by L.J. Shen
“Is she okay?” I asked. Was it wrong that I didn’t truly care? The only person I was interested in at that moment was Edie, and I wasn’t entirely sure if her mother’s recovery would be a good or a bad thing for her. Edie blew a lock of hair from her face, her eyes cutting to the mostly empty corridor behind us. A nurse was leaning lazily along an oval reception desk. Phones were ringing. A doctor was scribbling something on a whiteboard.
Edie was waiting for someone. For her fucking father, most likely.
“I don’t know. She is stable now, but…” She rubbed her face wearily, shaking her head. I wanted to suck her pain away and make it my own. “But she’s in a coma, Trent. Her vital organs are working, but she’s not conscious.” Her chin was quivering, and tears glimmered in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether I should tell him…”
“You haven’t told your father yet?” I asked, caving into the urge to touch her. I stroked her arm, putting some reassuring weight on her body and encouraging her to lean into me. She shook her head, throwing another glance at the corridor. Edie sniffed.
“Let’s talk somewhere else. I have a long night ahead and I probably need to recharge.”
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Coconut water.” She almost smiled.
We walked to the cafeteria on the same floor. I got her a coconut water and got myself some coffee. We sat in front of a window overlooking our small, sinful town. Edie stirred her drink with a straw, staring at it.
“I told my father, but I hardly needed to. It’s all his fault. When we were at the barbecue, he arrived home without any notice and decided to break it to her that he wants a divorce. Mom…it’s not the first time she’s tried to kill herself…Anyway, so, my father. I texted him. He still hasn’t answered, but I’m not holding my breath. I was the only person to sit there beside her eight years ago when she first tried to slit her wrists, and I’m definitely not expecting anything to change now that he‘s left her.”
Fucking Van Der Zee. It was so fucking like him to pull shit like this. Leave a woman, who was so obviously ill, and his own daughter, who was in need of help, to pick up the pieces. I swallowed, my Adam’s apple bobbing, and tapped my fingers over my knee. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She scrunched her nose. “Really. I’m not even disappointed at this point. Not at him, anyway. But it would have been nice if she at least gave me a call before trying to do this. My mom is not a bad person. She is just troubled. But I still need her. Everybody needs a mom.”
My face must’ve contorted in agony, because she sucked on her lower lip and slapped the base of her palm to her forehead. “God, what a stupid thing to say. Sorry.”
“No need. You’re right. Everybody does need a mom. Even my daughter. Maybe especially her.” But it wasn’t Luna I wanted to talk about. A sudden urge to touch Edie coursed through me, and I slid my hand from my thigh to her knee, squeezing it softly. Not to seduce, but to comfort.
“When you said you didn’t know whether or not to tell him…you didn’t mean Jordan, Edie.”
She cautiously turned my palm upward, lacing our fingers together. We both watched our hands like they were magic. My big mocha fingers wrapped around her tiny snowy ones. The light outside was dying and so was my will to keep this thing between us casual.
It wasn’t casual.
It had never been casual.
It was a fucking disaster, and I needed to end it before it ended me, but how could I, when her mother was in a coma and she was holding my hand like I was her friend, like I was her boyfriend, like I was her lover.
I looked up and she was no longer crying. Her face was jeweled by hatred, her jaw cut.
“Theo,” she said.
“Theo?” I echoed. I had a feeling I’d heard that name before, but I wasn’t sure when or where. Obviously, there were a shit-ton of Theos. But there was a nagging itch inside me insisting that the Theo she was talking about, I knew. Or at least knew of.
“Yeah. My brother. He was born when I was six. He is twelve now. But…there were some complications at his birth. Mom was induced twice. The umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, but she was already deep into labor and they couldn’t perform a C-section. He was deprived of oxygen for…a long time.” She cleared her throat, looking up and furrowing her brows, reminiscing.
