by Abby Brooks
She turned away and started to race inside, but I grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, kissing her with all I had to give. “It’s killing me to let you go, but I’m not doing it for me. I will not be another mistake. I won’t be the guy you look back on and regret.”
Kara gazed at me, her eyes dancing across my face as she tried to make sense of what I was saying. Finally, she took a long breath and let it out slowly. Gave me her goodbyes, and left without saying anything else.
The next day, I kept my phone close, hoping to hear from her. I even started several texts of my own.
Hope you’re feeling better…
Thinking of you…
Wish you hadn’t left last night…
While they were all true, I didn’t want to push her. If she came back to me, it needed to be something she wanted. Something she wouldn’t regret as time passed. I would not be that guy she looked back on with remorse. I deleted my texts and waited for her to reach out.
She never did.
Chapter Thirteen
Kara
A month after my visit with Wyatt, I found an apartment and moved out of the condo, following his advice and putting as much time and space between my mother and me as possible. She and I still spoke, but it never went well. The more she realized she wouldn’t get a rise out of me, the less I saw of her. That was fine with me. Eventually, I stopped reaching out altogether and my life finally started feeling like my own.
A year passed. Then another. Then two more.
Brooke and I went into business together, crafting and selling handmade jewelry out of a souvenir shop in a tourist trap strip mall. While the money wasn’t always consistent, we enjoyed what we did, and somehow, that made up for the months when we had little more than Ramen and hope to survive.
While Wyatt swore he had rejected me the night Mom stole my money so he wouldn’t take a piece of me with him, he had done so anyway. I thought of him often, mostly when I was working—my hands occupied, but my mind free to roam. That night four years ago was a favorite topic to come back to. What would have happened if we had slept together? Would it have been a one-time thing? The mistake he was so afraid we were making? Or would we have started a relationship that grew into something beautiful?
Up to that point, Wyatt knew me almost better than Brooke. He and I felt like kindred spirits, trapped by the choices of our parents, thrown together against our will. I often thought we would have eventually combusted, if had we gotten together. That we would have ruined each other. And so, while I resented him for rejecting me, I also recognized that he did us both a favor and saved us from the inevitable chaos we would have created together. After all, I didn’t want him for money and he didn’t want me for sex. If that was all men and women ever wanted from each other, where did that leave us?
Nothing good came from two people being in love. Nothing. I wasn’t even completely sure love existed. According to the internet, there was nothing more pure than a mother’s love for her child, and yet, I couldn’t be sure I had ever felt anything but resentment from Madeline.
My friendship with Brooke was the closest thing I ever had to a committed relationship. I trusted her and she trusted me. I gave her my deepest secrets and knew she would handle them with care. Over the years, she had encouraged me to reach out to Wyatt, to see if there was anything there. She swore there was more to love than sex and money, that he had been in the right to turn me away, and that I had been crazy not to go back.
“Of all the bad decisions you ever made,” she often said, “that was the worst.”
A knock at the door startled me out of my thoughts and I glanced at the time. At a quarter till eleven on a Friday night, I couldn’t think of a single positive reason for someone to show up unannounced, banging on my front door like he thought he could break it down. I grabbed my phone, ready to hit the emergency services button if things got bad, then crossed the room and peered through the peephole. What I saw on the other side set my heart pounding and my stomach dropping to my feet.
Wyatt leaned on the doorframe, his head resting against his arm. I cracked the door and peeked through, shocked to find him with at least a day’s worth of stubble, red-rimmed eyes, and a bottle of whisky clutched in his hand. “What are you doing here?” I asked, when what I wanted to say was, are you okay? How can I help? What do you need? I’m so glad to see you. I’ve missed you so much.
His blurry eyes struggled to focus on mine. “Kara,” he whispered. My name on his lips felt like a prayer.
I opened the door the rest of the way and he stumbled through. I steadied him as best I could and led him across the living room. He dropped onto the couch, looking surprised as he landed.
“How did you know where I lived?”
“Your mom.” He lifted the bottle and stared at the contents, furrowing his brow before he threw back another swig.
“Hey, big guy.” I perched on the edge of my coffee table and pried the bottle out of his hands. “Why don’t you give that to me?”
He relinquished the alcohol without a fight. “My brother died.” His words were so slurred, I wasn’t sure I heard them right.
“What? Who?” That would explain the wreck of a man in front of me. Wyatt loved his family unconditionally. In my quiet moments, I had wondered how it would feel to have that love aimed at me. If someone he loved had died, I was sure it felt like part of him was dead, too.
Wyatt met my eyes, his pale blues swimming in despair. “Lucas. He died and they brought him back, but they’re not so sure he’s going to stick around much longer.” His voice cracked on his last words, so coarse, so crude, his pain on display.
I listened as he struggled to explain. From what I could decipher, there was an attack on a military base in Afghanistan and Wyatt’s older brother was caught in the carnage. He now fought for his life in a hospital overseas. Their mom had flown out to see him, but the rest of the family had to wait until Lucas was stateside and the wait was destroying Wyatt.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, dropping down in front of him and searching out his gaze. “But, hey. Listen. Look at me. Right now, in this moment, Lucas is alive, right?”
