by Daisy Allen
“Why... um, why don’t we sit down?” he says, gesturing to the chair.
“No, GABRIEL ANTHONY SINCLAIR, you will answer my questions, RIGHT NOW or I am...?”
“What? Going to tell Grammy?” he grins at me, and I’m surprised at how okay he actually does look. Maybe not physically, but definitely mentally.
“No. I’m...I’m going to tell...XAVIER!”
“Oy. Okay, I’m all yours, ask away. He is scary.”
“Hey!” Xavier protests.
“Shush, family reunion going on here. Go break some knees somewhere else,” Gabriel waves Xavier away.
“What? Did he...?’
“Let’s just say he’s good with the threats.”
I turn to look at Kaine, who has now followed us into the room. He just shrugs and looks sheepish.
“Whatever,” I brush his away. “I’m dealing with YOU right now. Why did you go?”
“I went... I went to get help, JJ.”
“JJ?” Kaine repeats, hearing Gabriel’s childhood nickname for me.
“Shush. Well, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because, it’s not the first time I’ve tried... and failed. And I didn’t want you getting your hopes up. I just thought if I disappeared this time, you’d worry for a little while but you’d get used to it, and one day I could just show up, and... be well, and clean and healthy and stop disappointing you. Because I’m going to do it this time, sis. I really am. The other day really scared me.”
“Aw, you idiot. I know you can do it.”
“Thanks, sis.” He runs a hand over his tired face. I reach out and run the back of my hand against the stubble on his chin. He looks older than I’ve ever seen him. Not old, but grown up. Maybe he really has.
“But you didn’t tell me, where did the scary man find you?”
“Hey!” Xavier protests again. And I shush him with a look.
“At one of the local shelters downtown. I was waiting for them to get me into one of their detox centres. It’s a quick fix, and there’s no guarantee I can get into a rehab program after, but at least I’ll be clean, detoxed to start.”
“Oh honey, you... you can’t do it that way, it’ll kill you.”
“The drugs will do that any way, sis. And this is all I, we, can afford. Anyway, I was just staying there overnight, they said they’d probably find a place for me today. So, I can’t stay here for long, as soon as there’s a spot I’ve gotta go. But Scaryman threatened my knees, so I came back to tell you I’m okay, and that I’m sorry. And to pray for me,”
“You’re not going anywhere. Well, not just yet.” Kaine comes up and gestures for us to sit down. He hands me a hoodie and I pull it over my toga before sinking into the couch next to him.
“What do you mean?” Gabe asks.
“We’ve... we’ve gotten you into a rehabilitation clinic upstate. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll take you,” Kaine explains. I grab his arm and he turns and smiles at me.
“No, I...” my brother starts.
“Don’t do it for you, don’t do it for me, do it for your sister.” His words are simple, but he delivers them straight into Gabriel’s eyes. And I see them burrowing into his mind.
“Please, Gabriel,” I say, not even knowing the look of begging flooding my eyes.
“Oh, sis.”
“Do this for her,” Xavier comes over and joins us on the couch. “And maybe I’ll let you keep your legs the shape they are.” He winks at me.
Gabriel takes turn looking at us. I can’t even pretend to know how hard this is for him. Facing us. In all the years he was in trouble, his pride never wavered. He would come back, swear up and down he had everything under control. And every time he fell off the wagon, the worst was watching the way it chipped at his self-respect. That was always worse than watching what the drugs did to his body, his mind; those wounds I knew could be fixed in time. How he would feel about himself when it was all over was another matter altogether.
“Jade?” my brother says, his eyes wet.
“Please. Swallow your pride and do this for me. If I mean anything to you, let Kaine do this for us.”
He takes a deep breath and exhales, and it’s like he deflates into a small, helpless young boy again.
“Okay.”
“Gabriel!” I jump up and run over to him, almost tripping on my sheet as I go as it falls out from under me, leaving me in just a long hoodie, barely covering my butt. He catches me in his arms and holds me as we cry. All we ever have is hope.
“Sis?” Gabe asks after we’ve calmed down.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“So, can I ask you a question?”
“Anything!”
“Why the hell are you wearing a bedsheet in a stranger’s apartment?”
I reach out and the squeal I hear is exactly the same as the one I used to hear whenever I pinched his ear.
***
Five hours later we’re on our way to East Hampton and the Dunes Rehab Center.
We’d spent the morning talking, catching up at the apartment, and then swinging by Macy’s after lunch to grab Gabriel some essential items for his stay.
Sitting in the limo now, next to Kaine, I’m watching as Gabriel’s head bobs up and down as he fights sleep.
I know a tough time is ahead of him, and I don’t know if this time will be any different, just that for the first time, even though we’d pleaded with him to do it for me, this time he’s doing it for him. He’s sick of being sick of his own reflection and he’s sick of wasting the life for which he has so much potential, that was meant to be limitless.
“Hey, you okay?” Kaine whispers into my ear.
