by Karr, Kim
This is right.
This is us.
19
Badlands
Amelia
The huge diamond on Makayla’s left hand is like a very large pink elephant in the doorway.
After seeing it, I can’t help but feel a little hurt, even though I know I shouldn’t.
At Christmas, when Makayla and Cam visited New York City for a short three-day stay, Cam and I had stolen away on Christmas Eve under the guise of holiday shopping to go ring shopping on Fifth Avenue.
We’d gone from store to store to store, and in the end, we decided on a classic round stone with a band of much smaller diamonds surrounding it, allowing the high-set stone to be the center of attention.
I fell in love with it instantly, and knew Makayla would too.
With that being said, I had no idea he was proposing so soon. He’d spoken of Valentine’s Day, or her birthday, or the second anniversary of when they’d met, which isn’t until May. Not once had he mentioned it would be within a week of his return to California.
The door closes behind us, and I look around at all the remodeling that has been done in Cam and Makayla’s home since I was here last. With its red sofas, beige walls, and modern art, it looks so much more like a home than the bachelor pad it had once been. I know Cam has discussed buying this house, but last I heard, the landlord wanted way too much for it. I wonder if something has changed and he forgot to mention that as well.
Just like with the engagement, I don’t ask. Not now. Not with all the unanswered questions on my lips, and the hostility they bring along with them as they sit there, begging to be asked, while I dread the answers that will come at the same time.
Slipping out of my shoes, I turn around, and shaking, I draw Brooklyn’s jacket even tighter around myself.
Makayla notices right away. “We should all put some dry clothes on, and then I’ll make some tea.”
“All of my things are next door,” I answer flatly. Aware none of this is her fault, I’m trying my best not to be rude.
“I’ll go get them,” Cam offers.
Fear creeps over me. Why, I don’t know. I have no reason to be afraid of Cam finding out about Brooklyn and me, especially because there is no Brooklyn and me.
Still, for tonight, I think it is best to avoid any possible confrontation. “That’s not necessary. My things are somewhat scattered everywhere. I’ll get them tomorrow.” I look at Makayla. “Do you mind lending me something warm?”
“Not at all.” She smiles. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as she heads down the hall and disappears into their room, I glare at Cam. “You got engaged and didn’t bother to call me?”
Remorse flickers across his face. “It wasn’t planned. It just seemed like the right time, and I did try to call, but I had no cell service.”
Unable to be mad about that, I put aside my issues for this one moment and throw my arms around him. “I’m so happy for you, for the both of you.”
“He told you without me?” Makayla doesn’t sound any too pleased.
I let go of my brother and rush over to her, throwing my arms around her, too. “No, I saw the ring and asked him.”
She hugs me tightly for a long time. A connection I know we’ll share forever. I never had a sister, like my brother had a brother, but now I do. And thankful isn’t a great enough word to describe it.
Pulling back, I take the clothes from her, and then hold up her left hand. Somehow, in the midst of the ugly going on in my head, the three of us end up huddling together and gushing over the ring that will someday soon make Makayla Alexander a part of the Waters family—whether that is a blessing or a curse is yet to be determined.
“Go change,” she orders as she gracefully pulls her hand back. “I’ll make some tea, and then leave you two to talk.” She glances at Cam, and he nods.
Out of the corner of my eye, as I head toward the guest room I stayed in once before, I watch while my brother pulls his fiancée in for their own private embrace. Biting my thumbnail, I can only hope I am not about to ruin their engagement weekend too very much.
Once I’m changed and ready to talk, I scrub my face as I walk down the hall, and hope all traces of drunkenness have dissipated.
When I step into the kitchen, the light is so bright that I have to fling my hand over my eyes and blink fast so I’m not blinded.
Cam laughs. “Rough night?”
“No, not all.”
And that isn’t a lie.
Cam is alone in the kitchen. Two cups of tea are sitting at a beautiful round, wooden table. The kitchen, like the living room, has been remodeled in cheery reds, with beige walls and large, bold pictures of coffee cups on them.
“I thought you might be hungry,” he says.
“You know me too well,” I admit.
He doesn’t turn around. “I know you very well.”
I slump into one of the cute wrought-iron chairs and grab the flowered cup. “Mmmm…mint.”
“Yeah, Makayla said you liked that flavor,” Cam says, this time turning from his place at the stove, where he is cooking eggs, the only thing I know he can cook, and cook well.
“I do,” I tell him, blowing on the tea to cool it.
He turns to the skillet. “Do you want toast with your eggs?”
I twirl the cup in front of me. “Yes, please.”
Cam shovels scrambled eggs onto three plates and adds toast as it springs up from the toaster.
“You’re going to make a great wife,” I joke.
He turns with a plate in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other, but says nothing. No Shut up, Amelia, or Whatever, or Kiss mine—you know, the terms of endearment siblings use on each other all the time, the kind I’m used to. “I’ll be right back,” he says instead.
That I’m not used to. “Makayla can eat with us.”
His look says it all. “I think we need to talk alone.”
