To Burn In Brutal Rapture

by Nyla K

  “Okay.” I can’t help the quiver in my voice. “Please. Come here.”

  “I will. I am.” In my mind I can see him nodding. “I just… I don’t know what this means, but I’ll try to figure it out with you, okay? I promised I would never let go… Remember? I told you that.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “I know, Day… You did. I’m so sorry I fucked it all up.”

  “We’re not out of the woods, Lazarus.” He sounds like he’s walking now, and the idea that he’s getting closer to me with every second sends chills of anxious excitement to my limbs. “I’m confused… It’s hard to wrap my head around this. But I love you, and I can’t live without you. You’re my brother. I know it’s weird to say that after everything we’ve been through, but it’s still true. It always has been.”

  “I know,” I murmur then bite my lip. “Just… please. Save it. Let’s talk when you get here, okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a few, baby.” There’s an audible grin in his voice.

  “Stop,” I growl, glad he can’t see how much I’m smiling, too.

  “Sorry. I’ll be good.” He chuckles while I shake my head.

  This fucking guy. I swear to God.

  We hang up and I immediately dart into the shower, a renewed sense of determination flowing through me. I feel enlivened. Awake.

  I’m still nervous, beyond belief, because I don’t know what will happen when he gets here. I’m… scared.

  Everything Damien confessed, about Ophelia wanting us to live out our days together… It’s overwhelming. But not because I don’t want it…

  It’s because I’ve never allowed myself to want it.

  And then there’s Traci.

  We’ll have to talk about her. And I have no clue how this could all work between the three of us. But we have to try. We have to make something work. There’s no way around it.

  Because even though I’m in love with her, I’m definitely in love with him.

  And I think I always have been.

  Admitting it inside frees my heart, like a bird let loose from a cage. Weightlessly, I soar.

  I’m not letting go, Damien.

  I’m right here waiting.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Damien

  When I was younger, my folks didn’t understand me.

  They were your typical stuffy, rich parents. Stopped at one child and then moved on, leaving me to be raised by nannies and au pairs.

  Inside I always felt a little different, but I was brought up to see being different was a weakness. And for a while I actually believed that.

  Until I met Lazarus Weston.

  Laz was the definition of different. Quiet in a school full of loudmouthed show-offs; growly with piercing gray eyes that guys used to call creepy and girls used to call sexy. When the rest of our town was filled with cookie cutter clowns, Lazarus stomped into our school, scowling beneath a head of black hair and covered in tattoos… At fourteen!

  Right away, the rumors started.

  Isn’t he a convict or something?

  Yea, I’m pretty sure he did time in an adult prison, and now he’s out on parole.

  I heard his mom’s a hooker in Vegas and his dad’s her pimp.

  No, he’s a coke dealer. My cousin Billy tried his stuff, it’s out of this world.

  He looks like a vampire. Or a zombie.

  He’s like the monster who lives under your bed.

  I’d like to have him in my room at night.

  Yea, I’d let him eat me at bedtime.

  It’s funny to think back on it, after everything that’s happened in the last twenty-five years. To think what my life would’ve been like if I’d decided against breaking up that fight… If I’d never offered to drive Laz home. I might never have realized that, despite all the many differences between us, we were actually the same.

  We were both alone.

  It sounds ridiculous to insinuate that I was a lonely kid. I had more money than I’d be able to spend in five lifetimes, when Lazarus could barely afford a soda to go with his state free lunch. I had a BMW at fifteen, and enough connections from my parents that I could drive it around with only a permit, when Lazarus was stuck taking the bus, or walking for miles. And I had parents, who did love me, despite being stingy with the affection, when Lazarus had been tossed back and forth between group homes and foster families who, on their best days, were just neglectful and dirt poor.

  All that being said, we know appearances can deceive. Lazarus looked hard on the outside and sure, he was. He still is. He’s always been tougher than a brick to the face. But on the inside, he was the loneliest person I’d ever met.

  And I knew loneliness when I saw it, because I was lonely. Underneath the popular facade, the money, the expensive clothes, haircuts, all the bullshit that hid the neglect… I was fucking alone.

  So that day, when Lazarus broke down in my car, after spending the night in the woods, hiding from his drunk, perverted piece of shit foster father, I felt a link form between us. Like a chain, tethered between our lonely hearts. As if something more had brought him to my high school…

  Something bigger than him, or me, or the New York State Department of Child Services.

  Lazarus was barely hanging on when he moved to my town. He was nearly dead, and all I wanted was to bring him back to life. But I didn’t do it because I’m fucking rich, or special, or in any way like Jesus.

  Fuck no. I did it because I needed him. I didn’t save him; he fucking saved me. He brought me back to life.

  To be perfectly honest, I can’t even say with full sincerity that I haven’t been in love with him since that day. I spent so much time fighting it, and not because of what people would say. For Lazarus Weston, I would gladly give up the respect of my parents and any reputation I may have had to anyone who wouldn’t approve.

