I lurched, body and soul, cried out as I lunged for the boy.
I was on my feet, panting, eyes darting around the small room. Embers smoldered in the fireplace, the fire quelled and lulled to a muted glow, the boy still floundering through my mind. I tasted his fear, felt his spirit needling through my skin, weaving a child’s pattern of despair.
I roared—a manifestation of desperate, helpless rage—and hurled the lamp sitting on the small table across the room. It smashed against the opposite wall.
I was losing my fucking mind.
~
“Want another beer?” Blake handed me a bottle from the cooler sitting on his front porch.
“Sure. Thanks,” I said. I twisted off the cap and took a drink, looking back over the peace of Blake’s front yard.
Late afternoon sun warmed the air, and the girls squealed where they chased each other on the grass. Olivia fell down about every ten steps or so. She’d giggle and get herself back up on her feet without seeming to miss a beat.
Blake wandered out into his yard, smiling as he watched his girls play.
“Whoa…,” he said as the girls did a loop around him, their laughter carrying across the neighborhood when he loped after them, not quite able to catch them.
Grace was on the porch, one knee drawn to her chest, the other foot swaying her gently on the porch swing.
I found it ironic that everything felt right, just as it should be, except for the one thing holding me in this place—the same thing that had chased me away years before.
For the last two nights, I had called the guesthouse home, though I’d spent most of the weekend hanging out with Blake’s family, making bonds I should have made years ago. Grace seemed to be slowly warming up to me. Her smile was a little less tense each time I walked through their door.
“Catch us, Uncle Will,” Emma called as she flew in close to the porch steps where I stood.
So unaccustomed to child’s play, I felt completely out of sorts, but I found myself powerless to this little girl who had attached herself to me so quickly. Laughing in spite of myself, I chased her across the lawn, two steps behind, before I drew in near enough to sweep her off her feet with one arm wrapped around her belly. I swung her around, and Emma shrieked with laughter.
I hugged her back close to my chest before I set her back on her feet, smiling when she grinned back up at me as she ran away.
Blake’s face was soft when I joined him near the fence.
“It’s really good to have you here, Will,” he said then took a swig from his beer, turned away to rest his arms over the top of the wooden fence. He dangled his bottle over the other side, looked down at his feet.
Drawing in a breath of the crisp evening air, I draped my arms over the fence and gazed out over the quiet street.
“I’m glad to be here.” I took a drink and looked over at my brother. “Your girls are...great.” I had no other way to explain it. I was really happy for Blake. Almost envious. I guess I’d spent my entire life being almost envious of my brother. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Blake glanced over his shoulder at his girls, then back at me. “Yeah. I couldn’t imagine life without them.” He shook his head. “It’s crazy how you can live for years without them, but the moment they’re born, they become your entire life.”
Focusing on the toe of my shoe I dug into a bare spot of the grass, I thought maybe I understood what my brother meant.
Blake cut an eye in my direction. “You know, we’re all really glad you’re back, but I wanted you to know I’m sorry about Kristina. I know that’s gotta be hard. You doing okay with it?”
I rubbed my chin and took another sip, releasing a humorless chuckle after I swallowed. “That was over before it started.”
Blake frowned. “You were with her six years. How can you say that? Are you telling me you didn’t love her?”
I shook my head and looked my brother in the eye. “No…not at all.”
Blake stared at me, the air rushing from his nose in disbelief. “I don’t get you at all.” Disappointment darkened his face. “You disappear for all this time, and now you tell me it didn’t mean anything? What was it? The money?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then what?”
The only thing I could do was allow the heaviness in my presence to speak for me. I had no excuse, my reason a secret I’d never told anyone.
“What the hell, Will? You were gone for years, and now you can’t say one damned word about it? We used to tell each other everything.”
I rolled my jaw and looked out over the street. “Not everything.”
Blake’s agitation seemed to subside as his frustration doubled. “Then tell me.”
I dared to meet my brother’s face and clearly saw the damage my absence had caused him.
“Blake…” I swallowed over the thickness that gathered in my throat.
Blake frowned and inclined his head. “Come on, Will. Anything you have to say can’t be that bad. That’s what family is supposed to be for. It’s like I just got my brother back, but a huge piece of him is still missing. We all have shit that happens in our lives…you don’t have to hide it from me.”
Defeat clenched my hand around my bottle. “I just couldn’t stay here, okay?” I wiped my brow that suddenly felt hot. “I got wrapped up in something I shouldn’t have, and I needed to put it behind me.”
Shouldn’t have?
For six years, that’s what I’d been telling myself. It’d become an easy lie.
“What are you talking about?”
“It didn’t have anything to do with you, Blake.”
“When you took off, you think you didn’t make it about us?”
“I get it, Blake. I told you I was sorry, and I’m back. Just…forget about it.”
Blake released a sarcastic snort. “Sure looks like you’ve forgotten about it.”
“Hey guys,” Grace called from the porch, “dinner’s ready.”
