so little time to absorb him, to remember him, to take his goodness and make it mine.
He runs his hands over my hips, and I lift them, granting him access to the most sensitive part of me. When he does, I forget how William’s fingernails bit into me earlier. Brand eclipses it, erases it, eradicates it.
I twist the sheets in my hand, moaning his name as he strokes me.
Make me good, Brand.
He kisses my neck, my lips, my cheeks, before he rests his forehead against mine and as he stares into my eyes, he enters my body, slowly, smoothly, deeply.
With purpose.
I suck in my breath and then breathe with him, in slow pants as he slides in and out, over and over.
“I want to see you,” he rasps against my neck. And then he pulls out, and flips me on top of him, his hands grasping my breasts, kneading the sensitive flesh.
“That’s better,” he sighs. Sliding his hands along my hips, he worships them. Then he spends his attention on my breasts and leaning up, he suckles them, laving them with his tongue, rolling my nipples between his teeth. All the while, I’m rocking on his hardness, sliding him in and out, enjoying the wet warmth, the hardened rigidity.
Fill me up, Brand.
He slides in and out, fast then faster and finally, I throw my head back and arch on top of him, shattered from the orgasm. I shake and shake with it, my muscles contracting around him.
He smiles.
“My turn.”
He begins moving inside of me again, but then pulls out, and flips me over one more time, this time, I’m face-down on the bed as he fucks me from behind. He pulls me up toward him with his hands and then reaches around and strokes me while he fucks me.
I come again, before he finally groans with his own release.
I collapse onto the bed, limp and satisfied and sad.
This is all I have. I have to memorize it. I have to memorize him, his face, his smell, his hands.
I pick up one of his hands and trace his fingers as he pulls me onto his chest with his other arm.
The silence between us is huge and loaded and important. I don’t know why. Then I realize… as he looks at me, the expression in his eyes is different.
Because he loves me.
I don’t know how I know, but I know.
I nuzzle into him, my face in his neck, trying to spread that warm, soft, good feeling all over my body.
“I’m so tired,” I tell him, hoping that he won’t actually say the words. I can’t hear the words. Not if I have to leave him. It’d be impossible. Excruciating.
Please don’t.
He chuckles instead and the moment is broken. “I wore you out. Take a nap and we’ll do it again.”
But he’s the one who falls asleep.
I watch him, as he breathes in and out. As his arms still encircle me, as he still protects me even while he sleeps.
My heart twinges, my gut tightens.
I glance at the clock.
Eleven pm.
We’ve spent hours in this bedroom, making love over and over. Because that’s how I wanted to spend my last hours with him. It will be these memories that I exist on from this day forward.
But the clock is ticking and I have one hour. I have no doubt that William probably has someone watching the house, just to make sure I hold up my end of the bargain.
As gently as I can, I slip from the bed and sit at the desk by the window, scribbling out a note. It’s brief but I don’t know what else to say… I don’t know what to say that won’t hurt him. I fold it over and write Brand’s name on it, propping it up by the lamp where he’ll see it.
I watch him again, soaking him in, memorizing his strong face, his chiseled jaw, the cleft in his chin. I wish I could look into his eyes one more time… the blue, blue ocean that I’ve looked into a hundred times.
The eyes that say they love me, even if he hasn’t said the words. I know he does. I saw it tonight.
And that will have to be enough.
I bend and brush the softest of kisses on his brow and slip from the room.
I know Jacey isn’t back yet, so I quickly grab my things from her room, stuffing them in my bag. I’m quietly walking through the kitchen when the back door opens and Jacey steps in.
She’s startled to see me and she starts to say hello, but then her eyes take in the bag in my hand and widen.
“Are you… you’re leaving.”
I swallow hard, then nod. The movement hurts, like a scalpel or a sword.
“And Brand doesn’t know.”
Jacey’s voice is limp.
I stare at her, not answering.
She stares back, confused, pissed.
I take a step around her and she grabs my elbow.
“I don’t know if this matters to you, but I haven’t seen Brand this happy in a long time. Actually, I’ve never seen him this happy. This will kill him. I can’t imagine why you’d leave him.”
I stare at her, directly in the eyes.
“You left him.”
“But he and I were never together,” she points out. “You… I … never mind. It’s not my business.”
She turns her back and starts to walk away.
“Jacey?”
She turns around silently, because words aren’t needed. Her icy glare says everything.
“Sometimes things aren’t what they seem. Can you.. just… take care of him.”
Jacey nods curtly, one time, and I do the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do in my life.
I drive away from Brand Killien.
I sob the entire way to the airport.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brand
When I wake, the bed is empty. It takes a minute to realize that Nora has already gotten up. I stretch and wait for her to come back, but after a long while passes, I realize she’s not going to.
She must be out talking with Jacey.
I shake my head as I climb from bed. What a fucked up situation. But what an amazing night.
As I reach for my shorts, I see the paper.
Folded over, with my name scrawled on it, propped up on the desk. My stomach drops like a piece of lead, into my feet, into the floor.
This can’t be good.
I don’t want to open it, but at the same time, I know I have to.
My body goes numb as I read her words.
Brand,
This was more than I bargained for. I’m sorry. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Nora
She doesn’t mean it.
She can’t possibly.
Yet, she’s gone. And this letter is here in her place.
I ball the paper up and throw it in the trashcan and then before I can control my anger, I smash my fist into the wall. It breaks through the drywall with a crash, and little pieces of it fall to the floor.
It doesn’t take Jacey long to come running.
“Jesus,” she breathes, taking in my bloody knuckles and the hole in the wall. “I’ll get a washcloth.”
