“I’m coming,” he shouted back. He bent down and whispered in my ear. “Just not the way I wanna be coming. Right, baby?” And with that he crossed the strap of his duffle bag across his body and positioned it to cover his crotch. “I’ll text you when I get home, okay?”
“I’ll be waiting,” I told him. I watched him jog away and looked over to the bus. Reign was watching Meekai and must have felt my eyes on her. She smirked and threw me a wink. Within the wink held a challenge, but I knew Meekai. She might have slept with him, but I owned his heart.
I flipped her the bird and mouthed “Fuck you” as the bus pulled away.
A few minutes later, Becca and Brooks pulled up beside me, arguing about which were better, plain M&M’s or peanut. I laughed as I grabbed onto Becca and dragged her down the steps. Brooks trailed behind us, mumbling something about Becca being enough of a peanut, the last thing we needed was more nuts in the world. I smiled, my heart full as I listened to them.
Weeks ago, I had no one. Now, I had everything I needed. Everything I ever wanted.
As Betty purred up the driveway to Gamma’s, Becca and Brooks were screaming out the song currently pumping out through her stellar sound system that Wyatt had installed about six months ago. He’d said it was embarrassing rolling around with the run of the mill piece of shit that had been in there. He’d said the bass had to be deep and loud; that Betty should no less than bounce as I drove her. Men.
We pulled up to the door, and Becca’s phone pinged with a message. Her smile dropped into the icy cold frown she'd been sporting for weeks. I’d stopped asking what was going on and tried to take my own advice, which told me she’d tell me when she was ready.
She gazed out the window and shook her head as I turned off the engine and looked over at her, Brooks grabbing her things and exiting the car.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh . . . um, Mama just messaged and asked if I’d go organized Clarence’s feed for the night. Her and Daddy didn’t get a chance before they left for the lake.”
Becca’s parents went to the lake this time every year for their anniversary. They’d meet up with a few friends who were married around the same time and spent a long weekend there. Mama and Dad used to go with them. Being reminded of that made my heart dip and eyes sting. I’d almost forgotten.
I managed a smile and asked if she needed any help with Clarence. Unlike the dairy cows, Clarence was a spoiled-ass bull that Becca had saved from a slaughter yard when she was eleven. She loved and doted on him like he was a dog.
“Nah, that’s cool. I’ll be ten minutes max. I might grab a few things, too. I don’t think I have any clean PJ’s left in my drawer.”
Becca had a drawer in my bedroom, always had. It contained underwear and PJ’s because she used to basically live here when I visited.
“Okay, well I’m gonna go peel off these jeans. I need some comfy leggings.” I groaned. “Don’t be long. Brooks wants to watch all three Fifty Shades movies while she yells at Anna for being a submissive loser.”
Becca laughed and said if she wasn’t back in twenty to come looking for her. Clarence had been giving her side eyes lately and she was convinced he had it in for her. I told her she was a dick and made my way inside.
“Dude, she’s’ been gone an hour. I should have ignored you at the forty-minute mark and gone to check on her.”
“She’s fine,” Brooks argued. “She probably got carried away piling a heap of unnecessary shit in her overnight bag, or in her case, her luggage.” She laughed with a knowing roll of her eyes.
She wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t unusual for Becca to turn up for a sleep over with a medium sized suitcase on wheels. “Just in case we need something, I’m like a boy scout, always prepared.”
“I’ve sent three texts, Brooks. Not one of them answered. What if she’s fallen and hurt herself in the barn? Nope, I’m going. Come if you want, but I’m gonna go look for her.”
“Just give her another five minutes. I’m telling you, she’s knee-deep in her makeup. She was determined to see my hair in waves and threatened her hot curlers, too. Once she starts looking for one thing it snow balls into an avalanche of useless crap.”
“Like I said, you can come if you want,” I arched a brow and cocked a hip. She groaned as she stood up from my bedroom floor and trailed behind me.
