Brooklyn nods and turns the page. “And this is me in her belly. Did you know babies live inside mommies’ bellies for a long time? My friend says they come from the doctor but they don’t. They come from when mommies and daddies love each other. My mommy loved me this much!” She shoots her arms straight out to the sides, straining as she leans back to make them wider.
I nod, clenching my fist to keep from choking up. I can almost hear Mason’s voice in Brooklyn’s version of the narrative, see him stretching his arms in the same way his little girl does now. How many times has she heard this story for it to flow so seamlessly?
Brooklyn straightens the book back into position. “And this is my mommy with Daddy. Daddy used to play her songs and that’s how they falled in love to make me.” She nods emphatically until I join in. “Did you know I’m a mirror-cull, Ms. Lie-berry?”
Then she turns the page.
“And that’s a sun. Mommy always said to remember the sun. Daddy even has one drawed on him so he doesn’t forget. But you can’t look at the real sun, though. It will break your eyes. Only this one.” She points to the gorgeous pink orb, sinking (or rising) on the horizon.
I swipe my sleeve across my eyes as she turns to the next.
“And that’s me! See? I was a little bug then, but I’m big now.” She laughs and traces the swaddled newborn in her daddy’s arms. Mason’s face glows with the radiance of a new father. I want to trace it too. I want to escape back in time to that moment and freeze his life. Protect him from everything that comes after. Silent tears burn in my throat, and I swallow them down to try to catch my breath.
“These are amazing,” I manage, quickly swatting at my cheeks again. Shit, my mascara is running.
“Are you sad? Why are you sad, Ms. Lie-berry?”
I force a smile and shake my head. “No, sweetie. I’m not sad. I’m just… Thank you for showing me your pictures. They’re beautiful.”
Before I can react, her little arms lock around my neck. Stunned, I’m not sure what to do. She squeezes harder, and I instinctively tuck her close. Wow. This is a Brooklyn West cuddle? No wonder Mason lives for these.
“Daddy says this is called a bear hug,” she says softly. “You know why?”
I clench my eyes shut and pull in a ragged breath. “No. Why?”
“Because the bear scares away the sad.”
CHAPTER 20
The nightmares are back. Mason says they’re not, but I can tell when he goes dark. It’s the most terrifying thing in the world because his shadow is a tomb.
MASON
I don’t know what time it is when someone finally defies my orders and cracks the door to my room. The sun set a while ago so the space is pitch black, except for the glow of a router light in the corner. Whatever. Rose can leave the soup or snack I won’t eat on the night stand and leave. I continue staring at the wall, now visible in the flash of light from the hallway. At least my back is to the door so I don’t have to acknowledge her. Maybe she’ll think I’m sleeping. I wish I were sleeping. I wish I could black out and never wake up.
You don’t mean that.
Maybe this time I do.
I force my brain back to the safer task of counting each inhale and exhale. I’d been at four hundred when the rude interruption came. The door closes again, but my relief only lasts a second before my bed creaks from a foreign weight. Alarmed, I start to shift toward the intruder when the familiar scent of lilacs stops me. Liberty? No. Can’t be.
But soon a soft hand pushes me back to my side, then slips under my arm and tightens around my chest from behind. Her head presses into my back, and I clench my eyes shut in protest. Doesn’t she know I’m poison? After today, she has to know everything. Every graphic, disgusting detail that makes up the disaster of a human I am.
Her hand roams the area until it finds mine and laces our fingers together. Tucking our entwined fists against my chest, she finally relaxes into me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I mutter.
“Shut it, West.”
Maybe my lips twitch slightly. Then, I remember. “Have you ever thought the world would be better off without you?” My words sound broken when they hit the air. Is that how they are in my head? Probably. Broken like everything else inside me.
“Yeah. I think lies about myself all the time. We all do.” Her thumb grazes over mine in a thoughtful rhythm. “But they’re lies, Mason.”
