by Mia Ford
“If it was so different, then why did you go? Why didn’t you stay for her? And don’t try and blame that one on your father because you could have kept in touch, if you were so in love. But you didn’t.”
I don’t know how he even knows that, but the accusation opens a wound. I can almost feel it burning.
“I… I…” Zane stammers, the color flooding from his cheeks.
“You… you, what? You have no excuse because you behaved like a dickhead. Just like you always did. Girls were just a play thing to you. If I’d known that Leah was one of them…”
I don’t even know why they’re yelling so loudly, they’re right in one another’s faces. The neutral location was a terrible idea. I should have thought all of this through more. I need to work out how to get us all out of here before more stuff gets smashes to smithereens. It was bad enough in my room. Here’ we’ll have to pay for it.
I dart my panicked eyes around, trying to hunt for an escape route. The staff look just as freaked out as I feel and not one of them appear brave enough to do anything about it. To be fair, this is a quiet and quaint little establishment. I’m sure they don’t usually have trouble like this. Brandon and Zane are both big, intimidating looking guys. They probably look very frightening. I guess it’s up to me and Jenny to stop this.
“What do we do?” I hiss to Jenny. “This is horrible, we need to get them out.”
She nods defiantly and pulls out her chair. She stands on it so she’s almost looming above the pair of them and yells at the top of her voice. “If you idiots don’t stop this now, I’ll call the cops immediately.”
Brandon gives his girlfriend a strange look, but to his credit he does step back from Zane. Both of them have the sense to look sheepish since they’ve been caught out by many people acting foolish. If we were in the sort of place where it was filled with young people, this row would be on YouTube already, going viral.
“We need to go,” I join in hurriedly, taking advantage of the moment of silence. “The staff want us to leave.”
Maybe they haven’t directly said that, but they don’t need to. It’s obvious from their faces that this is their idea of hell. I can almost see all of them sag with relief when I suggest leaving them all alone. One by one, we file out in silence, all of us lost in our own bubble of sadness. Mine centers around Brandon. I cannot believe that he even said some of those things. I don’t know if any of us can come back from them. He might have gone too far this time. The damage that his anger has caused might well be irreparable.
Chapter Thirty Two – Zane
The cool fresh air hits my face, washing over my skin, but it doesn’t do much to calm my temper down. I thought that I was just going into the café to meet Leah for something to eat, I had no idea that I was about to be ambushed. Maybe Leah thought that she was doing something good with this, but the wounds are too raw and open. She should have listened to me and waited until things had calmed down. Now, I don’t know what we’re going to do. The communication channels have been opened. I don’t think we can walk away without closing them. Not unless we don’t ever want to talk again, which will make things very challenging.
“We all just need to talk calmly,” Jenny tries her best. “We need to hear each other out. If we talk one by one without interrupting, then maybe we can actually get some resolution from this.”
“Or, maybe I should just punch Zane again, since the first one didn’t get through.”
Jenny leans up to Brandon and she hisses angrily at him. I almost want to laugh at him for getting yelled at but I know for a fact that will only ignite things further and make them impossible. Much as I’m wound up by Brandon, I do want to sort this out. I don’t want to lose him forever.
I glance over to Leah, but her body language is completely closed off. She’s lost in a world of her own, all hurt and upset, trying to work out how she can make this okay again. I understand her well enough now to know that if I go over there she’ll just end up getting too emotional and upset for words. All the color has already drained from her cheeks. If she starts crying, I’ll comfort her, but I don’t want to be the one to set her off.
“I don’t want him to come to our house, Jenny. I don’t have anything to say to him. I’m sure he doesn’t want to come either.” I slide my eyes closed and Brandon rants loudly. “After this, we don’t have a friendship, it’s done, over. There’s no coming back from this. We will never be friends again. That can’t be changed.”
“Oh, for fuck sake, Brandon,” I can’t resist yelling back, just one last thing. “Can’t you see yourself ever letting go? What about if me and Leah end up married? What will you do then?”
“You’ll both be dead to me if you end up getting married. In fact, you’re dead to me now. Both of you.”
Leah shrinks forward even more. This is really getting to her. I need to try and stop it before it gets even more ridiculous. Maybe there isn’t any solution to be found today, but we don’t have to storm off after arguing with one another. That’s just stupid. We’re both so much better than that.
“Look, Brandon, maybe we should arrange a time to talk just me and you? Yeah? That way, we can really get everything out in the open and talk about it properly. Isn’t that the best solution…?”
But I don’t really get to finish my sentence, because the next thing I feel is the unexpected sensation of his rock hard knuckles connection with my cheek, making my teeth shake in my mouth. Because I didn’t know that it was coming, I stagger to the side, almost falling under the pressure of it. A red hot pain radiates all through my face and I find myself shocked that we’re actually here again. Another fight over the same damn thing.
“I don’t want to fight,” I yell out, needing to be the bigger person. “I just want to talk.”
“Fuck your talking,” Brandon cries back. “It hasn’t gotten us anywhere. It’s all just bullshit.”
