Secondary Colors

by Aubrey Brenner

  It’s hard to look threatening with arms full of bags, but her hand falls to her side.

  “You’ve always got what you wanted. And you don’t care who you hurt to get it.”

  “Where did you get this diluted idea? You are so far off it isn’t even funny. If you have an issue with Holt, I’m not the person you should be talking to about it. But personally, I think he made himself clear your night in the woods.”

  “You’re a bitch,” she hisses.

  “You’re something I can’t say in public because there are children here.”

  I sweep past her and over to my car, my hand at the door handle.

  “I can’t believe Aidan ever fucked you.”

  Dropping my bags on the ground, I spin back to her sharply, the sound of asphalt grating against the soles of my shoes. Through narrowed eyes, I shoot bullets of anger into her head.

  “What did you say?”

  I march back, getting right in her face.

  “You heard me,” she says, her hands on her cocked hips.

  Normally, I’m not prone to violence, but I could slap the smug off her face and not lose an ounce of sleep over it. I clench my hands at my sides to keep from following through.

  “It’s really none of your concern. And neither is Holt for that matter. So butt the hell out.”

  The bitchy smirk drains from her lips.

  “I can’t wait until you’re run off your land.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  I wave her off.

  “Christina will make sure of it. She knows about your mother’s affair with her husband.”

  “That’s old news.”

  “Well, I bet you didn’t know she told Charles to have the affair with her.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “She told my mother.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  I want to understand everything. I’m just pissed it’s Makayla I have to hear it from.

  “Not that I should tell you, but this feels too good to stop. Your property. She wants you off the land. She wants the lake.”

  That’s why Christina would allow her husband to carry on with my mother, why Charles has been asking my mother to sell to him. He is using her.

  “You’re just like her,” she snaps, “a slut.”

  “That’s funny coming from you, Kayla, considering you spent the majority of your high school years on your back.”

  I turn for the final time, denying her the satisfaction of the tears in my eyes, throw the bags into the back, and climb into my car.

  I ride around a while, the groceries defrosted and wilted in the back seat, before reluctantly heading home. I’m not exactly eager to confront Meredith with the truth. There’s only one person I want to see right now.

  I lodge the Nova in the garage and head into the house, ditching the bags in the kitchen before I ascend the stairs to the second floor. I don’t care that they’re ruined and unusable. As I near my mother’s bedroom door, I hear her speaking to someone. When no one responds, I realize she’s on the phone. Pressing my ear to the door, I strain to listen to this side of the conversation.

  “What do you mean you can’t come?” she hisses angrily. “She’s your daughter. It’s her going away party, Richard. You promised you were finally going to step up, you sonofabitch. So help me if you don’t show to take your daughter to New York with you, I’ll hunt you down and chop off your manhood. Oh, that’s right, your wife keeps it in her nightstand next to her vibrating—Oh, screw you, Dick. This has nothing to do with us. It’s about you being the father you should’ve been. You didn’t need to punish Evie, too. It wasn’t her fault.”

  Listening to her pleas, my heart breaks. Suddenly, the news of her affair doesn’t seem so dire.

  The phone crashes down hard, resonating up my spine. The springs of her bed squeal, warning me. I dash down the stairs, making it halfway when her door opens. I turn around as if I’m coming up, hoping to save myself from being found out. I smile feebly, and she manages one, too. Even though she’s devastated.

  Trying to hide the damp sorrow forming at the bottom of those glossy hazel eyes, she passes me without a word. I hate seeing her brought down by my father. Baring the weight of her sadness, I collapse against the wall displaying my short life with a chronological line of photos, each one telling a wordless story. At the bottom, I’m a baby, my father heavily present. As I get older, he gradually disappears until it was like he never existed.

  It wasn’t always like this. They had a happy marriage. We were a family.

  I manage to pick myself up, climb back up the stairs, and walk right into the attic. Since I’ve been spending more time in his room than my own, this isn’t unusual. I locate him in the kitchen cooking us dinner. He turns when my feet hit the top step, noticing the distress on my face. The corners of his mouth dive into a frown, faint lines forming on his forehead.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  What I want is to lock myself safely in his arms.

  I move toward him with a quickness in my step, clinging onto him when he’s within reach. He must not have expected it because his arms don’t wrap about me right away.

  “Can you—can you hold me?” I request, my face buried in his chest.

  He drops the spatula on the counter, increasingly contracting his consoling limbs about me, and sets his head atop mine. When the scent of burning food hits our noses, he doesn’t budge.

  “Food’s burning,” I whisper, my cheek remaining on his chest.

  “Let it,” he says, holding me closer. “What happened, Violet?”

  With the copious amount of smoke rising from the pan on the stove, I use it as a distraction. “You really should turn that off.”

  He twists his head and sees the smoke, turning off the burner. After opening windows, I join him by the stove.

  “Shame. I’m sure that would’ve been good.” I peek into the pan, noticing the charred remnants of dinner. “Whatever it was.”

