I barely notice when he steps away, when he moves out the door and the click of the door sounds.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
Her haggard breathing is the only sound in the room until I sob, gripping the bars of the gurney, holding onto them tightly and leaning against her bed. “Please wake up,” I plead to her unresponsive body. “Please, baby. Please. I love you and need you so much.”
I do. I need her arms around me. Her eyes, staring, smiling into mine. They make me feel as if I can do no wrong. As if all we have is time and our time is golden. No worries, no regrets. Two people running through life with our arms outstretched and the sun on our back. We don’t need much. We have love. We will make everything else work. Fuck Stewart. Fuck him and his speech and his intensity.
I love her.
I need her.
I need her.
I need her.
I sob and pray reverently to a forgotten and ignored God and pray for forgiveness and for her.
Madison. My heart.
STEWART
I cannot go back in there. I cannot go back after the words that I just said. I cannot face him after I saw his face crumble. He has stood up to me so rarely in his life. And in there, in his anger and his accusation... I saw the man he has become. The man he has grown into. He was right. Without me and my selfish need to have her light, he could have had a normal relationship. Whether it had been him, or someone else, she would have found a normal life. Someone one hundred percent devoted to her and not a job. Someone whose world focused on making her happy. Someone who fucked her senseless so she didn’t need a second cock. His words were honest and hit home and I pushed back with every pissed off bone in my body.
I stripped him bare and left him there. Alone with his insecurities.
I can’t go back in there. But she’s in there and so I have to go back. I can’t leave her alone. But I can’t face him again.
I am an asshole.
He is my brother.
She has my heart.
Fuck.
DANA
I am at lunch, sipping artificially-sweetened strawberry lemonade and debating between a Caesar salad or tuna roll when my phone rings. I debate ignoring it. It is probably the office, and I don’t feel like dealing with numbers and IRS regulations right now. I let it ring three times before my OCD gets the best of me and I slide my finger across the screen without looking at it, lifting it to my ear and catching the eye of the waiter. “Hello?”
“Dana. It’s me.” The catch in his voice has me instantly alert, my hand waving the approaching waiter away with a hurried motion.
“What’s wrong? Is it Paul?” I feel a tightness in my chest I haven’t feel in ten years, not since I stood in front of my mother and heard the news that broke apart our world.
“No. Yes.” He breathes deeply, and I suddenly see him, my brother, pinching the bridge between his eyes, inhaling as he struggles with whatever it is that is about to come out of his mouth. “Paul is fine. But I need you. Can you come to Venice Regional?”
“The hospital?” I am on my feet and moving, my purse in my hand, abandoning my drink, my hip hitting the corner of a table hard, and I wince. That’s gonna leave a bruise.
“Yes. How soon can you be there?”
“Fifteen minutes. I—I moved back to LA. A year ago.” I feel guilty saying the words. But its not like he’s answered any of my calls. Hard to share information with a brick wall.
“I’ll be in the ER lobby. Please hurry.”
The phone goes dead in my hand, and I jog to my car, my heels clipping on the sidewalk, my hand stuffing the phone into my purse. I feel momentary disappointment that he didn’t comment on my move—we are, after all, in the same city now. But I knew that wouldn’t matter much to him. It wasn’t as if he had the time, or desire, to meet for lunch or grab dinner one night. It didn’t matter to him if I was fifteen minutes or fifteen hours away. But he needs me now. And that makes my heart beam. He had needed someone, and he called me. Paul is fine. Whatever is wrong, both of my boys are safe. I unlock my car.
I see him as soon as I step inside the lobby, his tall frame tense, his legs moving quickly to me, and he grabs me tightly, wrapping his arms around me and pressing a tight kiss on my head. “Let’s step outside,” he whispers.
He speaks to the receptionists, a gray-haired woman who regards him with disdain, an odd reaction to Stewart’s looks and traditional charm.
We step into the afternoon heat and he releases my arm, moves to the side and leans against a column of the overhang. “You got a light?”
“A cigarette?” I stare at him. I dig in my purse, pulling out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. “What happened to your health kick?”
“It just ended.” He taps one out and lights it, cupping his hand around the flame and then inhales deeply.
I take the pack from him and shake out another, stuffing the box back in my purse. “What’s going on Stewart? As delighted as I am to hear from you, it’s been two years.”
He blew out a stream of dirty smoke. “I know, Dana. I’m sorry about that. You know what life’s like. Time is gone... before you even know it.”
“Whatever. I don’t think you have any idea what life’s like. You know what work’s like.”
He is silent for a moment, staring out at the parking lot. Then he looks over at me, his gaze intense. The intense gaze that he’s had since he was eight, a stare that cuts through any bullshit that might exist, one that protects him while he invades your soul. “I don’t need your depressing views of my life. I called you here because I need your help.”
I bite back the sharp retort that sits hot on my tongue. “Then talk to me.”
He looks out, onto the street. “It’s about a girl.”
