Fight For Me

by Claudia Burgoa

  “Harry,” Ileana said.

  “Out of my house,” I repeated. My voice echoed through the apartment.

  I saw red as the pieces clicked into place. I understood why when I was at home my best friend’s beer was always stocked in our refrigerator, why there was enough food to feed two people. I walked to the second bedroom that she used as her home office and opened the closet, where I found his clothes.

  “You. Fucking. Asshole.” I grabbed some of his things and dropped them outside the apartment and repeated. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Wait, Harrison,” he stuttered as he dressed.

  “Wait for what? You fuck my woman, eat my food, and sleep in my bed,” I stated, pulling everything to the floor. “How long has this been going on, Ileana?”

  “I can explain.” Damon ran a hand through his hair as I continued tossing everything he owned to the floor.

  “Explain that you’ve been fucking my girlfriend?” I stopped, crossing my arms. “Okay. Why don’t we start with how fucking long has this been going on? I assume years. Was this before or after we moved in here, Ileana?”

  I was just the sucker paying for their room and board.

  “It’s not what you think.” She used her bedroom voice, rubbing her body against me.

  “I think he was fucking your asshole when I entered the apartment. Maybe I’m wrong, and it was your pussy. Is that what you want to rectify? Because I don’t give a fuck either way, bitch.”

  “Don’t be disrespectful.” Damon said, and he had the audacity to raise his voice at me.

  “My house, my tone of voice. Get your shit and leave. You two have been evicted.” I went to our room and began doing the same with her stuff as I had done to Damon’s.

  She put on a robe and stood in front of me. “You can’t just kick me out after everything I have put up with, Harrison. I’ve been waiting for you to marry me for a long time.” She showed me her hand. “You haven’t proposed.”

  “Why would I marry you? You’re a cheater, Ileana.”

  “I felt lonely. You’re always away.” She started crying. “You stole the best years of my life.”

  “Me?” I yelled, getting directly in her face. “I haven’t stolen anything from you. But guess what? You’re fucking free to do whatever the fuck you two want outside my home. The locks will be changed.”

  “At least let me explain,” Damon spoke while he helped Ileana pick up her clothes. “You can’t waste all these years of friendship because of her.”

  The moment he stood up, I socked him in the jaw, feeling satisfaction at the noise it made. “You were my best friend, fucker. If you had come to me, we could’ve—this is treason. I will make sure to have my lawyer send you a bill for all the expenses you’ve incurred for the past few years, with interest.”

  I glanced at Ileana who was sobbing, not even caring that Damon and I are arguing. “Have some decency and leave. Now.”

  I called Jensen and explained the situation. “Jensen will be here to ensure that you leave tonight.”

  “But where am I supposed to live? You can’t just dump me like that.”

  “Watch me,” I said, leaving the building.

  After Ileana, I was an asshole to women, to myself. I had too little respect for myself, or maybe I just had a death wish. I developed a taste for rough sex, enjoying the way it made me feel while it happened. But the feeling disappeared so fast that I’d kick the woman (or women) out of my bed right after, treating them like trash. According to my therapist, I was emotionally numb. I had lost my parents. My little brother was mentally ill. I was fighting in a war and killed people for a living. Plus, the woman I had been faithful to since I was eighteen had been fucking my best friend. It wasn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, but a coping mechanism it was.

  “Mom used to say that I wore my heart on my sleeve. That I loved unconditionally and that she hoped that no one would take advantage of me. She never told me how she felt about Ileana, though she always said she was lovely. I think that’s Mom code for ‘I can’t stand her, but I’ll let you realize that she’s not for you on your own terms.’ But that time never came until it was too late and we had a fucking disaster on our hands.”

  To think that Damon was my best friend. We’d been inseparable since kindergarten and then…he fucked me over when I needed him the most.

  “I didn’t know you then,” Luna says after a long silence, taking in everything I’d just told her. “I don’t think you deserved what happened.”