“I remember asking my mother why he was so funny looking, even before we found out about all his problems. My father freaked out. He was a senior executive in this fancy-ass company and was working hard on his image. He didn’t want this to taint his precious career and his perfect family. He got an offer to open a branch in Holland and took it, but it was mostly to hide Theo. He has autism, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy. He is…different. Very different.” She chuckled, but her eyes were softening. As if talking about him soothed her. “But he is also smart. And kind. And so, so brave. He is patient, and accepting, and always smiles at me when I visit him like I’m the best thing in the world. He doesn’t complain about my parents never visiting. He doesn’t cry about being dealt this hand of cards, this kind of life. So I’m rooting for him. I root for him all the time.”
My hand felt sweaty in hers, but I didn’t want to pull away. I wanted to know more.
“So where is Theo now?”
“A special group home in San Diego. It’s actually an amazing facility, but it costs a ton. My father wanted him sent away, somewhere on the East Coast, so that he wouldn’t have to deal with his proximity. The staff really encourage families to visit consistently and participate, and Jordan doesn’t like it. I don’t think he’s visited him in years. My mom goes every Christmas to say hi and bring a gift. But, in order to keep him there, my father and I agreed I’d pay half of the monthly fee. Otherwise he’d take him away from me.”
I scoffed. “That’s got to be a ton.”
“Twelve thousand dollars.” She nodded.
“Why? He’s got enough money to start a war with Canada. And win, probably.”
“To see me squirm. To watch me fail. You name it. Ever since Jordan realized I wasn’t going to give up on my brother and actually continued seeing him every week and made him a part of our family, he’s been bitter toward me. He fails to see why I insist on staying here and not going to a good college.”
“And your mom?”
“Too weak to handle Jordan, too fragile to deal with Theo and his needs. The first time she tried to take her own life…” Edie hesitated, placing her elbows on her knees and burying her head between her hands. “It was right after my father put him in this institution. She wanted him close. She wanted to take care of him. But doing so was taking a toll on her. She wanted to be a good mother, but couldn’t.”
I wondered, briefly, if that was the case with Val, too. If she wanted to be better for Luna, but couldn’t, so she’d decided to fuck off instead. I brought our hands to my lips, pressing a kiss against her soft skin. She closed her eyes and gave in to the moment.
I was broken, but she was breaking, and that hurt more.
“So that’s why you’re after me? Your dad threatens you with sending Theo away?”
Edie nodded again and retrieved her hand. The tears made a comeback. Again, she didn’t let them fall. I admired that.
“He said if I don’t get my hands on your flash drive, Theo will be sent to New York.”
“I can give you my flash drive sans the information he is looking for,” I offered without thinking it through. Why the fuck would I care if Jordan had his hands on a bunch of contracts and contact lists he already had access to? It made zero difference to me. And most of my flash drive had just that. A bunch of shit you could find in the company’s records if you did a general search in our database. There was just the one file, leading to a few other files, with information he actually wanted…
“He knows, Trent. Whatever you’re planning, he is not stupid. He’s already figured out whatever you have on him is on your flash drive, and he expects it to be there.”
Good point. Especially as I knew how and why he’d found out about it. I stood up and paced in front of her.
“The thing is…they only let me see Theo on Saturdays. Which is why Saturdays are sacred to me. If I try to go tomorrow, they won’t let me in. I think my father is bribing someone there or something.”
“That’s why you hate rich people so much.” I rubbed the back of my head, staring at the floor as I paced. It was simple, when you thought about it. Her father chose his career and money over his family, and so she hated money and her father—the two things that ruined her life.
“Yeah.” Her hands dropped to her thighs, her head hanging down. “Money makes people do stupid things. It eats at your morals and makes you lose sight of what’s really important.”
“Not always,” I argued. I didn’t feel that way. Maybe because I didn’t come from money, I knew you could, and should, survive without it. But I loved my life as a rich man. I just didn’t love it enough to give up the things that kept me alive. My daughter, parents, and friends. I’d spend every dollar I had, give it up in a heartbeat if I could get Luna’s voice back.
