Broken, Bruised, and Brave

by L. A. Zoe

  “What’s going to change in a week? Or a month? Or a year?”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Cunningham said. “I can’t predict the future. But something will change. It always does. We live our lives every day. We think only about what we have to. And sometime later, we realize we’re different people. And we don’t understand why. Just as children grow up. There’s no one morning where they wake and you notice, gosh, Rhinegold’s six inches taller, but somehow he went from being a baby to the man he is today.”

  I appreciated his attempt to comfort me, but it didn’t work.

  I heard the stubborn refusal in Rhinegold’s voice. Saw his delusions set in the concrete set of his face muscles. Saw the wide pupils gazing into an inner space I couldn’t share.

  Although my next words burned like coals in my mouth, and wrenched my guts like some medieval torture device, I had to speak them.

  “Maybe Helena can convince him to go to college.”

  “Helena?” He couldn’t hide the genuine shock on his face.

  I coughed. I couldn’t help it. But I forced myself to continue. “She loves Rhinegold too. She’s already going to college. She already knows her lifelong dream, and she’s already good at it. She’s a much better role model for him than I am.”

  He gave me a curious look, like a scientist discovering a new species of microbe. “Why would you ask me to help another woman get Rhinegold’s attention?”

  “I’ve already lost him,” I said. “Like everyone else. If she can bring him back to reality … then you should let her.”

  And she looked like Keara. But I didn’t say that.

  He looked up to the ceiling, considering my idea. “She couldn’t stay here. She has college classes, and must practice a lot playing her violin, I’m sure. And her parents wouldn’t want her to stay here overnight.”

  “But she could visit,” I said. “Play her violin. He enjoys that a lot.”

  A lot more than my company.

  Mr. Cunningham looked at me with a softer face, which I took as an infuriating pity. “I understood there was a history of bad blood between you and Helena. That incident in the restaurant … “

  “I didn’t say I liked her, only Rhinegold might prefer her.”

  His eyes again focused on me as he made a decision. “All right, I made you Rhinegold’s counselor of a sort, so if you think Helena or her violin will snap him out of his dream world, I’ll take your advice, and ask her to come by. I expect you won’t want to be here then.”

  I nodded. “You expect right.”

  “I’ll have a driver take you to your mother’s apartment until we see how this experiment works out. All right?”

  “I’ll pack my things. What about Rhinegold?”

  “I’ll explain to him. And—just maybe—getting up from a nap to find you gone will be its own shock therapy that wakes him up for good.”

  I stood up, turned to leave.

  “And, SeeJai?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you just did. Until we see how Rhinegold and Helena get along, please just regard yourself on standby. I’ll be in touch.”

  The loneliness I thought I escaped returned, like a familiar nightmare. I thought Helena rescued me from it, until her betrayal cast me back into it. I thought Rhinegold the gold knight slew the dragon, but it was only sleeping.

  “All right.”

  Even to myself, my voice sounded heavy, old, sad, and forlorn, like a swan who just saw her soul mate killed.

  Knowing I could never find happiness again for the rest of my life.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  A Private Concert

  Since the Valentine’s Day party, Father and Sybille had refurbished the antique gold living room furniture.

  Rhinegold hated using the living room except to sit with formal guests. Thick clear plastic covered the wingtip chairs, the large, antique sofa, and the plush carpeting. Everything except the fireplace, with its big brass andirons and white Italian marble mantelpiece.

  The room smelled of furniture polish and ancient resins.

  But with its high ceiling, the living room had the best acoustics, so he sat on one of the loveseats, including the hot crinkling of the plastic clinging to his arms, and listened to Helena.

  Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004. Sonata for Solo Violin, Op. 31, No. 1 by Hindesmith. Sonata in B minor for solo violin by Liszt. Paginini’s Caprice No. 13. And Twelve Fantasias by Telemann.

  Against doctor’s orders, Rhinegold held a cold can of Busch, and gulped it down.

