Hearts Under Siege

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed in a loud whisper, glancing down the hallway before coming in and grabbing his arm. “Get out of here.”

  “What?” But Brady let her pull him down the hall into the bedroom they were sharing, the one with his and Chris’s old twin beds. His parents were letting Chris and Jessica use the double bed in the guest room, and Brady fought a surge of jealousy, thinking about it.

  “Will you get a grip?” Molly let go of him and shut the door. “I can’t believe you.”

  “What?” he said again, but he knew she wouldn’t let him get away with it. She’d known him since kindergarten, grew up in his back yard, almost literally, as their houses had backed up on each other. She’d known when he spiked the punch at Chris’s high school graduation party, and when he’d lied to the head cheerleader, telling her he was the starting running back for the homecoming game so she’d go to the dance with him. Hell, she’d known all the way back in third grade that he hadn’t done his homework because he’d been catching frogs in the creek down the street. And she hadn’t needed evidence or first-hand knowledge to catch him in his lies. She just knew him that well.

  Still. He wasn’t going to come out and tell her what was going on with him. Someday she’d be wrong. Why not today?

  “She’s Christopher’s,” she accused.

  Okay, not today. He flopped onto his bed, arms out-flung, and wondered when the throb in his chest would go away. “I know she is.”

  “Then why did I find you about to dive into her unmentionables?” She stepped up onto her own bed and sank down, cross-legged, clutching a pillow on her lap. It was a familiar pose, and it eased something in him. He didn’t know why.

  “I wasn’t,” he protested half-heartedly.

  “You were thinking about it.”

  He said nothing. The ceiling had no cracks. Not like their old house. But there were brush strokes in the paint. He concentrated on finding patterns.

  Molly sighed. “She’s way out of your league, dude. Even if she weren’t taken. By your brother. Whom you worship.”

  “I don’t worship him.” That was true, at least. He had, of course, when they were little. Okay, not so little. But once Chris had gone off to college, Brady got a taste of being out of his shadow, and finally realized he wasn’t less than his brother. He had talent on the football field—maybe not enough to start, like Chris had since freshman year, but enough. He got good grades and was his class salutatorian, something Chris had missed out on. His mother had said he’d found himself, and in doing so, he’d been able to see his brother as just a guy. They’d had a much better relationship in the last few years because of it.

  But this…

  “If Chris finds you ogling his girlfriend,” Molly started, and Brady cut her off with a slice of his hand.

  “I’m not going to ogle her.” He felt her tension subside and should have left it at that, but his mouth kept going. “She deserves more respect than that.”

  “Brady!” Molly slammed the pillow beside her and scrambled off the bed to loom over him, hands on hips. “She’s not available! Do you seriously want to screw up your entire life over someone you met an hour ago?”

  “No.” But maybe he didn’t have to screw everything up. Maybe he could—

  “Stop it!” She slapped his forehead.

  “Ow!” He glowered at her, rubbing the sting away.

  “Seriously, Brady, get her out of your head. What the hell are you thinking?”

  He sighed and rolled his head so he was staring at the ceiling again, not her accusing, piercing blue eyes. “I can’t help it,” he admitted. “She hit me. Right here.” He pressed the heel of his right hand against his breastbone. “The instant I saw her. Just like Dad when he saw Mom. It was—”

  “Don’t say it.” But her tone was softer, more understanding. She sat on the bed next to his hip and took his hand onto her lap. “Oh, Brady. You know this will end badly, right?”

  “No, it won’t. She felt something, too,” he told Molly. “I saw it. Maybe they aren’t serious. Maybe she’s ready to break up with him already. You know girls do that—hang on even when they know it’s over.”

  Molly didn’t argue, which surprised him. She hated generalities, especially about her gender.

  “Okay, maybe they’ll break up. And then what? You go to school in different states.”

  “I could transfer.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, you’re not going to transfer.” She tossed his hand away and stood. “Let her go. You know you have to.”

