by L. J. Stock
How could I have not asked him his last name?
Had I?
No. It hadn’t ever come up. Not once. I wasn’t even sure how that was possible, but there was no disputing the facts. I had fallen for a man without even knowing his last name, and he was my daughter’s uncle. My Dustin’s asshole big brother.
As soon as my car was moving, I had my phone to my ear, my shoulder propping it against my head as I tried to navigate my way out of the parking lot and onto the road. I couldn’t go back to Megan’s in this state, and I couldn’t let Holly see me this broken. I certainly couldn’t let Garrett find me there with her because he would follow me. I was certain of that.
“Hello?” Megan said, laughter in her voice. “Kay?”
“Garrett…” I stopped and sucked in a breath, and all air of humor left Megan’s voice as she attempted to fill in the blanks.
“What happened?” Her tone was filled with panic and anger, and I could hear Robert shift somewhere close to her, already on red alert, I was sure. I loved them both for their concern, but it was unnecessary. At least the physical response was. I doubted I was in danger in that respect.
“Garrett’s Dustin’s brother, Meg.”
Just saying it felt all kinds of wrong, but the words broke something in me enough to know where I had to go and find some kind of guidance. I wiped a stray tear that had escaped and turned the car away from Megan’s house in the form of an illegal U-turn, back along the highway toward the cemetery. I needed to be with Dustin, to be close to him in a way I hadn’t been for a long time. I needed the time there alone to think about what I had to do next.
“Ohhh. Rett,” she whispered in an ‘Oh shit’ tone. I was right there with her. Childress wasn’t that big. We surely should have known who Garrett was, what he looked like, anything to give away that he was a huge part of my past. He should have surely known me, or what I looked like? Anything. “Want me to come and get you?”
“No. Thanks. I’m going to stay away from the house for a bit. Libby’s is going to enjoy telling him who I am.”
“Libby? Jesus, Kay, what the fuck happened tonight?”
I laughed without humor and shook my head in disbelief. What had transpired felt like a terribly bad dream.
“She’s his ex. Libby. She saw us together and followed me into the bathroom out of jealousy or to stake claim on him or something. She recognized me, said some shit and had a ball telling me who Garrett was when she realized I was clueless. I may have hit her before running away.” I rubbed my hand over my eyes and focused on the road again.
“Please tell me you broke something on that bitch’s face.”
“Yeah, my hand,” I said bluntly, gazing down at the hand gripping the steering wheel.
“I really hate her. She just loves to bring people down to her level. Whatever she said…”
“Is the truth,” I clarified.
“Kay. Don’t you go down that road. If she wants to start pointing fingers, she can look in a fucking mirror.”
“If he’d never met me…”
“He’d have been in a car accident or run over by a fucking lawnmower. The thing about life, Kay, is that destiny has the ability to get what the fuck it wants one way or another.”
I wished that were true. I wished that I could relinquish myself of the guilt and blame that ran through me whenever I allowed myself to think about it for longer than a second. All of those emotions had been there since he’d died, and they would never leave me, so I had to think about my daughter, and how to make this easier for her.
“I can’t let Holly see me like this, Meg, and I can’t let Garrett see her. We both know, one look and he’ll see Dustin in her. I should draw him away, then she and I will head home tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving?” I knew she understood what I was saying. I hadn’t been considering moving back to Childress just for Garrett, although he had been a part of the pro column. This summer with Holly and I in Childress was supposed to see how things would go and whether anyone would realize who Holly or I were. If Libby hadn’t have come home, I’d like to think I would never have been discovered, and once I inevitably figured out who Garrett was, I could have told him in my own way. Not throw the information at him in the way I was sure Libby was, or had, done. I was also realizing I was too attached to a man who now, very probably, hated me.
“I can’t stay here now, Meg. I…”
“You were falling in love with him.”
She knew me too well, and hearing the words out loud sent another crack through my resolve, quite a significant one. The first sob broke easily. I pulled to the shoulder and slammed the car into park as the dam of control faltered and broke, and I started to cry. I cried for my daughter who would never know her father or the man who was her uncle. I cried for me because I’d killed my soul mate and just fallen in love with his older brother who blamed me for his death. I cried for Garrett who was probably having the news broken to him as I sat there crying—because he’d lost his brother and, only a few short months later, his mother, and because I was hiding a niece he had no clue even existed from him. I cried for Dustin, too, because loving me had been his demise and he’d never had the honor of meeting his daughter.
“Come back to the house, Kay. Don’t suffer through this alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” I admitted quietly. I let the silence linger for only a second before I followed through on my last thought. Garrett knew where Meg lived now, and if he went looking for me… “If Garrett comes to the house, keep Holly out of sight and tell him I’m at the cemetery with… with Dustin.”
Megan let out a sigh of frustration and concern. She’d never really been that good at hiding her extreme emotions. “If he lays a finger on you…”
“No. He won’t physically hurt me.”
“He’d better not. I’m serious, Kay.”