  After finishing my long explanation, I clear my throat, then drink some water. “Damon wanted to make sure I was okay. He knew my parents and also knew I never cried when they died.”

  “You didn’t?” Luna frowns.

  I shake my head. “No. I didn’t allow myself to feel. My brothers needed me. I couldn’t fall apart in front of them. I warned Scott that morning, after I talked to my parents that neither one of us could break down. It was painful but we couldn’t show it.”

  She takes my hand and caresses it. “You finally released the pain. You let yourself feel and maybe forgave yourself for things that you never did. Your aura is brighter now.” Luna smiles, lifting her chin to stare at the ceiling. “Sorry, I can’t help but notice those things.”

  She rests her head on my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back. For a moment, it felt like darkness surrounded you. I wasn’t sure you would come out of it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I, when my light was right next to me?” I kiss the top of her head.

  I swallow, staring at our linked hands and wonder how I’m going to gather the courage to show her that we belong together. My conversation with Damon keeps repeating inside my head like a broken record. And what I said was true.

  She’s my light.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Harrison

  Four and a half hours after leaving New York, I’m by the ocean, laying on a comfortable chaise lounge chair drinking with Scott. There was no such thing as a conference. They just wanted to be alone. I choose not to look too closely into what appears to be a relationship, yet.

  After downing a couple of shots and putting back on my sunglasses I ask, “Have you ever gone to the memorial?”

  “Once,” Scott says as he pours me another shot of tequila. If he continues combining tequila with bourbon he’s going to be drunk within the next hour.

  I sit up straight and look at him, feeling confused. “You did? Why?”

  He fidgets with his bottom lip, looking towards the horizon. “Hazel.”

  Great, he’s in my least favorite mood today: few words, don’t bother me.

  “That could mean anything, Scott.” I stare at the amber liquid in his glass, then look out to the ocean where Hazel and Luna are paddle boarding. “Why did she take you?”

  “It happened recently, after her mother died.” He smiles, his gaze remaining on Hazel. “She decided that our parents needed flowers and some attention.”

  Scott shrugs. “It was a strange experience.” That’s all he says.

  The tin man went, saw the place, and didn’t shed a tear?

  Maybe he’ll share some wisdom on how to feel a little less. I wait for more, but Scott is closed off to the world today. He stares at Hazel, and I can tell that his mind is elsewhere.

  “I never saw you cry when our parents died. Have you ever?”

  “Not everyone reacts as expected, Harrison,” he says, taking a glass filled with bourbon. He holds it to his lips, then stops and glares at me. “Spill. What’s going on? Because I’m about to get shitfaced and I won’t be able to have a coherent conversation with you then.”

  He downs his drink like a man quenching his thirst after a marathon, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each gulp. Bourbon should be enjoyed, I think. Sipped from a small glass. As his big brother, I should tell him that, but I suppose the point of this exercise is to induce himself into a temporary coma.

  “I went to the memorial earlier today,” I say, pressing
my lips together.

  “How bad was it?” He pours himself another glass of bourbon.

  “Fuck, I wanted to run away.” I tell him what happened from the moment we arrived until we left. He doesn’t say a word. He looks back out to the horizon.

  “They aren’t there,” Scott blurts. “Mom’s at home, on her terrace, making sure her plants survive my careless watering. Dad’s in his office, reading a thriller or solving crosswords.”

  He says that with the same serious voice and face that he uses when he’s discussing a deal, or the company. He means it. He believes our parents are still around us, doing the exact same things they did when we were alive. I stare at him perplexed.

  “Remember the time when you dressed up like G. I. Joe for Halloween, and I was Batman?” Scott asks, laughing. I’m bewildered by the change of tone and the conversation. “I showed you how Batman would beat the shit out of your super soldier.”

  “We didn’t have candy that year,” I remember, shaking my head. Mom put us in time out and made us go without cookies for an entire month. “Sorry about your arm.”