I lean back against his arm and pull his other around my chest, enveloping me in him. We haven’t had a chance to talk about what happened last night, and what he’d said this morning, but I’m just letting myself enjoy having him as support right now. We will have to talk about him organizing and paying for Gabriel’s treatment, but I didn’t want that to get in the way of Gabriel accepting the help.
“When do you think it’ll be your turn?” I ask him.
“My turn for what?”
“To say thank you to me.”
“Every moment you let me be with you, look at you, kiss you, take you in my arms, is a reason to thank you.”
“Then kiss me again, so we’re even.”
“We’ll never be even, but I don’t mind racking up a long bill.”
I lift my face and take the kiss he gifts me.
“Ew. Stop kissing my sister,” comes Gabriel’s sleepy disgust.
“Can’t, buddy. We’re bartering.”
I see a smile tug at Gabriel’s lips as he leans his head back on the headrest and closes his eyes.
***
It’s sunset by the time we have Gabriel settled at the center. The first few days will be a contact blackout while he detoxes, but the counselors say it will be okay to come visit him next weekend.
I hug him goodbye and I bite my lip so hard I’m bleeding when my hands run up and down his back, rippling over his exposed ribs. How could I have let it come to this? What kind of sister am I?
He brushes my tears away with his thumbs as he pulls out of the hug.
“Shhh, JJ. It’s not your fault,” he says, reading my mind. “You always said I was too smart for my own good. I guess I always thought I was too smart to let it get too far. I was wrong. But without you, I’d be dead by now, so don’t you go blaming yourself. If you have to blame someone, blame me. This was all me. And now me is going to get better. For me.”
“I love you, baby bro.”
“I love you, bossy sis.”
“I’ll see you next week.”
“That’s a promise.”
“Come on, it’s time,” Kaine says, reminding me gently with an arm on my back.
“Good luck, Gabriel,” he says reaching out a hand to my brother, who looks at it for a second before grabbing it tight.
“Thanks. For everything.
Take care of her while I’m gone. I know she can be a handful.”
A sob is my only response.
“Oh, dear lord, I’m not going to war! I’m in a freakin’ posh resort for millionaires! Go get!” he says and shoos me off, but not before I see a tremor of his bottom lip and a glistening in his eye.
I give him one last quick hug and hurl myself out the front door, refusing to look back.
Kaine follows me out to the car, but doesn’t force me to get in. He just stands next to me as I stare out into the garden, watching the other patients, wandering around, reading, or playing games.
“He’s going to be okay, Jade,” Kaine comforts me.
“The truth is, he couldn’t have gotten much worse.”
“So, this is a start.”
“I should’ve never let it get this far.” I ask myself again, unable to reconcile his comforting words with the truth.
“You did the best you could have at any given moment. Tell me, go back to any of those other times, what would you have differently”
He knows I don’t have an answer. He knows.
“Trust me, I’ve been there,” he offers.
“Been where.”
“Hopelessness. Helplessness.”
“With who?”
“My whole family,” he says. And stops there.
I stare at him open mouthed and all he can do is tilt his head, his eyes tender and full of pain.
“Kaine?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I just wanted you to know, I know what it feels like. To feel like you’ve let down the people you love most.”
He drops a kiss onto my forehead and then helps me into the car.
We drive back to Manhattan in silence, our hands in each other’s. Each living our own nightmare but trying to find the way out together.
Chapter Thirty-Two
HIM
I’d expected that after dropping Gabriel off at the rehab clinic, sooner or later Jade would want to sit down and talk. A lot had happened in the last few days, a lot of things that needed to be resolved. But maybe it was the stress of losing and then finding her brother again, and then leaving him to detox, that pushed everything else down the list of urgency.
When we finally arrived home that night, without a word, she climbed into bed with me, and let me hold her until she fell asleep.
I woke the next morning and she was already awake and getting ready to leave. When I came out of the shower, she’d made breakfast and simply asked if I’d give her a ride to work. That afternoon she texted to say she would be done by 6 p.m. and was waiting in her office when I came to pick her up. That night, after dinner, she sat watching tv in bed while I finished up some work, and when I put the laptop away, we made love late into the night.
The next morning, we repeated the process all over again. And have been for the last week.
There seems to be some sort of unspoken agreement, that for now, she will stay with me. Maybe it’s just easier than fighting me, during this time when her mind is focused on her brother. Or maybe she just finds comfort in my company. I’m not arguing either way. It’s been a lifetime since I felt this comfortable with someone, enough to share my home, my bed, my life with them
It comes so naturally. This time we spend together. We don’t talk much, share much. But each other’s presence seems enough to be a mutual form of contentment.
The rhythm we sink into is easy.
Not a word of argument, not a word of protest. As if things had always been this way.
Which is why what was about to happen would surprise us both.
***
“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she says a week after we dropped Gabriel off at Dunes, as we lay in bed, recovering, breaths still heavy and deep, skin still damp with sweat from the exertion of sex. We’ve just came home from visiting Gabriel who looks like he’s making progress. Her relief in the car on the way home is shown in the way she couldn’t stop touching me, kissing me.
