by Unknown
I took a deep breath. “Would you rather you were with him today?” I asked absent-mindedly, looking at the beautiful view in front of us.
Travis didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “No. I wouldn’t want you not to be here, either.”
I stared back at him and smiled. “When we were kids, we fought a lot,” I said. “I hated you. You teased me a lot. And I couldn’t understand how Tom could be best friends with you.”
“Who would have thought we’d grow this close, right?”
“Who would have known that Travis Cross would learn to love me like a sister?” I giggled.
“Who would have known I would learn to love at all?” he countered in a sober voice.
I felt for Travis. He could be one of the smartest, one of the cutest guys I had known, and also one of the richest…but somehow, something inside him was torn and broken. It was like if he hadn’t been so smart and so in control of his emotions, he would have been all over the place, spreading chaos.
“Maybe you should try to fall in love,” I blurted out. “Maybe you’d see the world differently if…you had a woman who made your world spin.” I smiled at him teasingly.
He raised a brow at me, as if what I’d told him just plain insulted him.
“And then what? There are only two possible endings to that. Either I make her fall desperately in love with me, and then I shred her soul to pieces and leave her heartbroken, or I love her desperately, I would give her everything and give everything up for her and she…leaves me. And my already-damned soul is shred to pieces.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to bestow such a tragedy on another human being.”
I almost got mad at Travis. How could he be this negative? How could he be so bitter about love?
I bit my lip to keep myself from saying what was on my mind. Instead, I stared at the view ahead of me and decided just to tune it out. There were times that I couldn’t understand the twisted and sad way Travis saw life…and love. When he said those words, I couldn’t help wondering if he was a hopeless case. He was so…cold.
I didn’t speak to Travis until we were close to town. I rode the bike as fast as I could, as if I were riding alone. He knew I was pissed off, but he didn’t say anything.
Just then, I saw him overtake me, and he stopped in front of me, forcing me to brake and glare at him. He raised a brow.
“Stop, okay?” he said. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything wrong to me!”
“I know I pissed you off.”
“It’s my problem for caring, Travis!” I snapped, getting off my bike. He got off his bike, too, and stood in front of me.
“I can’t help how I feel right now!” he said.
“I can’t help being pissed off, either!”
“What actually made you mad? You know me better than anybody else!” he said, trying his best not to lose his temper.
“That! Because I know you’re not the vile, ruthless person you were trying to be! Otherwise, I would not have asked you to be my safety guy!” Anger and other unidentified emotions swept through me. Before I knew it, I was losing my temper at him. I wanted desperately for him to see the person I saw whenever I looked at him. I wanted him to realize what a beautiful person he was.
I continued glaring at him. “And you know what? That person who you would shred to pieces could be me, Travis! Did you think about that? In a few years, if fate compels me to call on your promise to marry me, I would have to live with you, and I could be that person you tear apart! It’s like you’re telling me I was all wrong about you! That you’re hopeless! That no matter what, you just don’t give a damn! That you didn’t care! That…I gave myself to a guy who didn’t care! And would never ever care! That…”
Travis pulled me into his arms, preventing me from finishing that sentence. “Stop!” he said firmly, but his voice was pleading. “Don’t say that!”
I realized that I was crying. In my anger, I couldn’t help but bring up the night we spent together…the night that I was supposed to forget. Travis held me by the nape of my neck, keeping my face pressed against his chest. One arm circled my waist into a tight hug.
“You’re not supposed to remember that,” he whispered to me gently.
“Maybe my memory is a lot better than yours,” I sobbed against his chest. Now I’d really opened a whole can of emotions I didn’t even know I had. Travis and I never spoke about that night, nor the reasons why he stayed away from me after that. “That night was not just a part of a statistic to me. Unfortunately, the first guy I gave myself to…I was just one of many girls to him!” I muttered angrily.
Travis fell silent for a while and then he inhaled through my hair and tightened his arms around me. “Just because he is not supposed to care doesn’t mean he really doesn’t care. Just because he’s not supposed to remember, doesn’t mean he could forget,” he whispered.
“Which one are you?” I asked.
He took another deep breath before answering, “The latter. That night…was the only night that mattered to me,” he said. “So, please don’t say that I didn’t care. Because I did. Even though I was not supposed to.”
I pulled away to look into his eyes. He stared at me for a while. I could see all sorts of emotions cross his face as if he was having a hard time fighting his feelings, too. Then slowly, he leaned forward. I thought he was going to kiss me. I closed my eyes. I realized I wanted him to.
But then I heard his deep intake of breath. I opened my eyes. He was able to stop himself from doing what I thought he was going to do. “I cannot lose you, Brianne. Not in any way,” he said. “And for that, I must not remember what happened that night.”
I bit my lip as I took a deep breath. “Why?”
He heaved a sigh. “Because…because I would go after you if I kept remembering! I would pursue you. I would seduce you! It took me months to get you out of my system after that night!” He shook his head. “I could only be one guy or the other. And I chose the one that has less risk of breaking you…of losing you.”