She disappears and comes back within a minute, forcing me to sit on the bed and pressing the wet cloth around my hand. “I’ll pay for the repairs,” I mumble.
“I don’t care about the wall,” she tells me. “I care about you. Are you going to be ok?”
I growl and look away. “Of course. This isn’t the first time I haven’t been good enough for someone.”
Jacey sucks in a breath and looks at me, her eyes wide and blue and hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just…fuck.”
Jacey rubs my back, her head on my shoulder. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, Brand.”
“This is bullshit,” I tell her as I stand up. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
But it makes all kinds of sense.
No one stays with me. For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve never been fucking good enough. It doesn’t matter how good I am, how strong I get, how good a job I do… it’s never enou
gh.
Not for anyone.
“Fuck this.”
I stride from the room, intent on going somewhere, anywhere… to get this shit out of my head.
Everything is swirling through my thoughts… my father who beat me, my mother who hates me, Jacey who didn’t want me… and now Nora. It all bleeds together and I can’t tell the emotions apart.
I’m simply not good enough.
As I walk through the living room, my eyes fall on that fucking wooden box and I pick it up, gripping it tight. It just symbolizes one more failure.
Jacey trails behind me and stares at it. “What’s that?”
“I wasn’t good enough to save my little sister,” I tell her, my voice sharp, the words painful. “Did you know that?”
Jacey shakes her head, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know you had a sister,” she answers softly.
I nod. “Yeah. I did. She drowned when I was six and I wasn’t good enough to stop it. At least, that’s what my old man always told me… when he was beating the shit out of me every night. Those bruises I had when I was a kid? That’s why I got them. Because I wasn’t fucking good enough.”
Jacey is still, completely frozen. “My grandma called social services, you know,” she tells me. “They came and investigated your father, but they couldn’t find enough evidence to take you away.”
Of course not. I vaguely remember that, too. One summer, when I was twelve or so, I’d come home for a change of clothes and there were people at the house, strange people in pant suits who asked a lot of questions. My father had stared meaningfully at me, and I’d answered them all like I know he’d want me to.
Kids are loyal to the end.
Well guess what? It’s the end.
I grip the box hard, staring at it’s intricate design, at the way it so cleverly conceals it’s contents. Hard and fast, I throw it across the room. It shatters against the wall, splintering into pieces on the floor.
I don’t make a move to walk to it, to see what’s inside.
Jacey stares first at it, then at me.
“I don’t know what happened to your sister,” she says softly. “But I do know that whatever it was, it wasn’t your fault.”
I can’t help it. It all wells up in me and I sink to the floor and sit limply, and all of it comes out. All of it.
My sister sleepwalking. The way we had to keep her locked in for her own safety. How my mother had found her washed up on the shore and how her screams had shaken the house. How my father had beat me every night when he came home from the bar. Ring the bell, Brand. How he had swung at me when I graduated high school and how then it was my turn to beat him. How I’d punched him and punched him until my mother pulled me off and called the police. How the judge had suspended my sentence when he heard I’d been accepted to West Point, but only if I’d agree to enter the military afterward. How that was okay with me, because it’s had been my plan anyway. And how my mother hates me now.
All of it comes out.
All of it.
Jacey holds my hand and tears stream down her face as she listens to me rail and vent and swear. Years of disgust and bitterness flow out of me, all of it.
All.
Of.
It.
Even the parts that are directed at her.
“You used me for years,” I tell her angrily. “And I let you. That’s on me. Because I always thought I wasn’t good enough.. it’s something that’s embedded deep down--- so I always felt like that’s what I deserved. To take and take and take. Well you know what? Fuck that. I don’t deserve that.”
Jacey grips my hand tighter.
“No, you don’t deserve that, Brand. And you were always good enough. Always. I was the one who wasn’t good enough for you. Your dad was asshole. Your mother is just as bad. They fucked you up, but you’re stronger than they are. You are. You’re good and strong and loyal… and you were more of a man when you were six than your father was ever. You have to know that, Brand. You have to.”
I’m finally done railing. I’m limp and tired and exhausted.
I nod. “Yeah. I do know that. I’ve spent my entire life trying to be good enough. I think it’s time that I just… that I just am.”
Jacey nods and holds me and I close my eyes for just a minute.
“I didn’t deserve for Nora to leave in the middle of the night without even a conversation. Fuck her.”
My eyes pop open and Jacey is watching me, her face pale.
“I’m going to shower,” I tell her as I get up. And I walk away.
A minute later, though, Jacey calls me.
I hesitate at my bedroom door.
“Yes?” I call back.
“I looked in the box.”
Her words are simple, her tone calm.
Suddenly, I want to know. What the fuck did my father have to say? What could he possibly have to say to me?
I stride back to the living room and find Jacey standing over the shattered remains of the box. She turns to look at me, her face pale, her eyes huge.
There, dangling from her fingers, is the old sliding lock from my sister’s bedroom door.
The paint is peeling from it, it’s old and it’s rusty, but it’s as familiar to me as my own hand. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the sound it made when it slid into place every night before bed.
If I close my eyes, and imagine the sound, I also know something, something that I’ve purposely not thought about over the years, but something I’ve known since the night my sister died.
I didn’t hear the lock slide into place that night.
It’s something I’ve never told another living soul.
Jacey stares at me.
I stare at the lock.
“I knew my father didn’t lock Allison’s door that night,” I finally say. “I knew. I waited until he left for the bar, and I snuck downstairs for a snack, for some cookies. I meant to lock the door when I went back to bed, but I forgot. I walked right past and I forgot. I laid in bed that night, staring out my window, staring at what I thought was a silver