breathing. His face drains of color. He stammers, “W-what?”

  “Life goes on, Brody. We can’t take back mistakes we’ve made, we can only try to do better in the future. If there’s a way to make reparations, we do, but if there’s not, the only thing to be done is to learn and walk forward with new understanding, new kindness, new humility, and try to do good. All we can do is try our best to be good. If you’re doing that, then no matter what might have happened in the past, you’re a good person. Nothing is unforgiveable if you’re truly sorry. Let your sins be your teachers instead of the cross you hang yourself on.”

  I gently kiss his lips. His eyes are fierce with unshed tears.

  I whisper, “Whatever you did, it’s past. It’s done. You’re sorry, and you’re a good person, and I forgive you.”

  A sob breaks from Brody’s chest. Shaking, he sinks to his knees, wraps his arms around my thighs, and hides his face in my dress. Shoulders shaking, he starts to cry.

  For a moment I’m stunned speechless, frozen in shock. Whatever it is that’s been gnawing at his conscience, he’s been holding it in for so long, hating himself for so long, that the simple act of hearing me say it’s okay has literally brought him to his knees.

  I’m flooded with emotion. My hands shake with it. I rest them on his shoulders, unsure what to do, and stand witness as he cries his guilt out at my feet, washing his soul clean.

  Dinner is eaten almost entirely in silence.

  Brody and I sit side by side, holding hands under the dining room table, both of us too wrung out yet simultaneously wound too taut to speak. Magda serves us, moving with quiet efficiency to bring courses and clear plates. Her gaze darts between us, taking in our state of fragility, two naked, frightened creatures washed up on unfamiliar shores.

  Brody drinks too much wine. He’s pale, sweaty, disheveled, looking like he just fell off a cliff and smashed every bone in his body.