Empty-Handed Heart

by Tymber Dalton

  She looked at his hand, then slowly swiveled her face to meet his gaze. Her next words dripped with ice despite her low tone. “Take. Your fucking. Hand off me. Now.”

  He let her go like she’d shocked him, his eyes widening. “Kate, babe, I’m sorry, I—”

  “No. We’re done. I’m done. Last-straw kind of done.” She twisted a diamond ring off her left ring finger and shoved it at him. “Don’t bother seeing me out. I’ll call an Uber. You want to know why I keep putting off setting a wedding date? Me seeing you all do shit like this. I don’t want to be a part of a family who’d treat someone like this without giving them a damn chance. I damn sure don’t want to be a part of a family who might be treating me like this behind my back. This is the third guy I’ve seen you all do this to, and I kept my mouth shut before because the first two guys might have been jerks. But the fact that Ets thought she had to hide him from y’all for this many months because you’d treat him exactly the way you’re treating him?”

  She pointed at Ro and swept her finger around the room. “Assholes. All of you.”

  Kate wiped tears away and shoved through them, heading toward the front door after snatching her purse and phone from where they’d been tucked next to an end table on the floor.

  “We’ll drive you,” Etsu said, following her.

  Aden finally found his voice. “Honey—”

  “No!” Etsu turned and held up her hands. “I’m done with them. If you all are going to force me to choose between Sir and the rest of you, then he’ll win every time. The saddest thing is, all he wanted was a chance to be part of this family because he doesn’t have one of his own. I’ve been trying to tell him how great my family is, and you go and treat him like shit when he’s the best thing to ever happen to me. You know what? It’s your loss, not ours. Come on, Sir. Let’s go. Or do I need to take an Uber with Kate?”

  Aden had covered his eyes and silently groaned at her first use of the “Sir” title, then realized she was serious and there was no saving this night.

  With a weary sigh, he dug his keys out of his pocket and followed the women.

  What could I have done better?

  Etsu had caught up with Kate at the foyer, and was comforting her. Kate was in full-on tears now, and Ro brushed past Aden.

  Aden held up, keys in hand, watching and trying not to interfere as Hiroki tried to talk to Kate, to catch her hand. She kept jerking her hands away as she fought with him in low, angry tones that barely carried past them.

  She didn’t want to leave, that much was clear, but she didn’t want to stay, either. Her body language bespoke anguish and heartbreak, that she clearly loved him.

  And they were both blocking the damn front door.

  He didn’t feel right trying to get around them, or asking Etsu for an alternative route out. He also didn’t feel right leaving Kate behind unless she changed her mind and told Aden that. So Aden reached out and gently drew Etsu into his arms, holding her back pressed against his chest as they watched.

  He was aware of but ignored the rest of the family behind them. Etsu trembled in his arms, but her breathing still sounded steady and even, no wheezing, no coughing.

  Yet.

  He wasn’t a miracle worker. There was only so much stress she could handle and process before it broke through and she’d need to use her inhaler. He sensed if she had to do that it’d be a failure, in her eyes, not being strong in the face of her family’s onslaught.

  Aden felt a hand land on his right shoulder and fought the urge to reflexively backhand the owner. He glanced back to see Toshiro standing there. He was maybe two inches taller than Aden’s five eleven, so not a huge difference.

  “Why’d she call you Sir?”

  Aden forced himself to remain calm. “I suggest you take your hand off me.”

  “I call him what I want to call him,” Etsu said, turning and stepping out of Aden’s arms. She swatted her brother’s hand off Aden’s shoulder, shoved her brother back a step, and got in his face. “Drop the bullshit, Tosh. You have a wife. Kaz has a wife. Why am I not entitled to have a relationship?”

  “Because you are too trusting and don’t seem to understand you need a guy who is good enough for you, Ets! We’ve tried to introduce you to guys—”

  “Your friends, who were jackasses. No, thanks.” She shoved him again, hard. “Back off.”

