by Cole, Kayley
"He's still Robin Kerr. And I hoped that he could get close to Jake this way. Maybe Jake would come to the realization by himself."
"And that way you wouldn't have to be the one to tell him that he's had a half-brother this whole time." I shake my head. "What was your plan when you finally returned after the wedding? You don't think Jake would be demanding to know where you'd been?"
"I don't know," she confesses. "Robin thought I could say I was kidnapped."
I rub my temple. "You know, I also have a crazy sibling and I know what crazy looks like."
"He's not crazy."
"Mrs. Amberden, you should come inside. Jake isn't here right now. We can talk to Robin together."
She stares at me. "Jake is here."
"No, his car is still at the hotel. He must have walked to a bar or gone to a restaurant."
"He's inside," she insists. "Robin drove them home. They've been talking."
I straighten up, looking back at the house. I wasn't lying— I know exactly how crazy siblings act and even when they have the best intentions, it can create Hell on earth.
I move away from Mrs. Amberden's car, changing into a sprint as I cross the road. I unlock the gate. In this moment, I know being alone after being with Jake is the worst possibility in the world. It's not the loneliness that would kill me, but the knowledge that I once had someone who was my equal and my collaborator in every way, and I let doubt replace him.
* * *
Jake
With a name like Robin, there is a certain inevitability that he would learn how to fight, but it's not often I encounter someone with the stamina and strength to take me on for longer than a few minutes. If I didn't want to break his back, it would be exhilarating to have an opponent worth my time.
"I wouldn't think a wedding planner would need to work out," I say, circling around him in the living room. He revolves slowly, keeping his eyes on me.
"It must be in our genes."
"We're not brothers," I snap. "You're delusional."
"Better for me to be delusional than heartless," he says. "How long was our mother missing before you gave two shits? You know, Ellie called before you did. She could have been in a car accident or fallen down a flight of stairs and forgotten who she was and you wouldn't have cared. You were just busy bathing in diamonds and drinking your overpriced champagne. Good thing I put her physician's bag in the hotel room. It certainly put you into overdrive— at least, for a second. Then, all you cared about was getting away from the paparazzi."
I lunge toward him. He sidesteps me, but my fist still slams against his ribs. He jerks backward, retreating near the wall.
"Our mother cared so much about you," he pants. Sweat is starting to form along his hairline. Good. He might be agile and strong, but he doesn't have as much perseverance. "She was willing to stay in Illinois to avoid ruining your wedding. And you don't care at all about her. I would have been ten times the son you ever were."
"Well, thank God you aren't her son," I say. "Or else I might have just had my feelings hurt."
I hurtle forward. He tries to dodge me again, but he's slower now. I grab onto the back of his shirt, yanking him backward. His back slams against the wall. As I grab him by the throat, he manages to get two quick jabs into my abs. I ignore the throbbing pain, squeezing his neck.
"Give it up," I say. "I don't want tomorrow's celebrity magazines talking about how I had to murder a mentally ill lunatic."
He winces, his face turning pale. He continues to jab me in the ribs, but they're getting weaker.
"Jake!"
Ellie's voice pierces through my fury. As I turn to look behind me, Robin manages to raise his arm enough to punch me across the throat. I stumble backward, my lungs burning as they try to figure out what just happened. Robin hits me again, his fist colliding against the side of my face. Flashes interrupt my vision. I land on my ass. As I scramble to get up, I see his leg swinging toward me. I grab onto his other ankle as the kicking leg hits me. His loss of balance and my body weight propelling his foot backward causes him to fall.
Robin and I get back onto our feet at the same time. He has better perseverance than I thought. We're breathing like two bulls about to be set loose in a bullring.
There's a flutter of turquoise in front of me. It takes me a second to realize that Ellie has thrown a blanket over Robin's head. He's temporarily blinded and scrambling to get it off, but Ellie is yanking it back to keep it tight against his face. His whole body begins swinging wildly, trying to get to her or me.
It only earns me a couple of seconds, but it's enough. I grab the KA-BAR knife that was hanging on the wall. It was from an old music video set that included Marine elements. Robin manages to get the blanket off. He grabs Ellie by the hair. Her scream is enough to send a million liters of adrenaline through me. I unsheathe the knife. He lets go of Ellie as he sees it. I should stab him, but my initial instinct takes over. I switch the knife to my left hand and hit him as hard as I can with a right hook. He falls back to the ground, his face gushing with blood. I let myself fall down right beside him, stabbing the knife through his shirt— to the right of his heart. It's enough to cut his skin, but not enough that it would pierce anything vital. It would be enough to keep him still long enough for me to figure out what's going on.
I turn to Ellie, my hands cupping her face like that's where they're always meant to be.
"Are you okay?" I ask, checking her face for any injuries. She smiles at me, partly genuine and partly forced.
"I'm fine," she mumbles. "I just got scared. Jake… that's your brother."
"No," I state. "He's not."
I turn back toward Robin.