  But he didn’t know that. This kind of thing happened all the time. And, all right, most of the examples he thought of were from TV shows. But they had to be based on real life sometimes.

  An hour ago, he’d been facing the hugest decision of his life. Jessica’s effect on him made it seem as easy as ordering a sandwich.

  “Dinner!” his mother called from downstairs, her tone muffled by the closed door, her annoyance at their disappearance nevertheless clear.

  “Coming!” Molly called back. She grabbed his hand and hauled him off the bed. “Stop thinking about it, at least. You know Chris will notice.”

  “Yeah, I know.” That was the first thing she’d said that he couldn’t find a way to dispute. Chris was keenly observant, a talent that had snagged him a lucrative job with a business consulting firm, one of those companies who sent in a team to a company that wasn’t doing well, identified their problems, and advised how to fix things. He would definitely notice if Brady acted weird.

  So over dinner, Brady forced himself to make jokes, tease his mother about her cooking, needle Molly about anything and everything, and insult his brother to Jessica, acting as though he was making a play for her. It was exactly what he would have done if he hadn’t been into her, so everyone responded normally.

  “So, Jessica,” his father said halfway through the main course, and Chris groaned.

  “Come on, Dad, can’t you skip the interrogation?”

  Rick Fitzpatrick grinned at his son. “Certainly not. This is the first girl you’ve dated longer than three months. It’s even more important now!”

  Brady stared at his father, then at Chris and Jessica. It had already been longer than three months? No. They were holding hands. While they ate. Jessica was left-handed, or good enough not to make a mess, anyway, and their fingers kept toying with each other’s, and…no, that wasn’t good.

  “What are your plans after graduation?” his father asked, taking a bite of mashed potatoes.

  “I’m getting my degree in interior design, so it’s whatever I can get in the field.”

  Brady shoved his fork into a piece of meat, not really aware what kind it was. Her voice was killing him. Soft and sweet, but not girly or weak, it sent a constant stream of shivers down his spine. He was getting back cramps, trying to hide those shivers.

  “My goal,” Jessica continued, “is functional design, like in classrooms and training centers. Day cares and special-needs schools, places like that.”

  “So not just decorating?” his mother asked, clearly interested. And why not? Jessica was altruistic, like his parents were. Most of their family vacations had been spent doing Habitat for Humanity, Help for Haiti, going wherever the most recent disaster had occurred and hauling debris, distributing water, whatever was needed. His parents’ jobs had made that stuff possible, and here Jessica was, planning a combination of marketability and benefit to others.

  She was perfect.

  “What are your grades like?” his father asked.

  “Pretty good,” she responded, but Chris shook his head.

  “She graduated summa cum laude from college and has a three-point-eight right now.”

  “Impressive.”

  That came from Molly, and Brady kicked her. She only smiled, not looking at him.

  “Where do you want to go after you get your degree?” she asked Jessica, who turned toward their end of the table to answer. Brady lost her words in
the impact of her beauty, and didn’t pay any attention to the rest of the conversation. His parents were a lock. It wasn’t going to matter if Chris and Jessica broke up, and if Brady moved in. They wouldn’t consider him betraying his brother, they’d be glad he kept her in the family. Brought her into the family.

  The fantasy was playing out in his head when he realized his father was giving a stamp of approval, tongue in cheek.

  “Glad you feel that way, Dad.” Chris cleared his throat significantly.

  Alarmed, Brady jerked his head around, wanting to stop him. To change the conversation, throw out a joke that would make everyone laugh and forget what Chris was about to say.

  But of course that wouldn’t work. Because what Chris was about to say was more important than anything Brady could do. He could see that in the way Chris’s hand closed around Jessica’s, in the soft smile she gave him, in the sudden anticipation in the air. Molly leaned toward Brady and put a hand on his arm, a clear attempt at comfort. But there was nothing to comfort him over. Not yet.