“Really? Is there anything special you want to do?” I ask her, as she settles against me, her ear against my rising chest.
“No. It just occurred to me that’s all. I hadn’t really thought about it. I haven’t really been celebrating birthdays much these last few years.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m getting ollldddd,” her voice shakes, as if impersonating an old woman.
“Hey,” I say softly, nudging her so she’ll look up at me. “No, really, why? You don’t like birthdays?” It surprises me that she doesn’t, she seems to have a lust for life in every way. A day of your own to celebrate would seem like something she would look forward to every year.
She just shrugs in reply though, letting her head fall back down onto me with a soft thud.
“Tell me, sweetheart,” I urge her.
“I just didn’t really have anyone to celebrate with once I moved to Manhattan. My grandparents are too old to make them come here just for a dinner, and I didn’t have a lot of money to go to Harrisonburg in the beginning, and then I guess it just became a habit. And Gabriel... well, he wasn’t always around.”
“What about your friend, um, Harriet?”
I feel her smile against my skin.
“Yeah, well, if anyone noticed, it would be Harriet. And she tries. But, well, I guess my heart isn’t really into it.”
“Well, you have me this year. You can have anything you want.”
“Honestly, you, me, fried food and a really schmaltzy rom-com with the world’s biggest bucket of popcorn is all I need.”
“You got it,” I drop a kiss on her forehead.
She does a little giggle that restores the blood to my groin and I flip her over, sliding down her body as she wriggles in mock protest.
“Now... how about an early birthday present?”
She squeals which quickly fades into a low, deep moan, as my fingers graze the inside of her thighs and my tongue slides into her.
My present seems to be well-received.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HER
“Hurry up, woman! How many times have I told you I hate being late?!” Kaine’s nagging from the hallway travels all the way into the bedroom.
I hop from one foot to the other as I slide on my heels, adjusting the tight leather skirt down over my thighs. Something about the conversation last night made me want to make something special of this birthday. Maybe it’s because I finally have someone special to share it with. Before my shower I’d picked out the best dress I’d brought to Kaine’s apartment, a fire engine red leather dress that hugs every inch of my body, and spent an extra 30 minutes in the bathroom, curling my hair and doing my make-up.
“I’m coming, I’m coming! Sheesh! Be nice to the birthday girl, please!”
“I would if she would ever...” he spins around and stops mid-sentence, letting out a slow whistle.
I feel a blush race up my face, but I still pivot and pose, enjoying his appreciation.
“Jade, you are making me... have very going-to-be-late-for-work thoughts.”
I saunter over to him, purposely letting my hips sway from side to side. I brush past him over to the elevator, leaning over at the waist to press the call button.
He turns on his heel, following me with his body and I can feel his eyes travelling up and down my body.
“Am I? It’s too bad you hate being late for work, then,” I purr, in what I hope is my seductive voice.
He comes up behind me, his hands on my waist, spinning me around to face him. Backing me against the closed elevator door, his arms brace against either side of my head, and he leans over to kiss me, slowly but deeply. There’s a soft hum in his throat and I can’t help but feel weak under his spell. I barely notice the scar, and the right side of his face is almost criminally handsome. Angled and strong. I feel soft and feminine every time he looks at me just like he’s looking at me now. Like he wants to eat me.
“Who said anything about being late for work?�
� he says, and I notice something sparkle in his eye.
“You did.”
“Did I? Hmmm, I don’t remember that,” he pretends that he doesn’t notice me staring at him.
The elevator doors open with a ding and he steps forward, his hands on my waist, leading me inside,
“What do you mean?” I demand.
He just grins and lets go of me, stepping to the side and leaning against the rail.
“Kaine! What do you mean?” I ask again, punching him gently on the chest with my fist.
“Nothing. Shhh. There are other people getting on the elevator,” he says, infuriating me.
The elevator comes to a slow stop and the doors open. An elderly couple nods and smiles at us, as they step inside.
“Mr. Humphrey,” Kaine nods to the man, who offers his hand.
“Hello, Kaine. How have you been?” His voice is pleasant and kind.
“Good, sir, thank you.”
“Everything going well with the launch? I hear... some rumblings. Anything I can help you with?”
I watch him closely, not used to seeing him talk about his work with anyone else.
He just smiles politely and nods, “Everything’s going very well, I sincerely hope to see you and Mrs. Humphrey at the launch next month. You were always such supporters of ours.”
“Of course we will be there, Kaine. Neil wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
We reach the lobby faster than I expect, probably due to the distraction of the conversation. We hang back as the other couple leaves, with a wave goodbye, before we step out into the lobby.
Kaine’s hand never leaves the small of my back as we make our way outside. Everyone we pass greets Kaine by name; he never says much in reply, just a quick polite nod to acknowledge them, never taking his focus off me.
“Does everyone here know you?” I whisper and he just chuckles.
Henry is waiting for us in the valet bay when we get outside.
The gods have divined a beautiful day for my birthday. The sky is blue without a hint of cloud and the cool breeze washes over my cheeks, making me gurgle with happiness.