The Wright Brother

by Marie Hall

  Lifting herself up the wall, instead of using the ladder, she climbed out of the pool and walked to her chair.

  She’d forgotten to bring a towel, but the sun was out and there was a nice breeze. Putting her sandals back on and grabbing her phone and ear buds, she looked around for Christian or Roman, but both of the guys were doing their own things and she didn’t want to seem like a clingy crybaby.

  She didn’t see Julian at all.

  Which was fine.

  Really.

  She’d seen him and she’d not become a blubbering mess; she’d passed her first test admirably and was rather proud of herself when she decided to go take a stroll through the maze.

  Nobody seemed to care as she left, no one called her name to tell her to come back, and even though she was surrounded by countless people, she no longer craved attention.

  Elisa just wanted to be alone for a little while. Tucking her wet hair behind her ear, she walked over to the white wooden garden door and pushed it open. It really was a maze. A massive, green wall of ivy, like the kind you’d see in a romantic drama movie.

  Glad she’d decided to come out after all, she walked inside and put her music in her ears, humming “House of the Rising Sun” softly beneath her breath.

  How had Julian figured out how to play?

  Silly, random, nonsensical question, and yet she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since the day she’d seen him banging his drum kit in his garage. He wasn’t like Tommy Lee good, but he was good.

  Elisa shook her head. Why was she thinking about Julian? Why couldn’t she just stop thinking about him for like a second? Just one freaking second of her life, was that too much to ask?

  Purposefully making her thoughts go blank, she shoved everything out of there except the rhythm of the music. This was her time, and by God she was going to enjoy it, even if it killed her.

  She took twist after twist, getting hopelessly turned around, but eventually she’d find her way out. If not, the boys would just have to send search and rescue to find her.

  Hopefully they were hot.

  She snorted and took another turn before stopping dead in her tracks. The music had helped to mask the sounds of a fight.

  Julian was gesturing furiously at Mandy, who was screeching and stomping her foot.

  Pretty sure that whatever kind of issues they were having should be private, she made to turn around, and it was just at that moment that Mandy noticed her.

  “You little shit!” she yelled, and it wasn’t at Julian.

  Taking her buds out of her ears, she shook her head. “What? Are you talking to me?”

  Planting her hands on her hips, she snarled. She might have said something else, but Julian grabbed her and shook his head hard, his glare hot on her face.

  Her already pale face seemed to drain of color, and giving him a violent shove to his shoulder, she turned and ran past Elisa. Forcing her to plaster herself against the wall of ivy so that Mandy didn’t bump into her.

  For such a little thing, the girl was fast, and she was gone in a blink.

  Snapping her mouth shut, heart banging so hard in her chest Elisa didn’t know what to do. They stared at one another for an awkward silent minute.

  “Sorry,” she signed. “I’ll go.”

  “No.” He held out his hand and his brows furrowed. “Stay.”

  She wanted to go. Desperately. Her legs felt shaky, her toes tingly to move, to run away as fast as Mandy had, and yet she might as well have been a chunk of concrete for how fast she moved.

  “What do you want?” she asked him vocally, dropping her hands to her sides. Signing just felt too intimate with him now.

  He walked up to her, his steps measured and slow, as though he were approaching a wild animal caught in a snare.

  And she did feel like one.

  She was a riot of emotions. Anger. Desperation. Desire. Fury. Want.

  Elisa flexed her fingers.

  “We should talk,” he signed to her.

  She snorted, and suddenly everything she’d bottled away just came pouring out of her. “We should talk? Yeah, let’s talk, Julian. Let’s talk about the way you bailed on me. How about that? Or how about that letter, because yeah”—she hated that her eyes were getting hot and that soon he’d see her crying; it was the last thing in the world she’d ever wanted him to see—“that was awesome.”

  She clenched her jaw, turning her face to the side.

  Elisa wanted to bite his fingers off when he touched the side of her jaw, nudging her to turn her eyes back his way, she batted his hand away. But Julian was persistent.

  “What?” she snapped, tossing her hands up in surrender. “What do you want from me?”

  “You, Smile Girl. I screwed up. I thought I knew what I was doing—”

  Knowing he’d understand her better if she signed, she moved her fingers with purpose. “Have you told her? Did you tell her what happened that night between us, huh? Because you owe her that much. I told Tom. I broke it off with him. Did you know that?” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. Everything came pouring out of her, everything she’d sworn she’d never share with him, never tell him, she told him now. “And not for you either, Julian. But because he deserved better than what I did to him. He loved me and I—”

  He grabbed her hands and brought them to his chest. And even through the thin layer of cotton she felt his heat, felt the electricity of his body. When she inhaled, she smelled his soap and mint. This was her Julian. Her passion and her anguish, it was all rolled up into this one man.

  Elisa wanted to shove him away, wanted to kick him, wanted to scream at him, even while her body ached for his. No one had ever made her feel the way he did.

  She was breathless and terrified, like standing on the edge of a tall cliff, knowing the fall would kill her but excited by the thrill of adrenaline that would come before it.

  Those sea-green eyes of his shaded by long black lashes stared down at her with the same type of longing and intensity that raged inside of her.

