Love 2.0

by Lee Kilraine

  Wow. All these many months—years really—she’d thought she had bad instincts when it came to people. To relationships.

  The memory rushed at her. She felt like she was living in a snow globe—trapped and stifled—and the new flood of memories had just shaken up her world, creating a storm of emotions that beat down on her. But she didn’t want to simply wait for the snowstorm to settle around her, calm and seemingly picturesque yet still trapped. She wanted to break her way out of that prison.

  “I need to call my sister.”

  “Sure.” Kaz sprung up and reached his hands down for hers.

  She placed her hands in his and let him pull her up from the mat. The shock was still vibrating through her and it took a minute to feel her knees would support her weight.

  “You okay?” He looked down into her face.

  She nodded and let out a huff of air. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  He placed a warm kiss on her forehead, then pulled her into his arms. “You aren’t a coward.”

  Mira could have stayed in the warm circle of his arms all afternoon, but that, again, was the coward’s way out. No more hiding from the truth. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy his comforting embrace, then pulled away from his arms and left the room, not even sure how to approach the conversation with her sister.

  Once in her room, she delayed the phone call to Vivian, deciding to take a shower first. She shampooed her hair, scrubbed her body with oatmeal soap, shaved her legs, then leaned against the cool white tile of the shower wall and cried.

  She cried for her mother’s pain. She cried for letting her sister down. All these years they should have been bearing the horrible weight together, but instead Mira had let Vivian shoulder it alone. And she cried for the guilt her father had forced on her. Guilt that cut deep every time he treated her like a princess after treating her mami like a punching bag.

  When she was finally all cried out and had probably used all the hot water in Kaz’s house, she turned off the shower. As she dried off, applied lotion, and dressed, she thought it over and decided this was too big a conversation to have with Vivian on the phone. She’d wait until Vi arrived for her visit to tell her how completely sorry she was.

  It might take her time to even find the words to express her remorse. What do you say when you feel like you’ve betrayed someone you love? Dammit, they should have been clinging to each other all these years, dealing with it together, only Mira hadn’t been there for her sister. Or her mother.

  The guilt was unbearable. So she turned it into anger. Anger at her father, except he was long gone so there would be no recompense there. Anger at herself, which wasn’t helpful, so she turned it and aimed it all at Ivan. That anger fueled her like a steady fire under a pot of water, building her motivation into a slow, steady boil. The motivation to stand up and reclaim her own life. If he thought he could threaten her by threatening her sister, then Ivan really was crazy.

  Ivan was similar to her father in so many ways. Why hadn’t she seen it before? He might not have abused her physically, but now that she had her blinders off, she saw things she hadn’t at the time. The way he controlled her. The way he isolated her. That couldn’t have been by accident. And if she hadn’t broken things off with Ivan, would that hand around her throat been the first of many?

  * * *

  After Mira left the small gym, Kaz sat back on the mat and stretched before meditating. Attempted to meditate. For the first time in years his mind refused to empty. He kept seeing the fear on Mira’s face as she described her father and then her ex—both of whom he’d enjoy having five minutes alone with in a dark alley. There were times in his life when he truly believed in karma. That any bad energy a person sent out into the world would return to him tenfold. Reap what you sow. But when it came to abuse? No.

  He may be a proponent of nonviolence, but he also knew there were some people who needed to be confronted. And when confrontation failed, those people needed to be stopped.

  Kaz remembered the exact moment he’d decided he needed another option to his mother’s turn-the-other-cheek technique. He’d been sitting in Principal Bonner’s office his freshman year of high school sporting a black eye thanks to one of the senior football players. Of course it took him more than two years of lifting weights, martial arts lessons, doubling his food intake, and then finally hitting puberty to see all his hard work achieve results. No one messed with him from his junior year of high school on.

  You couldn’t put a price on feeling empowered. The feeling of being in total control of your destiny, when nobody could come along and snatch a good day or your confidence from you anymore. To his mind, someone with power and strength was tasked with protecting others—so he saw red when those very people tried to intimidate or hurt those weaker than themselves.

  Many people, women especially, didn’t get to change their status of being the smaller, weaker person. Suzie sure hadn’t. It had been devastating to watch her struggle with the knowledge that the man who’d professed to love her forever could heap pain and abuse on her body on a regular basis. Kaz had thrown himself into research in his attempt to help Suzie, but no matter what he’d learned and how he’d tried to help her escape her situation, nothing had saved her. In the end, Kaz’s pain at Suzie’s death was what had inspired him to become involved in the underground. The supreme frustration at how extremely hard it was to escape from the cycle of abuse drove him to help others in the same situation.

  Thinking about Mira and her newly unearthed childhood memories brought up some of those old frustrations. Mostly frustration at how tight the cycle of abuse latched on to a person’s psyche and bled out into their choice of a mate, too often another abuser. Because that was what they knew. What they’d grown up with. And the cycle began anew.