  One after the other, each piece took him soaring through the sky like an eagle, ignoring the snow swirling around him. Denying the cold. Daring the winter.

  But Rhinegold still tasted the bitterness of SeeJai’s betrayal.

  Leaving him alone, at the mercy of Father and Sybille. Running out on him, just because of a few disagreements.

  And no matter how much he shook his head with denial, he couldn’t escape the sad emptiness deep inside his heart.

  Father could explain it away all he wanted, it still smelled to Rhinegold like a herd of horses just passed by.

  SeeJai couldn’t stand to stay with him when he was weak and injured. When he didn’t have the strength to protect her. While she refused to believe he was a heroic knight sworn to serve his lady fair.

  He couldn’t blame her. He hated weakness. He hated not being able to use his left arm as much as his right. Of being robbed, although temporarily, of his role as the Gold Knight, protector of the innocent, defender of the realm, lover of his glorious lady fair, SeeJai.

  Instead, Father had Helena visit him. As though she could take his mind off SeeJai.

  Her music’s ethereal beauty reminded him of SeeJai, and so irritated him. Helena’s skillful playing turned her violin into a vortex of power, an opening connecting reality with worlds of possibilities.

  So the energy of the fantastic swept through him. Stylistically of course quite different from the folk, Viking, and symphonic metal bands that evoked fantasy and pagan themes.

  But the outer form of the music didn’t matter, only its inner essence. Where soul expressed itself through sound.

  And Helena visiting him the night after SeeJai abandoned him couldn’t be a coincidence, so it had to be a plot by Father to take advantage of SeeJai’s abandonment of him.

  Helena did look hot that night. Nobody could deny that. Her slim legs in tight, bright blue jeans. Not quite as thin as SeeJai’s legs, and long enough to wrap around his back. Breasts large enough to make noticeable mounds underneath her baby blue sweater. In heavy clothing SeeJai’s chest looked flat.

  SeeJai almost never wore makeup, except for special occasions. Helena powdered her face pleasantly white. Her scarlet lipstick glistened.

  Long, gleaming blonde hair down to her shoulders, looking so feminine, so gorgeous in the family living room. Her eyes gleamed like eyes of sapphire, reflecting a sunny fjord. Helena looked the part of a Viking maiden.

  Compared to Helena, small, scrappy, dark-haired SeeJai seemed more like a big city gutter snipe, a dirty beggar waif in rags and chopped, patchy lice-infested hair sleeping in doorway shadows. Like to pick your pocket or slide a dagger into your kidney.

  Listening to the sweet melodies she coaxed out of her violin, Rhinegold forgot the dull pain still throbbing through his arm. The music even seemed to fill the black gap left by SeeJai’s betrayal.

  Although Rhinegold never before seriously considered Helena as a girlfriend—aside from loving her music he just thought of her as a friend, and not even that after learning what she did to SeeJai several years ago.

  But all that seemed long ago and far away, less real than the visions her violin evoked in his imagination. Less real than the body heat radiating from her clothes. Less real than his erection reaching toward her, throbbing.

  That piece finished, Helena stood with shoulders slumped.

  “Ready for a break?
” Rhinegold asked.

  “Your stepmother has this room fixed up so nice—how about your basement? I remember the parties you used to have down there.”

  “It’s still the same,” Rhinegold said. “Only, no kegs in the corner and no million drunk kids. But the fridge has plenty of cans of Bud and Coors Light.”

  “I can’t drink like the old days,” Helena said. “I’ve got an early class tomorrow morning. And we’re getting ready for a huge concert the end of May. But I’ll have one can, since you’re having one.”

  They sat together on the nearest couch, chatting, drinking beer.

  When Rhinegold fetched two more cans from the refrigerator, he doused all the lights, so only the faint glow of the house’s backyard spotlights lit the basement.

  The refrigerator hummed. Although heat blew in through the HVAC grill overhead, his breath misted.

