Crossed Lines

by Lana Sky

  “We’re too fucking… We’re too alike,” he says, growling the words to the point of unrecognition. “Everything we do, we can’t… We can never fucking please them.”

  Them. The wives, and the daddies, and the mothers. Those people always watching from the periphery, ready to judge.

  “I’m sorry.” His hand creeps beneath my skirt, sending every nerve on red alert.

  I hiss between my teeth as his palm grazes sore, throbbing skin. He freezes and the pressure on my back lets up just enough that I could wiggle away.

  But I don’t.

  My thighs part as I take my punishment, feeling moisture seep into the cushion beneath my cheek the longer he touches me. The contact stays over my panties, purely for him to gauge the damage he’s done. He flexes each finger and then rubs. When I flinch, he stops.

  “I… I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”

  He finally stands up and lets me go.

  But I don’t move.

  If I close my eyes in this moment, I never have to leave it. I never have to face the aftermath. So I squeeze my eyelids together and count to ten. I did this once before, when my innocent, little eyes saw a naughty, terrible thing.

  I reached number seven then before he came, drawing me into his arms and swearing everything would be okay.

  This time, I don’t make it past two. His hands slip beneath my stomach and lift. I’m spun around and pressed tight to his chest like a tiny, compact doll. He carries me into the house and down the hall to my room.

  He lays me on my bed and closes the door when he leaves, letting me nurse my wounds in peace.

  He lingers for hours after, in the hall. Pacing…pacing. Sometime before dawn, he gives up and heads downstairs, disappearing deeper inside the house.

  My eighteenth birthday comes with a bang. Literally. The car backfires and Thorny can’t get it to start. Cursing and huffing, we face an ultimatum: walk or reschedule.

  With money on the line, we can’t afford to waste a second. So I skip upstairs to exchange my leather Mary Janes for a pair of sneakers. My jeans and my shirt should hold up during the hour-long trek, but fuck it. I take them off and fish my new dress from its pile of tissue paper.

  Today is a day worth celebrating. I’m officially an adult and Thorny is free.

  Hooray.

  We celebrate in silence during the long walk to Thornton. Cars pass us, honking in nonverbal offers of assistance, but Thorny ignores them all.

  He’s especially brooding today. I let myself stare at him for once, eyeing every inch of my once almost-daddy. He’s changed his clothes at least, but he still hasn’t shaved. His hair is in the semblance of its neat, professional coif, but sweat makes loose strands stick to the back of his neck. He’s dressed to the nines, my uncle. His suit jacket is gray, matching a set of pristine slacks far too fancy to belong on a body traipsing along the side of the road.

  What a pair we make.

  My new dress swishes and flounces when I walk. I’m like Elaine minus the elegance. I’m Elaine minus the angry husband.

  I’m Elaine back before her grown-up mistakes. I bet she wore less makeup and smiled more. Really smiled in a charming way that made her eyes sparkle.

  Eyes are the window to the soul.

  Mr. Lawyer shields his eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles once we arrive at his office, panting and sticky from the heat. “Happy birthday, Maryanne,” he tells me. Those arbitrary words Thorny has yet to utter.

  He ushers us into the back room and opens a crisp, shiny new file.

  “It seems I…misplaced the last round of documents,” he mutters. “Luckily, the originals are kept in a safe. Here we are.”

  Tada!

  Grandmama’s last will and testament is finally fulfilled. She got her wish: Thorny finally took me in.

  And his life imploded.

  Mr. Lawyer goes over the documents one by one, summing up what I already know.

  One: Thorny’s guardianship over me is terminated. Two, another specification courtesy of Grandmama: I won’t be able to touch the money until after I graduate in—per Mr. Lawyer’s calculations—at least three more months, given the amount of schoolwork I have to make up.

  “You are willing to oversee her education until then?” Mr. Lawyer asks Thorny, who stiffly nods.

  His face tells it all: He doesn’t have a choice. Not if he wants his slice of the family money pie.

  Then that’s that. Thorny and I are dismissed with little fanfare and we begin the long trek back to Thornfield.