Punches and kicks feel like they fly from every direction. It’s almost impossible to protect myself from each one. I get hurt, I can feel bruises already starting to form, but I don’t want to fight back. I barely fought back last time and I felt terrible for it afterwards. However angry he’s made me, I don’t want to hurt Brandon.
“Fucking, fight back you pussy! Give me something. I need you to fucking hit me.”
Brandon just wants something, he wants a way to take out his frustration, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to comply. Now, I just need to find a way to get out of his vice like grip so I can stop this. The last thing I want is for one of the girls to get in the middle of us – like Leah kept trying to do last time – and getting hurt, or even worse, Jenny following her threat through and calling the cops. I don’t need anything on my record, and as an up and coming lawyer, I don’t think Brandon does either. If only he could clear his head to see that.
“Don’t even think about running away,” Brandon grunts out once I slip from his hands, giving myself a moment of freedom to think. “We’re seeing this through now. This is a fight that has been building for fucking years. I don’t know how many exactly, I’m not sure how long you were screwing my sister for…”
“Just once,” I pant back. I speak quickly while I have a chance. “We only slept together once. Just before I was sent away and I knew then that she was special. I don’t have any excuse for not keeping in touch, I just thought at the time that it was the right thing to do, but if I hadn’t I think we would have been together then.”
“Over my dead body… and just before you went? Please, for the love of God, tell me you aren’t talking about the night of my birthday party because that would honestly be the worst betrayal of all time.”
Shit… I’m silenced because of course it was. Everything that I say in an attempt to make things better doesn’t work. Maybe I am a terrible person and the worst friend in the world. Perhaps this is all my fault.
“Argh!” Just as I’m about to really run this time, a loud scream rings out, shocking both me and Brandon. It’s
Jenny, and as I glance over to her I can see that she’s gone ashen. She looks really freaked. “It’s Leah.”
Leah has fallen to a heap on the floor and she looks lifeless as she lies there. My emotions flood me, this is the woman that I love here, but a practical side to my brain kicks in as well. I remember some of the medical training that I got along the way. My brain spins through the rolodex of information in my mind, until I know.
“I think the stress must have gotten to her,” I gasp while racing to her side. Me and Brandon get there at exactly the same time. “I keep trying to make sure that she’s eating and drinking enough but it’s hard to watch her all the time. You know what she’s like. And with her studies and her job, it’s impossible.”
Brandon reaches out as if he’s going to pick his sister up, but then as if a miracle has occurred he pauses and looks to me for advice. “So, what should we do?” he asks me quietly. “What do you recommend?”
I look her up and down, searching for any signs that she needs an actual medical professional, one who works in the business every single day, but I really don’t think that she does. As far as I can tell, this is more emotional exhaustion than anything else. If I had one hint that it was anything else, I would call an ambulance immediately.
“We just need to get her off the ground and take her home. She needs to rest and liquids too.”
“Can we move her?” Brandon looks unsure. “Aren’t you supposed to leave people?”
I can’t resist smiling to myself. “No, that’s only with neck injuries, and there isn’t one here.”
“She didn’t fall funny,” Jenny jumps in. “She just sort of slumped. I saw it but I couldn’t get to her quick enough. I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head in dismay. “I could have stopped her from getting hurt.”
“She’s not hurt, don’t worry,” I reassure Jenny. “We just need to get her out of here.”
For the moment, me and Brandon are united in the girl on the ground, the one person that we both care about so much to fight because of her. We lift her up together, both being equally gentle, and unfortunately because I only have my bike with me, we have to load her into Brandon’s car. That makes me uneasy because it makes me lose control over what happens next to Leah, and I’m sure that when she wakes up she’ll want to be with me.
“Shall we, erm…” Brandon glances to Jenny who gives him a reassuring nod. “Shall we meet you at your place? I mean, that’s home for Leah now, isn’t it?”
Wow… that’s quite a big turn around considering what was happening only moments ago. I rest my hand on my chest, shocked that Brandon would suggest such a thing. “Of course, yes, that would be awesome.”
We share a bit of a look, one that communicates volumes because we’ve been friends for such a long time. We have a short hand that comes out for just a moment. I don’t think for one second that everything is going to be perfect from here on out, but maybe our communication will be a little bit calmer. Hopefully, anyway.
I hop onto my bike and whiz home quickly. Then while I’m waiting for Brandon and Jenny to turn up with Leah, I get her a little bed set up on the couch with plenty of water nearby. A little kit to keep her going once she comes around. As I do, I keep thinking about her face. Thank goodness I had the medical training to know that it isn’t something serious. That might not be much, but to me it makes me a little bit grateful to my father. Especially now that me and my dad are starting to get on better terms... it’ll take some time, but we’ll get there.
I still want to use what I learned in college anyway, in some way. I just don’t want it to be my career. I haven’t quite worked out what I intend to do, but that’s because I’ve been focusing on the bike shop and there here and now. With what just happened with Leah though, I feel more determined than ever. There has to be something useful to come from it. Once I get a chance, I’ll sit down and have a real think about it all…
I race to the window once I hear a car engine, and I take the stairs two at a time. Between us, we manage to successfully get Leah up into the bed that I’ve made for her, then Jenny sets about making coffee for us all while I check Leah over. Her pulse is fine, her breathing is okay, she seems very much just passed out.