  I fought it because it never made sense for us to be more than best friends. I met my soulmate during my sophomore year at NYU, when I was leaving Marketing 204 and accidentally knocked the flyers for a meditation workshop she was organizing out of her hands.

  Lazarus was a kindred piece of my heart, but Ophelia Landon was the other half of my soul.

  Thinking about this now, while I leave the office and head down to my car, I’ve never been so certain that everything happens for a reason. Meeting Lazarus, him keeping me breathing, then meeting Lia…

  Falling in love with her. Marrying her, moving to Miami, having Traci… Ophelia getting sick. It was perfection doused in tragedy; a brilliant yet brutal rapture.

  I’m seeing things so clearly now. It all makes sense.

  Now I know why Ophelia said those things to me.

  I still remember her face, pale and eyes tired, cheeks slightly hollowed from all the weight she’d lost. But her blue eyes still sparkled, for me and Traci. And Lazarus…

  They always had a bond that would’ve made other men jealous or uncomfortable. But I loved it. I needed both of them, so it made my heart soar that they loved each other so much.

  Two days before she took her last breath, my wife told me she knew I would never be lonely again. She didn’t have to worry about me finding love after her…

  Because I have Lazarus.

  Rejecting it just made her smile. She fucking knew, when I didn’t. When I couldn’t comprehend the things she saw for me and my best friend.

  So that night five years ago, when I was hurting, aching with loss, and Lazarus was there just like he always has been… I looked at him and I allowed myself to see him, for the first time in over a decade, since the night I kissed him and it tickled my stomach the way kissing Lia did.

  I couldn’t fight anymore. Yet despite how resurrecting that night was, I wasn’t brave enough to go further. Because Lazarus is the storm you watch from the window.

  Could I really step out into that storm?

  What if it sweeps me away and destroys me?

  These are the questions I’m asking myself as I slip into the driver’s s
eat of my vehicle and start the engine, buckling up. I pull out of the parking structure for our building and head toward Ocean Drive.

  I’m going to my best friend’s house, to make up. To finally talk after four months of barely any contact. Months of cutting him out, and I’m still none the wiser.

  Because even though I know what happened with him and my daughter… Even though I know she’s in love with him, and probably has been for a while now, I just know I’m going to give into him the moment I get there.

  I’m powerless against Lazarus Weston. I always have been.

  This is why I severed contact. It wasn’t because I hate him, or because I didn’t think I could forgive him for being with my daughter. I mean, I still don’t really know how to feel about it, or what we could possibly do to get past it.

  But I’ve been avoiding him because for four months, all I’ve heard were Lia’s words.

  I’ve always had him. He was mine.

  And then he somehow became Traci’s.

  I want so badly to give into what we’ve both been fighting for so damn long, but how can I do that knowing it would ruin my daughter?

  As antsy as I am to get to Laz’s house, I’m driving slow, contemplating all of this. All these incessant thoughts; questions without answers and open wounds that still haven’t healed.

  I love my daughter more than life itself. It makes sense that the only remaining person on this earth whom I love just as deep and full, she would fall for, too.

  I chuckle to myself and shake my head as I stop at a red light, marveling at how everything has come together. As spectacularly merciless and damning it’s been, as confusing and crippling at times, it still makes sense.

  I want him. She deserves him.

  It’s just him, man. Lazarus fucking Weston. That storm; that beautifully destructive force of his.

  All the pain in the world couldn’t take away from the joy he gives just by being him.

  My light turns green and I step on the gas. Something tells me to look left, and my head turns just in time to see the truck.

  In a split second, everything is white.

  White noise, and heat.

  Ophelia’s there…

  She’s on the beach, with Lazarus and me and we’re laughing. The day after the wedding…

  Their smiles light up the night sky.

  You’re not letting go, Damien.

  We have you.

  Give up the fight.

  And then it all goes dark.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Lazarus

  Damien is taking too long.

  I’m panicking that he changed his mind. He wouldn’t do that, would he?

  He said he was on his way from the office, which is a fifteen minute drive. Maybe a half-hour tops, with extreme traffic.

  I was only in the shower for five minutes, and now I’m dressed, pacing around my living room. Waiting for him. Waiting waiting waiting.

  What’s taking him so long?

  I need to see him. I’ve been itching since we ended our phone call. I know there’s still so much in the way. So much is uncertain about our relationship right now…

  What about Traci?

  I can’t be in love with both of them… It’s not right.

  These are the things that need to be ironed out, if he would just stop his Damien dillydallying and get here already.

  I wander to my kitchen to grab a bottle of water, going the sober route since Day decided to give me another chance at our friendship. But my phone starts ringing in the other room.

  I rush to get to it, in case it’s Damien telling me he’s held up. But I see a Miami number I don’t recognize.

  My brow furrows as I answer the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Lazarus Weston?”

  I freeze. “Yes…”

  “You’re the emergency contact for Damien Wright?”

  The air around me thickens.

  “Why…?”

  “Sir, I’m sorry to tell you…”

  The voice echoes.