She looked up, shooting me a tired smile. “You’re a good man, Trent.”
I didn’t know about that, but the notion I should be good, even if just for her, gripped me hard.
We hung out there for another half hour, then I went out to grab us some sandwiches from a nearby joint. We sat on the damp, dewed benches outside the hospital before returning to the reception area of the fourth floor. Edie was chewing on the collar of her top like a kid, looking out the window. She’d tried to call her father twice since I’d arrived. He never picked up the phone.
“You should probably leave. It’s getting really late and Luna will be worried. Plus, it doesn’t look like I’ll get out of here anytime soon, so…”
“I’m staying.” I brushed off her nervousness. Not because it was the humane thing to do—because fuck humane—but because she was there alone, and I selfishly wanted her with me. No matter how. Even like this.
“You really shouldn’t.” She let go of the damp collar of her shirt, biting her lip now.
Our eyes met. “I know.”
Edie rested her head against my shoulder and wept, and I let her.
Even when she fell asleep on me, and I couldn’t move, I waited until her soft snores drifted into my ears.
Then I carried her quietly to her mother’s room, tucking her on a sofa next to the hospital bed. The light was still on. They were both too exhausted to care. My gaze traveled between them, and they looked so similar, and yet so different.
That night, I watched Edie for far too long.
That night, I’d changed.
That night, I didn’t take anything from Edie Van Der Zee. For the first time in years—I gave something of myself. Worst part? I’d never be able to retrieve it.
It was hers.
Forever.
A GREAT BIG WORLD HAS this song, “Say Something”. It’s supposed to be a love song, but for me, it would always be the song I cried to when I got on a bus from San Diego to Todos Santos, with my headphones plugged securely into my ears to silence the rest of the world after Theo threw the punch at me.
He hadn’t meant it. I knew that. It must be horrific, being caged in that head of his. Things that came so easy to me were foreign and strange to him. But giving up on him just because he couldn’t say it, the things he was feeling, was out of the question.
And I couldn’t give up now.
Sunday did not go as Trent and I had planned.
After he’d spent the night sleeping in the waiting room while I went in and out of my mother’s hospital room, he drove home to take a shower and pick up Luna from Camila’s and drop her off with his parents, who’d gotten back into town from Vegas.
I used the opportunity to head home for a shower and a snack. My mother had come to in the middle of the night. She was awake, but hardly coherent. We’d spoken while Trent waited outside. She told me how my father walked in, late Saturday afternoon and broke the news to her like he was delivering an obituary for a long-distance relative. How he didn’t even care when the divorce papers he’d placed on the table in front of her were so wet with her tears, you couldn’t read a sentence of them.
I took a long, scorching hot shower, slipped into a loose yellow summer dress, then ate a quiet, lonely breakfast at the kitchen table. Granola, yogurt, and coconut water.
My house was part of a gated community in an exclusive Todos Santos neighborhood called La Vista. In order to get in, you needed a code, or to know the sleepy guards at the gate. That’s why, at first, I didn’t pay attention to the honking outside my house. I assumed it was a friend of the teenage boy across the road and cursed them inwardly for being so loud on a Sunday morning.
Beep, beep. Beeeeeeep.
I hated teenagers. I didn’t even care that I was technically one of them. I dumped the bowl of yogurt into the sink, not feeling like washing it, but then thought the better of it. I could leave it for the housekeepers, but I was never that person. No matter how much my parents took them for granted. I started washing the bowl, feeling my body sagging with the weight of the world.
Beep, beeeeeeep, beeeeeeeeeeep.
Where the hell was Adrian, the guy who lived across the street? Usually, he all but jumped out of his second-story window to go out with his friends. I sulked quietly as I dried the bowl and the glass I’d used, moving toward the door.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeeeeep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Reaching the end of my nerves, I flung the door open, my eyes already squeezed shut and the shriek leaving my mouth. “This is a quiet neighborhood on a Sunday morning! Keep it down, will you?”
