OUTCAST: A Stepbrother Romance

by Wilde, Ora

  But then again... why did I have that unnatural feeling in my gut? A feeling of elation and apprehension, of excitement and fear, of delight and perturbation?

  I saw my folks on the table at the far corner of the restaurant. I pulled up a chair and sat. Aunt Susan engaged me in some small talk but my dad didn’t even bother to say hello. He burrowed his face on the menu he was reading.

  So I just grabbed a menu of my own and started to peruse the restaurant’s offerings. I called the waiter and gave him my orders.

  “I’ll have a plate of Shake Sushi and a Coke please, regular, not diet,” I said.

  Before the waiter could even finish jotting down my orders, however, my dad quickly interjected.

  “No, no... she won’t have sushi,” he stated firmly, almost yelling. “Give her a bowl of Garden Salad.”

  “What?!” I exclaimed. “But... I... I don’t like lettuce...”

  “Ah, lettuce,” he uttered as if he had a lightbulb moment. “Waiter, what kind of lettuce is included in your Garden Salad?”

  “Romaine, Sir,” the waiter answered.

  “Good, good... are you sure it’s not iceberg lettuce?” he asked once more.

  “Yes, Sir. I can assure you it’s Romaine,” the waiter confirmed.

  “And strike that Coke off your list,” my father continued. “Give her a glass of orange juice.”

  “The hell...” I began to complain.

  “Language,” he reminded.

  “I don’t drink orange juice!” I protested. “You know that. Orange juice scratches my throat and makes it itchy for days.”

  “Well, you will have to learn how to drink that stuff from now on,” he adamantly declared.

  I saw Aunt Susan with her hand on her mouth and her eyes squinting. She was trying her best to hide her laughter.

  “Okay, what’s this all about?” I demanded to know.

  “Sushi has raw fish,” my father explained. “Uncooked. Contains parasites that may find their way to your womb and harm your child. Coke is full of calories and sugar that will just flood your system with junk and leave little room for nutritious alternatives.”

  I looked at him with shock. I had to remind myself to close my mouth, least he wonder why I was agape. Did he actually show concern for me and my baby?

  He looked at me and saw the startled look on my face.

  “What? You think I don’t know how to use Google?” he asked.

  I just smiled at him.

  Sometimes, words and long talks weren’t necessary to know what each other was feeling. That was one of those moments. He knew I was the repentant daughter who realized that she disappointed her father and would do anything just to win his affections once more. I knew that he was the understanding father who, though derailed by his disgruntlement, has come to remember that he loves his daughter as much as she loves him.

  “By the way, Dad,” I started to say in the middle of our meal. “I passed UCLA.”

  My father almost spewed the food he was chewing. He coughed a bit to clear his throat, then quickly took a swig of water.

  “What?” he uttered in thrill and disbelief. “You did? When did you find out?”

  “Around five or six weeks ago, the day you bought me that car,” I answered.

  “Why didn’t you tell me back then?”

  “Well... at that time, I didn’t know if I wanted to attend UCLA or not,” I said. “Actually, I didn’t know if I wanted to attend college at all, at least for next year, because...” I looked at my tummy, hoping he’d figure out what I was saying without me having to blurt out the P word.

  He wiped his mouth with the tablecloth.

  “My daughter is going to college next year,” he rigidly said. “And my daughter is attending UCLA. I don’t care if I’d have to rent a hospital ward to serve as your dorm, I don’t care if I have to bribe all your teachers so that they’d go easy on you whenever you get those stomach cramps or whatever, and I don’t care if I have to live with you there while you’re pregnant.”

  “Dad!” I called out, trying to remind him that his ideas were quite unreasonable.

  “The fact is,” he continued, “you have this very, very rare opportunity that only a few are gifted with. You will persevere. You will get through this. And you will share your blessing with us, your family, and we’ll be very, very, very proud of you, Andrea.”

  “Thanks Dad,” I muttered. “I know how much college means to you...”

  “Who said I was talking about college?” he asked.

  My eyes widened.

  “I was talking about your pregnancy, Andrea,” he said as he gave me the warmest smile I have ever seen from him.

  I was so overjoyed that I couldn’t think of any words that I could respond with. So I just returned his smile with my own.

  “But you’re still going to UCLA,” he proceeded to say. “It’s going to be hard, but let that be your first university lesson... that nothing in life comes easy.”

  The drive home was filled with gleeful moments, something that our family has needed since the incident at Paydirt. Dad was actually telling jokes. Most of them weren’t funny though, but they were so bad that we had no recourse but to laugh. Aunt Susan noticed that my window was fixed once again, and he started to speculate. My dad dismissed her false hope by delivering more jokes.

  Then I remembered Nash’s hoodie.

