Broken Knight

by Shen, L. J.

  I nodded.

  “He said she’d been living in Rio for the past eight years with her mother. Worked a job selling knock-off perfumes at a mall down her block. No partner, no kids, no family. Had a cat named Luar. She seemed to have gone through a really dark time. She died of an overdose eighteen months ago.”

  My biological mother was dead.

  I should feel devastated. I should feel free. I should feel, period. I poked my lower lip, tugging at it, not sure how to react.

  Val was still my biological mother.

  Also, the woman who gave me up.

  The woman who’d screwed me over.

  The woman who’d wanted to use me as a pawn.

  But also the woman who named her cat Luar—moonlight in Portuguese.

  Val wore many hats in my life. All of them had painted her in an ugly way. People were wrong. I wasn’t Saint Luna. I was capable of hating, too. I just didn’t know it until now. Somehow, I stood up. Edie rose to her feet after me.

  “You have a mother,” she stressed, slapping her palm over her chest. “You have me, Luna. You’ll always have me.”

  “I know.” I smiled.

  “Speak more.” Her expression softened.

  “I try. I’ve been trying my whole life. It’s just that…when the words come out, they do it of their own accord.”

  “Don’t you get it?” She held my arms, giving them a gentle shake.

  She had a goofy, lopsided grin—one I’d catch on Dad when he looked at her lovingly. She’d always had the courage to look at me and not through me.

  “You’re free now. Free to speak. Free to talk. Free to be someone else, not the person she made you when she walked away.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  But did I? What if this didn’t free me? What if I was destined to speak in random bursts?

  We both shifted from foot to foot. There was a major elephant in the room, and we needed to address it.

  “Your dad needs to—”

  “I’ll tell him,” I cut her off.

  Yes. I knew what I had to do, what I was capable of doing. Val was no longer here to remind me my words didn’t matter, that my voice held no weight. Edie was right. It was time to shed the dead skin of the person I was, and to become someone else.

  The person Knight needed.

  The person Dad, Edie, and Racer deserved.

  I was going to talk to Dad.

  With words.

  “Come in.”

  Dad looked up from the paperwork on his office desk, still clad in his suit. He shuffled some papers around for the sake of doing something with his hands, flashing me a tired smile. There was something pathologically wary about his expression when he looked at me nowadays. Love dipped in misery, wrapped in a bitter crust of pity.

  Not disappointment, though. Never disappointment.

  I closed the door behind me, moseying to the camel-colored leather armchair in front of him. I sank into it, the weight of what I was about to do pulling me down. Without breaking eye contact, my nails dug into the tender flesh of my palms until they pierced through my skin. I breathed through the pain.

  I could do it. I’d done it with Knight. With Edie. At a party full of complete strangers.

  But somehow, this was different.

  My father had been tricked by Val. She got pregnant on purpose. He hadn’t wanted me. Yet he had been forced to raise me on his own for the first few years of my life. And it hadn’t been easy, with my lack of communication. They’d called him The Mute because he didn’t speak much, but his daughter truly crushed him with misery over her lack of words.

  “Is everything okay?” He furrowed his brows, seeming to realize the atmosphere in the room had shifted. Maybe that I’d shifted, too.

  I used to be dependent. Small. Scared. The last few months had changed me. And I was still evolving, changing like clay—spinning through tiny changes that made small, yet significant differences in my life. Each dent shaped me.

  I opened my mouth.

  He dropped his pen.

  My lips moved.

  His eyes widened.

  I smiled.

  He listened.

  “Not everything,” I whispered, aware of the way my lips molded around the words.

  Sadness laced in my victory. The only reason I was able to speak was because my birth mother had died. There was no reconciliation possible. I’d lost something permanently—but gained something else.

  I reached for his hand across the desk, clutching it with shaky fingers. Free at last. The pen he’d been holding a second ago bled ink onto his new leather planner. I only noticed because everything was illuminated, like I was on ecstasy or something.

  “I have a confession, Dad.”

