by Yessi Smith
“So, um, Phil.” Roderick shoved his hands into the front pockets of his shorts. “Thanks for letting me go to San Diego with you guys.”
“I’m not going to lie to you.” My dad’s voice rang with authority and Roderick straightened at his tone. “I don’t like the idea of my little girl living with a guy, but if she’s going to do it anyway, I’m glad it’s you.”
My heart, that crazy little organ that thrived when I was closest to Roderick, beat hard against its cage.
“I’ll take care of her.” Roderick put an arm over my shoulders, took a step closer to my side. “I’ll never hurt her.”
“That’s an impossible promise to make,” my dad said. “If you’re in someone’s life long enough, you’re bound to hurt them. Even if you don’t mean to.”
Roderick nodded in understanding. “Then I’m already sorry for the times I’ll hurt her, but I swear it’ll never be done purposely.”
“I know, son,” my dad said and then cleared his throat. “I trust you with her, but more,” he turned his attention to me, “I trust Brinley with herself. If she says you’re good for her, then you’re good for her.”
Stepping into my dad, I put my arms around his waist. Even though I didn’t have to, I stood on the tips of my toes to plant a kiss on his cheek. I loved the way my dad trusted me, the way he accepted Roderick from the first time they met, the way their relationship grew in such a short period of time.
“I gotta talk to you for a second, kid,” he said to me.
Without saying a word, Roderick walked back to the restaurant to give my dad and me some privacy. I watched him go and felt my stomach plummet when I saw Nicole’s car park in front of him. She waved at me when she stepped out. It was timid, and I raised my hand in a quick wave in return.
Worry crashed into me. Worry of what she’d say to Roderick. Worry of what he’d believe. But I had hope that everything we’d talked about, everything we’d become to each other in the past few months would make any doubt he had disappear.
Turning my attention to my dad, I forced my lips in a smile. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Lindsey and I aren’t working out,” he said, his words coming out quickly.
“Dad.” I touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you really liked her.”
He cupped my face with an open palm and shook his head. “I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me.” He laughed. “I’m telling you because I’m moving back home.”
“Wait.” I held up my hands. “You can’t just move back in. Moving out was hard enough on Mom. Her screams when you first left… they were worse than ever. I love you, Dad, I really do, but you can’t move back in only to move out in a couple weeks or months. That’s not fair to Mom.”
He huffed. “I love your mom. I’ve never stopped loving your mom. She’s the one that wanted me to move out. For years, she’s been pushing me out, telling me to find someone else because she doesn’t love me anymore. I…” His voice cracked, his expression broke. “I didn’t want anyone else, Brinley. I wanted her. I still want her.”
“Her episodes… I thought… Dad, I thought you couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I’ll take whatever I have to so that I can have her on her good days. I love your mom. So, so much. I should never have dated Lindsey.” He raked a hand over his face. “I did it…” He cleared his throat. “I did it so I could tell your mom, I tried. And I tried, Brinley. I tried for her and for you, so I could give you the normal life she wants you to have. The normal family she says you deserve. I did it so I could show her she’s the only woman for me.”
Despair caught in my throat. I forced it down with a hard swallow.
“You love her that much?” I asked.
“More than anything.”
Pain flared from his eyes. It hit me how much he had given up, how much he was willing to give up.
Would that be Roderick one day? Lost in love while I pushed him away, into another woman’s arms.
“What are you thinking?”
I shook my head, tried to keep the tears away. A sob broke free, made my body tremble.
Arms that have loved me through everything, been there for me since before I can even remember, held me. My dad kissed the top of my head as he smoothed my hair back.
“Talk to me, kid,” he said. “I need to know what you’re thinking.”
“I can’t,” I choked out.
“Brinley.” It came out stern. “You’re stronger than this. Talk to me,” he repeated.
I gripped his shoulders, felt my knees weaken beneath me.
“Is this going to be Roderick and me?” My voice quaked, each word harder to get out.
“What?” He jerked back as if I’d slapped him.
I fell to my knees, hit the ground hard enough to scrape my exposed knees. Roderick was by my side in seconds.
“Baby.” He ushered me into his arms, held me close to his chest. “Shhh, it’s okay.”
I looked up at my dad, his figure blurry from the tears.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
His face pale, his hands shaking, my dad dropped to his knees and took my trembling hands in his. “Why? Why would you ask me that?”
“The doctors,” I managed to say.
“The doctors?” he asked, his booming voice loud in my ears. “What doctors?”
“The doctors!” I yelled back. “The ones you and Mom take me to. The ones that run all those damn tests on my brain.”
Shock registered behind his eyes. My dad bowed his head, sucked in a few breaths before he looked at me.
“I thought you knew.” He shook his head. “I thought you knew. God, I’m sorry, Brin. I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” Roderick asked from behind me.
“The doctors, the tests, they’re for her mom,” he answered Roderick but looked only at me. “To placate her fears. But you… Brin, kid, you’re okay. Your brain is fine. It’s always been fine.”
