by A. S. Kelly
“We’ve got everything, bro. Everything we ever dreamed about,” he says, turning on the engine and accelerating away with a screech from the transmission, while Rain grabs on to the seat nervously and quickly buckles up her belt.
“Well, not everything,” he continues, looking at Rain sitting next to him.
“Not now, Neil, come on, let’s enjoy this moment,” his girlfriend tells him.
“It could be perfect, if only you would decide.”
I don’t want to get involved, but I don’t think this is the right moment to talk about certain things. Neil is high on the rush of the show and not completely with it. I wouldn’t want him to say too much.
“Couldn’t you guys talk about that later, you know?” I advise. “When you’re alone?”
“And why should we?” he responds, looking in the rearview mirror. “We don’t have any secrets, Liam, you know exactly what’s going on. Rain—” He turns his attention to her. “—You need to make a decision. Now. Marry me, or I swear to you I’ll call this whole thing off,” he concludes, raising his voice.
“Neil, please, you just think about your driving and we’ll talk about this at home,” Rain tells him, looking at the street ahead and stiffening up in her seat.
Neil is going too fast.
“Slow down, bro,” I warn him. “Rain is right, you can talk about this calmly at home, there’s no reason she has to make a decision right now.”
“No. She has to make a decision now. Right now. We’ve been together forever, Rain, this shouldn’t be so hard, should it?”
Neil is furious, he continues to yell without looking at the road and is pressing down on the gas, going faster and faster.
“Maybe you don’t love me enough?” he shouts. “Maybe we should just break up?”
What an asshole, I think. He’s my brother but he sure can be an unreasonable jerk sometimes, especially when it comes to Rain.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Neil!”
Rain is crying and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold back from punching Neil on the nose. I can’t stand her suffering like this.
“You know that I love you,” she protests. “It’s just—I don’t want to talk like this, not now!”
“So when, Rain? When? I’m offering you everything that I have, why don’t you want to accept it and let me take care of you? Why can’t you just marry me? Fuck, I don’t know what to think. Maybe you’ve got someone else?”
At that question, I close my eyes tight and pray like I’ve never prayed that he’s not right, that there isn’t someone else, that the reason for her hesitation isn’t me.
Please God, don’t let it be me.
Rain is silent while Neil goes crazy.
“So, that’s it is it? You’ve met someone else?”
“Neil, don’t be paranoid,” I interrupt. “And keep your eye on the fucking road!”
“The road? If she doesn’t want me anymore, if she has someone else the road can go fuck itself just like my life. Did you hear me, Rain? I can’t live without you!”
And that’s when Rain raises her eyes full of tears to the rearview mirror seeking out mine. And she finds them, she finds them there for her. I beg her with my eyes not to do it, to not accept his proposal, to not marry him, to not make me lose her forever. I guess I’m selfish. The worst brother a man has ever had and a man who is worth nothing, because I am crazy in love with my brother’s girlfriend and perhaps I’m just realizing it now. Years of silence, stolen smiles, complicit glances, sighs and frustration. Years of nothing. Only now that he’s about to marry her I understand that I could really lose her forever, that she might not be mine and I can’t accept not living with her.
I was an idiot to wait this long.
I’m afraid she’s going to tell him the truth and that Neil will hate me for the rest of his life, that the band will fall apart and our lives will be in a million pieces.
But I can’t avoid it, love is stronger than anything else.
And then Neil looks in the rearview mirror, meets my gaze, closes his eyes for a second and then looks at her. He shakes his head a few times before looking back at me, assaulting me with the rage in his eyes.
Just a few seconds, and then his life was over.
We don’t realize anything until we’re bouncing for meters along the asphalt.
A searing pain stops me from breathing for a moment, I have a dislocated shoulder. It’s clear to me right away, the whole of my right side is wasted. I feel a river of blood run down my forehead when I’m able to open my eyes after a few moments of unconsciousness.
I try to move, with difficulty. The front of the car is completely crumpled. I call out Rain and Neil’s names but they don’t answer, although I go on yelling with all my might. So I move slowly, trying to get up front. Neil is the first one to open his eyes. The steering wheel has practically gone into his chest and his face is a mask of blood.
“Liam,” he says in a whisper. “Rain—”
“Shh—please, don’t speak,” I reassure him. “I’ll call someone, stay still.”
“Liam, drag her out.”
“I’ll pull you both out.”
“Pull her out,” he says all at once, using the last of his energy. “She is—she is my Rain. Please.”
I nod swallowing my tears, the pain, the guilt that is starting to devour me like a wild animal. I look around, searching for a way out. Rain’s window is shattered, maybe I could try there. But at the first movement the pain in my chest is unbearable and takes my breath away.