  I wasn’t sure how I expected him to react. My father had tried everything to get me to talk. I had award-winning speech therapists knocking on my door, the best psychologists and experts in the world at my disposal. I’d seen his back shake from weeping dozens of times when he thought I wasn’t looking, as he mourned the words that never left my mouth.

  Then, I wasn’t ready. Now, I was.

  “Luna…” He put a shaky hand to his mouth.

  I dragged my hand from his, fanned my fingers on his desk. “Val died,” I said.

  “How do you…”

  “I asked Edie to hire someone to investigate. I’m so sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I needed to know.”

  He made a sudden move. The bleeding pen rolled across the desk and dropped onto the carpet. He shook his head, paused for a second, then stood up, rounding his desk and yanking me to my feet. His eyes bore into mine, saying so many things he’d bottled over the years. I thought he was going to hug me, but to my astonishment, he got down on his knees, staring up at me, his eyes twinkling.

  “You’re talking.” He looked puzzled.

  I laughed. I actually laughed, which was horrible, seeing as my moment of greatness was tainted by the death of my biological mother. But then I started crying, too. Tears ran down my cheeks, following one another along my neck, soaking my shirt. Talk about bittersweet moments.

  “I mean…are you?” His throat worked. “Talking?”

  “To some people.” Guilt, guilt, guilt. Piles upon piles of messy, black, foggy guilt.

  “Some?”

  “You. Edie. Knight.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since…a few weeks ago.”

  “Luna,” he whispered.

  “Dad.”

  “Say it again.”

  “Dad.” I smiled. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

  “Again? Please.”

  “Dad.”

  His shoulders shook. Not with sobs. With happiness. Happiness I’d put inside him. I was drunk on my newfound power.

  “Tell me again.” His voice was soft.

  The pen behind him spread blue ink all over the lush crème carpet.

  “Dad. Trent. Mr. Rexroth. Father.” I wiggled my brows, and he opened his eyes, laughing. The crow’s feet fanning around his eyes squished up his entire face adorably.

  “What about your brother?”

  “What about him?”

  He gave me a really? look, and I pulled him to standing. I buried my face in his chest, inhaling him. I hated that he looked like a man who’d just been released from prison. Happier. Lighter. I’d sentenced him to a reality he hadn’t wanted, caged him into a situation he’d struggled with every day.

  “I’ll try. I…I don’t control it, Dad. It’s not like that. Yet. I’m sorry.” I swallowed. “Aren’t you…mad?”

  “Which part should I be mad about? The fact that my daughter wanted to understand her past better and I obviously failed her if she felt she couldn’t ask me about her birth mother, or the fact that you’ve just given me the only thing I’ve truly wanted since the day you stopped talking?”

  “The first one. Definitely the first one.” I laughed.

  Melancholy dripped between us. This was the big m
oment. The top of the hill. Me, talking to my dad, telling him I knew my mother was dead. He didn’t look surprised. Why didn’t he look surprised?

  Ever the mind reader, he cleared his throat and looked down.

  “You knew about Val,” I said. There was no accusation in my voice.

  He nodded. “It seemed redundant to bring her up after all these years. Plus, she hurt you in such a vital way, I couldn’t bring myself to think what would happen if—”

  “It’s okay,” I cut him off. I got it. I did.

  “God.” He shook his head, pulling me into another hug. “Your voice. It’s beautiful.”

  “I love you,” I whispered into his suit. My words had life, and weight, and a pulse. I said them again. “I love you, Dad. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  He lifted me up like I was a little girl, spinning me in place and burying his nose in my hair. Tears rolled down our faces. The pen bled the last of its ink, marking this page in our lives forever in my father’s office. I knew, with certainty that made my heart swell, that he was not going to replace that carpet.

  He was going to look at it every day, remember the day it had happened, and cherish it.

  “I love you, too, baby girl.”

  “There’s an Emergen-C pack and Advil on the kitchen counter. You know your way around, and if you need anything, ask Vaughn. Or call. You can call me, too.”