I shook my head, using my sleeve to blot the tears from my eyes as oncoming headlights lit up my world long enough for me to grab a fast food napkin from the center console and blow my nose. I wasn’t sure why I had such a conviction that Garrett wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe it was because, despite knowing who he was and how he probably felt about me, I still felt the same way about him as I had this morning when I’d climbed out of his bed.
“I’ll be okay. Just tell him if he comes by, okay?”
“I’ll do it.” She sighed. “Text me in an hour and let me know you’re okay?”
“I promise,” I said, putting my car back into drive and heading toward the cemetery again. “I just need to talk to Dustin and Garrett. Figure all this out.”
“I love you.” Megan’s voice was thick as the last word fell between us, and I smiled at how lucky I was to have a loyal friend who never faltered.
“Love you back.”
Hanging up the phone, I dropped it into the passenger seat as I blinked back the tears that were threatening again. I would survive this no matter how painful it was. This wasn’t the worst night of my life, but it was in the top five, and the night still wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Garrett arrived much sooner than I’d imagined he would. I’d barely been sitting at Dustin’s grave for thirty minutes when I heard his footfalls on the early summer grass. The night wasn’t cold. The heat and humidity lingered and had kept me company along with the insects as I’d spoken to Dustin’s headstone in the quiet of my own mind. I had so many questions, so many things to say to him, but all I felt in his silent company was peace. Something that not even Garrett’s presence could moderate.
Laying my hand over the grass in front of Starlite, I sighed and bid Dustin an inaudible goodnight before pushing to my feet and facing the man that I finally accepted I’d been falling in love with. Garrett Hill, Dustin’s older brother.
“Thank you for coming.” My voice was nothing more than a whisper, but Garrett gripped the hair at his chin and nodded bleakly. He didn’t say anything in response, just dropped his hands to his sides,
buried them in his jeans pockets and curled his shoulders inward, closing me out in the most effective way possible.
I tried to arrange my thoughts into some semblance of order as I watched him, my heart aching with his refusal to so much as look at me as we stood barely feet apart. I tried to remind myself of the mantra I’d had for myself since Dustin had died: it wasn’t my fault. Unfortunately, in the face of someone who knew him as well I had, I couldn’t convince myself of that truth, especially when I saw the pain emanating from Garrett’s face. All I had was honesty. The truth. My truth. I just hoped Garrett would listen to what I had to say before I left.
“I really loved him,” I started, rocking back on my heels. “I need you to know that Dustin was my whole world, Garrett.”
I let the words hang between us as I tried to find the best way to explain how our past had all gone down. How Dustin and I had managed to fall in love, and why I had let him leave for college alone. Before I could gather the breath to continue, however, I was shut down.
“Just... don’t,” he finally said in a pained voice. He removed his right hand from his pocket and waved it in front of him like it had some magical capacity to shut me up.
“But—”
“Look,” he cut me off and stepped closer before stopping himself. Shaking his head, he stared at the grass by his feet and frowned. “I don’t want to hear this.”
I had so much to say and explain, I looked at him dumbfounded and sputtered out an, “Excuse me?”
Garrett swallowed several times, both hands rising to run through his hair and grip the roots manically. He still hadn’t looked at me directly, but then he didn’t need to. I already knew how the pain would look in his chocolate brown eyes. The stab of betrayal would be too much to bear and adding insult to my already injured heart, I could already see the warm glow of the attraction between us faltering. Garrett hated me. He blamed me for his brother’s death, and I couldn’t defend myself against that because I knew that it was true. Dustin had died because he’d fallen in love with me. Even if that hadn’t been by my hand, I was still the cause.
“All these years,” Garrett choked out, surprising me. “I spent so much time and energy hating you, blaming you for what happened to my kid brother, and I didn’t know. I didn’t even think about it.”
“Think about what?” I asked, hating the quiver of raw emotion tainting my already quiet voice.
“Does that matter now?”
“No. I guess it doesn’t.” I watched him for a while longer and realized the confession I really needed him to hear if this was going to be it between us. “I didn’t know you were his brother. I mean, he never called you Garrett when we were together, only Rett, and I didn’t ever ask you your last name after we met. It just didn’t seem important at first, and it’s not that I didn’t want to know, I just…”
“Stop. Just stop already. I didn’t make the connection, either, Kay, and the sad thing is, I actually saw you that night. You know? Crumpled on the floor from where your father had hit you. Broken and small, your dark hair fanned out around you as you protected your stomach. You were curled around it, so small, and then Dustin… and all the blood, his lifeless eyes. I just couldn’t...”
A silence descended quickly between us, implications, accusations, and blame all going unsaid. I felt raw, slicing emotions rise from the depths of my stomach until they were resting in my throat where they strangled me with my own guilt. I already knew what Garrett was thinking. I knew what he was leaving unsaid. Dustin being gone was on me. I was the reason Garrett had lost his younger brother.
“Look. I know…”
“Your father shot him,” he spat out with pure hatred and loathing. His feet shuffled with discomfort and his back curled like the weight of the world had just dropped onto his shoulders.
I swallowed again, my mouth so dry I was finding it increasingly difficult to do so. “I…”
“But you are not your father, Mikayla Quinten,” he continued and gripped the back of his neck with both hands, bringing his elbows in as he finally allowed his eyes to meet mine. “You were as much a victim as Dustin was. I can see that now.”