The walls are gone again. Since she closed the door, the room has returned to the sealed tomb it should be. So why don’t I feel safe anymore? “What if it’s not a lie this time? What if…?” I can’t even finish the sentence.
Her grip tightens around me. Hot moisture soaks through the back of my shirt and stings my skin like acid. I feel the heat of her breath through a kiss on my shoulder. After a long silence, she resumes the soft stroke of my thumb. “Do you know what a bear hug is, Mason?”
Tears rush to my eyes, and I clench them shut. “It’s a hug that scares the sad away,” I breathe out.
Her leg slips between mine until we’re woven into one body. A rose grafted with poison. What monstrosity would bloom from that?
“Right. You know how I know that?”
I can’t speak as more hot drops slip down my cheek and sear my pillow. Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
“Mason. How do I know that?”
I choke on a sob and shake my head against the truth spilling out around us. Bright and vibrant it flashes through my tomb. But how can I possibly believe it when I’ve never been enough?
“How, Mason?”
My eyes are on fire. My throat. My entire being feels engulfed in flames.
“How?”
Pulling in a heavy stream of air, I force out the word. “Brooklyn.”
Liberty breathes through a sob and climbs over me until she’s facing me on the other side. She centers my face on hers, forcing me to confront her quiet, tear-stained strength.
“Right. Your daughter.” Her thumb runs over my cheek as she searches my face. “Mason, don’t you see that while you’re chasing a sunrise, you’re already the entire damn sun in that little girl’s world? You’re the orbit, the horizon, everything good and beautiful in her life.” She presses a salty kiss to my lips, while I try to breathe. “So tonight you cry. You grieve. You do whatever you need to do, but tomorrow, you fucking rise.”
Crunch!
I gasp awake, shaking as the nightmare continues streaming through my now-conscious brain.
Crunch! Motion. Darkness. Pain. Paralyzing fear of a new void.
It’s been a while since the memories have haunted my dreams like this, months since I feared sleep and the black hole it used to bring. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and rest my elbows on my knees to catch my breath. Blood pounding, I glance back as if the mangled car is still exhaling its fractured essence behind me.
Instead, I flinch at the long shadow on the bed.
Liberty? She stayed until I fell asleep? Shit. She can’t see any more of my damage. I force air into my lungs and carefully rise from the bed. Maybe she’s a deep sleeper. Sneaking toward the master bath, I do my best to avoid any obstacle that might wake her. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have stayed. There’s no protecting the secrets when you pull someone else into your shadows.
I gently close the door to the bathroom, holding the knob to avoid a click. It’s pitch black inside, and for several seconds, I hover in the security of nothingness. But soon instinct takes over, and I flip the switch, squinting until the blinding glare of the vanity light exposes my monster. There he is, staring back from the mirror with familiar accusation—a beautiful mask hiding an ugly scar. He’s the same one who found me before the Draper Club show. The one who showed up after the pool confrontation with Rob and reflected back his ugly grin in the Turner Agency conference table. He always seems to know where I am. When I’ve failed. When I’m not enough. When I’m losing the fight for the sun.
“Mason?”
<
br /> A knock on the door forces my concentration away from the monster and toward the one person who’s come close to meeting him.
“I’m fine,” I call back in a grainy voice. I blink and stare down at the sink, my fingers tightening around the edge.
Crunch! Motion. Darkness.
Car crash. It’s not a crash. It’s a smack. Then a crunch. Then motion. Then stillness. Then panic. It’s the stillness that haunts my dreams. The stillness that continues to take my breath away even now.
The door creaks open. I close my eyes, supervising the flow of oxygen through my body instead. I imagine the molecules entering my lungs, filtering through a curtain of gossamer tissue, and traveling along my arteries to each limb and organ. I picture them as tiny blue orbs, smooth and cool to the touch. What does oxygen really look like? I have no idea, but I need to believe I can feel it. Sometimes it’s all I feel.