  Emilia, Mom’s older sister and Vaughn’s mother, practically shoved me out the door, delving through paper bags for all the shit she’d brought Mom. She looked tired, worried, and secondhand sick. I spat phlegm into one of the plants by our door, ignoring the pulsating heat radiating from my body.

  “Remind me why I’m getting kicked out of my own house again?”

  “You spiked a fever last night. You’re not well, Knight. You know you can’t be here next to her.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the guestroom downstairs. I won’t go anywhere near Mom.”

  “I’ll be taking the guestroom.”

  Emilia finally plucked a pack of chips from a bag. Salty snacks were good for Mom. She’d lost a lot of sodium. “I want to take care of my sister. Besides, even if you took the downstairs bedroom, you still have the flu. You’re a germ-ball, excuse my bluntness.”

  I shrugged. “Been called worse.”

  “I promise I’ll keep you updated. I made you some chicken noodle soup. It’s in a container near the other provisions. I’ll ask your uncle to report back if you haven’t touched it, so no funny business. Don’t worry, honey. She’ll get well.”

  “She can’t get well.” I smiled bitterly, my eyes darkening. “We both know that, Aunt Em.”

  Emilia’s throat bobbed with a swallow. She looked down. Why did people do that? Look down when things got too real? What was on the ground that was so fascinating, other than my mother’s impending grave?

  “But she can get worse,” Aunt Em whispered.

  She stepped into the house then, pushing the door closed in my face before pausing. “Oh, and I’m not sure what your current status is, but if you’ve decided to pull your head out of your butt and you’re swinging by Luna’s, please send her my condolences and let her know I’m here if she needs me.”

  I was midstride when I turned around sharply, pushing the door back open.

  “Condolences?” I could feel my eyeballs dancing in their sockets.

  Emilia dropped her paper bags, peaches and garlic rolling on the floor.

  Our parents had refused to get the memo that Luna and I were no longer BFFs or whatever bullshit term they called us. But that didn’t bother me as much as the notion that something bad had happened. Condolences meant one thing.

  “What’s going on?” I braced my arm against the door, making sure she knew she couldn’t get rid of me before she explained herself.

  I was burning like a thousand angry suns on their galactic period. The fever had come out of nowhere. Vaughn said it was probably because I’d nearly combusted watching Luna make out with Daria the other night.

  When Aunt Emilia didn’t answer immediately, I stepped back into the house, ignoring my general dizziness. Getting into her face, I bared my teeth.

  “Speak.”

  I knew if Uncle Vicious ever found out I’d behaved even mildly aggressively with her, he’d castrate me and make dangling earrings out of my balls for his pretty wife.

  Emilia’s jaw tightened. “Step back, boy,” she growled.

  Maybe she didn’t need Uncle Vicious to make the earrings for her.

  I decided to step back, because it was the quickest way to make her talk.

  “Her birth mother, Val, died.”

  “Jesus.” I covered my mouth, running my palm along my face. “How is she coping?”

  Moonshine was entirely unpredictable when it came to Val, so I didn’t know the level of devastation I was dealing with here. I just knew she’d been looking for Val, and now she’d found her—probably not in the state she needed her to be.

  “I thought you could fill me in. Edie hired a private investigator, and that’s what he came back with.” Emilia frowned. “How do you not know this, Knight? You used to be like siblings.”

  Siblings, my ass. I needed to see Luna. Now.

  Hold on a second—did I? Because last time we hung out, she’d yelled at my ass.

  Yeah.

  No.

  I needed to.

  Crisis trumped anything else. Even my mansion-sized ego.

  Fuuuck.

  She quickly amended. “Soulmates.”

  “Thanks for making it creepy.”

  “She needs you.”

  “Tough luck.”

  I could be a stubborn motherfucker. So no then? Not going to Luna?

  Shit. I needed a fortune cookie to make the decision for me, or something.

  “This can’t be about a little college fling. What really happened, Knight?”