As we approached the barn to check on Becca, I could hear more than one raised voice coming from inside. I looked over to Brooks in confusion, not really sure of what I was hearing as I began to power-walk closer to the barn.
“Radley, don’t,” Brooks said as she grabbed my shirt and pulled me back. “Please just leave it. She’s fine, see? Her voice is hella loud. Seems like she’s still breathing to me.”
I looked over to her with what the fuck written all over my face and yanked myself out of her hold. She reached again, this time pulling gently on my arm, her words stern.
“Don’t, Radley. Just leave it.”
“Like hell I’ll leave it,” I spat at her. I pulled away for the second time but walked more cautiously towards the voices, stopping when I got close enough to listen.
Wyatt was begging Becca to understand. Understand what? I’d had enough of not knowing what was going on with her. If this was the only way I was going to find out what was going on, I had no qualms about eavesdropping.
“Words, Wyatt! They’re just empty promises. You think you can just turn up here freshly broken up from Charlie and come back to finish what you started three years ago?”
“You know full well I couldn’t pursue those feelings.”
“Yet you kissed me anyway.” She laughed with disbelief. “You broke my fucking heart, Wyatt. You promised the world, and then I find out a month after you leave that you started seeing Charlie. Do you know how it’s killed me having to hear over and over how it won’t be long until you put a ring on it from Gamma? You promised me,” she cried out. “You broke me!”
“You were fifteen, Bec. Fucking fifteen. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to not promise me the world and then take it away. You asked me to wait, so I waited. I took every kiddo you patronized me with and took it like a fucking champ. Can you imagine how that felt? Calling me kiddo but kissing me like you meant it, shoved up against a dark corner of this fucking barn! I gave you my heart!!” She screamed, deep sobs following as she said something I thought I’d never hear. “I gave you my virginity. You told me you loved me.”
My heart felt like it was going to explode. The pain that resonated from her cries, gutted me. I looked over to Brooks who had her head bowed, shaking her head as she listened. Wyatt’s words from the night he tattooed me made more sense now. His feelings for Becca were why he believed he wasn’t a good man. I’d begged him to tell me what had him so defeated.
“Baby, I did love you. I do love you!”
“Stop! Stop calling me baby! I’m not your fucking baby! Oh, hang on, I suppose I am aren’t I, Sir? Not legal, just a kiddo,” she mocked.
“You’ve always been mine, Becca, but this was always bigger than us. I had to make the hard decision. It broke me! Every voice message you left, listening to you break broke me completely and entirely apart!” His voice was just as pained, emotion poured into each word.
“Then why wouldn’t you act like a man and return my calls? Tell me for yourself? There’s a picture of you and Charlie on the family wall at Gamma’s, Wyatt. A picture taken the first Christmas you brought her here. You brought her to the family Christmas party. The photo was taken at the same Christmas party I was at, you asshole!”
“Becca, please. Please don’t give up on this. I couldn’t lie anymore. I tried, but all I ever saw was you. What I did was fucking unforgivable. After I saw you run up the stairs and close Radley’s bedroom door, I listened to you cry. I sat with my back against the door and listened to every why that left your mouth. And just to let you know, I asked just as many why’s as you did. I matched you, tea
r for tear.”
“That may be so,” Becca choked out. “But the reality is, you made me watch! Do you know what it’s like to have to pretend I don’t see the picture of both of you hung on the wall? You loved her, I could see it in your eyes. So don’t lie to me. I see in that picture the same look you gave me when you loved me.” Her voice had turned into an exhausted whisper, her fight all but gone.
“That’s because I was looking at you, baby.”
My breath hitched, remembering that very Christmas. Becca and I were laughing at pictures of Mama and Rachel when they were pregnant with both of us. Gamma had yelled at Wyatt and told him to look at the camera.
I remember, because straight after she’d said, “I want a picture of you and your future wife on the family wall, baby boy,” both Becca and I had turned to look towards the noise. I remembered that I was happy Charlie would be like the sister I never had because Wyatt and I were so close. I could still feel my smile, but thinking back, knowing what I do now, how could I have been so ignorant?