Blake pegged me with a look that told me this wasn’t over, before he turned, crossed the yard, and climbed the porch steps. Grace smiled, and he dipped his head to kiss her, then took her hand and led her inside.
Just on the verge of dusk, the mild winter sun still held on at the brink, subtle blue and pink rays casting the day’s goodbye.
Dinner was incredible, and after we all wandered back out into the front yard to enjoy the last minutes of the day. The girls settled on the grass, playing with toys, and Grace went back to her favorite spot on the porch swing.
Grabbing another beer from the cooler, I leaned against the fence and watched the girls play. Blake joined me, and he popped the cap to his beer with a satisfied sigh.
“So how’s business?” I asked, sinking into the calm of the approaching night.
“Good,” he said before he drained the rest of his beer. “This shit-hole town is sure to keep me busy.” He grinned, and I laughed low. Blake had been doing construction all of his adult life, and half the houses in town were falling apart. “Every time the wind even stirs somebody needs…”
Part of me understood Blake was still talking, but his voice came muddied and warped against my ears. I could focus on nothing but the van coming to a stop across the street, six houses up.
Blake nudged me on the shoulder, jarred me into semi-consciousness. His words were distinct only because of what he said. “Maggie Krieger. God...that poor girl...I almost slipped up with Mom on that the other night. Too bad you weren’t around to protect her when she got herself knocked up and married that asshole. I called that one, though, didn’t I?”
My eyes locked on Maggie as she emerged from her van and went to the side to help Jonathan out. My entire being shifted in their direction, drawn.
“Her little sister moved in about a year ago…see Maggie over there every once in a while…little boy sure is cute.” Blake continued to ramble, each word striking me deeper than the last.
I held my breath when the two c
ame to a standstill in front of the van. The wind stirred Maggie’s hair, large chunks thrashing around her face, the boy clinging to her as he stared in my direction.
I was unable to look away from my heart—my life. There was no way I could let either of them go. As if they felt it too, they remained unmoving, frozen, as if the space between us had dissolved.
My fingers twitched their direction.
“Oh my God.” I was knocked from the place I’d gone by Blake’s voice, low and disgusted. “You fucking asshole.” I turned to see Blake stumble back as if he’d been punched in the gut. “I can’t believe you…this is what you shouldn’t have gotten wrapped up in?” He gripped his head as he looked down the road to where Maggie suddenly turned and rushed Jonathan up the sidewalk and into her sister’s house. Blake’s face twisted up as if just looking at me sickened him.
“Blake—” I reached out to stop him.
Blake shoved me and pointed in my face.
“Don’t you dare try to make excuses for this…I…ugh…” Blake turned and threw his beer bottle across the yard, his muscles rigid and held in restraint as he stormed toward the house.
Olivia cried and ran to her mother, climbing onto her lap. Grace covered Olivia’s ear and held her head against her chest.
“Calm down, Blake,” Grace demanded beneath her breath, “you’re scaring the girls.”
Blake said nothing as he yanked the screen door open. It clattered shut behind him.
I wanted to scream. Fisting my hands at the sides of my head, I stole another glance behind me, up the empty street, to the place where Maggie had just stood.
Fuck.
I wrenched a hand through my hair.
“What’d you think was going to happen, coming back here?” Grace’s voice was laced with bitterness from where she hissed at me on the porch swing. “Did you think enough time had passed that nobody was going to notice?”
My heart faltered, a rush of fear and nerves and anger slicking like ice just under my skin. “What?” I asked. I turned around and walked slowly toward Grace with my head cocked to the side. “What did you just say?”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“You knew?” I half accused, half begged.
She huffed and hugged her daughter closer. “I knew the second I saw that baby that he was yours. I thought better of you, Will.” Her forehead creased as she glared down at me. “I thought maybe…just maybe…somebody would finally love that girl. And you treated her like a piece of trash, just like everyone else. Do you know what it’s like to have to keep a secret like that from your husband because you know it’s going to break his heart? Blake’s always thought the best of you…all that time…always making excuses for you, telling your mom that you needed time to find yourself. Do you know what it feels like to sit there and know the truth, that really his little brother is just a selfish jerk?”
I crammed the heels of my hands into my eyes then dropped them like a brick. “I didn’t know,” I yelled as I moved across the yard.
She looked down and slowly shook her head. “Don’t…”
I took the three steps up to the porch, trying to control the anger Grace had just evoked. No. It wasn’t her fault. But if she’d just said one goddamned word in six years. I roughed a hand over my face, knowing I looked like a madman because I sure as hell felt like one. “I didn’t know, Grace…I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
Grace tilted her head up, her face a war of disbelief and confusion. Her gaze flashed up the street, back to me.
“Oh God.” Her brow twisted as realization flushed her face. “I thought...why do you think I’ve been so angry with you all this time? I figured she’d told you that night you’d just up and left. Will—”
I didn’t know how to deal with Grace, with what she’d said, with what she’d known. I shook my head, opened the front door, and left her sitting there.
Inside, Blake was across the room with his head down. His hands were on his hips as he paced with his back to me.
