Get Even

by Amanda Heath

  I move to get up, so Max can deflate his problem, but he stops me by not letting me up. His nose nuzzles into my neck and he says, “I love you. Whether it’s wrong or right.”

  I smile softly at that. “I love you too. Whether it’s right or wrong.”

  The truth is, it is right. You don’t have these feelings for no reason. Love might be a bitch but I think in the long run, she knows what she’s doing.

  If Sarah were still here, Max and I wouldn’t be together. We would never have moved on to each other with her around. We probably would never have seen each other again if they got divorced. It breaks my heart that my sister had to die for me to find Max. And for him to find me. It’s tragic but I know Sarah wouldn’t want us to suffer. She would want us to be with who made us happy, who made us whole. Since that person to me is her husband and that person to him is his sister-in-law, we did make the right kind of wrong.

  I climb off of Max’s lap and I pull him to his feet. He towers over me and I like that he has to crane his neck down to kiss me. Then I climb him like a tree because it hurts my neck to look up at him. After we kiss for a while he sets me back down on my feet and grabs my hand. “Come on, let’s go feed some chickens.”

  Sarah stands in the corner of the room and she has tears in her eyes. I almost stop at the sight of her but she gives me a bright smile and blows me a kiss. Then she mouths that she loves me before fading out of sight. I blink a few times, wondering if I’m going nuts, but then I decide I don’t want to figure it out. Not right now. Not today. And if I never see her again, then I never want to figure it out.

  Max tugs me along behind him and I let the happiness take full affect of my body for the first time in my life.

  Max

  Farah is underneath me. Her arms are wrapped around my neck and it seems as if she’s clinging on for dear life. I kiss her neck and then nip at her earlobe. Her pussy is hot and wet so I slide in and out smoothly. I feel her toes curl into my thighs and I smile against her cheek.

  It’s amazing how good this feels. I might be able to rule the entire world with how making love to Farah makes me feel. I don’t have to ask Farah how good it is, her breathy moans tell me all I need to know.

  I tangle my fingers into her hair and gently pull her face back so I can look at her. Her blue eyes are open and when they meet mine she whispers, “Max.” I feel my lips pull up into a smirk and I thrust a little harder into her.

  Those nails of hers rake down my back hard and I hope she left a mark. It’s the best feeling in the world to see those scratches up and down my back. Of course, I’ll have to be looking in a mirror with my neck craned but it’s more than worth it.

  I pull her leg up high on my side so I can go even deeper. I slow it down because I’m in no hurry to make this end. “You feel so perfect,” I tell her, leaning down to kiss her, pushing my tongue into her mouth. I bite at her lips before I pull away.

  My hips go back and forth, causing the bed to squeak. That can’t be helped since this bed is probably a hundred years old. Luckily, Pops sleeps on the bottom floor on the other side of the house. And Blake can sleep through anything.

  Farah is panting against my shoulder now and I look down to her. “You want it to end, baby?”

  I grin when she replies, “Uh huh.” I think I have her pretty much speechless but then she surprises me. “Make me come, Max.”

  I groan, pushing my hips forward faster, harder. Then I lift up on my elbow and reach down with my other hand. I find her swollen little clit and lightly rub my finger over it. She makes little noises but she doesn’t shoot off like a rocket. The first time we did this, I honestly wasn’t paying much attention to her, being as my head was in the clouds with how awesome I felt. I do know she got off though.

  I put more pressure on her clit, my neck starting to strain because I’m too close. When that doesn’t work I decide to try something different. Instead of rubbing it, I tease it. I push my finger down and then off, repeating the motion and before I know it, Farah is calling out my name. A tingle starts at my spine and works its way down until my cock is harder than it’s ever been. I know my body is jerking while I fill her up but my head is in space, seeing all the stars and floating around.

  I come back down and roll off of Farah. I pull her against me and smooth my fingers through her hair. I move down a bit until our faces are close and then I kiss her gently, feeling her incredibly soft lips against mine. I lift away and then I nuzzle my nose against hers. “I love you, so much,” I whisper.

