Warning Signs (Broken Promises #2)

by Alexandra Moore

  Brenna, I will always love you. But I cannot forgive myself for how I have hurt you more than I have hurt myself, or Ben. I am sorry, and I’m afraid an apology isn’t enough. I hope with my passing, you’ll learn to forgive me. Please, forgive me.

  Love,

  Mom

  When I was done reading through the letter, I noticed that tears had begun to splotch the pages I had read, and it caused the ink to bleed. I tore up the letter, and without thinking I began to scream. Screaming was what I did best. Screaming made the pain go away, but it wasn’t enough. I screamed as I tore up her rosary and prayer cards. I screamed as I broke picture frames with happy faces that no longer existed. I screamed as I threw plates on the ground and I screamed as I fell to the broken pieces on the cold, cluttered floor. Ben didn’t come down. No one came for me this time.

  “I hate you! I hate you, you fucking bitch!” I screamed.

  I was hoping my mother would hear it, because it was meant for her. I repeatedly screamed this until my lungs gave out and Ben came downstairs to see the chaos I sat in and which I had created. He sat with me and pulled me into his chest as I screamed.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  I wished I could believe his words. In that moment, I chose to believe that he really knew. Because somewhere in his past, I’m sure he knew how horrible our mother could be. He never knew all the things she had done to me. At the same time, I never knew all of what she had done to my brother. So allowing him to console me was the best thing I could get in that moment, because in that moment I had never felt so alone and broken. Maybe he knew that, and maybe that’s why he was consoling me despite his own brokenness. We were broken together, and for once we lived on the same page.

  ***

  Sitting in the new therapist’s office, I was missing the fake Monet painting that my last therapist had. It was only a distraction, and in this office there were self-help books and canvases with inspirational quotes. For the record, none of it was inspirational. It pissed me off.

  “How do you feel now about your mother’s death? On top of everything else you’re going through?” my therapist asked.

  It was a new therapist, and this was only the second time I had seen her. The first time I saw her was the worst. I had to tell her everything in under an hour. I cried, hiccupped, and ranted through the whole thing. Now she was following up, and I was unsure of what to tell her.

  “Honestly, I want to move past it.”

  “How do you move past something you haven’t dealt with?”

  “I don’t know how to deal with my mother’s death. She’s been dead to me for a long time.”

  “But now it’s real. Now she’s somewhere rotting in the ground, and you’ll never see her again. How does that make you feel?”

  “Fucking great, actually.” I laughed until I began to cry.

  “How do you really feel about your mother?”

  “I hate her so much. She says she loved me in that damn letter but never once did she say that to my face.”

  “Does that make you angry?”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t it make you angry? What if you’ve spent your entire life trying to make it out alive with this mother who is barely alive herself, who never once bats an eye at you and half the time doesn’t even know who you are? When she does, she hates your guts. She makes it clear she doesn’t love you. Suddenly, she’s all in the clear now. She says she loves you and offs herself. How would that make you feel?”

  A timer beeped, and with a sigh my therapist said, “Time is up. I’ll see you Thursday.”

  ***

  When I got home to Ben’s, I tried to hide in the safety of my room. But nothing was safe. I could hear him crying, and I couldn’t let him cry alone. I went to him, and I sat down next to him. I placed a comforting hand on his back and tried my best to console him the way he had so often consoled me.

  “What am I going to do?” he asked out of nowhere.

  “About what?”

  “About all this shit I’ve created. I don’t know whether or not it’s a mistake or—”

  “Don’t think it’s a mistake. If it was a mistake, you would be crawling back to everyone and everyone would be crawling back to you.” He looked up to me as if he was surprised by my words.

  “An era of our lives has ended. For you it was Eden Sank. For me, I’m not sure what ended. It feels like everything has ended for me. If it wasn’t meant to be over and done with, we’d be right back where we were before, acting as if none of this nonsense has happened.”

  “How did you get so wise?” he asked me with a small laugh.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to wise up, Benjamin.” We started to laugh, only to shed a few tears together. Everything we had known was ending right before our eyes. We were no longer children, but adults in the real world where every move we made could cost us something we could never repay.

  “Ben, I’m sorry for being such a bitch,” I cried out, sobbing onto his shoulder.

  “Bea, if you weren’t such a bitch all the time I’d be worried.” He chuckled. “It’s who you are. It’s how you show you care even though you’re pretty adamant about proving you don’t care.”

  I laughed and wiped my tears.

  “Why don’t we go do something?” he asked me.

  “Like what?”

  “People watch.”

  Before he could finish his pitch I was running upstairs to change into clothes that wouldn’t attract much attention as well as a hat and sunglasses. When I reunited with my brother, he had covered his tattoos and wore his famous aviator sunglasses over his perfectly coifed hair.

  “Ready?” he asked, extending his hand.