“It doesn’t matter that you were looking at me, Wyatt. All that matters is you continued to have a three-year relationship with someone your own age. A good and kind person who I couldn’t even fathom to hate. The same woman you moved in with. You chose a future with her because of the very real fear that you could go to prison because of me, because of us. I get that. I do.”
Her voice had calmed down, and I was saddled with guilt for standing and listening to a very private conversation, but I couldn’t tear myself away.
“Every time I called and you ignored it, that was a choice. You chose to leave me without any answers. You let me make up my own narrative because you didn’t have the courage to give me the truth. I mean, I’m a fucking teenager. How hard could it be, right?
“What?” He scoffed. “How hard could it be walking away from you? No matter your age, Becca, you were my equal when it came to our feelings. So, yes, in answer to your question, it was excruciatingly impossible to answer your calls and tell you that I had no choice but to never answer you, to never return your calls. How could I tell you that I’d never be able to follow my broken fucking heart, get on that bike, and race through five states to get to you? I would have been sent to prison. Your father threatened as much.”
I heard her gasp through the wooden panels of the barn. I listened to the silence that carried across a full minute. Brooks looked over to me and told me in a hushed whisper that we needed to leave, but I shook my head at her.
I had to try to understand why, my then twenty-five-year-old cousin, who was truly a brother to me, could have seemingly fallen in love with a fifteen-year-old girl. I could hear his pain, his struggle. I knew him, and no matter how I felt about the situation, this was the most honest I’d ever hear him, when he had no idea I was listening.
“Daddy knew?” she whispered.
“The day before I left, that last kiss . . . he saw it. He said that if I didn’t turn around and forget about you, he’d send you away to a private boarding school, and me to prison for statutory rape. I had no choice,” he told her tenderly, no doubt hoping she’d see his side a little clearer with all the facts.
“But you didn’t rape me. It was consensual,” she cried.
“Not according to the law, babe . . . Becca,” he corrected. “You love your parents. You love your life here. I wasn’t going to have them send you away to a glorified prison to keep you away from me. So, I let you go and tried to move on.”
“I had no idea,” she told him. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you could’ve found a way to tell me. I would have at least been able to try and understand, but because you never tried, I never got the opportunity to work through it. So, are you back because I’m of legal age? Because now I fulfill all the requirements?”
“No, that’s not how it is. Please don’t make it out to be so dirty. Everything I told you, everything I made you feel, that was real. I love you. I never stopped.”
“You’ve got balls coming here like this. Did you think my age would be the weak spot? Have me gushing for you,” she spoke sarcastically. “Did you think I’d be grateful you finally chose me? You have no right to say you love me.”
“I may not have the right, but it doesn’t change the fact that I do.” His voice was the saddest I think I’d ever heard it. I could understand Becca’s anger. I could understand Wyatt’s sacrifice.
“Charlie didn’t deserve the lies you told if what you’re saying is true.”
“No, she didn’t. You’re right. I felt for Charlie. I loved her, just not the way I should have. She was close to Radley, my parents loved her. I was an asshole. When you called me to say Radley needed me, I heard your voice, and I couldn’t’ take another day without you, Becca. Me and Charlie had already broken up. She wanted different things. I think she felt I was never there a hundred percent of the time and broke it off. We’d been living separate lives for months.”
“Well, I’m not ready for you. I may never be ready for you, Wyatt. My family will obviously never accept us, that’s been proven. Even though I’m angry, so fucking angry, I can see why you did it. The thing is, though, you handled it wrong and my heart still remembers how it felt when you left without a trace. When you came back that Christmas with Charlie, I told myself you were finally coming back for me. How pathetic . . . To see you walk through the door laughing with her, holding her hand . . . There I was, dressed in my prettiest dress, willing to throw myself at you, beg you to love me.”