  And then the world fell apart.

  “Mom. Dad. Brady. Jessica and I are getting married.”

  …

  “No, idiot, pi doesn’t have anything to do with it! Where’s your head?” Molly stared across the dorm room at Brady, knowing full well where his head was. Inside whatever Jessica fantasy he was spinning today.

  He lay in his standard sprawl across Molly’s bed while she curled in the chair at the desk and quizzed him for his differential equations course. Finals were this week, and in three days they headed back to Connecticut for Christmas. For the first time ever, she wasn’t looking forward to the holidays. And that damned woman was the reason why.

  She sighed. She’d already been worried about Brady for a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. He’d gone all broody and quiet, like he was considering something major. But he’d still been Brady, even stuck on Serious. Then he walked up on that train platform, and boom. Good-bye Broody Brady, hello Lovesick Nutcase.

  She let him wallow for a minute, mesmerized by the baseball he was tossing up and catching, over and over. He probably had no idea the ball was the one signed by Nomar Garciaparra after she’d caught his home run. If she yelled at Brady, he’d assume it was because of the signature, not because it was one of her few sentimental prizes. She and Brady had gone to that game together, just the two of them, and while they were often just the two of them—like now—it wasn’t often that she could pretend their relationship was more than it was.

  Amusing, how she was constantly telling him to get over Jessica, when anyone else would tell Molly to get over him. But a decade of habit was hard to overcome. He’d only met Jessica once, a month ago.

  She couldn’t stand it. Pushing out of the chair, Molly leaned and caught the ball as it dropped. “Get over it,” she told Brady for the umpteenth time, and he didn’t ask over what, so she knew she’d been right. He was moping over Jessica again. “They have a February wedding,” she reminded him.

  He sighed and rolled upright. “I know. And he’s totally gaga over her. I can hear it in his voice when he calls. Which he does, twice a week.” He ran a hand down his face. “We used to talk once a month, if that. Now he just wants to go on and on about her.”

  “That’s natural.” She watched Brady carefully, trying to gauge how he really felt about his brother’s fiancée. She wanted to dismiss it as a crush, but couldn’t. He’d kept it up over three weeks without exposure, without seeing Jessica again. That was something different. Something more.

  Dammit.

  “I don’t think I can do this.” He looked up imploringly. “What am I going to do? I can’t stand the thought of watching her marry him. Of seeing them together at every holiday. Of…” He trailed off, staring into the distance.

  “Oh, honey.” She stepped forward and cradled his head to her stomach. He wrapped his arms around her hips and buried his face against her. The familiar surge of love and need followed, but she stroked her hand soothingly through his shaggy, dark-brown hair and gave him what he always needed from her—comfort and friendship.

  “It’ll be okay,” she told him, and hoped she was right.

  But back in Connecticut three days later, tension skyrocketed.

  Molly thought she was the only one to feel it. At least the Fitzpatrick parents were oblivious, babbling about traditions they could pass on to Christopher and Jessica and their eventual kids, about wedding preparations and when they’d get to meet Jessica’s mother—her only close living relative. Chris acted natural—affectionate with Jessica, indulgent with his parents, and good-natured with Brady.

  At first no one, including Jessica, seemed to notice Brady’s increasing withdrawal. Molly covered for him pretty well, and without much hardship. After all, she’d preferred the Fitzpatricks to her own family for her entire life. If she participated boisterously in the family cookie baking, sang vivaciously while they decorated the tree, it all fit with past behavior.

  And then Molly overheard Jessica and Brady having a private conversation in the back hall. Chris and his father had run to the store for more wrapping paper, and Donna was down in the basement doing laundry. Molly carried empty popcorn bowls into the kitchen and heard Brady and Jessica murmuring at the base of the back stairs, right outside the room. She didn’t think anything of it at first, but as she was about to pass the doorway, the murmuring turned into sighs and the unmistakable sound of a kiss.