  Finally, it was Julian who let her go.

  “I thought I could do it, Smile Girl. I thought I could, but I can’t. I just can’t. I came home and I told Mandy that day.”

  She frowned. “You told her?”

  He nodded. “I tried to dump her. Because she wasn’t you. It just didn’t feel right anymore. But she wouldn’t let me. She said that if she wasn’t willing to let me go, then I couldn’t just leave her that way. So I stayed, I tried, because you’re right, she deserved better than what I’d done, but it’s been fake and she knows it.”

  Where before the beating of the sun had felt inviting, now she felt scalded by it. Too hot. She wanted to get away from here, from him. From this.

  “I love you,” he signed.

  “No.”

  “Es,” he croaked, and stepped in closer to her, so close that his chest brushed hers, breathing in her air, and making her feel like she was a fish on dry land, gasping for breath.

  His hands slid down her waist, his touch gentle but firm. Possessive and wonderful and she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. She felt his fingers speak to her.

  “Love you.” He whispered it over and over. “Love you so much. Only you, only you.”

  And then he claimed her lips, taking her with a fierceness that only Julian could. She was so lost to his touch, crying into him even as she wrapped her leg around his, as she plastered herself to him. Every fracture, every tear that she’d worked for months to mend ripped open. As his tongue slipped along side hers, she remembered the days in her bed after the note.

  When his legs spread and she felt the thickness of him brush against her aching center, she remembered the weeks she’d spent talking late into the night with Chastity about how she was sure she’d never be able to forget him, that no could ever compare. That it was all her fault because if she’d only been honest from the beginning…

  And when his hands massaged her breasts, she remembered hersel
f bent over that toilet and heaving, gasping for breath as the reality of just how much she actually did love him had seized her by the throat. She’d given Julian all of herself and he’d left without a word, and even though she’d done it once too, she’d had valid reasons, but when he’d done it, it hadn’t felt so valid. She hadn’t felt okay with it. Her soul had been devastated and the truth of it was, she still wasn’t okay.

  “No,” she snapped, shoving him back. “No. I can’t do this again, Julian, I don’t think I’ll survive it.”

  He reached for her, but she was done. They were over. So over.

  Elisa ran.

  It took her over an hour to find her way out of that damned maze, by the time she did the worst of the tears were over. She didn’t say a word to either Christian or Roman, and she was so grateful that even though her nose was red and her eyes puffy, neither one of them had asked.

  And when Julian and her had climbed into the bed of the truck and Mandy was nowhere to be found, neither one of acted like anything was wrong.

  When she got home and didn’t say goodbye, neither of them made her feel bad about it, either.

  And when she refused to come out of her room for the next three weeks, even her parents had seemed to understand.

  No matter what she had to do, or how long it took, Elisa would get over him. There was simply no choice in the matter.

  Chapter 10

  “Elisa, you have a week left before you go back to school, would you please get out of the house?”

  Her mother’s tone was more than exasperated—it was worried. Which bothered her. She didn’t want to make her parents worry.

  “Mom, please, just tell them I don’t want to go to the movies.”

  Crossing her slippered feet and leaning against the doorframe, Elizabeth Adrian gave Elisa the look.

  The one that’d always made her squirm when she was a little girl. The pinched lips, raised brow, and the one pointer finger that tapped, tapped, tapped across her freckled bicep.

  Elisa squirmed on her bed, hugging a pillow to her middle.

  “We’ve been patient, Elisa Jane. More than patient, really. We’ve not asked you what’s going on, but I know that it has something to do with those Wright boys and if you don’t tell me right now what it is I’m going to march my butt over to that house and ask Lori what’s going on.”

  Intelligent brown eyes glared at Elisa.

  “Mom, please,” she moaned. “It’s nothing, okay.”

  She scoffed. “Yeah, and I’ve got ocean-front property in Arizona. You think I don’t know my own daughter by now? You’ve been moping from the moment you got here. And, oddly enough, Lori tells me that Julian has been too. In fact, he refuses to come out of his house.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Yes, now I think you see where this is going. How long?”

  “What?” She gave a stuttery, nervous chuckle. “Are you talking about?”

  Impossible as it was, her mother’s lips pinched even tighter. “Do not play me for a fool, young lady. Now I want to know what’s happened between the two of you.”

  She opened her mouth and then promptly snapped it shut. Her mother knew. There was no way she didn’t know. She might not know the particulars, but her asking was merely her method of getting Elisa to confess what she already suspected.

  Elizabeth sighed, pushed off the doorjamb, and made her way over to the edge of Elisa’s bed, before sitting down. “Baby, what happened?”

  What hadn’t happened, really? That was probably the more appropriate question. She doubted her mother wanted to know about her sex life, and besides, that was private anyway.

  She shook her head.

  “He told you he loves you.”

  She frowned.

  “Oh, come on, Elisa. I’m no fool. I’ve seen the way that boy has looked at you, well, worshipped you really.” She snickered. “Ever since he was just a baby in diapers. So what happened? You turned him down?”

  Obviously her mother didn’t know everything.

  “No, I didn’t turn him down.”