  I didn’t want to tell them about it. I didn’t want to add fuel to something that will surely end up as gravely disappointing. My family was well on its way to recovering. I didn’t want to ruin that by giving them an empty kind of optimism. Thankfully, I placed Nash’s sweater on the driver’s seat, and I was sitting on it throughout the entire ride. They didn’t get to see it, which was good.

  They retired to their bedroom as soon as we got home. I went back to the car to get the sweater, then I dashed towards my chamber.

  I sat on my bed and smelled the hoodie. His scent was there. It was distinctly his.

  But...

  It seemed so fresh, like it was just yesterday when he last wore it.

  I wanted to slap myself for overthinking things. A smell can linger on something for a long, long time, after all. Animals can track scents that were many months old. I swear I could still smell my mom’s perfume on the hankie I stole from her drawer a week after she passed away. It should be the same with Nash’s hoodie.

  It should be.

  There’s no such thing as miracles.

  No such thing...

  No such thing...

  No such thing...

  I fell asleep with that thought repeating in my head. I may have even uttered those words in my slumber. I may have dreamt of something that was connected to it, though I couldn’t remember how that dream went.

  I may have been asleep for a few minutes or for many hours, I wouldn’t know.

  But what I was cognizant of was that I was awakened by a sound on the window.

  A familiar tap.

  I got up from bed and saw the shadowy figure of a man precariously balancing himself on the ledge.

  Wow! Finn was taking this godfather thing to the extreme, I thought. Perhaps, his idea of taking care of his future godson was checking up on the baby’s mother throughout her pregnancy. It was just last night when he was there on the sill. Would he be doing this every single night, I wondered?

  I quickly walked towards the window. I had to let him in as soon as possible, least he lose his balance again and fall to the ground once more. He was lucky to have escaped without any kind of serious injury last night. He may not be as lucky that evening. Sure, he was athletic and all, but when it comes to balancing and stuff, he was kind of a klutz. He’s not good at it. He wasn’t Nash.

  He wasn’t Nash...

  Before I could even open the glass pane, I got a better glimpse of the man outside.

  It wasn’t Finn.

  He was leaner. He was perched on the sill with a lot of confidence and grace. And... and...
r />   He was wearing a hoodie.

  I pulled up the glass panels and I saw him.

  And my heart exploded out of my chest. For a few seconds, I was breathless. My hands started to tremble. My knees became so weak that I almost collapsed on the floor. Tears started to roll down from my eyes.

  Exultation.

  Horror.

  Euphoria.

  Paranoia.

  Exuberance.

  Trepidation.

  Myriad emotions, all conflicting with each other, flooded my being. I wanted to believe that it was him. I so wanted to believe that it was him. But that was impossible. That was very impossible.

  Yet, there he was, roosted on the ledge, his deep-set eyes looking straight into mine, his lips curling slowly into a smile.

  “You’re not dreaming,” he calmly said. “I’m so sorry I’m late...”

  “No...” I mumbled. Was I seeing a ghost?

  He extended his hand and touched my cheek. The tepid feel of his palm proved to me that he was real, that he was there, in front of me.

  “No, no, no...” I continued to mutter as I bowed my head and closed my eyes.

  I turned around in disbelief and started to walk towards my bed. I sat on the edge as I felt that every ounce of energy in my body was drained by the shock of his reemergence. He followed me. He sat by my side and looked at me intently. I couldn’t meet his gaze.

  He rubbed my back as I tried to catch my breath. I was in the middle of a panic attack, hyperventilating so much that I thought I was going to die. Yet, I found myself dreading his touch that I pulled myself away from his hand.

  I didn’t know if I couldn’t believe he was alive... or if I didn’t want to believe he was alive.

  He was dead. I saw him get shot. I saw his dying moment, when all life abandoned his body and he gave me one final look. I saw the river claim his corpse, dragging it to God knows where.

  “W-We buried you,” I told him as I tried to be strong to stop my incessant sobbing.

  “You buried an empty casket,” he answered.

  “Yes, but they didn’t find you,” I explained. “The police... they said that no one could’ve possibly survived the rampaging river, even more so when you were shot. On the chest!”

  He smiled at me as he started to caress my cheek, wiping off my tears.

  “You know, you guys should’ve waited for seven years before burying me,” he said. “That’s the law, after all. Presumptive death, I think is what it’s called.”

  I looked at my fingers as they started to twiddle each other, completely dismissing his attempt to lighten up the mood.

  “Your mom didn’t want to bury you,” I uttered. “She said it was too soon... that you must still be alive, somewhere, somehow. But my dad believed that there was no way you could’ve survived what you went through. The police themselves said that it was impossible. So he convinced her to hold the funeral. The sooner you were buried, the sooner everyone could move on. We can’t hold on to false hope. Nash, you were shot! The strong currents ate you up!”