  “You bet.” I grabbed his hand, and we went out into town and watched everyone watching us. We picked out a few strangers and tried to imagine what they were like and who we would try to ask out for a date. When we were least expecting it, a guy smiled at my brother and came up to our table and began a conversation that seemed like it would never end. By the time they realized how well things were going, I had given the guy Ben’s number and said, “Call him sometime so you two can keep this up.”

  I grabbed Ben and dragged him off in a fit of giggles.

  “Did you seriously hook me up with someone?” he asked on the ride home.

  “No, you did all the work. I just followed through and gave him your number.”

  We laughed as if our mother hadn’t really died, and for a moment everything was okay. But when we were back inside the still silence of our house, we both realized we were alone again.

  “Goodnight, Ben.”

  “Goodnight, Frances.”

  I went up to my room and he retired to his office. We were both where we needed to be, but neither of us were entirely happy. In the middle of the night, I heard my door open while I was trying to sleep.

  “Who is there?” I asked anxiously.

  “Sorry, it’s just me.” It was Splinter.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I thought you would be up.”

  I groaned and shook my head. “I’m up now.” Patting a spot on the empty side of my bed, I allowed him to crawl in next to me.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He wrapped his arm around me, and I let him keep it where it was. I didn’t care if we snuggled up or not; all I wanted was to feel less alone. With him near me, I didn’t feel so alone anymore. With no words to share between us, falling asleep had become easier.

  When I woke up the next morning and saw him still sleeping next to me, I couldn’t remember why I had such trouble staying asleep before he came in. All I could think of was how he came and everything melted away. Maybe he was someone who could make things go away for me. I didn’t know what that meant. I moved closer to Splinter, and when his grip on me tightened, I felt secure and instantly fell back to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wit
h my mother’s death came snow. I had moved back to Hartford because Ben said he needed time alone, and Splinter had left to go do something job related. I was worried for both of them, but I hadn’t had the time to worry for myself. Barely checking my phone through the last four weeks, I hadn’t realized how many messages had been waiting for my attention. Some were from Lia, which should have been horrible enough, then I saw messages from Professor Long. Fear was another chord that had been struck inside of me, reverberating constantly as I read through the messy thread of text messages and angry voicemails he had left. I didn’t know what to do. He had been released on good behavior, but that wasn’t going to stop him from finding me. I no longer had Roscoe because I couldn’t take him to Ben’s while I stayed there, and no one wanted to watch over a dog that wouldn’t stop whining for me. I wished he were still here. I needed the comfort only he could give me.

  I was afraid, and that was truly an understatement. I was frozen with the thought of Professor Long trying to inflict real harm on me again, and even more so with what Lia wanted with me. I had no one to trust, and no one to save me. I had to find a way to save myself.

  ***

  My birthday was around the corner, and Christmas would follow. Having a birthday so close to Christmas (Christmas Eve more specifically) was hell. Everything was adorned with peppermints, candy canes, reindeer and Santa Claus. Ben used to use it as an excuse to spoil me when he could, but now that we were older I wasn’t expecting much. When he asked me to come over to help wrap gifts, I decided getting away from the house wouldn’t be so bad. Especially if it meant I would see Ben. I hadn’t seen him properly since we returned from our mother’s funeral. We both had our own grieving process, and it made us realize that we couldn’t endure everything together like we once believed. Bundled up in a peacoat, heavy cotton knit leggings, leather boots that went up to my knees and a chunky knit scarf around my neck, I used my spare key to get into Ben’s house. The lights were dimmed, and I was worried that maybe I had misread the time. I knew he wouldn’t mind me coming a bit early. Though in the silence, I was rightfully terrified when I heard a cough in the dark.

  Suddenly the lights turned on, and I saw Ben, Splinter, Grayson, Lydia and their daughter Olivia, Rian and a few other recognizable faces jumping out at me, yelling with excitement: “Surprise!” Surprised indeed. I was so surprised that I had a panic attack. Splinter quickly rushed to my aid, and when he told everyone to go on as if nothing had happened, he was able to calm me down and we eventually laughed it off.

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t expecting this,” I told him as we drank punch and ate cake.

  “I’m glad. It was meant to be a surprise.”

  I cackled and punched him in the arm. “I know that. But I hate surprises.”

  “Well, hopefully one day you’ll learn to appreciate them.”

  Rolling my eyes, I greeted each person who came to say hello and exchanged gifts with me. I loved everything I got (especially since none of it was Christmas themed) and I realized that for once I was having fun, and I didn’t think anything bad was waiting to happen. Everything was right in the world for tonight.

  As the night began to slow down from the influx of activity, I decided that I needed a bit of fresh air and some alone time. So when no one was looking I snuck up to my room to give myself a much-needed breather. When Splinter came in, he didn’t startle me. I knew he had been following me around like a lost puppy.

  “What are you thinking about, Bea?” he asked me.

  “Nothing for once. Why have you been following me around?” I asked, turning to look at him as I played with my uneven hair.

  “Because I worry about you.” A soft smile crept up on my lips. “You worry because you think I can’t take care of myself.”