I blinked back at him. “Travis…what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m like two people trapped in one body. One is the guy who vowed to protect you from all sorts of pain for as long as he lived. The other…wants you and craves you in ways you do not know of.” He took a deep breath and he looked at me with shame in his eyes. “I’m a player, Brianne! I’m one of those guys I need to protect you from! Do you understand my pain?”
I closed my eyes for a moment, and then I nodded. He smiled at me ruefully. “And I know you think better of me. You have faith in me. Let’s just hope that someday, I can be worthy of that faith.” And he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. He lingered there for a moment.
I didn’t know what to feel. Happy? Because somehow, Travis did not seem so immune to me, the way that I sometimes was not immune to him. Scared? Because this meant there would always be this sexual tension between us that threatened to tear us apart forever. Confused? Because I didn’t know which of the two feelings I would rather feel.
“I’m sorry, Travis,” I said to him. “I complicated us. Because I asked you to…because I was selfish! I didn’t even know what it would do to you…to us! I am so sorry!”
Travis hugged me again. “I’m not an angel, Brianne,” he said. “You cannot blame yourself for this entirely. Have you forgotten? Nobody could force me to do something I didn’t want to do. How sure are you that I didn’t want you before you asked me to…be your first? How sure are you that I only saw you as Thomas’s silly little sister? As my own sister?” He heaved a sigh again.
I raised my chin to him. “Do you?”
He looked at me with that pained expression again. And in a frustrated voice, he said, “Do you think I would have taken you that night if I did? Nothing about that night felt wrong! But it’s not going to change anything. I still promised to protect you…from whatever pain, whatever harm. I promised I wo
uldn’t hurt you. I’m not going to risk your feelings…your safety. And I wouldn’t betray Tom that way. I know he would never agree. When we were growing up, he already warned me. When I told him once that I thought you were beautiful, he told me that I could have all the girls in the world…except for you. I knew I couldn’t have you from the start.
“When you asked me to take you, it was like…giving the devil a chance to step into heaven. I tried so hard to forget who you were that night. And I tried harder to forget what happened afterward. That night haunted me day and night. It wasn’t enough. There’s a beast inside of me, whose need for you cannot be satiated by just one night.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m not going to lose control, Brianne. Not with you. You deserve better. You deserve a guy who can give you his heart and soul…completely. Whose personality is just as positive and sunny as yours. A guy who won’t suck the life and sunshine out of you and leave you in the cold.”
I felt for Travis when he said that. He was honest enough to tell me that he was not immune to me…but he could not offer me what I deserved. I couldn’t lose Travis in any way, either. And even though there was this tension between us, I knew we had to fight it. All we had was each other.
I smiled at him. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For being honest,” I said. “And for keeping your control. For shielding me from the beast inside you. That must take a lot of work.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “Tons!” he said. Then he looked at me seriously. He leaned his head toward mine. He took a deep breath. “Don’t make it any harder for me, okay?”
I giggled. “I promise not to seduce you.”
“Sometimes that’s a problem,” he said. “For a gorgeous girl like you, you achieve seduction without trying!” He took a deep breath. “But it’s my problem to deal with. Not yours. And it helps when we’re together more. Sometimes, becoming numb needs a lot of practice.”
“So I guess, this is one of the conversations we had that we must forget…must never speak about ever again.”
He nodded. “Put it in your memory vault. Lock it up and throw away the key.”
I pulled away from him. “Promise.” I held my pinky out for him.
He smiled and then he hooked his pinky with mine. “I mean it, Brianne. I’m still your safety guy…and from me, you will always be safe.”
Chapter Thirteen
Two years later, my parents’ divorce was finalized. My mother would take permanent residency in Manhattan; my father would station himself in Boston. No battle for custody—I was already of age. My parents decided to give the house to me instead of selling it and dividing the profits between them.
I was angry. My parents had decided to abandon the house…the happy house where Thomas and I had grown up! Where they last saw Tom! I refused to let the memories go. They could divide all their properties except this house…I could not believe they were walking away from it and all the memories it had.
I was in my room, and as always, I decided to channel my emotions onto the canvas. I didn’t know what I was painting. But it was a mixture of dark blues, blacks, violets, swirling around in angry patterns. I was on the brink of crying. That day marked the end, not just of a chapter of my life, but of a whole story.
I swirled the violet paint on the canvass angrily, not knowing what I was really painting, but somehow expressing how I really felt. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I refused to let a whimper escape from me.
Just then, I felt strong arms encircle me, pulling me away from the canvas.
“Stop it,” Travis whispered behind me. He took the paintbrush from my hand.
I stared at his handsome face, and then I completely broke down.
Travis bent and scooped me off my feet and carried me to my bed. I couldn’t stop crying. I knew my parents’ marriage had crumbled a long time before. But the finality of it brought up so many sad and angry emotions that I almost couldn’t face.
I felt Travis’s lips on my head. “Sssshhh…” he said in a soothing voice. “I’m still here.”
The following years, my life was a series of ups and downs. People came and went for the next five years. My mom trained me to manage her art galleries.