“Not a fucking chance. I have a reputation to live up to.”
I popped my eyes open, staring at Trent in his black Tesla, wearing a plain white T-shirt and a beanie that didn’t look stupid at six o’clock in the morning, when the desert chill was still gripping. God, he was gorgeous.
“What are you doing here?” I blinked.
He threw his car into park, got out, and walked over to me, taking my hand. It looked foreign and dangerous, having him do that. So natural, but also so reckless. My father could still drop by to get something from the house. Not to mention my neighbors had big mouths and he’d probably gotten everyone’s attention with his honking. If Trent was feeling like breaking our rules, he needed to talk to me about it first. Because I still had everything to lose.
I took a step back. “No. What’s happening?” I frowned. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I second that statement, and yet I am. Come with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I need to go be with my mom.”
“It’s a brilliant idea,” he retorted. “Your mom is stable, and she’ll be sleeping for the majority of the morning, probably. I have a surprise.”
A surprise. It made my heart lift and twinge with guilt. He was trying to be nice to me, and I’d pretty much admitted I’d screw him over the minute he’d let me. I really was his Delilah. But the worst part was that in the end, it was Samson who had won. Not her. Because sneaky, shady people always end up losing the fight, even if they did win the small battles.
“Trent…”
“I got you a visitation permit for Theo,” he cut in, hope sneaking into his hardened face. I blinked at him, perplexed. I’d never seen him look like this. Like a buoyant kid.
“H…how?”
“Your father is not the only person in the world with connections.”
“You will need to elaborate.”
“Sonya.”
Sonya. I immediately gave him a funny look, taking a step back. He rolled his eyes and grabbed me by the arm, ushering me to his car. I was lucky to have my Dr. Martens on, or else he’d probably have taken me barefoot.
“Calm your tits, Tide. She is Luna’s therapist. She knows people who know people who make things happen. And she has a ver
y big heart.”
“And big tits to match,” I couldn’t help but bite out.
“That’s true.” He chuckled, hurling me into the passenger seat like he loved doing so much. He slammed the door and rounded the car, starting it.
He drove out of Todos Santos toward San Diego, meaning he was going to accompany me on my visit to Theo. I didn’t even have my purse with me. Just my phone and keys. The town flashed by, and neither of us said a word for a while, before I finally caved in.
“Are you still seeing her?” I asked.
He stared at the road, smirking to himself, like he took pleasure in watching me squirm. After a purposeful beat, he said, “What’s it to you?”
“You asked me not to have sex with Bane anymore. I’m trying to figure out how much of a hypocrite you are,” I answered honestly.
“I’m the mother of all hypocrites, Edie. If I wanted to fuck other people while I was fucking you, I would.” It felt like a punch straight to my heart, even when he added, “But I don’t. I haven’t. You’re the only one I want right now, and you keep me goddamn busy, so don’t worry your pretty little head about that.”
“That was the most backhanded compliment I’ve ever received.” I blew out air.
“We both know you don’t deserve more than that.”
It was true. I was after him.
We spent the rest of the drive in the silence I deserved and he loved so much to give.
“You really don’t have to come with me,” I mumbled, as Trent and I walked into the reception building of Big Heart Village. It looked warm, woody, cabin-like, only five hundred times bigger. The receptionist, Samantha, was a meaty woman in her early fifties with jazzy red curls and feline reading glasses with a jungle pattern. Her clothes were out of control weird like colorful tents. I loved it.
“Edie!” she exclaimed, standing up from her station and hugging me across the counter. I returned the hug, feeling my shoulders melting into relaxation. Trent was behind me. He still hadn’t responded about staying at the reception while I visited Theo, but I was hoping he’d join us. I wasn’t ashamed of my brother. Come to think of it, he was the only member of my immediate family I was actually proud of.