  “I love you too,” she whispers back.

  It’s later when I’m fast asleep that I see Sarah in my dreams. She’s standing at the front of our house, holding a baby in her arms. I race towards her and stop about a foot away. I look down at the bundle in her arms and I grin like a lunatic. Sarah hands me the baby girl and all I can see is beautiful blue eyes, just like her mother’s.

  Sarah’s hand appears in my line of vision before she pushes my chin up so I can see her. “We don’t have a lot of time, Max.”

  “What do you mean? We have all the time in the world,” I tell her, leaning over to kiss her lips. Something sparks at the back of my mind that the lips I’m kissing aren’t the ones I want to be kissing anymore.

  Sarah pulls away from me and smiles. “You can’t kiss me anymore. You’re no longer mine.”

  Then I see a face so much like hers but not. Farah. I look at Sarah, confused now. “Is this a dream?”

  “Yes, silly,” she replies with a laugh. “I have something I want to say to you.”

  The baby coos up at me and I look down at her and smile. I can’t believe I’m holding my daughter. I never thought I would ever get to do this.

  “Max.” Sarah sighs and I look up at her sheepishly. She cups my cheeks and says, “You better take care of my sister. You better love her for the rest of her life. I will come back and haunt you for eternity if you screw her over.” Then she kisses my forehead. “I love you, my sweet boy. Tell Blake for me? That I’ll love him forever and that I miss him.”

  “What about Farah?” I blurt.

  Sarah laughs at me now. “Farah knows. Farah knows better than anyone.” She smoothes her fingers over my skin and I hardly feel anything. My skin no longer wants her touch. It wants Farah’s. “It’s strange to see I’ve already lost you. I don’t mind though. You and Farah have always belonged together.”

  “You really think that?” I feel like I’m finally getting to ask all the questions I’ve been dying to ask.

  Sarah nods. “You’ll find out, sweet boy. She’ll be the light of your whole life. That missing piece you never quite found with me.”

  I wake up with a head of blonde hair on my chest. Farah is curled on her side facing away from me but I hold her close to me. I squeeze her hard because I realize that I’ve wanted to wake up this way for a really long time.

  Now that I have, well, I refuse to ever wake up any other way.

  Fifteen

  Tate

  The first woman I ever loved was my mother, of course. She went through sixteen hours of labor and I’ve been told she has several scars from the experience. My mom is a hard working, loving, funny, crazy woman I wouldn’t trade for anything. She’s the first person I call when I need advice. She’s the first person I call when I have good or bad news. She understands me better than anyone else I know. I only wish I had grown up with her out in New York. Then maybe half the shit that’s happened to those I love wouldn’t have happened.

  She’s also not the most reliable person. I can’t count how many times she said she would be somewhere then call me ten minutes before and tell me she couldn’t make it. Like my graduation from high school, oh, and the one from college. Or my wedding and the birth of my child. She couldn’t make it to any of those really important moments in my life. I still love her though. You can’t pick and choose who gives birth to you. You are stuck with that person for the rest of your life whether you like it or not. I make the best out of it be
cause I know why she would rather choose herself over me.

  Vivien Spears, my stepmother. I will hold you down and beat the shit out of you if you ever repeat this to another soul, but yes, I love my stepmom. Vivien is the only mother figure I’ve ever really had in my life. She washed all my dirty clothes, she picked up after me until I was old enough to do it myself, she washed my ass when I was a toddler and she fed me every day until I moved out of her house. I’ve never told her I love her, obviously, but she’s Max’s mother. She isn’t mine, no matter how hard she’s tried to be. I don’t think she realizes that, that I didn’t need her to be a mother to me. I shouldn’t think that way, considering. She was the mother my own mother couldn’t be; I just didn’t want her to be. Though if she hadn’t done any of that stuff for me, then I probably wouldn’t have lived past infancy.

