by Nashoda Rose
“Why? Why are you telling me this?” I tried to hold back, but my throat was tight and I trembled at the thought of that happening. Of watching your friend blow up right in front of you and unable to stop it. Jesus, my shit seemed so trivial now.
“Because I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. I even heard the ding when the grenade hit the metal at the back of the Jeep he was in. I watched it explode. I thought I saw my friend burn to a crisp.”
I sniffled and jerked as his words resonated in me.
He knew I heard right and he nodded. “Yes, I thought. It happened in front of my eyes and yet I was wrong.”
I choked, eyes widening. “What?”
“And now you’re wrong.”
Oh god.
“You think you saw something, it was real to your eyes, but sometimes what you see isn’t always the truth.”
I swallowed. “Is … is Riot alive?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know that yet. But he didn’t die in that explosion.”
Oh Georgie. Hope. After all these years there was hope that her brother was out there somewhere. That was squashed when Deck said, “Probably dead by now, but I’m working on finding out. Do you get what I’m telling you, Kat?”
I nodded. That seeing Ream in bed with another man and woman may not be what I really saw. That maybe … maybe there was a chance I missed seeing the truth.
“I know Ream. Been around him since Crisis’ parents took him in. Ten years ago to be exact. Know his story too. He doesn’t know I know, but I always make it my business to know everyone’s story. Even yours.”
I felt the color drain from my face.
“Not too hard to figure out when you have two thousand dollars draining from your trust fund every month to a drug company. A few phone calls later and I have your neurologist’s name.”
“Deck—”
He shook his head. “Not my business. Not why I’m here. I’m here because Ream’s past is dark and fucked up. He tell you?”
The churning in my stomach violently shifted as Deck’s words ripped through me like a shredder as I thought about what Ream told me. “That he had sex for money?”
Deck’s brows rose. “That’s all he told you?”
“Yeah, Deck. I just saw him with another man and woman. I wasn’t into listening much.”
“You saw.” It was a statement.
How could I be wrong though? Crisis saw it too. There was nothing clearer than seeing Ream’s butterfly tattoo on his arm, the tat on his back. It was him. He admitted it was him.
“Ream would never cheat on you.”
“I saw him. A guy was naked with him. He was naked and …” My voice heightened as the flash of scene repeated and I felt ill.
“Heard that from Georgie. Doubt it’s the truth.”
Deck pushed away from the stall and stalked toward me. Clifford looked at Deck, his lips wobbling and ready to nibble on him. Then he snorted and lowered his head. Smart horse.
Deck was really unnerving. I mean Ream and Logan were too, but Deck surpassed them by far. It was like he didn’t give a shit whether he hurt your feelings or if you died at his feet. He was steady and calm and subtle and that was damn terrifying.
“He’s been gone three weeks.” Another statement. “And I suspect you know where he is.”
“Why would I …” I shut my mouth because Deck tensed and then I nodded. “Maybe.”
“Where?”
“You seem to know everything else, why don’t—”
“Don’t have time for this shit, Kat!”
I looked up at him. “I can’t say.” His scowl deepened and I hurried. “When we drove there it was dark and when we left I just remember Stephenson Road was the cut off of Hwy 11. It was about a two and a half hour drive.” I thought of the twenty minutes we’d pulled over to have sex and my stomach churned with a combination of everything. “Maybe more like two hours.”
His expression never faltered as he continued, “Let’s go.”
“What? I can’t.” I couldn’t. I felt sick to my stomach at the mere thought of seeing Ream. I had nothing left to give him.
“You love him?”
Now that was a surprising question coming from Deck. I didn’t think he would even know about the emotion love. “He cheated on me.”
“Harsh for a girl who cheated her best friend the truth for seven years.”
“What?” Clifford started shifting his feet and pulling on the crossties. “What the hell, Deck. This isn’t my problem. I didn’t promise to love someone, care for them, protect them, and then shit all over them. That wasn’t me. He did this. Don’t you dare turn this around on me.” Screw his scariness and the way his jaw clenched. Screw all of this. I went to walk past him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back around.
“I didn’t tell you that fuckin’ story for the hell of it. No one knows that fuckin’ story. No one except you now. He didn’t cheat on you.” I jerked, but it only pissed him off more and tightened his grip as he repeated, “He didn’t cheat on you.”
“I saw—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you saw. Ream would never cheat on you. It’s not in his makeup.”
“Well, maybe, Deck … you think a little too highly of yourself to really know what the truth is this time.”
“Probably do, but even if we bet on that point one percent chance I’m wrong, you owe it to him. You know why? Because he gave you more than he has anyone, and after his fucked up past, that was damn hard for him to do. Now you’re going to save him because I have no doubt he needs saving right now. He should’ve crumbled down a real bad path a long time ago, but he didn’t. For some reason he came back from that shit and found you. I’m not wrong, he’d never ruin that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Damn right I do.” His harsh voice hit me—hard. “Let’s go.”
“Now?”
“I have men in the fuckin’ desert waiting on me to get back so we can go in and kill some motherfucker who tortures innocent women and children. So, yeah. Now. Car in five minutes.”