"It's time to tell the truth," I say. "Who are you really? Why are you here? You wouldn't have grabbed Ellie like that if you were in love with her unless you truly are psychotic."
"Like you've treated her so much better," he sneers. He glances down at the KA-BAR, but doesn't make any move to pull it out. He must be as tired as me.
I grind my teeth. He's right. I haven't been the best fiancé. I was the most fortunate man on earth when she agreed to marry me, and I've only proven myself to be less and less worthy every day since then.
"Then tell me why you haven't appeared in my life until now," I say. "If you were my brother and you knew about my mother, then why didn't you come find us sooner?"
"I didn't actively search for my mother until recently. I'd always been busy with life— school, relationships, trying to become the best person I could be— but I graduated, my girlfriend and I broke up, and the jobs weren't exactly flowing in. I knew about our mother being a neurosurgeon, and that was impressive on its own. But then I looked deeper into her and found out about you— the son she kept. She kept you and you became wildly successful while I was just scraping by. You don't know what that's like, so let me tell you— it's shitty. It's a supreme level of shit. Not only can I barely afford to exist, but my biological mother had more than enough love and money to create an award-winning director."
"It's nice of you to give credit to my mother, but I think I deserve a little recognition for my effort."
"You were given a foundation that you easily built a kingdom out of," he snarls. "I wanted the same chance. Your mother gave me the chance by suggesting to Ellie that I could be her wedding planner. And it worked— I’ve already had other people show interest in me planning their weddings. But you know what our mother said? She told me that nobody could find out that I was her son. Isn't it insane how someone like me could believe that all they wanted was the best circumstances to succeed, and then realize that they'll still be just as unwanted? What kind of bullshit system is that? It's not just humans either— birds will sometimes kill one of their babies in the hope that it will give their other babies a chance to survive. So, despite the fact that you don't give a flying fuck about our mother, she was willing to throw me out to save your precious life from being inconvenienced by a scandal."
"I honestly
don't give a fuck if someone finds out we're half-brothers," I tell him. He stares at me, doubt and blood seeping out of him. "A few years ago, I was being accused of drugging a teen model and causing her to overdose. And there were plenty of incidents before that where I had drug, alcohol, or sex incidents."
"He knows two different DEA agents," Ellie says.
"And a good percent of the LAPD," I add.
"It must be nice to have as much money that you can pay off people to not go to prison."
"I didn't pay them off. They could never get any concrete evidence against me," I say. "For the most part. I did once buy a round of shots at a police bar though.”
"You think this is funny?" Robin asks.
"That you're angry at me because of the circumstances that I was born into, or that you're angry because the circumstances you were born into weren’t something you couldn't change?" I retort. "Did I have an easier time grabbing opportunities because my parents were wealthy? Sure. It was great. It was also great being home alone all of the time and figuring out how to make a meal out of ketchup, rice, and onions because my parents never thought to grocery shop since they always ate takeout at the hospital. And my parents always arguing because my father knew my mother was keeping a secret? Oh, that was just fantastic. You know why I became a director?"
Robin bares his teeth at me. "Because you had such a tragic upbringing?"
"No. It's because of her." I point to Ellie. Her eyebrows shoot up. "I used to help her make music videos for her music when we were young. And I saw how I could help her look and seem as genuine as she was in real life. I saw how I could immortalize her and when we were together— her with her guitar and me with my video camera— we could create something larger than life together. So, if you want to credit someone for my success, you better get on your knees in front of her and give her the damn credit. My biological family gave me enough financial support that I survived, but they weren't around, so I made my own family. Ellie is the heart of everything I do, so if you want to see the basis of my success, you just need to look at her."
Robin glances over at Ellie. As my adrenaline dips and I can see all of the evidence that Robin is my brother, the security alarm goes off.
We all spin around as my mother comes hurtling into the room, her hair rippling behind her like a dark cloud.
"Don't hurt him!" she blurts out. She spots the knife and makes a sound like she's choking. She hurls herself on the floor next to Robin and struggles to pull the KA-BAR up. It barely budges. She looks over at me, her eyes wild. "It's not his fault! It's my fault. I should have told everyone the truth. Just don't hurt him. Don't hurt him. Please. Please don't hurt him, Jake.”
My ego is hit harder than Robin ever hit me. My mother never shed a tear over me. The only time I ever saw her emotional was when I beat my father and even when she pled for his life, it wasn't this personal to her.
"When your husband kicked me out of the house, you didn't beg for me to stay or ask him to let me stay," I say slowly. "Why do you care so much about your other son?"
"I never asked Richard to reconsider because I knew it was what was best for both of you," she says, her hand gripping onto Robin's hand. "The two of you couldn't survive under the same roof anymore. We couldn't sustain you anymore and I… I believed you could become a better man without the guidance of your father. The fact that your dreams came true only reinforced the fact that I made the right decision."
"He kicked you out…" Robin mutters to himself. The pieces are falling together for him and seeing him on the floor like this with my mother by his side— he might as well be my father. I'd ignored my father's violence until it was right in front of my face, I ignored my mother's disappearance until it was undeniable that something was wrong, and my mother ignored Robin until the guilt became too much for her to bear.