I raked the back of my hand over my mouth. Blake’s shoulders tensed with my presence, his breaths audible in the otherwise silent room.
“Blake.”
“You need to get out of my house.” When he turned to look at me, every trace of tolerance he had for me was gone. “I don’t want you anywhere near my family.”
I took a step forward. “I—”
“I’m not playing around, Will.” Blake took a step back and put his hands up. “You are a coward, and I’m just…done.” His tone took on an edge of sadness. “I spent so much time defending you and the decisions you made. I believed in you, Will. But this...leaving her like that...it’s unforgiveable.”
I turned away and faced the wall. I struggled to find the words to speak. Maggie had always been a secret, a secret she’d asked me to keep, and I had no idea how to explain it now.
“I’ve loved her since that first night…” I gathered enough courage to look over at my brother.
He stared back at me. His eyes were narrowed in doubt, though the aggression seemed to have faded from his posture.
“I never stopped.”
A rush of relief covered me when I admitted it aloud. It somehow made it real. Made Maggie real. What we had real. It also somehow made them real—the dreams. A tremor skittered over my flesh. I swallowed.
“She destroyed me, Blake. I left because I couldn’t stand to come back and see her with him.”
William ~ September, Six Years Earlier
Grace climbed into her spot between Blake and me. What was probably the biggest smile I had ever seen looked to be permanently etched on her face.
“Hey, Will,” she said as she put on her seatbelt. She held out her left hand that boasted the huge rock in front of her. As the sun melted from the sky, Grace rotated her hand through its rays, the diamond glimmering and shedding its promise across the cab of Blake’s truck. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” she asked in an awed, appreciative voice, never turning from it.
Blake had proposed the night before.
“Eh…it’s okay,” I teased her, laughing when Grace slugged me in the arm. “All right…all right.” I held up both hands in surrender.
“Don’t get on my bad side, Will.” She grinned. “You know, I’m family now.” The playfulness drained from her voice as soon as she said the word, as if it were sacred.
My face relaxed into a knowing smile. “It’s really beautiful, Grace…really. I’m happy for you.”
Blake grinned at us both as he turned and hit the long, desolate stretch of road.
Tonight we were celebrating.
Twenty-minutes later, we pulled into the secluded field. In the center, a fire already blazed in welcome.
Grace and Blake were met with catcalls and congratulations when they stepped from the truck, their hands clasped and swinging between them as they walked toward their group of friends. Blake kept glancing down at her. Love poured from him every time he did.
I trailed behind, my hands in my pockets as I internally scolded myself for being such a self-centered prick, continually wishing I could have the same thing.
Things with Maggie had gotten so fucking complicated.
For the last two months, we’d lived in our own little world of seclusion, teetering somewhere between ecstasy and agony. Our relationship was both the best thing I’d ever experienced and complete torture all at the same time.
Friends.
No matter what we labeled ourselves, we were far more than friends. Friends didn’t lie for hours wrapped in each other’s arms, her heart thundering beneath my hands, her breaths short and ragged as I’d run my nose along the sweetness of her skin and press my lips to her jaw. Friends didn’t have that need in the pit of their stomachs, the one that had me twisted up, wishing I could somehow be shaken out.
I wanted her so badly that some nights I thought I might die. Every fantasy I’d ever had developed into making love to Maggie. Every face was hers, every touch, her hand. So
many times I’d been tempted to push her past the safe-zone we’d created, this distorted, intimate relationship we had over our clothes.
But I knew she needed that space. She’d confided in me—trusted me—and I wasn’t going to be the asshole who disrespected it.
What made my need even harder to ignore was the fact that what I felt for Maggie was far greater than just a physical ache. I loved talking to her, loved that she opened up and shared herself with me, loved how kind she was, loved…everything about her.
I couldn’t help but smile now, thinking about it. Nothing was better than seeing Maggie smile. When we’d talk, she would get this wistful expression on her face, her lips parting as that smile played at the edges of her mouth while she’d stare up at me.
She’d get lost in my words while I’d get lost in those eyes.
But as close as we were, there was still a huge barrier separating us. Troy was the visible obstacle, but I knew it went so much deeper than that.
Maggie was scared.
Scared of everything.
It was just easier for her to stay with Troy than to risk losing something that meant something to her.
I glanced at my brother and Grace who chatted with their closest friends gathered there, Grace showing off her ring, everyone sharing in their joy.
I was here to celebrate them, so I tried to push aside my inner turmoil.
But it was no use. That yearning I felt whenever she wasn’t near, the worry that haunted me every time she was out of my sight, wouldn’t let go. The need to protect her was acute.
Almost painful.
Each night I trailed behind her, unseen, unknown to everyone but her. From a distance, I would walk her back to the Hell she knew as home. The second she disappeared from view and vanished into the front door of the shitty house she lived in, fear would grip me. I hated not being there to protect her.
There was no escaping that fear now as I sat down on the ground and leaned against the old tree trunk.
When We Collide Page 14