  Turning eighteen doesn’t feel any different than seventeen—go figure. I still have those naughty little urges to say things I shouldn’t. Thorny is free. I’m nothing more than a boarder taking up space in his house until I get my diploma.

  Therefore, he doesn’t owe me anything. Not even the answer to a teensy little question.

  “Elaine didn’t want me.” Or so he said. “Then why did you take me back? You wanted the money, huh, James? That’s it, isn’t it?”

  His shoulders stiffen, and his sigh reaches me as we crest the hill. “Not now.” He’s tired. So tired that he stops short, his entire body tense with awareness. “Maryanne…”

  His tone is a warning, telling me not to look as I draw up beside him. Not to stare at the unfamiliar black car in the driveway. Or at the beautiful, buxom blond strolling up the front porch.

  She turns as if sensing us on the outskirts of the property. With one hand, she shields her brilliant, blue eyes while the other upturns in a graceful wave.

  Even from this distance, I know she’s not Elaine. She’s taller, her hair blonder, her skin paler. Like mine. We even share a similar body shape, just like everyone says—something I wasn’t sure of until I see her now.

  Marie in the flesh.

  “She’s back,” I hear myself croak. What has it been? Eleven years? Eleven long years without so much as a birthday card or a phone call. Coincidentally, eleven years when I didn’t have a penny to my name.

  Eleven damn years.

  “Wait here.” Thorny starts forward with his arm extended in a silent command: stay.

  His posture is stiff and formal, but nothing fazes Marie. Her broad smile shines like a beacon as he approaches. God, it’s like looking into a mirror. A blurry one, smeared with age, where everything reflected takes on a menacing edge.

  No wonder Thorny is always so damn suspicious of me, if I really look like that.

  Finally, close to the house, he jabs his finger at something, pointing. Then he must say something, because Marie’s warm grin falters. She drifts across the porch as Thorny becomes more and more animated with his hand gestures. I’ve never seen him so emphatic, and stone-like certainty forms a ball in the pit of my stomach.

  He’s venting. I can only assume he is recounting every naughty little game. Every time I got in the way of his peaceful life. I’m a burden, he conveys with a heavy sigh. Can she take me away? Please.

  Her pinched face confirms as much as her eyes shift from him to the copse of trees where I’m holed up. She says something to Thorny that makes him shake his head as he turns and heads back toward me.

  He’s still so serious, frowning like hell. More than usual. He’s…resigned.

  “You…you should probably talk to her,” he says once he’s paces away. “If you want. She says she wants to see you.”

  “Why?” My voice is an ugly rasp. I’ve lost my spunk. My pizazz.

  “Maryanne…” Thorny shrugs in that helpless yet authoritative way only adults can. “If you don’t—”

  “What’s the point?” I sound so damn hollow. Defeated. As empty as the house my mother is standing beside. “I know what she wants. It’s the only thing any of you want!”

  Which certainly isn’t me.

  “Maryanne, wait!”

  Thorny’s shout ricochets off bulletproof eardrums. I’m running, racing. Through trees. Weeds. Fields. I don’t stop until I’m knee-deep in frigid water and the roar of a crashing
wave swallows the way I scream.

  Some nightmares are far too silly to ever envision happening in real life.

  Like Marie, my wayward mother, creeping back into my life on my eighteenth birthday. She went over ten years without sending so much as a card. But on this day in particular, she’d return looking like a model fresh off a runway, tainted with the sickly sweet scents of France.

  I used to think it, but then I’d stop myself.

  No one would be that cruel.

  No one could be so selfish.

  No one could think…

  I’m that fucking dumb.

  The ocean seems to think so. You care, it cackles, lapping at my calves. You care. You care. It’s why you’re crying.

  It’s why you’re shaking.

  It’s why you’re on your knees, choking on salt water, Maryanne.

  You care. You care!

  But I don’t.

  “Maryanne!”

  Thorny’s voice battles with the roar of the waves. He sounds worried. I know why. It could be jealousy. What if I do what he’s been too afraid to?

  Though, if I drown myself, how will he collect his check? I try to stand up, but the water is vicious. A wall of waves knocks me down, leaving me sputtering in the tempest.