  “I still won, and got to wear a cool cast for six weeks,” he brags. The asshole had pinned me to the floor. I broke his left arm, but it seems like he believes that he won the biggest prize. “All the fourth-grade girls wanted to sit with me at lunch and help me with my food.”

  “You were in third grade.”

  He smirks. “Like I said, I won.”

  We laugh, and I take a shot of tequila. We tell more Halloween stories and then jump into Christmas parties.

  “I hated them,” we say in unison.

  “Dressing in suits, only being allowed to eat two cookies and drink one can of soda,” Scott complains, then grins. “Remember when we stole the bottle of whiskey?”

  “My ass still hurts.” Dad never believed in violence, but when he caught us drinking, he spanked the shit out of us.

  “Do you have any idea what can happen to you?” Scott imitates Dad’s voice. “This isn’t for children…I gave you one job. Take care of Fitzy. And instead, you stole the liquor and ran away.”

  “Fitzy was with us,” I remember, indignant. “How old were we?”

  “Poor Fitz, I can’t believe he survived us.” Scott shakes his head. “You were thirteen, I was ten, and Fitz only six. Hunt stayed at home.”

  Those memories make me circle back to the memorial. I need to know what he did while he was there. “What happened when you were at the memorial?”

  “That place is beautiful but haunted,” Scott answers with a low tone. He closes his eyes, leaning back on the lounge chair.

  “Not by ghosts, but by the memories of what you witnessed or who you lost. It’s impossible not to react to it”—he pauses, opening his eyes and looking at me briefly—“Innocent people died, leaving their loved ones behind and no matter how many times I say good night to the fucking moon, I’ll never see them again.”

  Scott covers his eyes with the heel of his palms. He shakes his head, breathing deeply through his nose and refusing to cry. Is he ever going to cry?

  “I was sobbing like a baby when we were there,” I confess, as if telling him, ‘It’s okay to cry. Let it go.’

  He nods, lowering his hands.

  “Hazel told me”—he pauses, pressing his lips together—“The day I finally broke down and let myself feel was bad, and yet, it was the best day of my fucking life.”

  I arch an eyebrow. He did? When? “You never told me about it. Where were you?”

  He smiles, opening his eyes. Sitting straight and finishing his drink. “The memorial. Do you think this is the first time Hazel has flown an Everhart out of New York because he’s broken?”

  I let out a sigh, unsure of what to ask next. We’re friends. Best friends. Yet, there are a few things he’s keeping to himself. I dare to ask, “What’s going on between you two?”

  He pours more liquor into his glass. “I don’t know. And you have to stop asking us.”

  I could say, you’re in love with her since forever. I don’t. I just warn him, “You might lose her if you do something stupid.”

  “What’s there to win? She belongs to him.” His words are acidic, bitter, and my heart hurts for him.

  Hazel doesn’t belong to anyone. Certainly not to her scumbag ex-husband. She only wants love and someone who will love her even when she’s a fucking mess, a man who sees beyond the act she puts on every day. My brother sees it, he knows it—hell, he loves what’s underneath the dome she built over her heart after she was screwed over by her ex.

  If his mind weren’t floating in a pool of hard liquor, I’d beg him to get his head out of his ass. But he’s not in a good place. And, belatedly, I realize I’m right there with him. We should stop drinking. I want to stop the derailed train from crashing. But the waiter delivers the frozen margarita pitcher that Hazel ordered before going paddle boarding. And who the fuck can say no to a margarita? I sure can’t.

  Drinking the cold cocktail feels like the greatest luxury on earth. The numbness creeps into my brain and I can feel my fingers slide on the condensation before I regain my grip. I hate to agree that everything feels better being by the ocean, watching our girls paddle boarding, and drinking ourselves stupid.

  Hazel said it when I arrived: “You’re not avoiding reality, only taking a detour to build your strength. You shut down those memories and feelings, and in one day you let everything loose. It’s not healthy.”

  This wouldn’t be my first choice after what happened, an exclusive resort where I get to lounge on the beach with fruity drinks and the hottest woman in the world wearing a tiny bikini while enjoying the evening with her new best friend. But I admit—I can see the appeal.