At that I swallow, and know the time for truth has come. While he’s gone, I grab the plates, some forks, and the salt and pepper, pour us each a juice, and set everything on the table.
When he comes back, he slides into the seat across from me. Without even picking up his fork, he looks over me. “What happened, Amelia, that has you all freaked out?”
I reach for the salt and sprinkle it lightly over my eggs. I’m not sure what I said on the message I left him. I’m not sure where to start. So I blurt it out. “I ran into Vanessa on New Year’s Eve.”
Cam snorts lightly and drinks some juice. “And what message did she have for me this time?”
Not expecting such an inconsequential question, I freeze with a forkful of eggs halfway to my mouth, but decide to chew and swallow it before answering.
It’s true, in the past Vanessa would send Cam gifts, and then message me on social media when he didn’t reply. Since Cam has refused to enter the modern age and use Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, it was her way of making certain he received her messages. But shortly after I went to work for my father, all of that stopped. Aside from seeing her at work, I honestly had no contact with her.
I set my fork down. “What she told me wasn’t a message for you.”
The crunch of his overdone toast as he bites into it is loud. “Okay, then what exactly had you running across the country and leaving me a message that I needed to get to Laguna as soon as possible?”
There is such a thing as overreacting, and now that a couple of days have passed, I feel silly that a) I came here to discuss this in person to begin with, and b) I pulled him away from his engagement weekend to come home and face something I know he’d much rather not discuss at all.
But I’m here, and so is he, so I might as well find out. “She told me Dad has been cheating on Mom for years, and that’s why she left him.”
I think the eggs get stuck in his throat, because he coughs and pounds his chest. “She what?”
I slide his juice glass closer to him. “You heard me.”
Taki
ng a quick gulp, he sets it down. “She has a big mouth.”
Lifting my fork once again, I find myself poking the eggs, but not eating them. “Well?” I ask, swallowing the bitter taste in my mouth. “Is it true?”
“Yes.”
One word. Nothing more.
Anger toward the man I considered my hero for my entire life crawls up my throat and I push my plate aside, no longer hungry. “So let me guess, then—the part Vanessa told me about her and Dad is true as well.”
Blank eyes stare at me.
I force the words out. “Our father fooled around with your girlfriend when you were still together with her?”
He nods. This obviously is not at all easy for him to discuss.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.
Cam’s gray eyes stare at me, sincerity bright in them. “It wasn’t my place, Amelia.”
My hands sit idly on the tabletop. “But I blamed Mom for breaking up our family—what was left of it, anyway.”
“And Mom knew you’d eventually forgive her.”
My hands shake, and I try to steady them by gripping my cup. “Why? Why wouldn’t she tell me it was Dad’s fault?”
Cam stands and takes his plate to the sink, and then turns to lean against the counter. “She knew you idolized Dad, and after Brandon’s death, she wanted you to have that one pure thing in your life.”
“Pure!” I shout. “It was all a lie!”
“It was all you had left after Brandon!” he shouts.
And I freeze. He’s right. After Brandon’s death we were all a mess, but I was in really bad shape. Blaming myself, pleasing my father had become my world. Excelling in school, interning with him, pushing myself to be like him—it had become my life, my way of making up for not being able to save Brandon.
Cam and I share a look, one that we both know says he is right.
Drawing in a breath, I blow it out and go on. “Vanessa also told me Mom blames Dad for Brandon’s addiction.”
Cam’s hands squeeze the counter so tightly I can see his knuckles turning white. “That’s bullshit. Mom knows there is no one to blame.”
My brother and I rarely talk about that time. We talk about our life before B, and our life after B, but never that time. This is, in fact, the first time we’ve talked about his death without me falling apart.
And it feels good.
Good to get it out.
Good to know the truth.
Sure, I get why Cam didn’t want to be the one to tell me. What I don’t get is why my mother would let me hate her, and allow me to continue to adore my father, who clearly has issues. Who clearly isn’t the hero I thought him to be.
I think having these couple of days away from New York, spending time with Brooklyn, and reflecting on my life has lessened the burn of the shock of all of this. Although it is not over, it’s not as distressing as it had it been.
Standing up and feeling much stronger than I thought I would after hearing the truth, I bring my plate over to the sink. Cam takes it and again we share a look before he turns to rinse it. One that says we are both okay. We each took a different path to grieve, and yes, we miss Brandon, but we both know he would have wanted us to let him go. To remember the good times, to never forget him, but to let him go.
Feeling an odd weight lifted from my shoulders, I open the dishwasher and glance over to Cam. “There’s one more thing.”
He hands me the two plates and turns the water off. “What is that?” he asks.
“Vanessa said she and Dad are still together,” I tell him, closing the door to the dishwasher.
With a sigh, he grabs a towel and dries his hands. “I don’t care who she is with, but I think you do, so I will tell you what I know.”
We end up drinking more tea and sitting at the table. Thirty minutes later he has told me the whole sad, terrible story about the bad place he was in after Brandon died, the fact that his relationship with Vanessa had already been over before he discovered her cheating on him, and that although he will never forgive or forget what happened with our father, he has moved on. And finally, he tells me he doesn’t think our father and Vanessa are together, but he isn’t certain of that, either.