Reality hits me like a hundred pound wrecking ball and I curse my own stupidity. Duh. I know only one fact about his current life. One blonde fact who prances between him and Paul. Of course this is about her. How did it take me five minutes to get to this bright shiny light bulb of obviousness? I should have known it the minute I heard his voice. “Go on.”
“I’m in love.” I tilt my head, stepping closer to him, the foreign word surprising. “She’s amazing, D. She’s amazing and beautiful, and I’ve screwed it all up.”
I keep my mouth shut, sucking on the end of the cigarette.
“I was too busy. Working—you know my schedule. She wouldn’t give me an exclusive relationship, not when I could only see her once a week or so.”
I arch my brow and glance over at his handsome profile, a sliver of grudging respect wedging its way into my “I hate this woman” campaign. “She shouldn’t have. You don’t have time for a house plant, much less a woman.”
He thumbs the cigarette before placing it between his lips. “I know. So I told her to see someone else. I told her I’d share her. Told her to date him and me at the same time.”
I almost say Paul’s name. Almost blow my cover. I swallow the words and aim for a casual tone. “Share her? With who?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know. Didn’t care. I just told her to find someone who made her happy. Someone who understood that I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“And you thought that would work out?” I toss my cig to the side and step on it, crossing in front of Stewart and planting my feet, staring up into eyes that I haven’t seen in far too long. “You thought what? She’d date both of you? Forever?”
He meets my stare solidly. “It was that or lose her. What was I supposed to do?”
I scoff, an expression that trips and somehow becomes an unladylike snort. “Work a normal schedule. Cut back to eighty hours a week. Enjoy life. Have an actual relationship with someone. Not timeshare her out!”
His face hardens, lines forming where there once were none. “I regret it now. I know that I fucked up. But at the time—I didn’t love her then. I had just met her. I didn’t know where it would go.”
I l
ook into his eyes. “You love her.” I test the words on my tongue, knowing, as I stare into his eyes, that he means it. That my big, strong, only-cares-about-work brother has fallen in love. Then I remember where we are standing and my blood runs cold. “Why are we here, Stewart? What happened?”
His face crumbles for a moment, a flash of weakness before he busies himself with a puff of smoke. “There was an accident,” he says softly, the last word swelling in his mouth. “A surfing accident. They don’t think she’s gonna make it.”
A surfing accident. This situation suddenly has taken a nosedive into hell. I don’t need to ask if Paul was there. I don’t need to know the many parallels that must exist that tie this incident to the one ten years ago. I swallow hard, and my heart aches for my boys.
He wipes at his face, pressing both hands over his face, the cigarette burning down, close to his skin, my desire to keep him from being hurt overridden by my understanding that I should give him space. “Paul.” He chokes out. “Paul was who she found. God’s twisted fuckaround in our lives. And when I found out... God Dana – the things I said to him.” He drops his hands, drops the burning cigarette to the ground and falls back against the column, his eyes staring out, red and filled with tears. “How did this all happen?”
I go to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and hugging him tightly as my mind sorts through all that he has just said. I had the entire situation wrong, had never dreamed that they were willingly sharing her with an unknown stranger. “Does he love her?” I pulled back and look up at Stewart. “Paul. Does he love her, too?”
“He’s Paul.”
I understand instantly what he means. Paul is a lover. He loves freely and easily; his love accepts faults and is unconditional in its strength. He wouldn’t be with her if he didn’t love her.
“Will you go talk to him?”
“I think you should.” I say gently. “I think you are about ten years overdue.”
His jaw tightens. “He shouldn’t have let her go with them. You know that.”
I glare at him. “He was fucking nineteen! And Jennifer’s not coming back, whether the relationship between you two is intact or ruined. But you know what she would have wanted.” I pull at his arm, make him look me in the eye. “She would have wanted you to be close. To be what you used to be.”
He meets my stare, his shoulders dropping slightly. “I can’t do it, Dana. I can’t go back in there after the things I said. Just go find out what he’s thinking. I called you here because I need you. We need you.”
I can’t deny that request. Not when it is the first time one of my brothers have reached out to me in years. I give him one final hug and then step back inside, anxious to see Paul. It has been so long.
PAUL
I rest my head on her stomach, feel the rise and fall of her chest, and wonder how long they will let me stay. Wonder if it is a doctor or my brother who will make me leave. I am caught off guard when a soft female hand touches my arm. Pulls it. I close my eyes and take a final breath of Madd’s scent before I rise to follow the nurse.
But it isn’t a nurse. I am so confused at her face—Dana—a face I haven’t seen in years. After Jennifer, after Stewart’s accusations and the guilt of her death—I couldn’t be around the family. Couldn’t be reminded of the decision I made that killed her. And now she is here. A damn family reunion in the middle of Madd’s hospital room. I feel a flash of anger at the intrusion, mixed with the confusing joy at seeing her. Dana was our glue, our strength. She held us together until the point when everything fell apart. And in this moment of breakage, I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her. “What are you doing here, Dana?”
She walks over to Madison. Glances at the monitors. “Stewart called me. He explained... the situation.”