  He blocked off his thoughts and meditated, bringing his heart rate down and systematically relaxing his muscles until he’d achieved homeostasis. He needed to set this aside to focus on work. The work that paid him the big bucks: Tracking hackers and criminals for banks and corporations around the world. Finding his clients’ vulnerabilities before the bad guys did. Finally, after weeks of work, he was hot on the trail of a notoriously slick black hat, one of the hackers who used their computer knowledge to steal from others. Yeah, he was in the mood to kick some digital ass.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mira’s sister arrived the next day. Kaz was on his hands-free phone at his computer when Mira knocked on his office door. He’d been speaking in another language again, this time possibly German.

  “Kaz, my sister’s here.” She tipped her head toward her sister, standing next to her. “Vivian Díaz, meet Kaz Cates.”

  He pulled off the headset and stood, walking over to the doorway with a welcoming smile on his face. “Vivian, nice to meet you.”

  “You too. I appreciate you letting me stay here. Mira and I haven’t spent much time together the last few months so this is a treat.”

  Shrugging, he pushed his eyeglasses up before slipping his hands into his pants pockets. “I’ve got siblings. I know the feeling.”

  “We’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to work. Thanks, Kaz.” Mira reached out her hand and gave his tattooed forearm a squeeze, then grabbed the handle of Vivian’s smaller suitcase and wheeled it over the stained concrete floor down to the second guest room.

  “That was nice of Kaz and his family to help you out after your accident. I’m ticked at you for not calling me, but because you said it was only a small fender bender I’ll forgive you. I don’t want to waste our time together.”

  Mira winced, knowing Vi wasn’t going to be happy when she told her the whole truth. She opened the door of the guest room next to hers and placed the suitcase on the queen-size bed. “How was your flight? Not too bad?”

  “Not bad at all.” Vi wheeled a second suitcase behind her and parked it inside the room, looking around the light-filled space. “This is nice. And I’m not going to lie; it’s nice to get away. I
refuse to even think about filling out job applications during this whole vacation.”

  Mira shook her head. “I’m sorry about your job.”

  She sighed and poked her head into the attached bathroom before turning back to her sister. “Well, it’s not like it’s your fault.”

  Mira thought about leaving this conversation for another time, but she needed to talk to her sister about so much and delaying would only mean less time for that. Now that Ivan had brought her sister into it, Vi needed to know everything going on between them. “Well, I’m not sure about that.”

  That got her sister’s attention quick and she jerked around from where she’d been looking out the window to frown at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh boy, Vi. I have a long story to tell and I’m not really sure where to start.” Not after yesterday’s revelation she wasn’t. The fact that she’d shoved her childhood memories so deep that she’d basically invented an alternate childhood and happily married parents still blew her mind. But she’d also withheld the bad things going on with Ivan, and she knew her sister wouldn’t be happy about that.

  “You know you can tell me anything.” Vivian sat down on the small love seat on the wall opposite the bed and patted the cushion next to her. “Let’s go.”

  Instead of sitting down, Mira paced a few steps, running a few starts through her head. My ex-boyfriend might be stalking me. My rat bastard of an ex got me fired from four jobs. I broke up with crazy Ivan after he scared me by squeezing his hand around my neck. That and the gleam in his eyes that said he’d enjoyed it and thought about not letting go. Nothing sounded right. Maybe keep it simple to start.

  She stopped pacing and turned to her sister. “I think Ivan got you fired.”

  “What?” Vivian let out a startled laugh. “Your Ivan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Definitely start at the beginning.”

  “Okay. You know I broke up with Ivan after we dated for eight months and shortly after that breakup I was fired.”

  “Yes, but to be fair, Mira, he was higher up in the company. Sadly, it’s not unusual that the lower-tier worker leaves the company in that situation.”

  “Understood. Not happy about it, because I’d actually been with the company for three years before his company even bought it, but understood. The thing is . . . I’m pretty sure Ivan got me fired from my next three jobs too.”

  “What? That’s crazy. I mean, I don’t mean crazy I-don’t-believe-you crazy. I mean crazy-bad crazy.”

  “You aren’t kidding. I have no actual proof, mind you, but here’s how I think it happened . . .”

  And Mira proceeded to spill it all. The hang-up calls, the dead birds on her car, the slashed tires, the creepy feeling of being watched, the message to the new phone number he shouldn’t have had, the message that let her know he’d kept tabs on her. Her reports to the police that yielded nothing but paperwork.

  “So I finally couldn’t take it anymore: the idea that he was out there somewhere watching me, keeping tabs on me, where I was working each time. When my last boss fired me, he suggested I leave town. And I was scared and tired, so I did. I did exactly that. I ran.”

  “Oh, Dios, Mira, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to have to worry about me. That’s what you do, Vi, and it’s not fair to you. Ever since Papi died, you’ve helped take care of me. It forced you to grow up too fast. Plus, between losing your job and your breakup with Roger—you had your own crappy stuff you were dealing with.”

  “You’re my baby sister. I always want to know what’s going on with you. So . . . I guess that means delivering singing telegrams wasn’t really about searching for your joy? Oh Lord, what am I saying? Of course it wasn’t. You love being a CPA.”

  “I do. I really do. I honestly thought leaving Miami would solve everything. But then he got me fired from my job in Tallahassee. That was devastating. The stress of it has been brutal. Exhausting. I needed a break from it. From him. I needed to go somewhere where I knew he wouldn’t find me. Time to rest and regroup. I sold my car and bought the cheapest one I could for cash and fled to Greensboro. I took the only job I could find willing to pay me off the books.”