  Toshiro stepped forward and tried to grab her arm, but she kicked him in the shin before Aden could hook an arm around her and pull her away.

  “You did this!” he said to Aden. “This is your fault!”

  “It’s not his fault!” she screamed at him. “Why are none of you listening to me! You’ve done this to me all my life and I’m sick of it!”

  Kaz stepped in. “Because you almost died on us, okay? More than once. You almost died in my arms one day after school before the paramedics got here, so forgive us for wanting what’s best for you.”

  “Kaz, I was nine goddamned years old! I—”

  “Pet,” Aden whispered in her ear. “Enough.” She was going to send herself into an asthma attack at this rate, and even Ro and Kate had stopped arguing. “Let’s go.” He kept an arm around her shoulders, pausing next to Kate and Ro. “You’re welcome to ride with us,” he told Kate. “We’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

  “Thanks. Let’s go.”

  Ro wasn’t done, however. “Kate, please—”

  “No!” She shoved her way past him and yanked the door open, nearly hitting Ro in the process before he jumped out of the way.

  Aden tried to pull the door shut behind him, but Etsu’s mother yanked it out of his hand as she followed them. “Etsu! Do not leave like this. Get back here.”

  She held up a hand without turning, flipping them a bird.

  The three of them didn’t speak. Aden opened the back passenger door for Kate and bundled Etsu into the front seat before rounding the car without looking toward the entry. He wasn’t sure if one or more of them might not follow them, but they made it out the front gates without seeing headlights behind them.

  In the backseat, Kate’s phone rang. She let out a snorting laugh and apparently sent the call to voice mail.

  It didn’t ring again, or else she’d shut it off.

  “Which way?” Aden asked, suddenly feeling weary to his core.

  “Down in Nokomis. 41’s fastest this time of night. Sorry. If you want to leave me somewhere, I can call an Uber—”

  “It’s okay. We’ll take you. I don’t mind.”

  Etsu’s phone went off. She didn’t even look at it. She sent the call to voicemail, then turned it off and dropped it into her purse.

  Shit, dinner.

  “Who wants sushi?” he said. “We didn’t get to eat dinner. Ets needs to eat something before she takes her evening meds.”

  Kate let out a rough laugh. “You know what? Sushi sounds great. I’ll buy. Fuck me, I’m so sorry, Ets. I should have said something to you sooner.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I knew what they were like. This is why I waited to bring Aden over.” She stared out the passenger window.

  “You really don’t have any family?” Kate asked Aden.

  He sighed. “Just the State of Florida foster care system. Except I didn’t even have that from fourteen on, really. I ended up in a group home and aged out.”

  “Damn,” Kate said. “I’m so sorry. You guys are welcomed to my family events. I mean, my parents are crazy, but not like that. The worst they do is try to one-up each other at family dinners when Mom brings her husband and Dad brings his wife. They’re not crazy like that.”

  Kate sighed. “Now I know why Ro always felt uncomfortable around my family. My parents have been divorced nearly twenty years and get along pretty decently now. My younger sister is a serial dater, and my brother has three kids by three different women, but they’re all welcome if they can behave themselves. My family’s unofficial motto is that we put the fun in dysfunctional.”

  �
�Can I ask a stupid question?” Aden said to Kate.

  “Sure.”

  “What’d Ro do around your family, exactly?”

  “He’d always make snarky comments to me under his breath. I used to think it was funny, in the beginning. And he always had shit to say about everyone after we’d get together with them. Like picking apart my brother or sister. ‘Well, if he’d only do X,’ or, ‘If she’d just do Y.’ I never realized what he was doing before. But he’d couch it in like being helpful or more knowledgeable. He’s a fricking lawyer and always dresses to the nines, right? So…I don’t know.

  “Listening to them tonight, all of them together and coordinated in their mob mentality like a hunting pack, it finally hit me. Sorry, Ets. I know he’s your brother and you love him, but I reached my limit. Not marrying him, and definitely not having kids with him.”

