by Karina Halle
“I mean it. Brigs, you destroyed me. But you’re also piecing me back together. If I hadn’t found you again…I don’t know if I would ever feel the way that I’m feeling right now.”
“Reliving bad memories?”
“No,” I say softly. I clear my throat, feeling too many emotions swirling around. “I’m happy.” I pause, trying to explain. “It sounds so simple, I know but…”
“I’m happy too,” he says, giving me a quick smile. “I know exactly what you mean. It’s not simple at all, Natasha. It’s everything.”
He pours more wine in our cups and raises his in a toast. “To us. To everything.”
“To everything.”
We drink. We smoke. I lean against his shoulder and watch Winter play in the surf. We talk. I tell him my plans for graduation, that I’d like to start writing screenplays and probably not use my degree at all, he tells me ideas for future books. We discuss movies. We discuss actors. We discuss Europe and vacations and the French. We discuss Professor Irving and how much we both don’t like him and we discuss Max the bartender. We even discuss aliens, briefly, as we grapple for the best alien movie (his: Prometheus. Me: Aliens).
Eventually the sun sets and we take a walk along the beach in the lavender twilight. We weave between the white chalk monoliths and I drop to my knees, taking him in my mouth and making him come right there on the beach.
“Quite the date,” he says after, as we walk back to the car.
“Quite the date,” I agree.
We get in and speed back to the lights of London.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Natasha
London
Four Years Ago
“Still haven’t heard from him, huh?” Melissa asks as we sit at the bar, pints of beer in our hands. I’ve barely been eating all week, so a pint of Guinness is as close to a meal as I’m going to have. It’s just impossible to have an appetite when my stomach is churning with nerves, my heart fizzing like a freshly lit firecracker. Ever since Brigs told me that he loved me, my life has been turned upside down in the most gorgeous, unruly way.
But, naturally, Melissa doesn’t approve.
Why would anyone approve of Brigs and me?
I give her an innocent look as I delicately sip my beer. “What makes you say that?”
She rolls her eyes, brushing her hair out of her face. “Because your eyes keep drifting away and you’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”
“That’s not true,” I tell her, pointing the beer at her. “You were just saying how I ought to give Billy the Skid another chance.”
“Well, you should,” she says. “First of all, yes you said he was a sloppy kisser, but that doesn’t mean the sex will suck. Besides, you hooked up with him before the summer. Things might have changed by now.”
When she says before the summer, I know she’s reminding me of how I was before I met Brigs. But everything I was before him doesn’t seem to matter now. Especially not William Squire, who couldn’t sound more British if he tried, a guy from my class that I had a date with but felt absolutely no chemistry. Kissing him was like kissing a very wet, slimy wall. If that wall had long hair and a love of 80s rocker Sebastian Bach. And of course when I didn’t go out with him again, he immediately starting dating someone else from our class. You’d think grad school would be miles away from high school, but some people just can’t fucking grow up.
“Maybe,” I say, my noncommittal answer.
“You know what you’re doing with Brigs is wrong, don’t you?” she says so simply it makes my chin jerk back.
“I’m not doing anything with Brigs,” I tell her in a hush.
“Right. And that’s why when I showed up at your door, he was there. He stayed the night. You told me he kissed you.”
I swallow hard, my cheeks flashing with shame. “I didn’t sleep with him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He’s married. He belongs with his wife. Not you. I don’t care if you say they have a strained marriage, that he doesn’t love her. He’s scum and he’s playing you like some dumb young American.”
I shake my head. I look away, blinking fast. Fear leads to tears. “You don’t know him or his life or what he’s been through or what I’ve been through.”
She scoffs and takes a large gulp of her beer. “You can’t have everything, Natasha. That’s not how life works.”
I stare at her blankly. “I don’t have everything.”
“Yes you do,” she says with a bitter laugh. “You grew up in this fabulous house in LA, spent your youth modeling and acting.”
“My mother is insane! If you met her, you wouldn’t say that!”
She ignores me. “You have these guys fawning over you in your class, you’re smart, you have a father in France, a big deal cinematographer on top of it, you look like a fucking movie star, and now you have some handsome married guy wanting to leave his wife for you. No, sorry, but you can’t have that. It’s wrong. You need to let him go and just accept that some things are not meant to be. Chemistry is everything, but timing is the real bitch. This is not your time. For once in your life, it’s not your time.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. It’s not so much about Brigs, it’s that Melissa has these preconceived notions about me, none of them being true. I mean, not in the light she’s painting me.
“Everyone’s lives look different from the outside,” I say quietly. “But the truth is there if you’re willing to believe it.”
“Whatever,” she says dismissively. “You know I’m right. As your friend, I have to tell you that going after a married man is pretty low, and the sooner you move on and think about guys your own age, the ones who are available, then you’ll have something to be genuinely happy about.”
Ouch. Fucking ouch. But I’m not surprised, not entirely. It’s just impossible to explain Brigs and me to anyone. If it wasn’t for Melissa seeing him that morning, I wouldn’t have said anything to her at all.