  Everything. Everything happened.

  Luna had moved on. I’d stayed behind. Mom got sicker. Dixie was healthy and pushy and depressingly alive. Apparently, God had a twisted sense of humor, and the joke was on me.

  Emilia cupped my cheeks, pulling me closer. I was over a head and a half taller, but she still looked every inch the person in charge between us. It was in her eyes. They were like the ocean on a perfect summer day. Flat and blue and calmer than anything life could throw at them.

  “You’re so stubborn. So…tunnel-visioned. You’re such a…”

  “Cunt?” I offered indifferently.

  “A guy.” She bit her barely contained smile. “We always thought we were going to have girls, Rosie and me.”

  I couldn’t help but smirk, mainly because all they had were boys. And we were about the most testosterone-filled creatures in the history of mankind. Sometimes I wondered if I had blood or jizz in my veins.

  “Sorry to disappoint. Then again, I was adopted. Mom, at least, had a choice.”

  “There was never any doubt you were a Cole, Knight. You weren’t a choice; you were destiny.”

  I waved her off. Mom and Emilia had the tendency to go full-blown This is Us on my ass when I brought up the A-word (adoption). I never understood why they were so butthurt about it. It wasn’t like they’d fucked some random and given me away.

  “Speaking of adoption, are you sure your son is yours? Because you’re like oil and water.” I tried to disconnect from her embrace, but the Leblanc sisters, for all their tininess, cuddled like Olympic wrestlers.

  “Yup. I have four stretch marks to prove it.”

  “I bet he carved his name on the walls of your uterus, too, warning off any potential future siblings. The bastard.”

  Aunt Em laughed, her bright blue eyes shimmering with joy. She had Mom’s laugh, and I could already see myself making her laugh when Mom wasn’t around anymore, just to get a taste.

  “What’s so funny?” I frowned, finally managing to pull back.

  “I bet you didn’t mean to say the uterus thing out loud.”<
br />
  Shit. “Sorry. My filters are broken.”

  “Your manners, too. You know I love you like a son, but you need to get your butt out of here.” She smacked said butt lightly.

  I did. I knew that. But I was feeling particularly loyal to Mom, and particularly vindictive about the rest of the world.

  “I only have one mother.”

  Burning.

  I was burning.

  Like a nice, hot vacation in hell.

  I woke up with my blanket sticking to my body, glued by cold sweat. Everything was so wet, for a second I thought I’d pissed the bed. I ran a hand over my head and found my hair soaking, like I’d just gotten out of the shower.

  I slid out of the bed in the Spencers’ guestroom, still clad in my black Tom Ford sweatpants, and grabbed my joint and a lighter from the nightstand. I slipped my socked feet into a pair of slide sandals. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt. I headed to the kitchen for a glass of water before going on the porch for a smoke, but once I was out of bed, I continued past the kitchen to the front door, tossing it open like a moonstruck monster.

  Any more bad ideas, assface?

  Fresh blood pumped in my veins as I climbed up to Luna’s window for the first time in months, a fucked-up Romeo in a story that was definitely a comedic tragedy. She’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. And I’d made it clear I didn’t care.

  I wasn’t done throwing Poppy in her face every chance I got. But it didn’t matter. Emilia was right. Luna needed me. I refused to believe we were two strangers with a past, that our mile-long memories were nothing, that our first kisses were nothing, that the way we molded around each other was nothing, that our blood oath wasn’t worth shit.

  Her window was locked, as I expected it to be after everything that had gone down between us, and the curtains drawn together. I knocked once. Twice. When she didn’t answer, I took a deep breath, looked away, and drove my fist into it. I knew the window was double glazed and I’d need more than a punch to break it, but the loud thud was enough to let her know I wasn’t playing.

  Luna rushed to the window, throwing the curtains open and frowning at me, heat dancing in her eyes.

  “I just thought about Romeo and Juliet, and I remembered…” I swayed back and forth, losing my balance on her roof. Shit.