  So when he returned to his seat he naturally draped an arm around Helena’s shoulders, and just as naturally felt her lean in close enough for him to smell her lavender-scented bath lotion.

  “Mmmm,” Helena murmured as she sipped from the can. “How come I never got this special treatment when we were in high school?”

  Because he remained true to Keara.

  “Because you used to go upstairs with Drew Whitmore,” Rhinegold said.

  “Oh, I forgot all about him.”

  Time to get the first kiss out of the way, just get pass it.

  A sweetness of peach wine, yeast, and lipstick. And lips that trembled with passion. A head that rocked his back.

  How glorious to hold a full armful of solid woman. Bone and muscle and enough flesh to arouse his desire.

  But first things first. He broke away.

  “Drew didn’t kiss like that,” Helena said.

  “I’m crazy, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Didn’t my father tell you?”

  Helena twisted in his arms, but didn’t pull back. “He said you had some kind of problem. But you’ve always been like that, haven’t you? Always reading weird books and watching weird movies. A big fantasy nerd.”

  “A geek,” Rhinegold said.

  “Despite all that you were one of the popular kids.”

  “Father’s right. I’m crazy now. I don’t even care. As soon as my arm heals, I’m going back to the streets. Would you go with me?”

  “What makes you crazy?”

  “I don’t want to leave my fantasy life. Like, to me, both Keara and SeeJai are magical princesses.”

  Helena laughed, and though it was a quiet chuckle, not harsh at all, but some twist her vocal chords added to the texture irritated Rhinegold.

  “Keara? Okay, we’re buddies, you know. I love her to death. SeeJai? Best we don’t talk about her. Did you guys break up? All your father said was she wouldn’t be here tonight.”

  “That’s right,” Rhinegold said, not wanting to speak about SeeJai.

  Especially because, despite how she deserted him last night, he could not deny the magick she worked on him. A piece of him still felt drawn to her light, like a moth to a bonfire.

  Still wanted to absorb the radiance of her spirit. His Lirazel.

  “So, if those two are princesses, what am I?” Helena asked, smiling, going along with the joke.

  Only it was no joke to Rhinegold. And she wouldn’t like his answer.

  A gifted bard. A true talent on her violin, but herself only a common, ordinary woman.

  That shouldn’t keep him from bedding her. Even marrying her. Plenty of knights loved women they could never enjoy physically, but spent their nights with other women.

  A true Viking shouldn’t even think twice about taking Helena. Just pull off her jeans and slam himself into her.

  “A queen?” Rhinegold asked, knowing that would please her. “Am I your king? Would you stay with me while I protect innocent people on the mean streets of Cromwell?”

  Helena hugged him so close he breathed into the shoulder of her sweater. “You know my plan. Stay in school, improve my violin playing, then join the symphony orchestra.”

  “Of course,” he said, not knowing what to say. The heat of the moment froze in his throat.

  “Why don’t you follow me?” Helena asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re the king. Go to college. Get a great job. You’ll soon be rich and powerful.”

  “Just like Father?”

  “More, you can do more. And I’ll be your queen. Together, we can take over Cromwell. All of Kiowa.”

  “While you’re playing the violin?”

  “Oh, Helena said. “You know, Rhinegold. If you needed me … if we got married … and you needed me by your side … to run a business … go into politics—whatever … if you needed me to, I’d give up playing the violin. But only for you. No other man.”

  Rhinegold closed his eyes and sighed. The last thing he needed to hear.

  Slowly, he pushed himself out of her embrace. “Come on,” he said. “You’ve got an early class tomorrow, remember? And lots of practice to get ready for that spring concert.”

  Her eyes crunched with sadness and disappointment. “What’s wrong? What did I do or say wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Rhinegold said. “But my arm hurts, and I’m about to pass out. Seriously, I’m not strong enough for you right now.”

  When she kissed him goodbye at the front door, Helena said, “Whatever you want me to be, Rhinegold—just tell me. Princess or queen or just your slave girl.”