He goes on to tell me our father has been trying to repair their relationship, and has assured him that Vanessa is no longer in his life. For some reason, he believes him.
In turn, I tell him about my guilt. About the deep culpability I felt the morning I found Brandon dead. And how much I miss him. I tell him why I went to work for our father and that I don’t think I want to work for him anymore. That it is time for me to pursue my dream of photography.
My dream.
My time.
And it feels so good.
I tell him things I never thought I’d be speaking out loud.
Cam nods. Agreeing. Encouraging. Prompting, and offering suggestions. When he suggests moving here, I laugh. When he suggests LA, I laugh harder, but my mind seems to be considering it.
When that conversation is put to rest for the night, anyway, I finally tell him how much it angers me that he feels the need to protect me.
At that, he smiles. “That, little sister, will never change.”
All I can do is shake my head because sitting here now, with him, it’s strange, but I’m not angry. Sure, I rushed all the way across the country to confront something I already knew must have somewhat been true, but all I feel is relief to know the truth. Relief that I am no longer living in a bubble. And relief because for the first time in a long time, I know it’s time to push my own guilt aside and to put myself first.
Scrubbing his face, Cam looks over at me. “So what are you going to do?”
I glance over at the clock, which reads 4 a.m. “Go to bed.” I smile at him.
He laughs. “I mean with your life.”
Standing up, I look at him. “I have no idea, but do you mind if I stay here a while until I figure it out?”
Rising to his feet, he pulls me in for a hug, which is unlike him. When he kisses the top of my head, he whispers, “You never need to ask me that. My door is always open for you, Amelia, you know that.”
And I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have flown here like I did.
“Now let’s go to bed,” he says, pointing toward the room that will be mine.
Yawning, I manage an “I love you,” and then start toward my room rather obediently, I have to admit. Again, when it comes to my brother, this is unlike me. Maybe we’ve both changed. Grown up. And I rather like the new us.
As I step into the guest room, which like the rest of the house is decorated in reds and beiges, I walk over to one of the two windows that sandwich the bed and stare out of it. Looking over at Maggie’s house, I glance up and can see a dim glow from Brooklyn’s room. Either his bedside light is on or the bathroom light.
Is he still awake?
If so, is his hand beneath the sheet, moving up and down over his hard cock?
And if it is, I wonder if he’s thinking about me.
What was going to take place between us.
I hope so.
20
Punch-Drunk Love
Brooklyn
A man’s mind is a complex thing, especially while jerking off.
With my hand on my cock, I try to push away the dirty thoughts of Amelia. You know—the ones her brother would cut my balls off for even thinking about.
Instead, I attempt to use the spank bank to relieve the morning wood issue. Nothing in my past that seems truly memorable comes to mind, though, and my thoughts wander to her.
Wander to her despite the fact that I’m freezing my ass off, and just want to go the hell back to bed. That I don’t want to have to go to work. In fact, I wish I didn’t have to.
In fact, the first thing I did this morning when my alarm went off at six forty-five was check the temperature—47 degrees—and then pray it was raining outside. It wasn’t. Still, when I heard nothing, I got up to check for it, hoping for not just tiny
droplets, but the torrential bucketfuls we’ve been experiencing. That was a no-go. Although the sky was filled with gray clouds, the rain was light, and I knew the beaches would be open, and that meant I had to get my ass moving.
With that, I hurried toward the bathroom in the chill of the room and cranked the water as hot as I knew I could stand it.
Before stepping in, I tried to wipe my mind clean of how wet Amelia’s pussy was for me last night, of how well her body reacted to my touch, and how satisfied she looked when she came with my name on her lips.
Now, inside the small glass enclosure, I let the water flow over me, welcoming the burn that I undoubtedly deserve.
And then I think of Amelia.
So sexy.
Stroke my hand up and down.
Think of Amelia some more.
So smart and funny.
And yes, I think of Amelia.
The memory of last night is powerful enough that it makes my cock throb so much in my hand it hurts. Wrong or right, we’ve started something that I’m not sure we can stop.
Removing my hand from my cock, I turn the water pressure on even higher. The glass steams up, and I find myself staring at it.
The water beats on my back, pounding relentlessly, and I need it. Crave it. The punishing rhythm of the wake-up call I deserve to remind me this way of thinking about Amelia is wrong.
You say it’s not.
I disagree.
If it wasn’t, why didn’t I tell Cam when I saw him? Why didn’t I text him when I was up all night thinking about what I should do? Why don’t I march over there today and ask Amelia out, right in front of him?
Not because he’ll kill me, but because he’ll fucking hate me—that’s why. And the small semblance of family the five—no, six—of us have built here will all be blown apart.
Call me a pussy, call me whatever you want, but this is the only real family I’ve ever had, and I don’t want to lose it.
I know we’re not a traditional family by definition—Keen, Maggie, Presley, Makayla, Cam, and I—but we are a family.