  “No, I get it, believe me. I grew up with him. I know what he can be like. Should have heard the ‘loving’ things he said to me to try to convince me I needed to go to a four-year college and get some sort of advanced degree. He didn’t understand it was all I could do to make it through a two-year community college program.”

  It worried Aden how exhausted Etsu sounded.

  He drove them to a sushi place he and Etsu had eaten at many times. He felt badly for Kate, but she seemed determined now that she’d made up her mind.

  “I get it,” Kate gently said to Etsu, once they were seated in a booth. “I know how much they love you. But exactly like you pegged them, you’re not a kid, you’re an adult, and it seems they missed the memo. Like if they let you go live your life it’s some sort of failure on their part.”

  “Especially Kaz,” Etsu said. “It wasn’t his fault I had a bad attack. I mean, it was, but it was unintentional.”

  “What exactly happened?” Aden asked. He hadn’t heard about this incident.

  “He was babysitting me and he didn’t want to, because he was supposed to go out with friends. He was seventeen or eighteen. I don’t even remember why he had to do it. But I saw a cockroach in my bathroom. I asked him to handle it, and he was on the phone and laughed at me and blew me off. I knew where the bug spray was in the garage. So I went and got it and sprayed. I guess it was scented or something, or maybe I sprayed too much, I don’t know. Next thing I know, I couldn’t breathe. My throat almost completely closed up. I barely made it out to the living room.

  “Fortunately, the ambulance had epi on board. They gave me a shot and rushed me to the hospital, and I was okay. That’s why I carry an EpiPen. I’ve never had a reaction that bad again, although I’ve had severe asthma attacks that sent me to the ER. It freaked Kaz out even more than my parents because he felt guilty I almost died and he thought it was his fault. He was glued to me for weeks, taking care of me, barely leaving me unless one of us was in school. He’s always felt guilty about that. That was by far the worst attack I’ve ever had.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked.

  Her face pinkened. “I don’t like to think about it. Sorry, Sir.”

  He mentally winced, glancing over to Kate, who was now perusing the menu sheet, pencil in hand. She’d either not heard Etsu call him Sir, or she didn’t care.

  But what else didn’t he know?

  “Any other allergies you’d like to let me know about?”

  “No food allergies that we’ve discovered. Seriously, they tested me for allergies and you know about all that. Nothing like this. In fact the EpiPen I have has expired. I don’t even carry it. I’ve been meaning to get a new one. I’ve never needed to use it. My inhaler, yes. But not an EpiPen.”

  “I think that should be a priority then, shouldn’t it?” He delivered it in a Sir tone, though.

  She glanced at his face, the pink rising in her cheeks. “I’ll call my doctor next week.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I used to hate the start of the school year, because there was Mom, embarrassing the hell out of me and I always felt like this alien. Because the teachers had to know about it, and I had to have the permission form to have it, all that garbage. It was bad enough I had to sit out PE a lot of the time, even if I felt good, because Mom had called the teachers because there was too much red tide, or the news said ragweed pollen was high, or whatever bullshit excuse she used even if I felt fine. I hated that. I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to be treated like a normal kid, and that was too much for them.”

  With this new knowledge, Aden could cut Kaz, and maybe even Etsu’s parents some slack, but it didn’t change the fact that they had taken love and warped it into nonconsensual control for no good reason except that it made them feel better, even at Etsu’s expense.

  She looked up at him. “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to dump me after this.”

  He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips, kissing it. “I told you, I love you. I wish tonight had gone better, but I’m not going anywhere. If you want to break up with me, that’s up to you, but I’m still here.”

  Kate smiled at them from across the table. “Keep this one, Ets. I like him. He’s got a steel backbone and cast-iron balls.”

  * * * *

  After dinner and taking Kate home, Etsu relaxed. Kate had sounded done with Hiroki, but who knew? Her brother could be extremely charming and persuasive, which was one of the reasons he was a damn good attorney.

  So Etsu didn’t want to confide too much in Kate, or let her defenses down around her, in case there was a future reconciliation.