  “Right, as an employee for his company he’d have access to your social. You think that’s how he knew about each of your new jobs?”

  “At the time I couldn’t think of anything else, but Kaz said he simply could have activated the GPS in my phone while we were dating. Which is why I got rid of it.”

  Vivian pulled up her legs, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I wish you’d told me and I’m sorry.”

  “What the heck are you sorry for?”

  “For being so impressed by his looks and innate coolness that I forgot to ask you if you were happy with him. I should have noticed that something wasn’t right. I feel like I let you down.”

  “Let me down? No, it’s the other way around.” Mira sat down next to her sister, taking her hand in one of hers. Their joined hands only reminded her of how badly she’d failed Vi. “How did you bear it alone? I can’t imagine what you went through. I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am. But, Vi . . . I didn’t know. Until yesterday I didn’t know.”

  Her sister’s hand tightened on Mira’s, squeezing her knuckles together painfully. “What didn’t you know?”

  “About Papi.” Mira’s gaze whipped up to her sister’s green eyes, so like her own. For the first time she finally understood that jaded look in her sister’s eyes. The eyes of a child who’d seen horrible things. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know until yesterday that Papi beat Mami.”

  Vivian’s eyes went wide, her body froze, and then the floodgates released. She burst into tears, lunging forward to wrap her arms around Mira. The feel of her sister’s arms, squeezing tight as if she were a lifeline, shaking with emotion, was Mira’s undoing. A gut-wrenching cry she’d been holding in since yesterday’s revelation rolled up from deep down and she too tumbled into tears.

  After a few minutes they blotted their red-rimmed, swollen eyes and dried their tear-streaked, blotchy faces and laughed in relief at each other.

  “Oh, Vi, I’m sorry I made you deal with all that on your own. I should have been there for you. What a damn coward I was.”

  “Don’t say that. You were five years younger.”

  “I can only imagine what you saw.”

  Her sister shook her head. “You saw everything I saw, only you were too young to understand—so you blocked it out. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t affect you. It had to. Seeing the two people we loved more than everything—they were our whole world—and watching him beat Mami—our worlds collapsed.”

  “But Vivian . . . I should have been there for you. I wish I had so we could have shared the burden. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for that.”

  “Well, here’s the thing, Mira. Mami and I have talked about it over the years and we agree that between you and me, you had it worse.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “I remember once, you were maybe nine, and we walked in on him screaming vile things at Mami. He hit her and then shoved her against the wall and squeezed her throat until she wheezed for breath. He turned to us, ignored me, and ran his horrible, cruel hand down your braid and said you were the only one worth loving—his princess.”

  Mira’s eyes burned and her stomach rolled with nausea.

  “You squeezed my hand so tight that I had moon-shaped cuts from your nails. I can still feel your body quaking next to mine. I watched the tears run down your face, but you didn’t make a sound. We stood frozen in our tracks because sometimes trying to stop him only made it worse for Mami. After he left, you went outside and threw up in the grass—and never talked about it.”

  Growing up, Mira might have been Papi’s little princess, but she’d watched and listened to her father verbally and emotionally abuse her mother for years. And growing up—the guilt and pain tore her world apart. The push
/pull of pleasure and pain.

  The pleasure of being wrapped in Papi’s secure hug while he crooned mi vida, my life, to Mira juxtaposed to the pain of watching Papi demean her mami with words like puta, whore, sin valor, worthless, and perra, bitch. Worse was watching her mother accept his abuse and continue loving him until the day he died from a massive heart attack when Mira was eleven.

  “Yesterday’s flash of memory hit like an avalanche. Heavy and suffocating.” Mira slashed at the tear burning its way down her cheek. “I hate him and what he did to Mami.”

  “What he did to us all. He was twisted and cruel. Setting you up as his princess, knowing you’d seen the pain he inflicted. I can’t imagine the weight of that guilt. And even though you shut it out, it had to go somewhere. It’s been there in your subconscious all this time. At least Mami and I had each other for comfort and to confide in. Papi locked you up in guilt and it left you all alone while he raged through our lives.”

  He had. Her guilt, even though hidden deep, had kept her separated from her sister and mother in some nameless way she’d never been able to understand. Until yesterday. And now she hated her father even more for taking that much-needed protection and solace from her. For driving a wedge between them and leaving her lonely and isolated.

  “All those years I convinced myself he was the perfect father. That Mami and Papi had the perfect marriage. Ha! I’m a horrible judge of people, I’ll tell you that.” She could pave the Yellow Brick Road with all her misguided, naïve choices in men, and funnily enough, that road had led right to the Wizard.

  Mira started pacing at the foot of the bed again. “I mean, look at my track record: Troy, who I didn’t know was gay until he came out to me on the romantic dinner date when I expected him to propose. Dan, who forgot to mention his divorce not only wasn’t final but was never filed. Stephen, who was torn between moving in with me and entering the priesthood. And, of course, Ivan. Crazy like a Russian fox Ivan.”