  I kick my legs helplessly, feeling my pretty dress cling to them. My lungs burn. My face is on fire. Desperately, my hands claw at the foamy surface of the water then across the sandy bottom. There is no traction. No salvation. I’m drowning.

  Then air.

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

  I’m squirming in his arms, choking on gasps. He holds me too tight. We fit together like puzzle pieces, Thorny and I. I’m the right height to bury my face against his shoulder and smother whatever stupid, pathetic cries might break loose.

  It’s a sympathy ploy, of course.

  And Thorny doesn’t disappoint. “I’ve got you,” he tells me, smoothing his hands along my back, only to hold tighter when I quake. “She’s gone. I told her to leave. She’s gone.”

  There’s a hitch in his voice. He’s too damn serious. Like he thinks he’s helping. Like he thinks I need him.

  I don’t. Grinning from ear to ear, I pull back and meet his gaze through a screen of fat, fake tears. “I’m—”

  Fine, I mean to say. Hahaha. You fell for it. I’m fine!

  “Shhh.” Thorny jerks me closer, smothering my screams against the front of his jacket. I can’t stop fucking screaming. Shouting. And for once, no one tries to shut me up.

  “I know. I know.” He says each word into my ear so I can’t ignore them. His scent is ingrained in my lungs, his touch forever etched into my skin. “I know, baby. I know. It’s okay. I’m here.”

  But for how long?

  A seven-year-old girl could suppress the memories of good, comforting Uncle Thorny, who smelled so nice, with the voice like thunder. Only he could make the bad thoughts go away.

  Only he cared enough to tell me the truth as the world around me shattered.

  Until he left.

  “I’m here now,” he says, guiding me back from the water and onto dry land. “I know you’re hurting. It’s okay. Just let it all out. You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m here.”

  Tearful birthday parties come to the most fitting conclusion on an upstairs balcony with a bottle of wine.

  Thorny doesn’t want to give in so easily.

  But I beg and plead. It’s my one present. The only thing he can give me in this moment to make me feel oh-so-special.

  One little glass.

  It tastes like ass. But I sip and sip while he sits stiffly on the lounger beside mine, eyeing the sunset.

  “I didn’t know what to get you,” he tells me.

  I shrug, unconcerned. After all, what do you get the heiress about to inherit everything? You get her liquid happiness in a bottle. Three sips in and I’m beginning to see why he likes the stuff.

  It makes everything blurry. Less sharp. His frown has a fuzzy edge to it now. He seems soft enough to touch. So I reach out, letting my fingers graze his jaw as my stomach dances.

  He frowns when I rub my fingertips into his stubble. “This isn’t much, but…”

  He’s hiding a real present in his pocket, I realize. He pulls it out and I stare down in shock, my mouth open. It’s a leather watch, like the one of his I stole. But this one works. Golden numbers are set within an ivory background, encased in delicate glass.

  “I’m a real adult now,” I tell him, awed as he fastens the golden clasp around my wrist.

  An adult cursed with all the responsibility of growing up. No more reindeer games. Mature people are honest all the time. Even when it stings.

  “Can I ask you something, James?” I risk another sip of wine for extra courage.

  He nods and sets his empty glass aside, having already drained it.

  “Do you think I have talent?”

  That question haunting every teenager looms now, with the buzz of alcohol making it seem ten times more important than it did before. What do I want to be when I grow up?

  I want to tell lies the right way. With pizazz and flair. Maybe I want him to read them. To constantly disapprove.

  I want him to hear me in a way no one else can.

  “Talent?” he echoes, treating the subject thoughtfully. “Yes, you do…”

  But. I wait for him to tack on a caveat. My Thorny, he can never let me win a battle unscathed.

  “But. You can’t keep hiding from your emotions. It’s not healthy.”

  “Hiding?” I hold my hands in front of my eyes and spread the fingers apart. Peek-a-boo.

  He doesn’t laugh. His tone alarmingly soft, he phrases a question that makes me squirm. “Are we really going to pretend that what happened earlier didn’t?”

