My Vicious Demise (Demise #2)

by Shana Vanterpool

  The driveway stretched around the property, traced by the lawn. In the summer it would be lush and green. Presently it was waking up from a cold winter. The parking lot in front of the mansion was filled with cars. I spotted Kent’s Mercedes and felt a minor sense of comfort.

  The curtains over the glass encasing over the door were pulled, preventing me from seeing movement inside. When I tried the lock, it turned. I made my way through the foyer and took the first left, which led into the family room. There was an action movie playing on the monstrous TV mounted over the fireplace. Kent’s dad was stretched out on the dark brown leather couch, Cool Ranch Doritos between his legs and a glass of what looked like Coke on the mahogany coffee table.

  “Vance would kill you if she knew you weren’t using a coaster.” Kent’s mother sometimes reminded me of Uma. Everything had its place.

  Brent bolted up and grabbed his chest, his eyes wide with shock. His mouth moved, but Kent’s father had always been terrible at communicating with me. His lips hardly touched when he talked and he often forgot even after all these years that I couldn’t hear him.

  Despite Brent’s inability to communicate, the Nicholsons had been like my second family. There was the exception of Scott, Kent’s douchebag older brother, but I always considered him a dud and better ignored, the same way he treated me.

  “Where’s Kent?”

  He shrugged, talking incoherently. At least incoherently to me.

  “I’ll find him,” I said, letting him off the hook.

  He nodded and said a string of words. One of them looked like, “hickey,” but I studiously ignored his comment and left the family room for the stairs. I followed the winding staircase to the long hallway on the second floor. The attic had been turned into Scott and Willow's studio apartment. Kent’s mother was slightly obsessed about her first grandchild. Those were two people I hoped to miss during my visit. I wondered how Kent was doing staying in the house with his pregnant ex and his brother who betrayed him. I knew he loved Raina, and he was happy now, but Willow’s betrayal had hurt him in a way I feared he’d never get over.

  I knocked on his door the way I used to knock on the tree house ladder. Four raps and two quicker ones. He insisted if I didn’t knock that way anyone could come in. He’d been too young and sheltered to understand that anyone could have come in regardless of a special knock. I learned that the hard way. Kent had never learned it. I suspected that’s why we got along so well. Under his rough exterior he was a spoiled brat who just wanted the world to be the way he saw it. I saw the world through foggy lenses, through my past. Maybe it made me feel better knowing others didn’t.

  A few seconds later his door flew open. He gaped at my presence and then his fingers started signing hectically.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you here? What happened?” He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into his room and then shut his door, not giving me an opportunity to answer any of his questions. He was half-dressed in a pair of black jeans and his hair was wet.

  I hadn’t come here to talk. “Where’s Raina?”

  Kent shoved my shoulder and glared, eyes narrowed menacingly. Clear as day his lips formed his words. “Who gave you that hickey?”

  I held his gaze. “Where’s Raina?”

  My question was better than telling him the truth. His eyes filled with a strange emotion I couldn’t place. Disappointment, fear, disgust, unease; his expression could have meant anything.

  “She’s helping Mom cook.” He signed jerky and fast, his movements giving way to his anger. He shoved me harder, making me stumble back. “You don’t have to worry she might hear how you’re fucking her sister.”

  “Technically we haven’t slept together.”

  His eyes blazed. “Why are you here?”

  Stepping deeper into his room, I sat on the end of his bed and spied a pair of panties on the floor. Looking away, I lifted my head, letting the last hours, days, weeks, shine though. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “Becca?” his lips asked, frowning. He appeared to be frustrated.

  I shook my head. “Yes and no.”

  He grabbed a fistful of his blond hair and yanked it through his fingers. Then he began looking around, opening and closing his duffle bags in the middle of his room. Coming away with his Mac, he opened his word program, typed in his thoughts, and handed it off for me to read.

  You have to give me more than that. You look like shit, like you haven’t been sleeping, and your eyes are bloodshot, like you were crying. I told you not to get involved with Becca.

  He didn’t get it. Becca was the only person holding me together. She still had the power to destroy me, perhaps even more than she’d had before, because the more you gave a person the more they had of you. When they left, they took all of those parts with them. Or they threw the pieces away. I had a feeling I’d given what I had left the second she kissed me in the parking lot behind Second Chances. And that was the problem. This was the heart of my issue. My mother took most of me before I’d even known I’d lost anything. If Becca woke up and realized how worthless I was, what would I have left?

  I don’t look like this because of Becca, although I’m flattered you think so little of me. It’s because I can’t stop thinking about my mom.

  That threw him. He examined me closely, probably trying to remember way back then. Kent and I never went into deep gritty details about my past. I’d told him the basics. The details were mine and mine alone.

  Why?

  I don’t know. It’s been happening for weeks. It won’t stop and it’s getting worse. Flashbacks, memories, her face, the pain. Her boyfriend. The way he’d punch me so hard for so long. How mom would just lie there in a drugged state. How I’d hurt so bad but she didn’t care. She—

  Kent reached over and took the laptop from me, shaking his head for me to stop.