  Molly froze, stunned. And then it was too late. She should have kept walking, making her presence known before they’d done anything. If she did it now, they would know she’d heard.

  Cracks crazed the surface of her heart. She’d always known Brady didn’t love her that way—that pain was different, a softer, more constant suffering. But this sharper, more acute pain wasn’t for her. It was for Brady, who was making himself vulnerable to a woman who wasn’t going to decide in his favor. For Chris, who’d be devastated if he found out about this. For Rick and Donna, who just wanted both their sons to be happy.

  “I should say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” she heard Brady say.

  Molly closed her eyes and leaned against the rough pine paneling of the kitchen wall, resigned to having to listen to this.

  “It’s okay.” Jessica’s voice was high and breathless. Molly wanted to stab her through the heart. “I’ve known, well, since the day we met. That you—”

  “—have feelings—”

  “—for me. Yes. But, Brady…”

  “I can’t help myself, Jess. I love you. If there was any chance, any way, you could love me back, I had to do this now.”

  Now? Why now? Molly held her breath through Jessica’s hesitation, then as she repeated Molly’s silent question aloud.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Brady sounded impatient, almost desperate. “I have to figure some things out before the end of the year. This is one of them. Jess,” he pleaded. “I need to know how you feel.”

  “Your brother,” she protested.

  “I love him, too. And I never want to hurt him.” Brady’s voice cracked just enough that Molly knew he meant it. “Please, Jessica. Be honest with me.”

  For long moments, there was only breathing in the little space of the back hall. Molly’s hands tightened on the bowls she held. If Jessica said yes, if she said she cared about Brady…God, what a mess this would be. And the tiny spark of hope that Molly never fed, never admitted even existed, would be crushed forever.

  “I can’t,” Jessica wheezed, and the tightness around Molly’s heart lessened. “I love Christopher. I’d never betray him. And even though there’s…something…between us, it’s not worth throwing away what I have with your brother. We just—”

  “I get it.” Sorrow drenched Brady’s words, and Molly ached to go to him, to comfort him, to ease his pain any way she could, regardless of what it would do to her own heart. She pushed away from the wall, but he wasn’t done speaking.

  “I can’t do this, then.”

>   “What?” Jess sounded confused. “Do you mean the kiss? I don’t want—”

  “No, not that.” Disgust didn’t quite overcome the sorrow, and Molly was glad to hear it. Glad to know her best friend wouldn’t commit adultery with his brother’s wife, or even allude to the possibility.

  “What, then?”

  “Anything. I can’t do these family get-togethers. I can’t see you, spend limitless hours watching you with my brother. Not when I think he’s the wrong man.” His voice held conviction that injected fear into Molly’s battered heart. Whatever had been bothering him since fall semester, whatever he had to figure out…Jessica’s answer had resolved it for him.

  “He’s not wrong,” Jessica said, her soft tone no less convicted.

  Molly imagined Brady nodding.

  “Okay. But I still can’t do it.”

  “But…the wedding?”

  “I’m the best man, of course I’ll be at the wedding. After that, though, forget it.”

  An uncertain pause, then, “If you have to.”

  “I do.”

  “Okay, then.” After a moment, Molly heard light footsteps going upstairs, and Brady entered the kitchen.

  He didn’t notice Molly standing there, and she had to hold back a sob. That kind of utter defeat should never be seen on the face of someone so young. He walked across the kitchen to the island, where he braced his hands wide and hung his head. A tear fell to the butcher block, then another, staining the soft wood dark. After a couple of minutes, he raised his head and spotted her in the reflection of a copper pot. He turned, and there was nothing in his eyes. Not pain, or sorrow, or even determination. Not the Brady she knew.

  Molly didn’t move, afraid that this might be one of those defining moments, the kind that didn’t occur in every life, when someone could look back and say, “That’s when everything changed.” Then, with perfect clarity, she recognized that it was. That none of them, even her, would ever have the same relationship with Brady again.