He strode out of the barn.
Shit.
***
We made a few wrong turns trying to find the side road, but we finally turned down a road I thought I recognized. Deck drove slow as I tried to remember which driveway it was. I knew you couldn’t see the cottage from the road and that it wasn’t a real driveway, more like a grass path.
“There.” I pointed to the right and Deck turned.
My heart was pumped so fast I was afraid I’d start hyperventilating. My emotions were all jumbled like they were the little numbered balls being spun around and around in the lottery machine. I didn’t know which emotion would be picked when I saw him again. What I did know was that my nerves were freaking out and I had needles jet-setting through my legs.
Ream’s car sat in front of the cottage.
Deck stopped and shut off the engine. We sat for a minute. Nothing was said and I was thankful he gave me a few minutes to get my shit together. I really didn’t think any amount of time would help, but I appreciated it anyway.
He opened his door and it was like he cracked open a part of me because what I’d managed to hold onto all the way here was quickly decomposing.
Deck started walking up to the cottage. I got out of the car and Deck must have heard me because he paused on the steps and waited. I was a little slow because my leg nerves were in an all-out war and I was afraid of losing my balance.
Then Deck did something very unlike him. He cupped my chin and ran his thumb over the scar on my cheek. It was gentle and yet everything in his eyes read pissed off, like it was his fault my face was now flawed.
Then I thought of how Ream kissed my scars, his lips gentle as he made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world—scars, diseased and coiled up inside myself so tight that I couldn’t even cry anymore.
Until he ripped me apart.
Deck’s hand fell away from my face, and he turned
the knob and opened the door. The second it did, I was hit with the smell of alcohol, and I put my hand over my mouth and nose. Deck, of course, walked straight in, hesitating while he scanned the place, as if taking recon, then strode across the living room to the closed bedroom door.
Without knocking he threw it open. He stood rock still. I couldn’t see past him, but Deck’s entire body stiffened then he turned to look at me. “Make some coffee.” He walked into the room and I saw him crouch down.
I ignored his order and walked to the bedroom and what I saw destroyed all the anger and replaced it with fear. I hated Ream for what he did to me, but I still cared about him. Deck had known that.
“Ream,” I whispered in a hoarse cry.
He was lying on the floor naked and shivering, his fists bleeding and a broken bottle of rye beside him. I ran to him, falling to my knees, panic encroaching as I watched for breathing. Deck had his hand on my arm, but I didn’t even notice it as I waited for his chest to move to tell he was still alive. All sensibility disappeared as everything crashed around me; the key turned and released the tears like a waterfall of blood.
“Go make coffee, Kat.”
I looked up at him briefly, hearing his words, but not really comprehending. Coffee. He was alive if he wanted me to make coffee. The wetness slipped down my cheeks as I held Ream’s cold, lifeless hand.
“I need to get him in a hot shower. You don’t want to make coffee, go turn on the shower.”
I choked on another sob. “He’s going to make …” Oh God, I couldn’t say it.
“Yeah, he’s out cold. Dehydrated as shit. Most likely been drunk for three weeks straight. Shower, Kat.”
I nodded scrambling to my feet and running into the bathroom and turning on the water. Deck came in with Ream over his shoulder. “Take my phone and wallet out of my back pocket.”
I quickly did as he ordered and then Deck pushed the shower curtain aside and went under the warm spray. I stood staring, my insides feeling like they were being torn out of me, stomped on, then shoved back inside greased with wreckage.
Deck propped Ream up against the back wall then directed the spray on him. He glanced at me. “Now will you make coffee?”
I stared, tears streaming down my face, praying Ream would open his eyes, that I’d hear his voice. He just looked so … not Ream. As if he’d been drained of his strength and all that was left was a shell of a body.
I looked at Deck again, soaking wet, his olive green cargo pants now dark green, his face dripping with water. I finally nodded and left the bathroom, my nerves spiking to a whole other level of screwed-up. I swallowed back the tears, trying to fit the key back in and lock the emotions away again, but it wouldn’t fit. I dropped the coffee can into the sink and brown granules spilled out all over the place. With trembling hands, I filled the coffee maker with water and put a filter in and cleaned up the granules.
There were empty bottles all over the place. No dishes, which meant he hadn’t been eating. As I turned the coffee maker on I realized the state of the cottage: overturned couch, coffee table smashed, the game board … Oh God, it was torn into pieces with the money thrown all over the place.
I couldn’t take it all in. If I did, I’d fall apart. I knew Ream had issues. He told me he was fucked up, but I thought it stemmed from his twin sister. It was way more than that. He prostituted himself for money. Why? What pushed him to do that?
Why would he cheat on me if he knew it would end us? Why put himself in that position? Ream thought about everything before he did anything. He’d had to have thought of the consequences if I’d found out. Could he have been so drunk that he had no clue what he was doing? Was I trying desperately to find any excuse for something that was inexcusable?