  Don’t take this the wrong way, bro, but if I wanted to know that I would have asked a long time ago. It makes me want to kill the son of a bitch. And since I don’t know who he is it’s probably better if I don’t hear the fucked-up shit he did to you. Is that why you’ve been acting different lately? Your mom?

  Sometimes there was a sense of comfort within my fears. I understood them, and though they tortured me, I was the only one suffering. Having to describe them to others felt like exposing myself with nothing but ridicule as the outcome.

  I think it all started with Tess. You remember Tess? I made the mistake of talking in front of her. She covered her ears and ran for the hills. She realized I was deaf and not some fun side project she could parade around town. I thought I liked her, but I think really I just wanted her to like me. I was trying to escape Tess and found Becca.

  I was overcome by this overwhelming sense of gratitude toward whoever put me on this road. If Tess hadn’t shut me down in the first place I might not have ever ended up in Second Chances. I might never have tasted Becca’s lips. But I would have fallen eventually, someday, in a year, in ten. My fall was inevitable. But having her there with me made the impact worth it.

  But Becca’s…complicated. She’s as gorgeous as she is unattainable. When I’m around her I want to be the man she sees, rather than the man I am. I hate this man. I don’t want this man. I’m crawling out of my own skin these past few weeks. My mom’s face keeps showing up and I can’t escape how she never wanted me. If she didn’t want me how could Becca ever want me?

  Kent stared at the screen for a long time with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips pursed. He either thought I was a pathetic pussy, which was completely understandable, or he didn’t know what to say. Finally he began typing. But his movements were slow and he couldn’t look at me.

  You always think that way. You’ve never once thought you were good enough for anything. I don’t call you out on it because we’re boys, just like you never called me out. When we’re going through painful shit it’s hard to hear the truth from someone who isn’t. But I think in doing that we keep the other sick, you k
now? I’m giving you the truth. Truth is you’re probably the best son of a bitch I’ve ever known. If your mom never told you that then I will. You didn’t leave when I lost Willow and went off the deep end. You’re the only one who stuck around. That was hard. Even I didn’t want to be around me then. Even on your worst day you’re worth knowing. Becca would be the dumbest broad around if she didn’t see that.

  I read his reply without giving one of my own. I wanted a break. Just one second where it didn’t feel as if my insides were going to implode. My limbs felt heavy and my brain started pounding. I lay back on his bed and stared at his ceiling. His was smooth, perfect white. There were no blemishes or veins. His life was inside of him. Even before Willow hurt him he was confident and charismatic.

  Finally, I sat up and grabbed his laptop, punching in words that hurt on the way out.

  What then? What if she does “see that?” So she comes here and we give this a try, who’s to say her fears won’t win out? They’re just as strong as mine.

  Trust me, I know. I have to deal with Rain’s fears on a daily basis. Their parents destroyed them. They took their trust and destroyed it. You get that. I got a small taste and even that was torture. You just have to remind her of everything she loses if her fears win. That’s what I do to Rain. I ask her what’s more worth it? Having me, a life, or being alone with your fears? I had to do that while I got over Willow. Sometimes it’s way scarier to lose what you want because you’re afraid, rather than live with the fear of having it.

  Before I could come up with a reply he signed a question.

  “Is Becca coming down?”

  I knew he was asking for Rain. If this failed for Becca and me, at least I could get them together. I spoke slowly. “Yes. She should be here in a few hours. I gave her Uma’s address. I wasn’t thinking about Raina at the time.”

  Relief shadowed his face. “Bring her over here tomorrow morning. I’m taking Rain to this writer’s conference later tonight. She entered a short story through her creative writing class and they want to give her an award.” He smiled proudly.

  “I’ll try.” I started to get up, but he grabbed my arm and forced me back down. “What?”

  “We’re not done,” he signed, and then grabbed the laptop.

  Do you love her?

  Why did everyone want to know that?

  “Why?” I asked out loud. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because,” he signed, “you don’t love anyone.”

  His statement stunned me numb. It was true. I’d always known it. But I’d never taken time out of my day to honestly think about it. I cared for Kent, and despite social rules to remain “cool” I could admit to myself that I did love him. But that was friendship, it wasn’t the same kind of love he was describing. There was Uma, but she fell in the same category. She saved me ten times over and for that I would be forever grateful, but it still wasn’t love that wasn’t questioned. I imagined the love between a child and their mother wasn’t questioned, or fought for, or earned. It was given, like breath and a heartbeat. It just was.

  Kent had his mom, his dad, his brother Scott before Willow came around, and now he had Raina. Raina had Becca and Becca had Raina. Even Uma had my mother and my grandfather. And though I had these same people in my life, the only person I considered keeping forever, the only one I wanted more than I wanted the given gift of breath and my heartbeat, was the same woman who told me this could never be more.

  Fear settled deep inside my chest, right next to my heart, pumping my blood full of panic. I tried to bolt, his door in my sights. Kent grabbed my arm and yanked me back on his bed, speaking words he knew damn well I couldn’t hear. I thought he did it on purpose. When he’d said his piece he released his hold on me and I resumed my rush for the door.