  He removed his hoodie. To my shock - as if I wasn’t shocked enough - I saw that he has shaved his medium-length hair. He was sporting a skinhead, which actually looked good on him as the style made his handsome features even more prominent. There were scars on his faces, though. Small cuts. There was a gash on the right edge of his lips.

  “Travis didn’t shoot me,” he revealed and my eyes widened.

  “But I saw him...”

  “Well, yes, he did shoot me... but it was a blank bullet. It hurt like hell, though.” He pulled up the shirt inside his sweater to reveal a violet bruise in the middle of his chest. “I found it very difficult to breathe that I almost drowned in the river.”

  “But the blood on your shirt...”

  “It happened so fast. No one even noticed. I myself didn’t even realize it at first. But Travis actually wiped his bloodied lips before rubbing it off my chest.”

  I remembered the blood on Travis’ face, which was caused by Nash’s blow while I was held captive in the lobby of the abandoned building.

  “Did... Did you and Travis plan this all along?” I asked, still crying, still confused about what was happening.

  “No,” he sullenly replied as he bowed his head, seemingly lamenting the fate suffered by his friend. “All the while, I thought he would kill me. He said so himself, that night at the convenience store. He was a good soldier... a loyal soldier. He embraced the gang’s code. The leader... the General... he was actually grooming Travis to be his right hand man, and eventually, his successor.”

  “Then why did he fake your death?”

  “Because he thought about things more than I ever did,” Nash answered, his tone was still filled with sadness. “He knew that there was no other way for it to end than with my death. If I didn’t die, they’d go after you. If not them, worse people would try to cause you harm...”

  “The Russians?”

  “Yes, and they’re merciless. They needed to know that I was dead, that their secrets were safe, that there would be no precedent that may cause further mutiny in their ranks. Travis knew this, and he planned everything without my knowledge. I thought our friendship was over when I left the group. But... but he remained a true friend until the very end.”

  “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “Nash... we should wake them up. We should tell them... your mom especially... that you’re alive!”

  “No, no...” he quickly disapproved. “It’s too soon. Not yet.”

  “What? Why?”

  “They will know, eventually, but not now.”

  “Nash... your mom has been inconsolable. She has been very, very sad since you... since you... since we thought you died...”

  “I know... but this is for the best. A few more weeks, if not months, and I’ll let her know. But not now. The fewer people who know I’m alive, the safer it would be for you... for all of you.”

  I looked into his eyes and saw the regret that was consuming his soul. He didn’t want our folks, his mom most especially, to be in deep sorrow. But he had to allow that to happen to save our lives.

  I rested my head on his shoulder and he quickly embraced me.

  “I know this all sounds complicated, Andrea... confusing even,” he said. “But the worst is over now. I’m here. And I will never, ever leave you. We will take care of our baby, together. And I will take care of you. No matter what it takes. I will make sure that you and our child will be safe, and that our family will have a good life.”

  Our family.

  Those words echoed in my heart. They were so beautiful to hear. Our family. Him and me and the baby in my womb. Together. Forever.

  “So, what do we have right now?” I asked him. His hug buried my head in his sturdy chest. “We’ll be together, but you’ll be in hiding. What? You’ll just visit me every now and then? Whenever opportunity permits?”

  He hugged me tighter.

  “I’m sorry it’s like this, Andrea,” he said. “But I will always be here for you. I may not show my face in public for the time being... but I promise that you will always feel my presence, you will know that I’m always there. And somewhere down the line... in a few months... in a couple of years... you and I...”

  He paused and shrugged. It was as if he wanted to do something that he couldn’t. Then he looked at the drawer beside my bed and saw something. He reached for it and drew the object towards the bottom of his sweater. It was a pair of scissors. He started to cut a piece of the draw string that tightened his hoodie.

  Then he grabbed my hand and caressed my fingers. He wrapped the string over my ring finger, tying up the knot in a way that made it look like an exquisite ornament.

  “You and I...” he continued to say, “we’ll get married and make more babies.”

  Despite the uneasiness I was feeling, despite the uncertainties that burdened my soul... I found myself giggling at his comment. It wasn’t because it was funny. Rather, it was very heartwarming... somethin
g that I didn’t expect to feel at that moment. It was a reassurance, from the person I thought I have lost, from the father of my child, from the man I love.

  Then, the precarious nature of the setup he was proposing weighed on me once more. A lot of questions... a lot of doubts... a lot of difficulties... they began to dampen whatever joy filled my being.

  “What do we have right now, Nash?” I asked once again.

  He held my hand tight and looked at me. He smiled and I saw that beautiful dimple once again.