I sank down onto the floor, knees up to my chest, arms wrapped around them, as fresh tears stained my cheeks. It felt weird crying, like I was that little girl again, all alone and scared. I hated the feeling, I hated that Ream made me feel like this again and brought me to this point of emotional agony.
I cried so hard it hurt my chest; my throat became raw and gritty. I don’t know how long I sat there before I heard the shower turn off. I climbed to my feet and walked back into the bathroom.
I stopped at the door, hands gripping one side of it for support as I saw Ream standing there, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hands holding either side of his head. Yeah, I was guessing it hurt like hell.
Deck grabbed a towel off the rack and then without a word strode out. I heard the front door open and shut.
“Why are you here?” Well, those weren’t the first words I expected out of Ream’s mouth after we last saw one another. He looked down. “Why did you come, Kat?”
I had no qualms about telling the truth. “Deck made me.”
He turned away, resting his hands on the lip of the sink, shoulders slumped, and everything in him read defeat. It didn’t suit him. Seeing him this way, the man who never gave up on us, who brought me here to win me back, who sat with me at the hospital, who swore to love me no matter what happened with my disease.
I never expected to be standing here looking at him and wondering who he was. Who was this man I fell in love with. A man I couldn’t forgive for what he did. I wanted to, God, I wanted to run into his arms and have him hold me and take away all the pain I was feeling. I wanted Deck to be right and the truth wasn’t what I saw.
“Why did you do it, Ream?”
He was silent for a long time, not looking at me, head bowed, hands clenching the sink. When he raised his head it was to meet my eyes in the reflection of the mirror.
“Guess I fell back into old habits. Sex is meaningless to me. I told you that.”
Thank God I was holding the doorway for support because I would’ve fallen. His words stabbed right through me. Not because they hurt me, but because I heard the coldness in his voice. There was shame, indignity, pain. I saw it all staring back at me in the mirror. It’s what he thought of himself.
“Not with us.” I knew it wasn’t. It meant something to both of us, and he could stand there and say sex meant nothing to him, but I’d never believe it was nothing when we were together. He’d told me that it was meaningless until me.
He turned and then walked past me into the bedroom. I heard the rustle of clothing. By the time I was brave enough to turn around, Ream was dressed and leaning up against the dresser. He looked like he was waiting for me to either say something or get out. I did neither.
“Go home, Kat.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know why, but I needed more. This wasn’t just us breaking up because he cheated on me. Ream was a different person. He was cold and unfeeling. When he looked at me, it was right through me. There was more to this.
“If you’re waiting for answers about why I did it, well, you’re not getting them because I don’t even fuckin’ know what happened.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anyway. We’re better apart.”
“Ream.”
He kicked a glass bottle and it slid under the bed. “When I told you I didn’t deserve you, I meant it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is!” He shouted so loud it felt as if the room vibrated.
Then the rage died and he was looking at me, but it felt like he wasn’t seeing me at all. “I was paid to sleep with women … men.” Oh God. “It gave me a roof over my head and kept my sister safe from the same thing. That’s who I am, Kat. It’s not fuckin’ changing because I don’t do it anymore.” He huffed. “Or maybe I do.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“It doesn’t matter. None of this does anymore. And I want you to leave.”
“You owe me!” I shouted. “You fucking tell me. You owe me that, damn it.”
His expression never changed, even when I yelled. It terrified me because nothing of the Ream I loved stood before me. “Tell me.”
Then he lowered his eyes from mine and shifted, but it was the smallest movement. “Then you’ll leave?�
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My breath hitched. He wanted me to leave and that hurt more because it should’ve been me wanting to leave. I nodded and it was like I was saying yes to my own demise.
It was several minutes before he spoke again and when he did his tone was detached. “It was survival. A way of life. I got through it by being numb to what I did. It became easy after a while. I mean easy in that I could do it without throwing up anymore. The men … that was never easy.”
Oh God, Ream. I couldn’t even imagine Ream subjecting himself to that. He was so strong and confident like nothing could touch him.
“I was fourteen. Old enough to know what I was doing and still young enough to be wanted by the sick bastards. There was one in particular …” His voice trailed off and then stopped. I put my hand over my mouth as my stomach violently churned. “It wasn’t so bad though. My sister and I were looked after. Fed, clothed, went to school. It was just on Friday and Saturday nights I went into the basement. He said it was either me or my sister.”
“Your mom?”
He snorted and kicked the empty beer bottle, and I jumped when it hit the bed post and made a loud crackle as it shattered. “How do you think we ended up there? My mom owed the guy money for her drugs. You know what my sister Haven was named after? It sure as fuck wasn’t a sanctuary … Haven Dust—cocaine.” He shook his head making a huff with his breath. “We were her payment.” Ream shrugged. “He kept his word though. My sister never had to prostitute herself and I paid off our mom’s debt. Two years later it stopped. I didn’t have to do it anymore, but Lenny, the pimp, let us stay there anyway. We lived with him and his daughter. Ate together like a normal fuckin’ family, at least as normal as could be with a low-life drug dealer. I thought it was going to be okay, that maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.”