“Stop,” he pleaded. “I can’t.”
“But I could? You don’t want to hear the truth from my perspective? It’s just as worthy as yours.”
“I know it is. I have enough self-hatred for the both of us.”
“I don’t hate you, Wyatt. I just refuse to feel like a consolation prize. I can’t erase the memories of you and her, the years I witnessed you two together. All the patronizing I endured . . . How could you do that to me?”
“I wanted you to hate me even more than I knew you already did. I figured the more you hated me, the easier it would be for you to find someone your own age.”
“Yeah, well that never happened. I tried.”
“I don’t wanna hear how you tried.”
“Well, I didn’t want to see you with your tongue shoved down Charlie’s throat either. Please, I need you to go back to calling me kiddo. I need you to go back to pretending I don’t exist to you. I need you to let go, so I can finally let go, too.”
“You don’t mean that,” his voice raised, underlying thunder trembled beneath his words. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll move here. I already have a job lined up with Stone. His tattoo shops only two towns over. Once you graduate, we can get our own place here. You’re mine,” he claimed with certainty.
“No, Wyatt. I’m not.”
“Well, that’s not what you were saying twenty minutes ago when I was on top of you . . . loving you.”
“Enough!” she yelled.
My mouth fell open, a sudden surge of panic braced my body as I heard footsteps approaching the doorway to the barn. Brooks tugged at me, signaling that we needed to hide behind a tree, but it was too late.
“Radley? Brooks? What the hell?” Becca demanded.
I turned to face her, my head hung in shame. I felt embarrassed that she’d caught me. I felt her shock as she went over everything I could’ve possibly heard. I could see the same concern on Wyatt’s face as he stopped dead and focused his attention on me.
“Boo,” he stammered. “How much did you hear?”
I raised my head. “About ten minutes worth,” I admitted.
“Shit,” Wyatt mumbled. “Radley, please try to understand. See? This is why I couldn’t tell you. That look on your face right now, that’s why. Do you still think I’m a good man?” He dared me to answer.
“Yes Wyatt, I think you’re a good man who made shitty choices. I also know the heart doesn’t necessarily have a choice in who it falls for. A good friend of mine told
me that,” I said as I turned to Becca with a crooked smile and a shrug of my shoulders. I was here for her. For Wyatt, too. There were no sides to choose, I loved them both, and life was too short to try and understand someone else’s choices. I knew that better than anyone.
“I think you guys need some space,” I suggested. “Wyatt, Becca needs to process this, so do you. Can you please go stay at Stone’s place?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Please don’t hate me.”
“How could I hate you, Wye? I love you way too much to leave room for hate. See you Sunday, huh?”
“Sunday it is.” He walked a few steps to stand next to Becca. “I’m not giving you up twice,” he said before leaving a gentle kiss to her forehead. A tear fell right before she squeezed her eyes shut.
I looked at Wyatt, his eyes about to topple over with unshed tears of his own. He took a deep breath and walked towards Gamma’s, defeated, squeezing my hand gently as he brushed past, a silent plea to look after her.
“Becca? I have a really big tub of peanut M&M’s hidden in my closet,” I grinned.
“I knew it,” she said through a wet smile.
“I might have brought some, too,” Brooks piped up.
We all looked at one another and belted out in laughter. The three of us had no one to turn to a handful of weeks ago. Yet here we stood, silent understanding and gratitude for the fact that we had one another. Even though there was grief among us, each with our own story, suffering was still suffering, and that was something we all understood. It’s just now we got to suffer through the hard bits together.
25
Radley
Brooks was lying flat on her back with her head hanging off the bed, long black and pink hair twisted up in hot rollers as she scrolled mindlessly through her phone.
“Aren’t you feeling dizzy hanging upside down like that?” I asked, feeling queasy just looking at her.
“Meh, I jumped out of plane once. If upside down was ever gonna be a problem, it would’ve been then.”
Thirteen Hours To You Page 29