Am I ashamed? I don’t know. Not of how I feel for him. And not of how he feels for me. I just know it’s not the kind of thing to ever be proud of. Love is something I always thought of in terms of black and white—you loved someone or you didn’t. If you loved them, it was good. How could love be anything but?
But now I’m living in all the shades of grey. How love can lift you up and make you fall all at once. Brigs makes me feel both pure and dirty, carefree and guilty. I can tell myself too, over and over again, that we didn’t have a choice in this, at least I didn’t, but I couldn’t have shut off those feelings any easier than it is to stop breathing.
What we have is complicated. A ball of knots worth unfurling. And if I didn’t believe it would be worth it in the end, I wouldn’t pursue him. I wouldn’t be pining for him, waiting for his call.
I wouldn’t be a fucking girl at a bar, wondering when the man she loves is going to leave his wife.
I’m pathetic.
I’m in love.
I guess it’s all the same thing in the end.
“Look,” Melissa says, gentler now. “I know you’re in love with him. I can see it. But you could never be happy with a man who will leave his wife for you. You’ll spend your whole relationship wondering if he’ll do the same to you.”
But I know he wouldn’t. He isn’t an unfaithful predator. He’s just a fool as I’m a fool. A fool with bad timing.
I need us to get off this topic, so I ask her about her date the other night, and things eventually swing in that direction, leaving the complicated mess that is my love to the side.
When I go back to my flat that night though, tipsy from the beer, head swimming with too many thoughts, I wonder why Brigs hasn’t contacted me. It’s been days. I’ve been afraid to contact him, not wanting him to feel pressure or to rush something that is so extremely delicate. So I sit and wait and stew, wondering if everything I could have hoped for, ever wanted, will ever be.
It isn’t until later, when I’m winding down for bed
, putting tea on in the kitchen and hoping a bit of chamomile and a hit of Scotch will put my raging mind to rest, that I get this horrible feeling of dread. It’s like a black, swampy shadow makes its way across the room, and I end up pulling my robe tight around me, even though the feeling also seems to come from inside my bones.
I shudder and try to ignore it. I bring the teapot into my room, grab my iPad, and begin mindless scrolling through all the usual sites. Just Jared, Perez Hilton, IMDB, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, TMZ, US Weekly. Anything to distract me.
I’m half-asleep with the iPad on my face when my phone rings. I jump, blinking at the harsh overhead lights of my room, and quickly grab my phone from under the pillow.
It’s Brigs.
My heart was already racing, but now it’s hurtling forward, leaps and bounds.
I suck in my breath. Afraid of so many things. Of new beginnings. Of the end. Every way you look at it, it’s scary, and I know when I answer this call my life will be propelled in some direction that will forever change me.
I answer it. “Hi,” I say, my voice just a whisper.
There is a long, heavy pause.
I hear his breath. Ragged.
He swallows loudly.
“Natasha,” he says, and his voice is just so wrecked that a shiver runs through me. That feeling that something is wrong is back, a bony hand hovering at my chest.
“Brigs,” I say. “What is it? What happened?”
A few more beats pass. I hear him breathing. Whimpers. Is he crying?
“Please speak to me,” I whisper. “Please. Tell me what’s going on.”
“They’re dead,” he says so faintly I have to strain to hear.
“Who is dead?” I ask.
“They died,” he says, and now he sounds flat. Horribly flat. “Miranda and Hamish.”
I’m speechless. Stunned. I blink and try to breathe. It’s just a horrible joke. How could they be dead? His wife and son?
“Brigs…” I say. I lick my lips, unsure how to go on. I’m not finding this funny, but then again, and this is big, neither is he. I’ve never heard him so serious.
Just keep talking. Find out what’s really going on, I tell myself. No one is dead. That can’t happen. There’s an explanation.
“They’re dead, Natasha,” he says, voice cracking. He breathes in deeply, his breath breaking, and in that break I can feel his very real anguish deep into the heart of me. “They’re dead. It’s all our fault. We did this. We did this.”
I can’t swallow. My heart has climbed up my chest and I am fighting paralysis everywhere.
“Brigs,” I whisper. “Please don’t say these things. Miranda and Hamish—”
“There was a car accident,” he interrupts, that flat monotone again. God, it feels like a slab of concrete. “She was drunk, driving without a car seat. I tried to stop them but I couldn’t. I was the first at the scene where they went off the road, both of them thrown from the car. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t told her the truth about us.”
“What?” I gasp, unable to take any of it in.
“I told her I wanted a divorce. She wouldn’t accept it. So I told her the truth.”
“No, no, no,” I mutter to myself, my pulse taking wings.
“She lost it. That upset her more than anything. As I should have known. I should have known.” He sucks in his breath and lets out a sob that I feel in my very marrow. “If I could take it all back, I would. I would. Don’t you see what’s happened? We killed them.”
I can’t even form words. None of this feels real. But I know it’s real to him.
“I’m so sorry,” I say meekly. So quiet and pathetic because what can I say? How can this be anything but a bad dream? A joke? “Are you sure they’re dead?”
Stupid. So stupid. But I don’t know what to say. I’m spinning and spinning around this truth and I can’t accept it.