  Rhinegold watched her clamber down the concrete steps to her car parked in the driveway. Flurries tumbled out of the sky. The air slapped his face, bringing him to full wakefulness as he made sure she could back out, then pull away into the snow-covered street. When her rear headlights turned the corner, he slammed the door.

  Just play the violin.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Undecided

  While some black and white AMC movie flickered over me, I sat in Mom’s living room chair and stared at my cellphone.

  I pulled one number out of my phonebook, and wanted to call that, but couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength.

  Then I stared at another number in my phonebook, but couldn’t call that one either.

  Yet I couldn’t just sit there and watch the damn movie, again mooching on Mom’s hospitality.

  The Hamburger Helped dinner she cooked felt like a brickyard in my stomach, and left a coat of acid on my tongue. The smell of oregano hung in the air like ashes from a cremation.

  Every few minutes, in bed, Georgie coughed with a hacking sound like a hoe scraping concrete off a brick wall.

  Making not a sound, Mom returned and sat down on the couch, and resumed watching the movie.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  She sighed. “He’ll be all right.”

  “He sure didn’t feel good at dinner. Didn’t say a word, didn’t eat anything.”

  Mom looked at me with a flat face. “He’s been poorly for a few days now. It’s nothing to fret about. Just pains in his stomach. He gets over it.”

  “Sure? I can call 911. I’ll go with you.”

  “We’ve got a real telephone in the kitchen, honey. You go back to your texting, or whatever you young people do when you stare at a cell phone screen all the time.”

  Just trying to decide which man to call.

  The man who wants me even though he cares nothing about me? Or the man who doesn’t want me, but who protects me like a mother bear guarding a cub?

  The wind outside roared against the kitchen window, rattling even the inner pane of glass and the ice caking it. I looked out, but all I could see was white swirling in the bright orange of the parking lot spotlight.

  “You wait any longer, the ambulance might have trouble getting through the roads,” I told Mom.

  “They’ll be busy with accidents,” Mom said. “It’s just a bad cold went down into his chest. He insisted on going shopping several days ago, said if not for me, he’d been sleep
ing in a cardboard box or a shelter for the last two months. I guess that’s true enough.”

  I remembered his shopping cart, aluminum cans, and all his clothes spread over that hill the day I met him. The morning after I met Rhinegold. I choked up, and hid it with a cough of my own.

  “I gave him hot tea,” Mother said. “And Robitussin. And rubbed Vicks VapoRub on his chest.”

  I wanted to call Rhinegold, but he had to be with Helena. With the latest blizzard outside, she would probably have to stay the night.

  Great. I threw my worst enemy at the only man I’ve ever loved, and for what? Supposedly to help him. But how would sex with her benefit him more than sex with me?

  If they never slept together before—as Rhinegold swore, and I believed him—just give them until morning, if not already.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  Unless she didn’t want Rhinegold so buried in his fantasies, like quicksand, he refused to lead an ordinary life.

  She wanted him for his father’s money, and for the big money he could make in a few years if he only graduated from college and accepted one of the jobs his father could line up for him.

  So, possibly, Rhinegold the Gold Knight performing chivalrous acts of bravery in the Hoods of Cromwell was not what Helena wanted either.

  Would he abandon his delusions for her after he wouldn’t for me?

  So I brought up the other number on my Speed Dial.

  Greco’s.

  Without Rhinegold, I may as well take the big money. In a year or so I could buy a mansion of my own. Maybe in the same subdivision as the Cunninghams. I could invite them—and even Rhinegold, if he’d come out of the basement long enough—to my housewarming party.

  Wouldn’t that kick ass?

  But no sense calling Greco tonight. I wasn’t going to his place alone this time of night. With this latest storm, no buses were running anyway.

  But did I really want to spread my legs for some rich old dude who just wanted me to dress and act real young?

  No, but I wanted all that money.