  “On the scene…

  Truck… ran a red light…

  Paramedics… Did everything they could…

  I’m sorry.”

  Everything in the world comes crashing down on me. Weight, heavy fucking mass crushes me and my knees hit the floor.

  Ringing in my ears.

  Loud, my heart is shattering like a pane of glass.

  No.

  “Mr. Weston?”

  No.

  “Are you there?”

  Don’t take him. Please.

  Take me.

  “I… No… I’m not…”

  “Sir, we can give you some next steps…”

  Next steps?

  My body lurches and I gag.

  No.

  This is a bad dream.

  I blink. And blink and blink, but I’m still fucking here.

  Nothing makes sense.

  He’s not gone. You’re lying.

  Blink. Blink. Make it stop.

  The voice keeps speaking to me… “… come down… identify… next of kin…”

  Shut the fuck up.

  Stop it. Why are you doing this to me??

  I hold my chest and retch because I’m sick.

  Cursed and diseased and so sick.

  He’s not gone.

  He’s not.

  He’s fucking not.

  He said he wouldn’t let go…

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Traci

  Time is such a fickle bitch.

  She speeds by all the things you really want to experience. You chase her, try to capture her, but she’s a butterfly evading your net. Faulkner said it best.

  And yet she just flits right by.

  Until there’s a rare, cruel moment of excruciating agony. Then she stands goddamn still.

  She stops and stares, taunts you with how available she is now that all you want in the world is for her to move past this.

  Fast forward. Move move move.

  Go!

  That’s how the last three weeks of my life have happened. Painfully drawn-out. Each second ticking by achingly slow, like I imagine they would in a torture chamber.

  I got a call from my Grandfather, Dallas, who lives in New York.

  He told me my father was in a car accident.

  And he didn’t make it.

  Pain.

  Apparently some asshole in a box truck ran a red light and smashed right into him. That piece of scum was DOA, but my dad hung on for a few minutes while the paramedics tried to resuscitate him.

  He had internal injuries. Head trauma. Lost too much blood.

  He was gone before they could even get anyone on the phone.

  Fast forward.

  Go. Move move move!

  I went to the coroner’s, as next of kin. Lazarus was there.

  We shared a brief look… That was the only thing that slipped by in a split second.

  The rest of it drew out like waterboarding.

  Things I’m all-too familiar with. Relatives everywhere, comforting me. Conversations with funeral directors and lawyers. What to do and where to go and blah blah my ears were bleeding as bad as my heart.

  I didn’t need any of it. What I needed was my fucking father back.

  To not be a goddamn orphan.

  As strong as the desire was to go to sleep forever when my dad found out about Lazarus and me, it was infinitely hungrier during all of that bullshit. My Grandpas, Frankie and Pete, stayed in the house with me, watching over me like hawks. At the time it was annoying as fuck. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without them waiting outside the door, knocking every two seconds.

  But now that I think back on it, I appreciate their concern. I didn’t relapse once, not even at the funeral.

  The longest minutes of my entire life… Trillions of them, or so it seemed.

  Endless. Fucking. Misery.

  My father was cremated, just like Mom was. Ashes to be sc
attered with hers, in Key West, where they were married.

  Deja Vu at its finest.

  There was a massive funeral, full of hundreds of business colleagues, socialites clutching tissues, wealthy artists and billionaire moguls. The affluent and successful came from all over to bid farewell to Damien Wright.

  To an empty casket.

  My Grandparents and Merci stayed by my side the whole time. And though tears slipped from my eyes, I didn’t feel myself crying. I couldn’t feel the shivers of my sobs.

  I couldn’t feel anything.

  But the same could not be said for the zombie resembling my godfather.

  Lazarus had never looked worse. He barely spoke to anyone and disappeared before the parade was even through. And no one has seen or heard from him since.

  I’m beyond worried about him, but honestly I can’t focus on that right now. I just need to concentrate on keeping my head above water. Keeping myself clean.

  I know it’s what Dad would want. And I refuse to let him down anymore.

  Now I’m sitting in my father’s study, surrounded by his lawyers and all my grandparents.

  My mind flashes back to the last time I was in here…

  It was the day before he died.

  He had gotten home from work hours earlier and we had dinner. One of our perfectly quiet, content evenings that used to bore me a little, though now I would go back to one in a heartbeat and just revel in the presence of him. It makes me sick to think of how often I took him for granted…

  I went outside after dinner to meditate, then I came back inside, wandering around the house before bed. I passed the study, and the door was open a crack. When I peered inside I saw my father sitting at his desk, glaring at his phone screen with his brow furrowed, as if whatever he was seeing was troubling him.

  Rather than leaving him alone to deal, I pushed open the door and stepped inside, approaching him slowly. He looked up and the lines on his forehead disappeared, that calming smile tugging at his mouth. I would give anything to see it again now.

  “Sup, Tiny?” He crooned to me, flipping his phone face down on the desk, giving me his full attention, like he always did.

  “Don’t say sup, Dad,” I teased. “You’re too old.”