Heat and pressure snake around my right side, and I open my eyes to find the ghastly image of a rose entwined with a monster. Dark eyes search mine in the glass, waiting.
“Just a nightmare,” I say, my voice almost sounding the way I want it to. My smile is less successful.
“About what?”
“The accident.” I drop my gaze from the mirror.
“Do you have it a lot?”
“Not anymore.”
“Was the accident your fault?”
My eyes shoot back to hers, my pulse racing.
“Was it?” she asks when I don’t answer.
I close my eyes again. “I was tired that night. Upset.”
“Why?”
Ancient pain comes rushing back. Anger. Resentment. Disgust. “Because Rob came back from the dead. I kicked him out of the band a few months before, and he returned to crash one of our shows.”
“Rob Patrick?”
I nod. My hands are starting to ache from their battle with the sink.
“Why did you kick him out?”
“Because he’s an asshole.”
“Okay, but why, specifically?”
I have to look at her again. I don’t understand where these questions are coming from, but when I finally open my eyes, Liberty’s expression gives nothing away. She could be asking why I chose a clear shower curtain instead of a blue one.
“I kicked him out because he attacked Katrina.”
That has an effect, but only a flash before she tucks it away. “Attacked how?”
I stare back at the sink. “He always had a thing for her. Since the first day she came up to the stage to talk to me. He noticed her that night too and never got over the fact that she chose me. He’s used to getting what he wants.”
I pull in a deep breath, remembering the scene that finally broke us apart. It’s one of those moments forever etched in high-definition. Like a car accident. Like a doctor telling you the mother of your child will never hold her little girl ever again.
“Mason?”
I blink back to the present, to dark brown eyes that want so much for me. They want a sunrise, but maybe my world is too dark. Maybe I’m right where I belong.
“Yeah… He…” I swallow, forcing myself to confront the scene. “We’d just played a show and were loading up. He must have thought he had more time. Or maybe it wasn’t planned, but when I came out with a crate of cables, there he was, pressing Katrina up against the van. One arm was over her chest. The other covering her mouth. The look in her eyes… She was six months’ pregnant!” Tears spring to my own at the memory of the terror on her face. I pound my fist on the counter. “I rushed him. I might have killed him right then if the other guys hadn’t pulled me back. Instead, I called him when I could handle a conversation and told him never to come near us again.”
“But he did.”
I look up and meet her gaze again. “Yes. Months later, he showed up out of the blue to one of our shows. It was snowing that night, for the first time that season. I’ll never forget it. Katrina was so excited about the snow. And then that fucker shows up to ruin everything. I walked off the stage, put her in the car, and left.”
“And then?”
I clench my eyes shut.
Crunch.
Motion.
Stillness.
Panic.
“And then I killed her,” I whisper, tears squeezing from my eyes.
Her arms tighten around me. Her lips press into my shoulder.
“You killed her. Because you were drunk?”
“No, of course not!” I hiss, gaze hot in the mirror.
“Because you broke a traffic law?”
“No!”
“Oh, okay. So it’s because you control the universe and the actions of everyone in it.”
I lower my gaze, unable to meet her challenge.
“What happened next?” she asks suddenly. Demands, really. My stomach lurches at the memories, at reliving them so openly. “What happened after her death, Mason?”
I close my eyes again, shaking my head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“It was a blur. Next, there were cops and doctors and social workers, and I had this baby and…” My cramped fingers barely respond when I tell them to swat at the tears on my cheeks. Nope, they do nothing. Like I did. Like my useless presence four years ago, my hands stay locked and immobile on a cold bathroom counter. Nothing intervenes to keep hot tears from skimming down my cheeks and staining the white laminate.
“And is that why you left the band? Why you walked away from your dream?”
“What choice did I have?!” I snap my gaze to hers again. “I was fucking nineteen years old with a baby, a dead girlfriend, and no clue how to do any of it!” Finally, my hands free themselves so I can press them against my eyes. Stop the tears. Stop the memories and accusations… No. Nothing stops the accusations when they come from inside.