  Raina was on the other side when I wrenched it open. Her arm was outstretched as if she were reaching for the handle before I beat her to it. “James,” her lips formed, her expression surprised and confused.

  I ignored her for my own sanity. I took off through the hall, flew down the stairs two at a time, and then barreled through the door. Once in my truck I took the long way home, needing the time to think, to continue the slow break overtaking my body.

  I needed something. I didn’t know what, but I desperately needed it, or I had a feeling nothing would ever be calm again. I would never be able to take a deep breath, accept the quiet in my brain, and move on. I just wanted to move on.

  Uma’s house was empty save for me. I paced the small space, passing her bedroom in the back hall. Her door was open a crack, revealing a pair of male pants thrown over the back of her recliner overlooking the creek that cut through the woods. I paused and stared at them. I pushed her door wider and stepped inside. A belt dangled from the end of the pants, clearly male, clearly not my grandmother’s.

  If I looked closer there were more signs of a male occupant. A masculine smell, like aftershave or deodorant, possessed the room. House slippers four sizes too large were on one side of the bed. And Grandpa’s picture, which always sat on her nightstand, was now across the room on a small tea table near the recliner, replaced by a gold men’s watch.

  Closing her door behind me, uneasy by my discovery, I resumed my restless pacing. My childhood unfolded before my eyes. The first couple years were spent in a haze. I wasn’t sure I’d ever freed myself from it. I found a way to survive within the stupor. Now I needed to find a way to exist without it.

  My pacing increased. I ended up in the kitchen and decided to throw together something to eat. Uma had the same fare. Organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed antibiotic-free meats, non-GMO everything, and if it could be made at home, she did so. I settled on peanut butter and jelly, the sole sandwich that got me through her sashimi phase.

  I settled with my sandwich on the porch stairs. I could deny my motives to myself. I could point out how the sun was shining and the day was beautiful. I always noticed such things. When you lose one of your senses you start to appreciate the ones you have left. But in this case there was only one reason I was sitting facing the driveway.

  That reason took another hour to get there.

  When her black Honda made the turn, my chest constricted. When her tires kicked up a cloud of dust, I stood. When her door opened, I went to her. When she was close enough, I wrapped her in my arms and promised myself that no matter what happened, no matter how strong her fear was or how worthless I was, I would never let her go again. She could run. I’d chase her. She could leave. I’d follow. She could do better. I’d keep her occupied forever so she never realized it.

  I shoved my face in her hair and inhaled deeply, holding her scent in my lungs the way one would smoke. My lungs burned, but I held it in, wanting to keep as much of her inside of me as I could get. Her body melted against mine and her hands fisted my shirt, bringing me as close to her as possible. Her chest moved rapidly against mine and her face nuzzled my chest.

  We stood that way for an immeasurable amount of time. The sun warmed my back and she my front, forcing the unease that had thrived in my body back to the shadows. As we held each other I felt layers being peeled away. The way she held on to me felt…desperate. She needed me to hold on to.

  Becca needed me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was a reason no one else ever had.

  Finally, she released her hold on me. She stepped back and looked at me, openly showing me everything she was feeling. Turmoil churned in her eyes. There was just as much inside of her as there was inside of me. We were both nearing the edge of something.

  I held her face, using my thumb to dry the trail of her tears cascading down her cheeks. Instead of asking her what was wrong I guided her close and pressed my lips to hers. I knew what was wrong. I didn’t need to ask because I felt it too. I understood.

  The second our lips met my thoughts finally ceased. My brain went quiet, aware of nothing at all unless it was coming from her.

  I clasped her and brushed my tongue against he
rs. She was still tense. Her body hadn’t relaxed. Her fists released my shirt and she pushed me back, doubling over. Her knees buckled and her ass hit the ground. She tossed her head back and stared up at the sky as her tears caught the sunlight and gleamed silver.

  Even breaking down she was beautiful. Her hair caught the breeze and fell like onyx feathers around her shoulders, glistening darkly. Her creamy skin was stained red and her lips were puffy from her tears. I had entered into a strange part of this breakdown. Everything was happening outside of my bubble. All I could see was Becca.

  The dark angel was plummeting through the skies. The ground broke her fall. She writhed in the remnants of her wings, trying to stand on unstable legs.

  I reached down and gave her my hand.

  Becca stared at it. I knew in her mind it wasn’t really my hand I was giving her. It was me. Do you want me, Becca? If she did it would never matter whether I wanted myself or not. I had a feeling when Becca truly wanted something she wanted it in a way where nothing else ever mattered. She held on. She gave herself to keep it.

  I’d keep her.

  Her delicate fingers settled in mine. She looked into my eyes and her lips formed words I felt. “I’ve never done this before.”

  I pulled her to her feet. She was standing again. Instead of letting her hand go I fit our fingers together, locking her within mine. Just because our feet were planted, we were upright, and our asses weren’t on the ground, did not mean that we were standing.

  “Me neither, Becca. But I want to do this with you. I need you. Without you I don’t like who I am. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be this one.” I patted my chest with my free hand. “The man you drove three hours to see. The man you just gave your hand to. I want to be the man you want.”