  Far from New York, I can laugh and enjoy those memories better than I could when I was so close to where they died. It’s not being shallow, it’s being mindful of my heart.

  “Do you think we should buy a house here?” I ask.

  He stares at me for a couple of seconds slurring the only word he says, “Why?”

  “We can bring the next generation on vacations. Hazel loves the ocean.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “You’re already planning out where to vacation. Are you buying Luna a house like Hunter did with Willow when they first met?”

  “Nah, I’ll wait for her to choose where to live. We have the penthouse in Seattle, but—” I stop, shaking my head with a little laugh. “You’re right. I sound like fucking Hunter.”

  When our little brother fell in love with Willow, he bought her a brownstone in Brooklyn for her birthday. We thought he had lost his marbles. A glance at Luna is all I need to know that once you fall hard for the right girl, you just do whatever it takes to convince them that you love them. I suck in a breath. Wait, when did I fell in love with her?

  Maybe in the elevator when I first met her but certainly a few hours ago when she held me together while I was falling apart.

  “What should I do with Luna?”

  “Are you seriously asking me what to do?” Scott laughs, slurring his words. “Almost ten years ago, I fell in love with a fucking eighteen-year-old girl when I was almost twenty-six. She pushed herself into my life and turned it upside down. Years later, I’m still collecting the stupid crumbs of love she throws on the floor and feeding them to my heart. I have no fucking idea what you should do. Ask her. Hazel knows all about love.”

  He picks up his wallet and watch and tries to stand up, but stumbles back down. “I’ve discovered that she loves those second chance romances. Books, movies, shows. They are her favorites.” He laughs again. “I think that I have about a year or two left to enjoy whatever this is.”

  He points a shaky finger at me. “Don’t fucking fuck it up for me, big brother, or I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Yep, he’s drunk. He finally stands up and walks away. I watch him stumble through the rows of lounge chairs. It’ll be good for him to break his stupid head and learn to control his alcohol. Or maybe the
impact might reboot his brain.

  “Hey.” Hazel comes running back, staring at the empty lounging chair where Scott parked his ass before she went paddle boarding. “Where did he go?”

  I arch an eyebrow, as I study her. She looks worried. I answered casually, “Back to his room, he’s wasted. Something you’d like to share with me, little Hazel?”

  She chews her lip. “Okay. I—” She pauses, looking at me and then back to the chair—“Nope. It’s complicated and I’d appreciate it if you give us space.”

  “If you ever feel like talking about it,” I offer, not wanting to push her.

  “What’s going on with Luna?” she looks at me.

  “A lot. Nothing yet. I have no idea how to convince her that I’m serious. That this is no longer pretend.”

  Hazel grins, and there’s an evil glint in her eyes. “Honestly, keep doing what you’re doing. And keep your dick in your pants.”

  “What?” I look at my crotch, then over to Luna with a pout. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid so, Harry.” She nods. “Wait until she’s sure that she has feelings for you.” Her gaze strays toward the hotel building.

  “You should go to him.”

  “Harrison—”

  “I know, this isn’t happening, it’s a figment of my imagination. If I say a word, you’ll have my balls tied to a light post.” I take a breath. “Did I miss anything?”

  She leans in, kisses my cheek, and runs off to my brother’s side.

  Luna makes her way over to me, smiling wide. “I didn’t know she was a surfer.”

  “And a tomboy, really one of the guys. She hides it pretty well.” I’m impressed that Hazel has been authentic with Luna. When Willow came back into her life, she was so guarded…and Willow is her sister. “Do you want a margarita?”

  “Nope, I want to go dancing.” She smiles. “I’ve never been on vacation. I’m not wasting the next few days lounging around and drinking. Come on, we have to go get ready.”

  Dancing? Is she crazy? How am I supposed to behave like a gentleman when she’s going to be shaking her ass? I take another shot of tequila before following her. This is going to be a long weekend.