Wyatt bobbed his head, then squeezed his eyes shut. “Last I checked.”
“The past and the future only exist in our mind. You’re not doing anyone any good by worrying about what might happen. Right now. In this moment. Your brother is alive. Focus on that.”
Wyatt had never looked so broken. In all the years and all the different situations I had known him, I had seen him angry. Frustrated. Confused. I had seen him torn between his morals and his father’s will. I had seen him fight himself in regard to me. But I had never seen him unable to process thought. I had never seen him helpless.
He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “He was dead for two minutes,” he said before he lifted his head and stared at me. “And I was dead for four fucking years.”
His last statement caught me off guard. “What?”
“Why didn’t you come back to me after that night?” Wyatt’s gaze ignited with indignation. “I waited. I was sure you would come back. I let you go because I wanted to be respectful, and you just fucking disappeared.” His voice rose as he finished his sentence and for a terrible flash of a second, I regretted letting him in.
“Wyatt.” I stood, putting distance between us. “You’re drunk.”
“So? How many times have you come to me? Stuck and needing help? I was always there for you, Kara.”
“And I’m here now.” He was changing topics so quickly, I could barely keep up, his emotions oscillating between fury and pain. “And I’m going to make you a cup of coffee.”
“I don’t need coffee.” He scooted to the edge of the couch cushion and glared at me. “I need you.”
“No. You don’t. The two of us together is a mistake,” I said, repeating the mantra I used on myself when I got lost wondering what might have been. I disengaged and headed into the kitchen, pouring him a glass
of water before getting the coffee out of the cupboard. His watchful eyes tracked my movements.
“How are we a mistake?” he asked as I handed him the water.
“How are we not a mistake?”
Wyatt set the glass down on the table. “You’re the only person who knows me. You know my secrets. All the worst parts of who I am.”
“And that’s supposed to mean we’d be good together?”
“No. Or yes. Or maybe. You know the worst of me, but you still love me.”
“I’ve never loved you.” I dropped my gaze, hating myself for the lie. What I felt for Wyatt was complicated and now, when he was drunk and afraid for his brother’s life, was not the time to try and untangle it all.
“You have. The same way I loved you. I can see it. Right now. It’s in the way you look at me.”
“That’s enough of this nonsense.”
“You see all of me.”
“I see a man who is drunk and hurting and looking for things that aren’t there.”
The hisses and burps of the coffee maker interrupted me and I turned away from him, unable to watch the devastation in his eyes. I didn’t know if what I saw was because of me or his brother and I needed him to sober up and talk to me rationally. I thought I had gotten Wyatt out of my system over the last four years. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
With him here, all the pretty stories I had told myself about what we were disintegrated and I wanted him just as badly as I had that night in the rain. That night he had rejected me and I had, in turn, rejected him. Only, I never gave my virginity to anyone else. Not because I was saving it for Wyatt, but because his words stuck with me.
Whoever took my virginity would get a piece of me I could never get back. Every time I got close with someone—which wasn’t all that often—I would look at the guy and wonder if he was worth that piece. Would he honor it? Would he cherish it? Would it be worth looking back on the moment and seeing him? Each and every time, the answer was no.
The only person who was ever worth that memory was Wyatt. And here he was, drunk and hurting and for the first time I understood why he rejected me that night. Something that special shouldn’t be given without thought, as an anesthetic. If it mattered, then it needed to matter.
“I’m drowning, Kara.” Wyatt dropped his head to his hands. “I’m drowning and I need you to save me. I need you to make it hurt less. I need you to help it all make sense.”
I swallowed hard as I poured him a cup of coffee and set it on the table next to his water. “Drink the water,” I said, avoiding eye contact. “The coffee, too if you need it, but the water first. You can sleep on the couch, and we’ll talk in the morning when you’re feeling better.” I dropped a hand on his shoulder and he leaned into my touch before I pulled away to sit down next to him. We curled into each other and Wyatt fell asleep quickly. Somewhere along the way, I fell asleep too.
When I woke up the next morning, Wyatt was gone.
II
Now
Chapter Fourteen
Wyatt
My father passed away in his office chair, an empty bottle of whisky in front of him. After decades of trying, the bastard finally managed to drink himself to death. A day later, I sat at his desk, amid a slew of papers, calling each of my siblings to deliver the news. I called Lucas last. As the oldest of us, he had the most memories of Dad before the alcohol stole the best parts of him. I suspected he would take the news the hardest.
“Hit me with the good stuff, Wy-guy,” my brother said as he answered the phone.
“I have good stuff, and I have bad stuff. Whatcha want first?”
There was a pause and then, “Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way.”
“Alright. Bad stuff it is.” I steeled myself to deliver the news. “Dad passed away last night.”
And so, there it was.