  Marie? I nod and sip from my wine glass. “Yes.”

  “You don’t want to know what she said?” His tone dips as though he doesn’t really want to say. For some reason, he feels obligated to, I guess. What was that term? Honesty.

  “I think I can guess,” I whisper. Another sip of wine doesn’t erase the nasty taste in my mouth. So I take another. Then one more.

  “She said she wanted to see you,” Thorny says, sounding so tired, so old. “I told her I’d give her every damn penny I stand to gain from your inheritance if she left right then, no questions asked.”

  I stop drinking as I register just what he said. No. I’m sure I imagined it, picking up on his knack for imagining fantastical stories. “I guess this means I lost the bet?”

  I hold my breath, watching him. He doesn’t scowl like I’m used to. Instead, he laughs, so beautiful and real. “Yeah. You lost the bet...”

  “And?” I croak when he doesn’t continue his tale.

  His half-smile falls. “She left.”

  “Oh.” Of course she did.

  Marie being Marie isn’t the fact that makes my heart feel too big or the blood rush to my brain. It’s him. Every penny? Really?

  I look at him, too terrified to decide whether I believe him or not. My eyes itch—it’s this damn breeze. “I hope you gave her a receipt.”

  “Maryanne…” He shakes his head. “You can talk to me about things, you do realize? You don’t always have to put on a brave face. I’m here. I’ll listen.”

  I could take his words as a pretentious bit of lecturing—or the truth told from experience. Truth, I suspect, as he strokes his chin, gazing at the crashing waves.

  So, maybe I could play just one little round?

  “Fine.” I inhale, puffing myself up with all the fake bravado I don’t feel. “So tell me the truth. Why did you take me back?”

  He frowns in that caught-off-guard way, his eyes narrowed and lips twisted. Finally he sighs. “Why? I think… I think I just got sick of the fucking silence.”

  There’s so much lurking in that deadly, dangerous word. Silence. Like the kind lurking between him and Elaine. It’s the theme song of this big, lonely house: e
ndless, muffled quiet.

  “You are anything but silent,” he adds.

  I flash a fake smile. “Thank you kindly—”

  “But you need to learn how to trust people and let your emotions out sometimes.”

  The mere thought makes me giggle and I nearly fall off my lounger.

  “Be careful!” He’s there to catch me, sliding an arm around my shoulders.

  Let my emotions out, he said.

  “I feel strange,” I admit.

  Hot, uncomfortable skin. Creeping, crawling heat. Lungs that won’t stay put until I inhale him, getting drunker with every taste. My brain is a ping-pong ball, bouncing from logic to that dangerous realm of impulse.

  Logic tells me to let him go. Pull away. Uncle Thorny is frowning again—I’m holding him too close.

  But impulse whispers a dangerous dare: get closer. As close as I can. Crawl inside his skin if I have to. Remember the feel of his heartbeat so that I’ll never forget it. Spill all those dangerous secrets I never have to anyone else. Look into his eyes—really look.

  They’re so dark blue. I could easily drown in them, fade without a trace. Ocean? He’s more than that: he is the fucking night sky.

  “I love you,” I say.

  “I…” He looks surprised. Thoughtful. Finally, he thumps my chin with the tips of his knuckles. “I love you too.”

  And he means it.

  “What’s wrong?” He sounds truly concerned. He tilts my head back against the pad of his thumb, meeting my gaze again. “Are you okay?”

  I’m not okay.

  “I love you,” I say, stressing the word like they do in movies. How my father used to scream it in my mother’s face while she laughed. And laughed. “I love you, James. I love you.”

  He frowns, sighing. “And here I was, thinking we could have a serious conversation.” He laughs and snatches my glass of wine. Still chuckling, he downs the purple liquid. Swish. Imbibed with the antidote to my poison, he can humor me more easily. “You don’t even know what that kind of love is—”

  “Don’t I?” My voice rips from my throat, tired and broken. My fingers twitch, aching…needing. I lean forward, letting them curve around his forearm without permission. Uh-oh. I’m rewarded with the feel of muscle clenching against me. “It’s wanting to drown—”