  “Are you avoiding my question?”

  “No.” I smile halfheartedly. “I want to forget for a time. Can we make dinner?”

  “Sure,” he says with an understanding expression.

  We work on restarting dinner, silent, except for the occasional excuse me or request. When it’s done, we sit on the couch and stare out the back window at the lake. We clean the dishes, me washing, him drying, and then spoon in bed.

  “I ran into Makayla today.”

  “That must’ve been pleasant.”

  “I think she was pissed about you. But it’s what she said about my mother that has me all messed up.”

  Without having to see his face, I sense hearing this genuinely upsets him. He really cares about Meredith. He feels the need to protect her, I guess.

  “What did she say?”

  “When Christina confronted me she knew about the affair, she seemed removed from it. Well, it turns out Christina not only knew about the affair, she condoned it, told Charles to use it against my mother. When you were gone, Hettie revealed that Meredith has been having financial problems. And Aidan’s father has been offering to buy the whole property from her, the lake, the land, our home, everything.” I snuggle into him deeper. “You don’t think Meredith is sleeping with him to keep it, do you?”

  “Your mom doesn’t seem like the type of woman who uses sex for gain.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I see a lot of her in you, and that’s not your style, Evie. And we won’t let that happen. But I think you should talk to your mom about what you found out.”

  “You said this was none of my business.”

  “That was when it only affected her, but this would involve you, too. You could lose your home, Evie. If she’s in love with him, he could take advantage of it.”

  “This is going to kill her.”

  When I wake the following morning, Holt is already gone. With a stretch, I check the clock on Holt’s bedside table, discovering a bouquet of purp
le lupine with tiny white daisies speckled between, the stems tied with soft bits of straw. Picking them up, I notice a piece of paper underneath and lean in to read it.

  I bring the flowers up to my nose. Their fragrant aroma triggers memories of our afternoon in the meadow, playing in the stream, lying naked in the sun. These flowers only grow in one area on our property. He must have gone back up there to pick them for me.

  Now, I have to figure out where he’s gone. I don’t see Max either. I note the time, ten-thirty.

  I get up, grabbing his plaid button-down and my jeans draped over the brass footboard of his bed and throw them on. His shirt is big on my average frame, the hem hanging well below my average ass.

  I head down to the first floor, rolling up the cuffs that hang past my hands. As I’m walking into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, Meredith comes through the front door with her arms full of bags. I hurry over when I realize she’s about to drop them and grab an armful.

  “Thank you, baby. There’s about a thousand more in the car.”

  I help her lug bag after bag of decorations for the party into the living room.

  “Did you leave anything at the store?”

  “You can never have too much, baby. We’re going to send you off in style.”

  “The party’s not for another week-and-a-half, and—I know about our financial problems, Mom. You shouldn’t waste money on things like parties.”

  “Who said I was having financial trouble?”

  “Well, it’s a small town. People talk.”

  “What else have you heard?”

  She’s seeing if I know about the affair, but I have no desire to dive right into it.

  “I’ve heard Mr. Channing has been offering you money for years, for the land. You aren’t going to sell it, are you?”

  “No, I have no intentions of ever getting rid of this place. It’s our home, Evie. It always will be.”

  “I’ve also been wondering if I should leave right now, when you’re in need of money. It’s my responsibility to help.”

  “No, baby. It’s not. Believe me when I say, we are fine.” She runs her fingers through my hair. “And we have Holt to thank for it.”

  “Holt?”

  My Holt?

  “He gave me a very large sum of money this morning. I didn’t want to take it, but he insisted.”

  “Why? Why would he do that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she asks, the corner of her mouth faintly lifting. “For you.” My body tenses and my heart melts at the same time. “He said you loved this place and he wanted to make sure it was here for you when it was time for me to pass it on.”

  He gave my mother his inheritance? He should’ve used it for himself, to set up his future, not on me.

  “That was nice of him, but very stupid.”

  “Evie,” Meredith scolds.

  “It was. He just gave up his future.”

  I walk out of the room without excusing myself and seek out Holt. I need to understand why he would throw away his plans. Why would he give it away for me?

  I check the entire first floor, porch, knowing he enjoys coming out here when he reads, and then down at the lake. He isn’t anywhere. He may have left the property altogether or—I hear faint music coming from the thick of the forest to the right of the clearing our house occupies, the same woods where he kissed me for the first time.

  Instead of going back inside for shoes, I locate my mom’s gardening boots at the bottom step of the front porch and slip them on. They’re a little big, but they work.

  I enter the path he usually takes when he disappears, and after five minutes of walking, the music playing in the near distance is louder, clearer.

  Tucked away in the thick of the forest, a clearing with lush emerald grass and beautiful flowers in a mosaic of colors and the once rundown Victorian cottage, restored to its former glory, shining like a white pearl. Growing up the posts and along the delicate lace trim of the wraparound porch, lavender wisteria adds the perfect accent of color against the white paint. It’s like walking through the woods and into a fairy tale.