  Then she had to have Max. The bane of my existence. He was always following me around, getting into my business and causing me so much grief. Plus, he was amazing at football so he had something to talk to my father about. Yeah, I’m blaming a woman for wanting to have a child with my emotionless father. I’m blaming her for having a little boy she so desperately wanted. I guess I don’t see why she had to break up my parents’ marriage for that to work. It’s not like she’s a bitch or anything. She’s just Vivien, who always has a smile for me and soft happy words.

  I know, I’ve been a horrible bastard my entire life. It’s like I can’t feel anything unless I’m hurting someone. I wasn’t always that way. No, once in my life I was a nice guy because I loved someone with all my heart.

  Sky Magbee. Hell, you could take one look at her and see why her parents named her that. Her eyes were the clearest blue and her hair was this white gold I loved to run my fingers through. It was softer than cashmere and now that I think of it, softer than a baby’s skin. She was the reason I got up in the morning. I also got up thirty minutes early so I had plenty of time to pick her up and spend a little time with her before school started.

  She was sweet, funny and all around the nicest person I’ve ever met. She was a fucking angel, so that’s what I called her. My Angel. She used to grab my hand and pull me around by it because she said I walked too slow but, really, I just wanted to watch her ass. It made me a pig but, then again, I liked to stare at her face too, or her tits, or her legs. Her stomach was a favorite, especially after we lost our virginities to each other. I was never more scared of hurting someone in my life. I had this gentle female begging me to take her and I had to stop to breathe because I knew it was going to hurt her. I wish even to this day that I could take that pain for her. She had tears in her eyes after it was over but she kept telling me that it was the most beautiful moment in her life. I never understood that. She thought it was beautiful and all I could do was freak over her pain.

  Like most women, Sky had her problems. She had a drinking problem. I knew it was because of her home life. Her parents didn’t like her, as in, they truly didn’t like her. I didn’t understand that at all. She was beautiful, she was perfect, and she was everything good in this world. They treated her like shit and I could see it in her eyes. They verbally and physically abused her. They used to lock her in her room when they had company over. They didn’t feed her much when she was younger and she didn’t grow all that well. She was this tiny little thing. I wanted to protect her more than I wanted to live. I beat up her dad once when I found bruises on her stomach where he had kicked her. He threatened to call the cops but I pointed out I would go to jail, but so would he for those marks on Sky. For all the scars and emotional damage, you could clearly see and hear her goodness when she talked. She had this soft musical voice and it was like birds singing outside. That’s what she always reminded me of, summer days laying in the sun.

  That drinking is what got her killed. She had to go to that party. She had to have enough to feel numb. She had me drink with her, like I did most times. I was irresponsible with her. God handed me this beautiful sweet girl to love and I didn’t help her like I should have. I didn’t take her to AA classes or talk to my parents about it. I didn’t tell any of our teachers or any of her friends. I let her do it because I wanted her to be happy and she was happy when she was drunk.

  It makes me the biggest idiot that ever lived. I should never have gotten behind the wheel that night. I say I don’t remember anything, but I do. I remember waking up at one point, my entire body hurting and seeing her looking back at me with her eyes open. My sweet angel was gone and I tried to die with her. I kept slamming my head against the steering wheel, trying to kill myself because I couldn’t move anything else but my neck. Fuck, I couldn’t even turn away from her; I had to stare at her with her sightless eyes and her blood soaking everything.

  My sweet beautiful Sky. My Angel.

  I didn’t feel anything for months after that. I went through life wondering what the fuck I was even living for. Then one day I remember Max was in this hysterical fit because Dad didn’t buy him a new car, but I got one even though I killed my girlfriend when I wrecked my old one.

  I kept thinking, what a little fucking shit. He wasn’t even sensitive about it. Just screaming at the top of his lungs and all I could do was grit my teeth. I hated my little brother that day. I’ve hated him a lot in my life, for no good reason other than he was born, but that day I had a reason. I had to drive to school and college didn’t run a bus. Texarkana might be a big city but they don’t have public transportation and I couldn’t walk all that way every day. So yeah, I needed a car.