I step backward, until I feel the edge of the chair, and sink into it. “He blames it on me. Again.”
She shakes her head, turning to look at me, her profile aged since I saw her last. A few shots of gray through her hair, crow’s feet around her eyes. “No he doesn’t. That’s his emotions talking. Just like it was with Jennifer. He’s mad at the situation. You’re just the closest thing for him to take it rage out on. Brush it off.”
“I don’t want to brush it off. It’s bullshit. Bullshit that I—and Madison—don’t need.”
She tilts her head at me. “You can’t speak for her. You want to speak up for yourself—fine. I think you should. I think you should tell Stewart every thing that you’ve pent up over the last decade. I think you should tell him exactly how you feel about her, and exactly how you want this to end. He deserves you to verbally kick his ass and he deserves to know how you feel about her. But it’s a two-way street. And you need to be prepared to hear what he says, too.”
“I heard what he said. He made it clear what he thinks of me.”
“But do you know what he thinks of her?”
Her soft tone makes me pause, makes me consider my next words before releasing them. “No. But I saw his reaction when he saw her. It...it wasn’t what I would expect—knowing Stewart as I—we—once did.” I look up to see her nodding, her mouth tight. “He loves her.” The words crush out of me, words that I have held back from myself, refusing to see what was so clearly laid out in devastating order before me. She moves beside me, taking the seat to my left, her hand reaching out and looping through mine, tugging it to her.
I know,” she whispers.
I lean into her, smelling the scent of her perfume, different than what she used to wear. Her hair is now dark, a chocolate brown that suits her, and she is wearing a suit. I frown, looking at the dark pinstripe of her pants. I don’t even know where she works—if she is still in accounting or if she has moved to a different field. I look at the bed, at the still figure there. “What do I do, Dana? This whole thing is so fucked up...”
“You talk to him,” she whispers, patting my hand. “Go out and talk to him, away from her.”
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving her. Not when any moment...” my words break. I swallow. “The doctor says she’s still unstable.”
She grips my arm, the hold tight. “You don’t need to fight over her body. Talk outside, let her have peace to heal.”
I turn, letting her see, through my eyes, my resolve. “Bring him here. She’s as much a part of this as we are. I’m not stepping away from this bed till they pull me away. Please.”
Her eyes sink a bit, and I can see disappointment in their depths, her grip weakening on my arm. “Fine,” she lets go of my arm. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“Hey,” I call out, a moment too late, when the door is swinging shut behind her. I reach for the handle, but her foot kicks back, holding the door, her eyes looking expectantly my way. “I missed you. Thanks for coming.”
She steps backward, and I move forward and we hug. A tight embrace that reminds me of what I have missed out on. “I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too.”
STEWART
I walk down the hall, nurses barely glancing up—the drama of earlier gone. They have now accepted the fact that Madison has two boyfriends, and that we are both present, the additional female regarded as a non-issue. I check my messages outside, six new voicemails all urgently demanding a callback. I have not called them back but they weigh on my mind, poking my brain at inopportune moments.
Madison has never asked me to cut back my hours. She accepted my schedule, my obligations. She just explained, in no uncertain terms, that schedule would mean non-exclusivity.
A part of me wonders if I’ll be able to do it. Be able to cut back. Work less. Delegate more. Six voicemails. I shouldn’t be thinking of them—not when her life hangs in the balance.
I hesitate outside the door, taking a deep breath and steeling myself. For the image of her, plugged in and supported with cords and machines. For the image of him, my baby brother, stars in his eyes and all grown up, ready to fight me over the woman I love.
I push the door
open and step into the room, his head tilting up, his eyes steady on mine. He stands on the opposite side of her bed and I step forward, until the only thing separating us is her body. His eyes are wet but steady. This is not the same man who crumbled under my words an hour earlier. This man has fight in his eyes, strength in his shoulders. And I am suddenly hit with a burst of pride in him.
I come to a stop and we stare at each other for a long moment without speaking.
“You can’t have her.” His voice is strong, resolute.
I glance to the monitors. “Neither one of us might get that opportunity.”
Anger lights his face. “She’ll make it. You don’t know her. She’s strong.”
I want to respond, to put him in his place but the truth hits me hard. I don’t know her. I know her body, ever last inch of it. I can close my eyes and draw out every curve of her skin, freckle on her face, flex of her muscles. I can tell from her breathing when she is about to come, can describe the moan she makes when she needs it harder, the gasp when my length has hit the place where she likes it. But her? I have spent too little time with her. I love her, but I need more time to know her. I don’t know what time she wakes up in the morning, don’t know her favorite ice cream flavor or what caused the small scar on the back of her knee. I don’t know her mother’s name, her TV shows, or how she likes her steak. But I do know that Paul is right. She has fire. She has fight. If there is a way, her mind will make it happen. I look down at her. “You love her.”
“Yes. I’m not letting her go.”
I pull my gaze back to him, my eyes heavy, not wanting to see what rests there. Resolve. “You fall in love easily, Paul. You don’t know what—“