“She said…” My head hurt, felt like a storm was thrashing inside trying to find a way through my skull. “She said it was genetic.” I sniffled. “She… she said… I had to do the tests to look for changes but… but there was no way to know for sure. One day I’d be fine, the next I’d be like her.”
“No, baby girl, no.” Distress tumbled from my dad’s lips, crashed in to me. “She can’t give you what she has. It’s not genetic. It’s not one day to the next. Hell, kid, it’s not even a disease, but trauma from an accident when she was young, about your age.”
“No.” I shook my head, denying his words.
She’d been well. I remembered…
“Remember the skiing accident I told you she had?”
I tilted my head, vaguely remembering him mentioning a skiing accident. But it hadn’t seemed important at the time, not when my mom’s episodes were getting worse.
“She had extensive damage to her brain. The doctors put her in a medically induced coma for almost two weeks to help with the swelling. When she finally came back to school she was…” his voice broke. “She was supposed to be fine. Then she started having these outbursts. They weren’t often, but when she had them, she always came looking for me.” Red rimmed his eyes, but he was no longer looking at me, but at something I couldn’t see. “She said I made them better. I think I did, or maybe I fooled myself into believing I was some sort of hero.” He scoffed at himself.
“You’re my hero.” I reached for him. He opened up his arms, and I went from Roderick to him. “You’ve always been my hero.”
“That’s why I wear a cape to work,” he joked. “But your mom, kid, the doctors don’t know why her brain is getting progressively worse or how to stop the deterioration, but it’s not something you can get from her. You understand me? She suffered major brain trauma, and this,” he shrugged, the vision of defeat on his face, “this is the outcome.”
“You knew when you started dating her? You knew she was sick.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled a sha
rp breath against my hair. “She told me everything after I helped her through an episode at school. She was fifteen.”
I let the thought linger, pictured my dad at seventeen helping my mom. “Why would you date her knowing she was sick?”
He sat quietly for a moment. His hand stilled in my hair. “Roderick,” he said, “you thought there was a possibility my daughter might have what her mom has, right? You thought there was a possibility you might lose her?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded behind me, and I looked back at him to see him.
He watched me with a careful expression.
“Believing that, why did you date her?” my dad asked.
“Because I love her,” Roderick answered. His eyes flashed to mine, and a small smile crept across his lips. “I’ve loved her forever.”
“Weren’t you scared of losing her?” my dad questioned him further.
Grief passed momentarily across his face. “I was more scared of not having her at all.”
“There you go, kid,” my dad said to me. “That’s your answer. I love your mom. I’ve loved her forever. I knew I’d eventually lose her, but the fear of not having her at all was bigger than the fear of eventually losing her.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry you’re hurting so much because of her.”
“It’s okay, sweet girl. I’m okay.”
“You’re a real life super hero.” I smiled at him. “Better than Thor.”
“Better than Thor?” A brow quirked up. “Looks like we’re gonna have to do a movie night and watch every movie he’s in to see if you still feel that way at the end of it.”
Closing my eyes, I pretended to snore. I then jerked my head up and said, “Wha?”
“Ha ha,” he mused. “Now help your old man up. My ass hurts.”
“Dad!” I slapped his shoulder. “You just said a bad word.”
“What?” He looked up at Roderick while I helped him to his feet after I stood up. “Is ass a bad word?”
“Nah, I don’t think it is,” Roderick answered.
“Are you two ever going to not gang up on me?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Probably not,” my dad said. “Are you okay, Brin? You know you’re not sick. You’re not going to be sick. You know that, right?”
I breathed, filled my lungs to their capacity and then drew out a long string of air. My heart, it hurt for my mom, for what she suffered through since she was just a kid. For my dad, for what he’d gone through so that he could be with her.
I hurt for myself. For the lies I’d been told, the fears that had swallowed me whole. For the life I’d led because of what I believed.
But it wasn’t true. I was okay. And I had the boy who’d never faltered; who’d never ran away from me.
“I’m okay. But why didn’t you tell me the truth sooner?”
He dropped his hands, his shoulders slumping forward. “I thought you knew, Brinley. I talked to you, I thought you understood. I swear, I thought you knew we did it for her. I went along with it for her, not because I thought you might be sick.”
He had talked to me. I hadn’t listened, hadn’t been able to focus on his words.
“Mom told me though… four years ago after her first episode, she said…” I stopped, collected myself, but so much was still broken. “Why’d she lie to me? Why’d she say it would sneak up on me the way it did to her when none of it was true? Why would she scare me like that?”
“She was sick.” He looked sad, disappointed at himself, at my mom.
“She was sick,” I repeated.
“I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t know. It’s not a good excuse, but it’s the truth. I didn’t know you thought the tests were real. I didn’t know you thought you might get sick.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“No more sorrys,” I said, stealing a quick glance at Roderick. “It’s over. I know the truth now, and I’m okay.”
It was over. The fear I’d built my life on crumbled to the ground. The truth I had now, the truth I held onto, the truth I couldn’t let go, put his arms around me. He kissed the side of my head. He held me together when I thought my world was falling apart.