I dated guys and had two relationships. One didn’t end well.
Eric.
He was wonderful, smart, and funny. We jived a lot, and it seemed like I was talking to my girl best friend every time I was with him. He was very comfortable. In fact, too comfortable. We’d been seeing each other for three years, and I decided to take it to the next level. I thought he would do it, but three years without initiating intimacy was just plain weird.
I planned a night for us in my apartment. I lit candles, set the mood. When he opened the door and I was wearing a silk nightgown in front of him, he broke down to tears.
Not good, I said to myself, and I went to him to ask him what was wrong.
“I’ve not been honest with you,” he said. “I was…probably just using you…to deny what I really wanted. What I really am!”
“What are you talking about, Eric?”
“Brianne, I’m gay.”
I almost fainted. No wonder we’d been seeing each other for so long and he’d been dodging intimacy as much as I had…maybe even more!
So I wasted three years there when I was actually a ticking time bomb. I had to be married by the time I was thirty-one. Well, I would be, anyway…to Travis Cross, if I didn’t find my own guy.
As for Travis, he’d built his own company that was set to compete with his father’s. It seemed like a game of chess between the two of them. One man trying to teach the other a lesson, the other trying to show the other that he was much smarter.
Travis stayed mostly in Manhattan, but he also traveled a lot. But no matter how busy he was, he never failed to see me on my birthday. He would show up for a day, give me an extravagant present, like a piece of diamond jewelry, and then we’d spend the whole night talking and catching up, and it always felt the same. Like we were together all year long.
Eric didn’t mind Travis. In fact, he liked it when Travis dropped by and joined us for dinner. Now, I think Eric might have been interested in Travis more than he was ever interested in me.
“But I do love you, Brianne!” Eric said. “Just not in an intimate way. And I promise I’ll always be here for you. I’ll always be your friend.”
So instead of making love, Eric and I spent that night in bed. I was locked in his embrace, my head on his shoulder, and he told me the secrets he couldn’t tell anybody else.
Now, Eric and I are still very good friends. He dates once in a while, trying to find his own Mr. Right.
I then dated a guy named Christian. He was a tall, dark blond guy with startling green eyes. He was very cute and very ambitious. He was a lawyer with dreams of becoming a partner in his law firm one day.
I wasn’t painting much. Chris made me see that money came faster when you managed a business. It takes a while to sell a painting for a good price, but buying and selling other people’s paintings brings home the money faster. And I needed the money. I had a wedding I needed to save up for.
With Chris, I didn’t have a problem with intimacy. He was the best friend of my old friend Cindy’s brother. We met at a party Cindy threw. He asked for my number, and he asked me out the next day.
We’d been dating for two and a half years. The future seemed very bright for me. I was beginning to think I might not need Travis Cross to enter into a ceremony he completely didn’t believe in.
When I started dating Chris, I had been successfully managing one of my mother’s galleries. I learned the commercial side of the business. Instead of painting my own masterpieces, I learned the logistics and the financial side of managing a gallery. I did miss painting, but I needed time for this. And time seemed to be quite a luxury for me at the moment, especially with a guy like Chris, who seemed to be living in the fast lane.
The relationship was comfortable, cozy, and smooth sailing. Christian was a stan
dup guy with a lot of principles in life. He was ambitious, and he guided me in managing one of my mom’s galleries. Sure, he was uptight most of the time, but he taught me to be tougher and to go after success. I might not succeed in painting my own masterpieces, but at least I had galleries to manage in the future.
The only time I felt I was being artistic at all was when I joined Sarah’s dance group. They had dance shows once in a while, and I always managed to get a part in one of their performances. I begged Chris to watch me, but he always had a case to work on whenever there was a show. I could tell he was not really thrilled by my dancing. I told him that he just must think that it was a form of exercise for me to keep my muscles toned and my heart healthy.
Travis caught up with me every once in a while. Whenever he was in town, we’d have dinner together. He was also been quite a busy man. Whenever I saw him, I couldn’t help throwing myself in his arms. Being with him felt like I was still the old me. Careless and carefree.
We never talked about Chris or Travis’s own women. When we were together, it was like there was only the two of us in the world. In two years, I only got to see Travis about one or two days a month. So whenever we saw each other, I felt like I was always running out of time and I had to make the most of it. I told him things I couldn’t tell Chris or Sarah. My dreams, my fears…what was left of the old me.
“What are you doing with a guy who changes you so much?” he asked me once. We were on the balcony of his hotel suite. I was sitting beside him, and he had an arm around my waist with my head resting on his shoulder.
I sighed. “I have to make something of myself, too, Travis. I have to survive on my own. I’m not trust-funded like you. The minute I graduated college, I was on my own in this world. I can’t afford to paint and dance all the time and expect that money will just come pouring in on a daily basis.”
“But are you happy?” he asked.
I stared up at him. He was studying my face, reading all the hidden emotions behind the façade I’d been putting up for years. “If I didn’t have a roof over my head and I starved to death, I would certainly be sad, Travis,” I said.