“You can do it, Liam,” Neil whispers. “Do it for me. Bring her out, stay with her. Protect her when I’m—”
“—Neil, don’t talk that way. We’re all gonna make it.”
“No, bro,” he says, coughing. “Don’t let her die too. Stay close to her—love her, Liam, like I would have done. Love her for all of your life.”
“Neil—”
“Shh—it’s okay. You’re a crap liar, you know. Promise me you will never abandon her, ever, like you did with me.”
“Neil, no!”
“Promise me, brother to brother. Take care of her.”
I put aside my pain, I put aside the family, I put apart myself.
“I promise you, Neil,” I say, before letting my brother die alone, in a piece-of-shit car whose airbags didn’t even detonate, while I try to save the woman who is his life, and mine.
~ ~ ~
I wake up deeply shaken, screaming Neil’s name. I look around disoriented and confused and it takes me a second to realize I’m in my bed in my new apartment. Then I remember that I fell asleep with Rain in my arms. I turn abruptly, terrified that I have made an irreparable error, but she isn’t there.
The bed is empty, cold, even if her impression is left in the sheets and the pillow smells of her perfume. I jump down from the bed and look around, searching for her. I go into the living room with my heart in my throat, afraid that something may have happened, until I see her note on a table in the living room.
I didn’t want to wake you, but I had to go home.
Thanks for the night out.
Kisses,
Rain
I fall to the couch and take my head in my hands.
The memories are still there, torturing me, breaking my heart in two, telling me that I’m taking someone else’s place, a place I have no right to. A place with my brother’s blood, a place whose significance is filled with pain, guilt and remorse. A place that wasn’t mine, a place I ripped out of the hands of someone else and where I have inserted myself.
And that I am no longer able to leave.
Rain
This morning I woke up singing. Aaron notices my great mood right away and watches me, hiding behind his coffee cup.
“Someone is happy this morning. Did you have a good night?” he asks me. “I didn’t hear you come back—”
“It went well, thanks.”
Jay gives him a sharp glance and Aaron shuts up. He stands
up and goes to his room.
“You have to understand him, Rain,” Jay explains. “It’s not easy for him to accept that you’re grown up now.”
“Maybe he can’t understand why a guy like Liam would go for a girl like me,” I say, feeling my good mood evaporate.
“And why would that be? Darling, you’re beautiful, you’re sweet, compassionate, you’re—one of a kind.”
“Are you hitting on her?” Patrick says, coming into the kitchen with just a towel wrapped around his waist. I don’t take my eyes off of him because I’m used to it by now.
“You’re always the same old idiot,” Jay scolds him, taking his coffee cup and going into the garden.
“So, your night out?” Patrick enquires.
“Is none of your business.”
“Well, no, you’re wrong there. Your life is our business, Rain. I want to know if Liam behaved like a gentleman.”
“And what would you know about gentlemen, Patrick?” I bite back.
“Just ’cuz I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I accept that others can be, especially with you.”
In that moment someone knocks on the door and Patrick gets up unhappily to go answer it.
“Here’s the fearless and spotless knight,” I hear him say at the front door. “Rain, you have a visitor!”
Liam walks into the kitchen, a bit embarrassed, giving me a timid smile.
“Good morning,” he says, stopping a few steps away from me. “I stopped by Caira and I got you this,” he adds, setting down a carryout Frappuccino with vanilla.
“T-thanks.” I blush, taking the glass. He gets closer, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
I feel uncomfortable after last night, I admit it. The memory of what happened between us gives me the shivers and it’s lucky I didn’t knock over my drink.
“Everything okay?” he asks while I nod and hide in my drink.
“And you got us nothing?” Patrick taunts him.
“Fuck off,” Liam replies, giving his the finger.
“So that’s how things are?” he continues in a suggestive voice that embarrasses both of us.
“I’m here for Aaron, he called me this morning, asking me to pass by.”
“He’s up in his room.”
“Fine, I’m going now, I’ll see you later,” he adds, before giving me a little kiss on the lips.
Liam walks away leaving me breathless, not for the kiss which was chaste and sweet but for his nearness, which provokes this tornado of emotions, which are impossible to explain in words but which surprise me and upset me every time he is near.
“Well, well.” Patrick brings me back to reality. “Somebody got lucky last night—”
“Shut up, Patrick!” Jay calls out, coming back inside. “Don’t be your usual asshole self. Did you have fun last night, Rain?” he asks, changing his tone of voice as he turns to speak to me.
“Uh-huh,” I say in monosyllables, trying to push away the image of Liam’s hand between my legs.
“Good, I’m happy. I’m going upstairs. Aaron wanted to speak to me too,” he adds, leaving me alone with Patrick.