I couldn’t help the sob that fell from my lips when our gazes met. There was so much pain in his eyes, but not the kind I’d expected. This was the pain of haunting guilt that had hung from him for years, the agony of acceptance, and utter resolve that I couldn’t understand.
“Garrett, what are you saying?”
“It’s not your fault. It never was. Can’t you see that? Even after all these years? Jesus, Kay, I did everything I could to poison Dustin against you that night—before that, too. Like when I found out about your relationship with him.” He swore again, and the heels of his hands moved to his eyes leaving me stranded once again. “It’s on me, ba—” He shook his head again, dismissing the endearment. “It’s my fault because I listened to everything she said.”
With a humorless laugh, Garrett shook his head and let it fall back on his shoulders, his hands still pushing too hard against the sockets of his eyes as the emotions made his face crumple. I’d never in my life felt the kind of pain I was feeling looking at this man who now looked as though his soul was being ripped from him. The agony was palpable and rubbed against my own until the silent tears fell freely from my eyes in rivulets. He didn’t need to tell me who she was. The inflection in that one word told me that he was talking about Libby and it was the same way he’d always said my ex like it left a bad taste in his mouth. She’d been stirring the pot. She wasn’t my concern right then, though. Garrett was.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice was barely a cracked whisper, but he heard me.
“Why?” he asked, his head falling forward and hands pushing up to his forehead. He focused on something just to the left of me so he didn’t have to meet my eyes again. His eyes looked so dark that I busied myself, swiping the tears from my cheeks.
“He would still be alive if he hadn’t met me.”
“No. You can’t think of it like that.”
I glanced up and frowned. The last glimmer of hope made me search his face for something… anything. “Don’t you?”
“No. Kay, this shit started long before you met Dusty.” He took another deep breath. “You need to know that I wasn’t a good brother to him. I was fucking Libby behind his back, I was drinking too much, and majoring in fucking up to live up to my dad’s new expectations of me since I’d failed so colossally with my football career. The night I started the fight with your dad, your dad won that land fair and square. He was an asshole about it, sure, but it was on me. All me. And no matter what way I look at how it all unfolded, I know I killed Dusty the moment I decided to screw Libby.”
Garrett fell silent for a moment, his mouth opening and closing as though trying to find the words to condemn himself completely.
“You know, he thought they’d lost their virginity together,” he said, laughing bitterly, “but she’d lost it with me a week before they were ever together. He thought she loved him because he loved her in his own way, too, but while she was telling him he was the one and only for her, she was confessing how in love she was with me every moment we were left alone. I got bored of her bullshit fast and pushed her to be with him again, but she got restless while he was in camp and screwed the baseball team, half of my friends, and me again while he was gone. When Dusty found out about her cheating, he ended up running away and into your arms—where he was happy.”
The emphasis on the last word was what broke his control. Garrett’s eyes clouded with the tears before they fell, the drops disappearing into his beard as he stood staring at me, more broken than I ever could have imagined. I knew at that moment that I undoubtedly I loved him. I was in love with him even more than I had known. Even knowing who he was now and who he’d been to me in the past, I wanted him more than I could put into words, and what did that make me?
“Garrett.”
“Please, let me finish,” he said, his eyes flashing to mine a
nd away. “You need to hear all of this.”
“I will, I promise, but you need to know that Dustin didn’t run to me that night. He was running away and crashed into me completely by accident, and his reason for running wasn’t because of you. The night Dustin and I met, he was distraught, but not about Libby. He was upset about your mom.”
“Mom?”
“He’d found out she was sick and didn’t have long left and he wanted to spend what little time she did have with her. But your dad told him that he either stayed on the team and in a relationship with Libby, or he would cut Dustin out of the family completely and he wouldn’t be allowed to see your mom at all.”
“I knew that. At the time I was pissed off with everything and just needed some kind of validation from my dad. I backed the asshole up.” He shook his head again and looked down at the grave. “I’d had to do my time, and I’d let the old man down. I figured it would be easier for everyone if Dusty just did him proud. Maybe we’d all get some peace. I didn’t know it would hurt him as much as it did. I got Libby off his back for a while when I realized how much she was fucking with him. That’s when we started dating, but she still wanted the prize, to get out of this town on his arm because, despite his efforts, he was still living that dream. The night he came back from college for Thanksgiving, Libby told us both you were fucking some guy from Amarillo, and he’d knocked you up. Dusty didn’t believe her about the guy. He said he knew you better than that, but he knew you had to be pregnant and confided in me that the baby had to be his. He trusted you, and he loved you with everything he was, Kay. He was hurt you didn’t tell him, but I knew. Once he’d convinced me that the kid was his, I knew you’d sent him away because you loved him and wanted to do right by him. You didn’t want to tie him down to the life the rest of us would end up living, and I knew I had to turn him against you. Only, it backfired, and my words sent him to your house. I should have stayed away after that, but you have to know as well as I did then, the moment he saw you pregnant he would never have left you. I honestly thought I would get there in time but…”