  The gravel of the newly maintained driveway crackles under the stress of my footsteps.

  To the right of the clearing, trees line the shore of the lake, hiding it from the view from the water, but allowing the tranquil blue to shine through.

  I spot Max chasing something through the bushes toward the back of the property. There’s a whistle from the front porch. Holt stands at the top step, shirtless and dirty, looking better than he should. It’s selfish for any one person to hog up all the pretty. But I’m sure glad I get to look at him.

  When he notices me coming up the driveway, a smirk tugs at the corner of his lip. It actually stops me in my tracks...again.

  Totally selfish.

  Why did I come here?

  Oh, the money, right.

  “You gave my mother your inheritance, why?”

  He assesses me with careful consideration.

  “She needed it,” he says with a nonchalant shrug before taking a sip of his water.

  “You had plans for that money,” I remind him. “It was your future.”

  “I still have plans for it.” He wipes sweat from his brow. It’s sweltering outside. I can’t imagine how hot it must be inside. “Besides, my future doesn’t concern you. We’re nothing more than a couple of lonely people screwing around, right? We have no attachment.”

  Ouch.

  I know we have an agreement, but that was an awakening slap in the face.

  “Of course it does,” I mumble, trying to recover from the blow of his blunt words. “I mean, I’ve become accustomed to you.”

  Accustomed to you?

  I shove my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, as I do when I get uncomfortable with a topic or situation. I tilt my head down, my hair gathering in front of my eyes, which are firmly planted on him through the gaps.

  “I’ve even grown to like you.”

  “Have you?”

  “Well,” I hesitate for a fraction of a nanosecond, “yes. And I want the best for you. Don’t you want the best for me too?”

  “Yes,” he says, his voice soft and genuine.

  “Why did you do it, really?”

  “You know why, Evie.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do,” he says as if he’s inside my head. “And I didn’t give it all to her, only my brother’s portion. I wanted it to go toward something good. Plus, I’ve decided to settle here for a while.”

  “You have?”

  “Mm-hm.” He nods at the little cottage. “Here.”

  “You’re going to live in the cottage?”

  “I figured I should probably get out of your mom’s attic. I’ll be moving in here when I’m finished. Shouldn’t be much longer now.”

  I love that attic and the time we’ve spent there.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m sure she wants her space…”

  “No.” I stop him. “I meant, why are you staying?”

  “I found something worth staying for.” He steps into me, sweeping his knuckles over my jaw. I’m beginning to regret my question. Before this heads where I think this is heading, I change the topic.

  “How much longer before it’s ready?”

  “Oh, maybe a month or two.” He glances over the work in progress. “Would you like to see the inside?”

  “I’d love it.”

  He claims my hand and leads me into the house.

  “I’ve gotten a lot done in here, but I have cosmetic work to do. It’s almost unrecognizable from how I found it.”

  I know how it was when he found it. This place has been rotting on this plot of overgrown land since before my mother was born. It wasn’t anything like the diamond in the rough it is now.

  He shows me through the cozy cottage. I begin to see it for what it could be. I picture comfy, worn furniture in the living room, paintings on the walls, bouquets of wildflowers on every ta
ble, and a fire going in the fireplace during the winter.

  He takes me through the whole layout, working our way toward the back until there’s only one room left. We walk into a bedroom or an office. It has lots of windows. The sun really floods the room. It has built-in shelves and a bench seat under the large window watching the lake. I could imagine myself here, painting. It would be a perfect art studio.

  I shake my head and laugh internally, realizing my mind is wandering to an unfathomable circumstance.

  “This place is going to be incredible, Holt. I have no doubt with your masterful craftsmanship this cottage will be nothing less than picturesque.”

  “Thank you, Evie. That means—a lot.”

  He steps deeper into the room with me, taking my hand in his again, running his thumb over my knuckles. He looks down at our fingers interlocking. I look down, too. We stand quietly like this, our hands fastened, our eyes locked on them.

  “Ask me,” he orders, like he did that day in the field. Except this time, I’m not sure I’m ready for the answer.

  “Holt,” I breathe, but he places the callous tips of his fingers over my lips to stop me.

  “Don’t.”

  In one word, he breaks me down.

  “I’m terrified.”

  “Why?” he asks, sweeping his rough knuckles over the side of my face.

  “Because I’m starting to feel things for you,” I blurt without processing what the words actually mean.

  “Thank fuck,” he whispers, placing his hands on my face and dragging my mouth onto his. His arms wrap about my body, one hand now in my hair and the other gripping my backside, happily imprisoning me in his hold.

  “I’m already there, Evie.”

  “I don’t want to love you,” I confess in a broken voice, my heart beating out of my chest.

  His arms remain locked around me like a chain, solid and secure. He rests his lips against my forehead. They’re warm and soft. “I know,” he whispers, constricting around me. “I know.”

  alteration to the structure of a painting