“It seems I haven’t been invited,” he says, pretending to be offended. “Be careful, Rain. With Liam, I mean. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s got unresolved problems and I wouldn’t want you to get dragged into something too big for you to handle.” He talks in a tone which is strangely serious for him.
“W-what does that mean? What p-problems?” I ask, already unnerved.
“Nothing you need to worry about, I hope. He’s a good guy, but he’s had a really hard time and I don’t know if he’s gotten over it completely. I just want you to be happy, honey. I don’t want you to suffer, for any reason. And if he hurts you, I’ll send him back to London with a kick up his ass, okay?”
I nod, confused and a bit scared.
“I’m leaving, now. Someone has to take care of the business,” he mutters, giving me a kiss on the cheek before going.
“Patrick?” I call, before he disappears down the stairs. “Is there something I should know that no one wants to tell me?”
He turns to me with a forced smile.
“He’s gotta be the one to talk to you about it, when and if he thinks it’s right to do so. I just don’t want you to get carried away—I know you like him, and that’s okay, but just be careful. You’re like a sister to me, you know and I couldn’t stand to see you hurt again.”
I nod before letting him leave. Then I go to my room where I sit on the bed looking at the closet doors covered with post-its. I scan them with my eyes going over these reminders of my life for the last two years, the only life I know. And I realize I have never felt this way before now. I have never felt anything even similar to this. In these months there’s been nothing that made me want to live again, to have a future, to love someone or to be loved.
I smile while I read my notes about him. Liam is part of me. He came in like the rain and continues to be present, giving me something I never thought possible for me. Liam is part of my life, and he has been since the first time I met him, from the first time he held me in his strong, sure arms, saving me from a moving motorcycle. And every day he continues to be my savior. To save me, even if he doesn’t realize it.
Liam saved me from my nothingness and every day he gives me something to live for. And I’ll always be thankful to him for that, for bringing me back my smile.
For bringing me back to me.
21
Liam
“Come in, Liam,” Aaron tells me.
I sit on his bed while he finishes getting dressed.
“I’m not going to ask you how it went last night because I don’t need or want to know. I asked you to come here for a different reason.”
Jay comes in without knocking to join us. He sits next to me, continuing to drink his coffee.
“Okay, guys, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” Aaron says seriously, sitting at the desk in front of us. “I have a contact, or rather, we have a contact. Jay’s dad found a manager who may be interested in relaunching the band.”
“Wait a second,” Jay interrupts. “Have you spoken with my father?”
“Obviously,” he answers sarcastically. “You never would have.”
Jay tenses up next to me, but doesn’t fight. His father has a small recording studio which deals with newly emerging bands. He was a really talented musician in his time and decided to dedicate himself to music in another way. He sure has a lot of contacts in the field and it doesn’t surprise me that Aaron went to see him. I know that Jay and his father don’t have the greatest relationship and it doesn’t surprise me that Jay didn’t go directly to ask for his help.
“I know that a lot of time has gone by and things are different now, but it seems like a great opportunity and I don’t think we should let it slip away.”
“I don’t know that this is the right moment, Aaron,” Jay comments. “We haven’t played in a long time. Of course we jam in the pub every now and then, but that hardly qualifies us. We don’t have any words, music, nothing. We don’t even have a singer.”
“And that’s where Liam comes in.”
“Me?” I ask, jumping to my feet.
“Well, what did you think I asked you here for?”
“No, mate. I’m not going around this time.”
“You could start up again.”
“You know how it went when I tried. I don’t want to end up like that again.”
“But now, you’re not alone, we’re here too,” Aaron points out. “It’ll be like old times.”
“It will never be like it was, Aaron.”
“I know Neil was our strongest player, our glue, and God knows how much I miss him, but we’re still here, we could try it together,” he says, coming closer to me.
“I—I can’t do it. Not now.”
“Because of her?” Jay asks without looking at me.
I shake my head, get up and walk away, taking a few steps towards the window. I lo
ok at the horizon and the sea and I take in all the tranquility of this place and feel strangely at peace.
“I’d like to stay here.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jay asks.
“I’d like to stay here in Howth, work at the pub, find a house of my own. I’d like to live here and have a normal life.”
“With her?” Aaron asks.
I don’t answer him, I turn slowly to face his gaze.
“You are really in love with her?” He studies me seriously. I turn again because I need to see the peace and serenity that this place has to offer. I need quiet, routine, a simple life—a private life—with her.
“I wanna take care of her,” I say all in a breath. “I want to be here when she needs me, I want to cure her wounds and breathe next to her every fucking day of my life.”
“Do you think you’re up to the task? Do you think this is going to be enough for you? Liam, we all know that you need music to play, success—isn’t that what you always wanted?”
“Once, maybe—but now it’s all different.”