“Of course I’m fucking sure,” he snaps. “I’m…fuck, Natasha. They’re dead! It’s my fault. How can I ever go on with this, with what I’ve done?”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him, pleading, tears starting to fall from my eyes. “It’s not our fault. You didn’t know. How could you know?”
“I should have known,” he says. “And now my son, my son—” He stops, breaking down into sobs.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” I cry out, my body starting to shake as the truth slowly takes hold. “Brigs, please, I’m sorry.”
He’s crying on the other end and my heart is being smashed and smashed and smashed with a hammer, and then the guilt blankets me from above, a net to hold me forever in the truth of what we’ve done.
There is no grey to our love. There is only black. It’s sharp and heavy and eternally wrong.
I’m bereft of everything there is. Love, life, soul. In a second everything is gone because of what this has cost.
“I can’t ever see you again,” he tells me, strength climbing back into him. “We did this. We were a mistake. A horrible fucking mistake and it’s cost me absolutely everything.”
I can’t speak. I shake my head, the tears spilling.
“Goodbye, Natasha,” he says. “Please don’t contact me. You never existed. We never existed. We can never ever be. I don’t deserve that.”
The phone clicks and goes silent.
I drop it onto the bed, staring down at it until the tears blur my vision. I try to breathe but I can’t. My throat is a mess of tears and my heart wants to leap out of my chest and run far, far away. I can’t blame it. I want to run, I want to die. I want to dig a grave and bury myself deeper and deeper.
Brigs lost his wife and child.
His wife.
His child.
His beautiful smiling child that he loved more than anything in the world.
He lost everything in an instant.
Because he had loved me.
He had chosen me.
He had told the truth.
Our horrible, sinful truth.
I collapse back into bed, feeling black hands grab me and pull me under. I don’t care what happens next. My heart is broken and reeling from his words, knowing I will never see him again, knowing we were a mistake. My soul is weeping for the lives we cost. My whole being is dying because I know no matter how badly I feel now, however horrible the burden and shame I’ll have to carry, it’s nothing compared to what Brigs is going to have to go through.
I’m a terrible person.
The worst.
Melissa had no idea how low I really was, how low I would really go.
I hate myself so much. So much.
I weep, silently at first, staring up at the ceiling, then I start screaming, bawling, choking on tears. I bite my fist until I leave deep teeth marks in my skin, little red grooves that nearly break the surface. My chest and heart seem to converge, crumbling steel that makes me convulse and shake, fighting for life and wanting to die all at the same time.
The pain is so much, too much, and I can’t stop how loud I scream, how violently I cry, tossing and turning on the bed, this sinking ship.
I did this.
I deserve this.
This bitter, black end.
I’ll never move on.
I’ll never be the same.
I’ll never stop hating myself.
I’ve killed two people.
And I’ll never see Brigs McGregor again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Brigs
London
Present Day
“Daddy?” Hamish says, his voice so soft and curious.
I know it’s a dream without even looking at him. But it doesn’t stop my heart from expanding, warm and golden, for every part of me to buzz with the feeling of what it is to be alive. I may be dreaming but it’s a blessing to know it, to hang on to every scene, every feeling.
“What is it Hame?” I ask him, turning my head.
We’re lying beside
each other on the grass at Princes Street Gardens. I’m on my side, flipping through a coloring book of his while he’s on his back, pointing up at the sky with chubby fingers. I never really figured out where he got them from. Neither Miranda nor I are anything but thin, but I guess this could be passed down from who knows where. And even though I have a few auburn glints in my beard when it really gets going, Hamish is a full-on carrot top. Everyone said that he’d grow dark like me when he got older, but I had a feeling he would hang on to his ginger ways for a long time.
But I guess that’s something I’ll never know.
“What cloud is that?” he asks, and I look up at the passing clouds he’s pointing at.
I squint. “Well, I don’t know. What do you see?”
“Is it a consolation?”
I laugh good-naturedly. “You mean constellation. And that’s just for the stars. Just for at night when it’s dark.”
“Why can’t we see the stars in the day?”
“Because,” I tell him, grasping for a simplified way. “The stars are the same color as the sun, but the sun is brighter. It makes them disappear.”
“What are clouds?”
“Candy floss,” I tell him. “Cotton wool. God’s pillows. They have so many uses.”
“Tell me a story about that cloud,” he says, pointing.
The cloud had no shape at all, but then before my eyes it starts to transform into a face. Into Natasha’s face.
I swallow hard. “That’s a girl,” I say quietly.
“She’s a princess,” he offers. “Tell me a story about her.”
I stare up at Natasha’s deep eyes and high cheekbones, done up in wisps of white. “Well, there once was a princess who loved a man very much. And the man loved her. Swore he would slay dragons for her, walk through treacherous lands for her, do whatever he could to be by her side. He prepared for the moment that she would be his and he would be hers. But that moment didn’t come when he thought it would. The man had to lose everything in his life instead.”
“Did he get the princess in the end?”
I look at Hamish with tears in my eyes. “I don’t know, son. He’s still fighting dragons.”