I drove Brinley’s car back to her house. She tried to urge me to take us to the beach, or to the park so we could go hiking. The weather was great for either, and I probably would’ve jumped at the chance for a quiet hike with my girl, but she was hurting. She hid it well, but I knew her better now.
A smirk graced her pretty lips when I opened the car door for her. “Are you trying to get me back in bed with you?” She arched a single brow in my direction.
“Always,” I said.
We made our way to her room with her hand tucked in mine. She stopped in front of her mom’s closed door, where we heard Rosie speak loudly with her nurse. They were talking about a painting, about the colors and what Rosie used to paint. She sounded happy. Excited.
“She’s an artist now,” Brinley said, her lips tipped up in a small smile. “Bridgette gave her some paint supplies and canvas, and that’s what they do during her episodes. It helps her, I think, to focus that energy on something else.”
“Have you seen her work?”
“Yeah, she’s really good.” It came out wistful, hopeful.
“Next time she’s having a good day, tell her I want to see it too.”
“She’d love that.”
Brinley tugged me the rest of the way to her room. I eased her on her bed, took off her sandals before I took my shoes off. She lied down, rested her head on a pillow and closed her eyes.
“Now what?” she asked.
I crawled into her bed, brought her to me so that she tucked her head against my chest. Toying with her hair, I watched the back of her head rise and fall with my breaths.
“Do you need anything?” I asked. “Water?”
“This,” she answered. “I need this.”
Turning her phone in her hand, she started a song from her playlist. It was one of the songs she said reminded her of me. I listened to the lyrics, to the piano and guitar, to the melancholy mood of the song. The words played in my head as I continued to comb my fingers through her hair.
It wasn’t about love found, but love lost when you were too blind to see the person you once had was your everything. It was too late for the singer.
It hadn’t been too late for us.
“Is this really what you want to do for your birthday?” She inclined her head to look at me.
Her eyes were puffy, red rims along the outer edges. Although she smiled, I didn’t feel it the way I felt her other smiles. The ones that were real and genuine.
“We can watch Avengers,” I said.
She rubbed her temple on a groan. “I just had to mention Thor, didn’t I?” The corner of her lips twitched, and I loved how she teased me. How she wanted to see me smile. But the pain was there, lingering just behind her eyes.
“Does your head hurt?” I cradled the back of her head, and she rested against my palm.
“I’m fine.” She closed her eyes when I took my hand to touch her cheek.
“I want your truths.”
Her eyes popped open. She nodded. “A little.”
I sat up, scooting her to the side so that she lied fully on her bed. “I’ll grab you water and some pain pills.”
“Thanks,” she murmured into her pillow.
After a search through her kitchen, I found the miniature Hershey bars I bought her last week in the pantry and went back to her room with the whole bag along with water and two pills. She took the pills and water and swallowed while I unwrapped a bar. I held the chocolate to her mouth and suppressed a moan when her lips covered my fingers.
“Mmm, perfect,” she said.
She was perfect. She’d made my birthday perfect. Kissing her, exploring and touching her was the only way I would ever start all my future birthdays. It didn’t matter how far we went. Although everything we’d done las
t night felt better than amazing, it wasn’t the physical I was after. What I so desperately craved.
It was Brinley.
The way she made me feel whole with a single look. How she undid me with her sweet caress. How she brought me back to life with a kiss.
“Avengers?” she asked.
“We can sleep so your headache goes away,” I suggested.
“Avengers it is.” Her eyes narrowed in response. “We’re not sleeping your birthday away.”
With a few clicks, she turned on the movie. I settled next to her. She curled into me, her phone in her hand.
“The other present I have for you,” she murmured in to my chest. “Do you mind if we do it tomorrow?”
“That’s fine,” I replied.
It’s not like I needed anything else. She’d already given me everything.
I couldn’t believe we were going to San Diego together. Couldn’t believe we were going to look at apartments this week with her dad.
It was happening. Our future was taking shape and it looked amazing.
After unlocking her phone, she sent a text to someone and then placed a kiss on my chest, over my shirt. I felt it as it she’d brushed her lips over my bare skin. It made me crazy for her, or crazier than I already was.
“Will you take off your shirt?” It came out shy, quiet.
While I stripped off my shirt, she undid her bra from beneath her shirt. My pulse raced, my stomach clenched. I lied back down and when she placed her head on my chest, I swept a hand through her hair. Her fingers trailed over my skin, leaving me fevered. She sighed. Such a sweet sound that somehow tempered that growing need, so I could give her a few hours of peace until she was ready to talk.
Danny’s name flashed on my screen with an incoming text. With Brinley sleeping next to me, I opened his message.
Danny: Nicole called me. Is Brin ok?
Nicole and I had been talking in front of the restaurant while Brinley spoke to her dad. I forgot all about her when Brinley fell to the ground. All I saw was her – my girl crumbling, and me not being there to catch her.
Me: She’s ok. Sleeping now.