“I did my best,” I breathe out. “I swear, Liberty.” I search her face in the mirror. “I swear I did my best.”
Her eyes are wet with tears as well. She presses her lips against my shoulder again, breathing out a long exhale against my shirt. I imagine tiny smooth molecules of her essence filtering through my skin, attaching to my oxygen. What are the compounds of life?
“I know you did,” she whispers. “And I won’t stop fighting until you also believe your best was more than enough.”
I’m not surprised to wake to a pounding head the next morning. Last night wasn’t exactly an oasis of peace and lullabies. What does surprise me is the impatient stare resting inches from mine.
“Morning, sunshine,” Liberty says, way too chipper in the wake of the detonation that went down last night.
“Morning. What time is it?” I groan.
“Almost eight, and from the sound of it, we’re missing out on quite the party.”
I throw an arm over my face, trying to get my bearings. “Yeah, Brooklyn doesn’t sleep past six-thirty. Ever. For any reason.”
“Six-thirty? In the morning?”
I snicker at the horrified look on her face. “Welcome to parenthood. I guess Rose and Gary kept her out of our room.”
“Probably a good thing she didn’t come in.” Her gaze flickers with uncertainty for the first time since she crawled into my bed last night. “I was waiting for you to wake up before I went out. I’m not sure how you want to handle my presence with Brooklyn.”
“Shit, yeah. I don’t know.” I press my fist against my eyes. This damn headache isn’t helping.
“How do you usually introduce a sleepover guest?”
“I haven’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had a sleepover guest before.”
Her eyes widen. “Never?”
“Never,” I say with a shrug. “The babysitter would stay on the couch sometimes if my nights got too late, but that’s it.”
“Damn. Mason.”
A grin spreads over my lips as I watch her process my confession.
“Seriously, never? Not ever,” she
says, nose scrunching in adorable disbelief.
“Never.”
“Fuck, Mason!” she cries, slamming her fist into my shoulder. “Why didn’t you kick me out then?”
“Ouch.” I rub my shoulder in pretend pain. “Would you have left?”
She bites her lip. “No.”
“Okay. So?” I shrug again, still chuckling as I roll to the edge of the mattress and push myself up. “Why don’t you shower or something? There’s an extra toothbrush in the vanity. You can wear one of my t-shirts if you want. It’ll give me time to read the situation out there and figure something out. Sound good?”
She’s still glaring at me when I check her expression, but I can tell she doesn’t totally hate the idea that she’s the first woman I’ve let sleep over since Katrina.
“Okay. I’ll take my time.”
“Fine. Not too long, though. I have a feeling Brooklyn will be impatient to see you once she knows you’re here.”
“Daddy!”
“Good morning, bug. What do you have there?”
“French toast. Are you still sick?”
“I don’t think so. Did you save any for me?”
I eye the empty plate suspiciously, and Brooklyn giggles.
“I didn’t ate it all! Grandad had some. Plus, Grandma has more on the gir… jer… gri…” Her brow creases in frustration. “The big plate that cooks stuff. Did you know French toast is really made out of bread and not toast?”
“Oh yeah? I thought it was made out of bananas.”
Brooklyn giggles again. “No, Daddy! There aren’t bananas. Ask Grandma!”
“Hmm, are you sure?”
Rose approaches with a full plate and bonus inquisitive look for me. Her brow lifts with the silent question, and I nod in response.
“Hey, bug. You know how I was sick last night?”
Brooklyn nods.
“Well, my friend Ms. Liberty stayed here to help take care of me. She’s going to have breakfast with us too. Is that okay?”
“Ms. Lie-berry is here?” She’s already shoving her chair back, and I laugh as I catch her arm.
Rising West: A Turner Artist Rocker Novel (The Turner Artist Rocker Series Book 1) Page 17