  Max was still in high school, only a fucking freshman; he could still ride the bus. Or get a friend to take him because I didn’t have any friends.

  Low and behold I was the one who had to drive my spoiled little brother to school every day after that. I hate to admit it, but he grew on me. He was a cool little dude considering his taste in music. We could talk sports, girls and about the injustice of our unfeeling father.

  But that day he threw the fit about the car it showed me something. It showed me that I felt something when I got something over on Max. It showed me I could hurt him and make him suffer, just like I suffered every day of my life. He didn’t deserve it. He was a spoiled child that day he yelled about the car. He grew up and he wasn’t so spoiled anymore. He realized life didn’t revolve around him and he wasn’t always right. He became well adjusted and that burned in my veins. Here I was, suffering these horrible dreams and thoughts. I wasn’t a nice person to anybody, for years in fact. And Max just floated through life like nothing bad had ever happened to him.

  It’s terrible to say, but I was jealous of my little brother.

  And that’s how I fell in love with Farah Gentry.

  I about fainted the first time I ever saw Farah. She looked so much like Sky. I thought I was seeing a ghost for a second. She was walking towards us with this notepad in her hand and a small smile on her face. She completely looked me over for a long time after I met her. All that blonde hair and big blue eyes, she could have been Sky’s twin. She was even tiny like Sky. She was hiding these deep dark secrets in her eyes, just like Sky did.

  She wanted Max though, that first night. Well, until he opened his mouth and spat out some cheesy ass line. She didn’t like that too much. I didn’t blame her. Max had game, but you have to have the right girl to be saying some of the shit he does. She didn’t like that, when a man tried to pick her up. It’s probably why she was single for so long.

  Max though, he was her downfall. He told me how much he wanted her and it’s not like I blamed him. She was gorgeous, smart and quick on her feet. I felt like you could put Farah in any situation and she would shine. I vowed after he said he wanted her to make her mine, to make him suffer because he couldn’t get her.

  So I bid my time, I waited patiently in the background. I could tell she didn’t think of me that way, considering I dressed like a preppy asshole and had nothing in common with her. Then she showed up with bruises and a cast on her arm. All I could think about was her going
through the same shit as Sky and I wanted to kill whoever did that to her.

  She handled it though, because she got like that protecting a sister I hadn’t met at the time. She was so much like My Angel but she wasn’t. After that night I wanted her simply because I did, not because Max did.

  He fell for her though. You could see it night after night. The way he always wanted to eat at Roadhouse and how he always asked to sit in her section. I knew in my heart that she wouldn’t ever go there. She wouldn’t even consider him because she thought he was a player. Which he’s not. That boy had only had a few one-night stands in his whole life. He’s more into a committed relationship and a lasting connection. We were complete opposites in that way. I preferred one-night stands because they didn’t leave room for feelings.

  Until Farah.

  Max was gone out with friends one night, so I decided I was going to go sit at the bar at Roadhouse, just in case she was there. Just in case I could get her alone. The girl had me wrapped around her little finger and she didn’t even know it. She made me crazy with lust and she intrigued me. Plus, there were two of her. The other sister looked more like Sky then Farah did, but her eyes weren’t full of dark secrets. She didn’t grab my attention like Farah did.

  I was in luck that night because I found her sitting alone at the bar after her shift. I didn’t really think I would get her to go home with me that night. I thought it was a night to get to know each other a little bit. Then she told me about her grandmother’s accident, about how she died and Farah felt responsible. It touched this part of my soul I didn’t even know I had. She knew what it was like, to have been responsible for someone’s death. Someone you loved more than life itself.

  I had to have her because I didn’t think anyone would ever feel like that to me again. I had to face the consequences the next day though, when she was gone before I woke up. I got a punch from Max that morning. The first one he ever gave me. I felt like shit and I wasn’t sure why. Then I figured out it was because she left me, she did what I had done to so many others. That sealed the coffin. She was going to be mine and she didn’t really have a choice.