  “No, I know you can take care of yourself. I worry because you’re a danger magnet. C’mon, we both know it’s true. We might as well laugh about it while we still can.”

  “I saw on the news that that guy was released from jail, the one who attacked you.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since I last checked my phone. He’s been trying to contact me since his release.”

  “Beatrice Morrison!”

  I actually cringed when he used my full name. “Geez, don’t freak out. He has no clue where I am.”

  “Yeah, for now. Just wait. He’s going to try something again!”

  “Yeah and if he does, what are you going to do about it?”

  Splinter was silent.

  “We can’t stop him even if we tried. I have to be careful and that’s it.”

  “You’re not the careful type.”

  “I can be.”

  “You wouldn’t like it.”

  Snorting like a pig, I shook my head. “No, I wouldn’t, but it’d be much easier if I had someone to be careful with me.”

  “What if you had someone who was willing to live carefully with you?”

  I looked up at him and for a moment I saw something that looked like his true intention in his eyes. Before I could stop him, someone interrupted by giving Splinter the phone. His eyes lit up with excitement until he looked at me.

  “That’s…wonderful. Will I have time to think it over? I have some things I need to consider…”

  I hung my head, knowing very well the things he had to consider. He had to consider living a life on the go, with cameras and giving out autographs, or a life where he could be quiet and careful. When he hung up, I tried to hide my tears.

  “I know what you’re going to say, but let me say something first.” I always knew he liked me. It took a while, but I knew. Sometimes, girls knew when someone was admiring them from afar. “Is traveling the world playing music your dream?”

  “My dream is…”

  “Say it. Say music is your dream, and that you’ll give it up as long as you can be with me to keep me happy and living carefully.”

  “Bea, I—”

  “I’m not stupid, Splinter. I knew. I’ve known this whole time how you felt. I don’t know how I feel. All I know is that you’re my best friend and I can’t allow you to give up your dream for me. I’m not worth it.”

  He rushed to me, because I was unable to stop crying. “Come with me then.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Move in with me. Live with me and know when I come home it’ll be to you.”

  “Splinter, I can’t. I went through that once, and I refuse to do it again. Because one day you may not come home; one day you may change your mind and I will have to put my pieces together all over again.”

  He kissed me without fear, and it was filled with something I had never felt before. It wasn’t scary. The thought of him leaving was scary though. The thought of him giving up his dream was scary. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. But instead of logically thinking about what came next, I crossed a line both Splinter and I had been waiting to cross. Kissing him made me feel like I was at home. Soon enough, we didn’t have any clothes on, and as we became tangled up in one another on the bed it became all too easy to forget everything we had been discussing before. Sex was easy, but sex with him was entirely different. I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to figure it out. Because in that moment, all I wanted to think of was his lips on mine, our bare skin touching and pure carnal pleasure.

  ***

  We lay in bed for the longest time, with no concern about the party happening down below. Mind you, I think everyone knew what we had done. Neither of us really cared. Splinter’s hand and his legs were intertwined with mine and we were both tangled up in the sheets of my bed. I had never once felt so whole as I did in that moment. But now it was gone, and we had to face reality. He had a choice to make, and so did I. Was the possibility of our relationship worth the possibility of either of us giving up what we wanted? His dreams, my security…one of us would be giving these things up in order to be with the
other. Was it truly worth the risk? I couldn’t be sure. I never really was. Splinter was the one who wanted to continue to lie in one another’s arms, but I was the one who untangled myself from him and got dressed.

  “We need to be careful,” I warned him.

  “Why? We’re allowed to make our own choices.”

  Somehow, this triggered a flashback to Everett. The first day in a thousand days since I had seen him he said something similar to me; it was a warning sign. This was a florescent warning sign that kept flashing in my eyes as I looked to him, and it read:

  HE WILL DIE. HE WILL LEAVE YOU.

  YOU WILL RUIN HIM. LET HIM GO.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to fight this feeling I knew all too well. But as I saw the flashbacks of Everett and how quickly our happiness turned into my grief, I knew I couldn’t allow the same thing to happen twice. I knew when to take a hint, so I did what I had to do. Pretending that my smile was because I was happy and pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek I envisioned myself letting him go as I said, “You’re right. We should go downstairs. Okay?”

  He didn’t argue with me as he got redressed.

  I tried to keep my breathing at a normal pace, because I could feel everything falling apart. Mackynsie, Everett, my mother; everyone I had invested myself into had been taken from me. I felt like I was spinning out of control. The party around me was still raging on, and I had to act as if my heart wasn’t breaking apart piece by piece inside my chest. I knew my choice was clearer now than ever. I had to find a way to let Splinter go. I had to let him go, otherwise he’d turn into Everett, or Mackynsie, or my mother. He’d become another tombstone, another burial, and another person I loved who was stolen from me. I had to let him go. I had to allow myself to be free of him, and let him be free of me.