“I’ll just keep an eye on her for a while,” I reassure Brandon. “Check to see if anything changes.”
“Do you think maybe I could stay with you?” he replies. “I just want to make sure that she’s okay and apologize when she wakes up. I guess I didn’t take the time to think how my behavior has been affecting her.”
I smile knowingly, having been there myself and experiencing that revelation recently. “Sure, you can.”
“Good, thank you.” Brandon nods. “And maybe it might be time for us to actually have a talk. I mean a calm one, not one where we fight and yell at one another.”
“Do you think we can do that?” I reply, relieved that we can tease one another again so quickly.
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to give it a go.”
“Yeah… me too.”
Chapter Thirty Three – Leah
“Huh? What?” I mutter as I feel a bright light trying to creep into my eyes. “Where am I?”
I rack my brains, trying to think of the last thing that I can remember, but it’s all very blurry. We were at the café… there was a lot of yelling… then we went outside and it’s pretty much blank. I don’t think I felt very good, but that’s about it. I certainly don’t know how I ended up in bed, or wherever I am.
“Hello?” I say raspingly as I try to push myself into a sitting position. My body is weak, my arms don’t seem to have the strength to push me upright. My throat is bone dry as well. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Oh, woah, don’t try to sit up until you’re ready.” Zane is by my side in a heart beat. “Just be careful.”
I look up at him with truly loving eyes. All of a sudden it doesn’t matter so much what happened, I’m just glad that I can be with him. He stares at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world and he honestly makes me feel like I am. I just wish that Brandon could see that… wait, they were fighting! Weren’t they? I seem to have a vague memory of that, but as I look at Zane’s face I can’t see any signs of injury at all.
“Yeah, you don’t want to push yourself before you are ready.” I’m utterly stunned to hear my brother’s voice. Especially when it’s filled with warmth and not yelling at me for a change. “You’ll only end up hurting yourself.”
I need to know what I’ve missed, clearly, it’s something huge. One minute, everything is hell and I’m worried that we’ll never be able to get things back to how they were again, and the next… well, now I don’t know what’s going on. It’s all very confusing. Zane hands me some water and I suck it back readily. I hope that by giving my body some liquid the missing pieces in my brain will all end up coming back together.
“Are you okay?” Zane asks me. “Do you need anything? Whatever it is, I’ll get it for you.”
“I just want to sit,” I insist, because right now all I need to do is see things properly.
Once Zane has me sitting up and my head has stopped spinning, I glance my eyes between Brandon and Zane curiously. Neither of them has hate in their eyes anymore, which has to be a good sign. When they don’t immediately give me anything, I look to Jenny. But all she does is giggle knowingly at me.
“Okay, just tell me,” I groan. “This is painful. All I can remember is standing outside the café…”
“You fainted,” Zane answers, focusing on the wrong thing. “I think it was the stress and exhaustion.”
“I gathered that much.” I roll my eyes, irritated at him. “I mean what happened here.”
Brandon and Zane smile at each other. This is what I wanted, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to achieve but it makes me uneasy that I have no idea how it came to be. It scares me that something bad might come next.
“We had a talk,” Brandon finally admits. “After what happened to you,
we decided to stop damn well yelling at each other for a moment and have the adult discussion that both you and Jenny wanted us to have. We sat down and we talked one by one, both listening to and acknowledging one another’s sides of things.”
I try to picture it, I want to visualize this conversation happening so that it can make some more sense to me, but I just can’t make that image come to life in my brain. I can’t see them doing this without supervision. But it only takes one glance at Jenny to realize that somehow, the unthinkable has happened, and that this is the truth.
“I understand now that you aren’t just a fling to Zane and that you really do love each other. Maybe if I hadn’t freaked out so much in the first place and I’d actually listened to you, all of this could have been avoided.”
It’s so hard not to shout ‘I told you so’, but since the boys have had such a mature discussion, I suppose I can be grown up about things too. I nod along silently, simply listening to Brandon as he opens up.
“I’ve spent too long trying to take over the role that Dad left behind because that’s what I thought we all needed. Maybe in the beginning, we did, but now things have changed and it’s time for me to adapt with it. I honestly really don’t want to interfere with your job or whatever college course that you do, and it isn’t my place to say who you date either. You need to do whatever it is that makes you happy.” He gives Zane a happy smile. “I might have freaked out at first when I heard that person was my best friend, but I think I can be okay with it.”
Tears fill my eyes, but this time they’re happy tears. If Brandon can be happy for me and Zane, then there’s hope that anyone can. Maybe, in the end, even Mom will be able to see that this isn’t the worst idea.
“Are you sure?” I ask my brother. “I never meant to go behind your back and betray you, that wasn’t ever my intension. Neither of us wanted to hurt you, we just couldn’t help falling in love with one another.”