I had been waiting years to say those words. For the entirety of my adult life, really. Knowing he was gone felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Like I could finally take a full breath. Like I could stop pretending to be the happy version of myself that everyone knew and actually just be happy.
“And the good stuff?” my brother asked, his voice nearly robotic in the total lack of emotion.
I huffed into the phone. “Dad passed away last night.”
I imagined Lucas bobbing his head in agreement…understanding…acceptance. The asshole had held on too long as it was. “How’s Mom?” he asked.
“You know Mom. She’s taking it gracefully. Mourning the loss of the man she fell in love with while celebrating the loss of the man she ended up with.”
I explained the funeral arrangements, which would be a massive public affair to celebrate the philanthropical side of our father the rest of the community knew. “Mom’s calling in the cavalry,” I said, when Lucas stayed silent on the other end. “It’s time to circle the wagons, brother.”
“I expected as much.”
Neither of us knew what to say, but after what happened to him in Afghanistan last year, I found myself trying to prolong our conversations. “I didn’t know whether or not to count all of us being together again as good or bad,” I said.
“It’s probably a little of both,” came the reply. “Everyone coming?”
“Far as I know.” I coughed and straightened a stack of papers. “Flights are being planned. Armor is being donned. Lines are being drawn.”
“You make it sound like getting ready for war.”
“Isn’t that what happens when all of us come home?” I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Living with Dad had nearly destroyed our family. Now that he was gone, it would be nice if we could heal. Before I could speak, Lucas said as much and I laughed at how our thoughts were following the same path, then agreed.
“Mom has rooms set aside at the resort, by the way,” I explained. “You just need to get your bionic ass down here and it’ll be like old times.”
“My bionic ass, huh?”
“You’ve got so much metal in that backside, you might as well be Robocop.” Teasing Lucas about his injuries was my attempt to keep him focused on the present. If he allowed himself to wallow over the loss of his military life, I was afraid he would slide backwards. And while he had come so far, he still had so much healing to do. I genuinely hoped he would find what he needed here at The Hut.
We ended the call and I steeled myself yet again. There was one more person who had to hear about Dad’s death. Fighting the onslaught of emotions that arose every time I thought of her, I pulled up Kara’s contact information and made the call.
Of all of us, she took the information the hardest. She gasped, choking on tears, questions falling past her lips in whatever order they came to her. In his way, Dad had loved Kara and she, in turn, had loved him back.
Kara
I set my phone down and stared at it for a long time before I called Mom. Wyatt hadn’t been able to offer much in the way of consolation. His relief over Burke’s death was evident even though he tried to hide it out of respect for my grief. I didn’t expect the conversation with Mom to be much easier and I was right. When it came to grieving for the only father-type figure I ever had, I was on my own.
Mom answered my call with a heavy dose of annoyance, even though we hadn’t spoken in months. Choking back my sadness, I explained what happened and the first thing she asked was, “What about the money?” Followed closely by, “Is there a will? Am I in it?”
I told her what I knew, there was a will, we weren’t in it, and the money was now Wyatt’s responsibility. She chastised me for not sealing the deal on our relationship years ago then hung up without even asking about the funeral.
When the day came, Mom backed out. She said it was because we would stick out like sore thumbs and she didn’t want to risk people asking questions. A pathetic excuse, but she got points for consistency. There would be more than enough people at the funeral and we would blend in without raising eyebrows, but it was raining a
nd she had a new boyfriend with deep pockets.
And so, I went by myself. I stood in the back, hiding my tears behind large sunglasses and a black umbrella. I watched the Huttons with their dry eyes and stoic faces, wondering if they had memories of Burke they cherished, or if they were simply happy to see him go.
Of all the men in my life, he had been around the longest. I wasn’t sure my own father—a man with no name, no face, nothing—even knew I existed. Burke was all I had in that department and as flawed as he was, I loved him very much.
As the service drew to a close, my gaze fell on Wyatt. Almost as if he could sense my eyes on him, he looked up, a sad smile tugging at his lips. As people left, I made my way to him. He opened his arms and I sagged into his embrace, wishing I could stay there for the rest of the day. He felt like comfort. Like safety. Like home. But after only a few seconds, he pulled away, offering me a shy smile.
We exchanged pleasantries. He asked about my life and I asked about his. For all that we were to each other, the superficial conversation only deepened my sadness. As far as his family knew, we were little more than strangers and my grief—which so obviously outweighed theirs—seemed out of place.
“I think you were the only person who still loved him,” Wyatt said.
I swallowed hard, looking for an answer, when a beautiful blonde joined us. For one dreadful second, I thought she was Wyatt’s girlfriend. Or wife. But the resemblance between them was strong, and I sighed in relief as I realized I was finally meeting Harlow.
“How did you know my father?” she asked and I was glad to have the sunglasses covering my wide eyes.
How did I know your father? He always said I was the daughter he wished he had. He compared me to you frequently and always found you lacking. Shame ran through me and Wyatt stepped in to save me once again.