But Ellie's brother was also off his rocker, and he only became worse over time.
"Jake," my mother pleads. "Don't hurt him."
Even if I killed him right now, I'm certain my mother would defend me. We're close in age and my parents had been dating for a few years before I was conceived, so she either cheated on my father or they'd broken up and she slept with someone else. This was her moment of disloyalty and she's been trying to make up for it ever since— by staying with my father, by protecting my reputation, by being beside Robin as I decide his fate. It's a little sad, and a little inspiring.
I crouch down, carefully yanking the KA-BAR knife out. Ellie takes a few steps back, but Robin just sits up, pulling up his shirt to check his wound. He winces as he touches it, but it doesn't look like it cut deep. My mother grabs him by the face, kissing the top of his head, then springs up and hugs me, kissing my cheek.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry," she mumbles into my ear.
"I did hit him first," I say. "It's just a little brotherly skirmish. And, as he can tell now, if he had told me he was my brother when we first met, it wouldn't have gone over well."
"That's true," Robin says. "Especially since you thought I was trying to steal Ellie."
I offer him my hand. He takes it. For a second, I'm sure he's going to pull me down and the fight will start all over again, but he lets me pull him up. And that's all I could ever ask for.
* * *
Ellie
21 Days Later
When Jake and I were planning our wedding, the paparazzi pushed many of our decisions. We had wanted it to be outside, but we both knew that having it outside sharply increased the risk of the paparazzi finding us. The tabloids had heard about the engagement and suspected we'd have our wedding somewhere in Colorado. There had been several articles theorizing about which of the popular venues we would choose. Since their prying led us to decide to have the wedding indoors— where we could control who came in and out of the venue— we decided it would be fine to have the wedding when it was cold and the tabloids wouldn't be as concentrated on us if we had it in-between two of the biggest holidays in the U.S. After telling all of this to Robin, Robin suggested The Nova Barn.
The Nova Barn was not a wedding venue. It was a music venue, which Roy Frémaux had built in order to create a space where he and his other band friends could perform for each other. It was the perfect place because it was wide open on the first floor except for a large kitchen in the back and since it was built like a log home, there was a woodsy feeling to it. Frémaux agreed to let us use it for the wedding— partly because we gave him a good chunk of money for it and partly because he loved Jake's filmmaking.
Looking out the barn window on the second floor in my wedding dress now, it feels like it's the perfect place, which means it's inevitable I will mess something up. Robin isn't being very helpful as he tries to calm me.
I wasn't certain about Robin officiating or even being at the wedding, but since he knew everything about the wedding and every vendor involved, that uncertainty faded as he put everything into place. Now, as I'm about to walk down the aisle, he's trying to help my nerves with his usual overabundance of chatter.
"Did you know Jake once won a contest for filming a choir concert when he was fifteen? Our mom didn't even know about it. He also told me about how you and he dated in high school. They say high school sweethearts never last, but you two beat the odds. And today is the day. I could practically see him itching to pick up a video camera earlier, but it was smart of you two to decide not to videotape it. Sometimes life is better without everything happening behind a camera lens, especially when a lot of people would pay a lot of money to see it…”
"Robin," I interrupt. "I don't know if I can actually walk down the aisle. My legs keep shaking."
"Do you want some champagne or something?"
"No. I might vomit then," I say. "I just… I didn't think of this day like other little girls did. It's something I couldn't think about because then I'd have to imagine myself walking down the aisle without my dad and I'd have to think about the fact that my dad just left without saying anything to my mother
, which would cause me to think about whether monogamy can ever work— it's just a spiraling thought pattern I could never go down. But now I have to think about it. I have to walk down the aisle alone. If I ever did think about it, I thought I'd at least be able to have my fiancé's father walk me down the aisle, but Mr. Amberden isn't here and I wouldn't want him to do it anyway."
Robin looks out the window. "I could walk you down. I know I'm not anybody's father or anything and it seems like you kind of still think I'm a psychopath, but all you truly need is a strong arm to keep you from falling over and I've got pretty decent arms. I've already had to carry a fair amount of potted plants and your rather large wedding cake today, so I'm pretty sure I can hold you up. At least until Jake takes over."
I look over at him. His face is practically straining with high hopes. Since the confrontation at our house, he's been going to a psychologist and a psychiatrist. The psychologist advised that a schedule be set up for where we regularly had gatherings as a family, so we've been having dinners together on Fridays for the past few weeks— Robin, Jake, their mother, and me. It's been a blessing for everyone, but there's always been a distance between Robin and me. How could I trust a man who had lied his way into my life?
Didn't you once tell me that I didn't have to trust him, I only had to trust you? Jake said a week ago.
And you told me that the problem was still that you didn't trust him. I'd said.
I still don't trust him. The only person I trust is you— but I still let these other people into my life. I won't give them my heart, but I'm still willing to give some people what they need to survive.
"Robin," I say. "I'd love for you to walk me down the aisle."