  Her pencil thin brow shot into her forehead. “Oh. And did you…” She cleared her throat, and then did something with her fingers that Elisa was pretty sure was a horrible pantomime of them having sex.

  “Mom!” She tossed a pillow at her as her face heated crimson.

  It took Elizabeth a second to gather herself, by the time she did, she was shaking her head and chuckling beneath her breath. “My baby has finally turned into a woman.”

  “Mom, oh my God, please, I’ll leave this room if you keep it up.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She held up her hands and tried very hard to wipe the smile off her face, but she did a poor job of it.

  “You don’t seem disgusted by it.” Elisa picked at a loose thread on another pillow. A heart-shaped one—well, really more of a blob—she’d been forced to sew at her grandma’s house one summer, and this lumpy monstrosity was the end result.

  “Disgusted? By love? Are you insane?”

  “Who said anything about love?” She wrinkled her nose even as her heart pounded from the truth of those words.

  “Oh, baby girl, only love could make someone as depressed as you are right now. That boy is crazy for you—”

  She snorted. “Crazy for me. Yeah. He left me, Mom. Wrote me a Dear John letter and stuck it on my dresser. Told me that it could never happen.”

  “Hm.” She placed a hand to her chin. “I mean, I’m super curious when in the hell this could have happened, since as far as I know you two haven’t been alone since you’ve gotten home. You haven’t been sneaking that boy into your room at night, have you?”

  “Mom, please get serious. No, I haven’t done that. And it happened while I was at college.”

  “Ahh.” She nodded. “Well, that certainly explains a lot.”

  “Like what?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Like why you were so adamant about not coming home this past Christmas.”

  Cringing, Elisa glanced down at her socked, pinstriped foot.

  Elizabeth tipped her chin up. “Elisa, I don’t know why he said what he did. But I know that boy, almost as well as I know you. And the advice I’m giving you now, I wouldn’t give you with anybody else. Not even Rome or Chris, God bless ‘em but those two are trouble with a capital T.”

  She clenched her jaw, feeling as though she might cry. Which, how that was even possible anymore was beyond her—it seemed like the past year she could have filled the Saint John River with her tears alone.

  “Baby, he loves you. He’s just young. And sometimes when you’re young, you’re stupid. But in his case, I really feel that he was trying to put you first.”

  She scoffed. “How in the world is breaking my heart putting me first?”

  “Honey.” Her look turned serious. “I don’t know how long you two have been, well, you know.” She shook her head. “And the truth is, I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway, but you’re two years and five months older than him. He only turned eighteen in December. He was still in high school. You in college. What do you honestly think he could have done?”

  That had been almost verbatim her reasoning for staying away from him all those years. It was like her mother was throwing her words back in her face and she didn’t like it at all.

  “Two and a half years is nothing when you’re thirty and twenty-eight, but it’s an enormous divide when you’re fifteen and eighteen.”

  Dropping her right leg to the floor, she bopped it up and down nervously. “I see him now, Mom, and it’s like I don’t know who I am. Like I’m two different people. I love him so much, and yet I hate him.”

  “You don’t hate him.” She touched Elisa’s chin.

  “Then what do I feel?” she snapped, knuckling her left eye and sniffing. “Because it sure feels like hate.”

  “Love. The same kind of frustrating love I’ve felt for your father over twenty years now. Love isn’t perfect,
it isn’t always beautiful, and most times it just flat out hurts like hell. But if you’re lucky enough to find someone to share in that level of pain with you, then you should count yourself a lucky girl.”

  She laughed, even as a tear spilled out of her eye. “Only you would equate love with pain.”

  Giving her daughter a warm hug, Elizabeth patted her knee. “You have to face this, Elisa, and just be open to whatever happens. Julian might be Mr. Right, or he might only be Mr. Right Now, or Mr. Not At All. But either way, locking yourself away in your room like this, it’s not healthy. Live your life, baby girl, and let time do its thing.”

  Wrapping her arms around her knees, she gave her mother a weak smile as she made her way to the bedroom door.

  “What movie did they want to see?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Elizabeth shrugged airily. “Knowing them, probably some cheesy action flick.”

  “Oh yay.” She rolled her eyes.

  “So can I let them know that you’re in?”

  Why had she avoided telling her mother for so long? The pain was still there, but now with it in perspective, she could see what she needed to do.

  “Yeah, I’m in.”

  It was Julian who came and knocked at her door later that evening. He was actually wearing some color tonight. Instead of the usual blacks and grays he typically wore, he was dressed in dark blue jeans and a hunter-green ringer tee that made his sea-green eyes seem almost electric.

  It took everything she had just to swallow.

  His hands were in his pocket as he jerked his chin toward the truck, where Christian and Roman already sat waiting.

  Waving goodbye to her parents, she grabbed her shell-pink cardigan off the wall hook and was just about to slip it on when Julian took it from her and helped get her into it.

  Then very gently, he lifted the hair that’d gotten caught beneath her collar and freed it loose. Just that simple touch made her skin tingle and warm with a rush of blood.

  “Thank you,” she whispered it to him.

  He nodded, as if he’d heard her, then turned and headed for the truck.