  “Why can’t they just be normal?” she muttered. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “From my outsider perspective, it seems like it makes them feel better to take care of you.”

  She thought about it. “Maybe. I mean, I could not date in high school. My parents ran everyone off. My mom was always going through my cell phone. I was so glad when I started my first job so I could pay for my own phone she had no right to look at.”

  “Bet that pissed her off.”

  “It sure did. She finally backed off.”

  “You said they tried to match you up with guys?”

  She snorted. “Oh, fuckballs, have they. Usually sons of friends of theirs who have money, or friends of my brothers. Sorry, they were jerks, every last damn one of them. I kept telling them if they wanted to try to fix me up with someone, stop picking the exact opposite of my type. It wasn’t because they had money, it’s because they were entitlement-minded jerks. And my brothers aren’t even like that despite tonight’s shit-show. They worked hard for what they have, and I’ll give them every bit of credit they’re due. It’s…” She didn’t know what it was like.

  “Like they tried to find guys you’d hate to keep you single and at home?”

  She thought about it. “Yeah. Maybe. They weren’t exactly upset when I didn’t want more than one or two dates with any of them. You think that’s what they did?”

  He shrugged. “It fits the pattern. They could say hey, they tried to fix you up with guys, so no, how can you accuse them of wanting you to be single? Or maybe they’re worried they won’t have anyone to take care of them when they’re older, so they’re trying to keep you close.”

  She winced. “Oh, fuckballs.”

  “What?”

  “I never thought about that.”

  “It’s just a shot in the dark.”

  “No, it’s totally a thing. My mom’s mom? Her parents lived with her and she had to take care of them. She couldn’t really have a life. Between her kids, and her parents, she was a constant caretaker. And my mom’s youngest sister was expected to take care of their parents when they reached the point they couldn’t live on their own any longer. Similar situation in my dad’s family, too.”

  “Maybe it’s a mix of the two things, then? Or I could be completely wrong.”

  “You’re not. I really don’t think you are.” She sighed. “What pisses me off is they’ve always treated me like they didn’t think I could do stuff on my own. My brothers? Th
ey were encouraged to be independent and go out on their own. I try, and it’s like they want to put me under armed guard to keep me locked up.”

  “Don’t be shocked if they show up at your apartment.”

  “Yeah, well, after tonight, I’m done dancing to their tune. If they’re actively trying to run off the guys I bring home without even giving them an honest chance, then they can go fuck themselves. That’s not love, that’s being assholes.”

  He patted her thigh. “That’s my girl.”

  Chapter Six

  Tuesday night, Niall parked his car in front of his father’s house for the first time in over five years and sat there for a moment. It felt like all he’d done was drive since leaving Los Angeles. Until today, when he unloaded his belongings into the storage unit.

  Drive, and think.

  Thoughts that would torture him if he didn’t rein them in and focus on the present. Beating himself up for the past or spinning out a thousand what-ifs about the future wasn’t helpful.

  Fortunately, for the unloading portion of things, he’d been able to shove stuff down the truck’s ramp and into the space, gravity working in his favor so he didn’t need help. It didn’t hurt that he’d gotten rid of and sold things like his couch, furniture he didn’t need immediately and could easily replace once he was settled. The biggest thing he’d kept was his bed—well, his mattress. The frame was a cheap, easily disassembled metal frame from Amazon. The mattress, however, had been expensive, one he’d bought new out in California.

  He’d left the bed he’d bought for them behind in Florida with Aden.

  I wonder if he still has it?

  Or if he’d had others in it.

  He cut off that thought immediately.

  This mattress had only seen his body and was untainted by anything except his loneliness, self-recriminations, and stupidity.

  He also had resisted the urge to drive by Aden’s house, to see if he was there.

  To see if he was alone.

  No good could come of that yet, not when he needed to survive this weekend first.

  He finally dragged himself out of the car and grabbed his laptop case. He’d bring in the other stuff later, including laundry he needed to do.