Maura had taught me the very same.
Violet’s eyes and mouth were widened to their farthest reaches. It would have been a hilarious sight if James and I had not just been caught doing exactly what we had sworn we were not. We had promised Maura and Elijah both that there was nothing between us and yet there we were, kissing in the hallway, knowing that there was only one place that such affection was going to lead.
“I’m telling Maura. And Elijah!” Violet spat at us after rising from her stunned stupor. She turned to walk away but I hurried after her and grabbed her arm.
“We are not afraid of either of them.” I informed her curtly. “But what good will that do? What will telling them about him and I accomplish?”
“What good did telling me about that woman’s husband dying do? What good did telling me about Mom and Dad do? Oh, right... Nothing!”
“So this is an act of revenge...” I laughed half-hysterically. “Alright. If you feel the need for it, who am I to stop you? Despite what some would have us believe, vengeance is a very honorable and exciting path. Please, tell Maura and Elijah, especially if it will make you feel like you have won something over me. But know this: There is nothing they can do to stop me.”
“Why are you even doing this?” Violet screamed at me in loud, unabashed fury. Her temper had really gotten worse since boarding this ship. Perhaps it was a side effect of intergalactic travel. I would have to ask around for more information, to see if there were any other cases of ridiculously out-of-proportion outbursts since the take-off.
“Doing what, might I ask?” I replied.
“Are you with him?”
“Ask yourself if that is truly any of your business.”
“It is my business! You’re my sister! I don’t think you should be in a relationship with a fifty year old guy! It’s just…” She threw her hands up in a gesture that brought images of Maura to my mind. How very similar they were...
“Stop stammering and gesticulating in frustration. Say what you need to say.”
“It’s wrong, Brynna! Why would you want to be with a fifty-year-old guy?! I mean, come on! You're not ugly! You can get a guy your own age!”
“I’m not fifty.” James called to her over his shoulder from across the room.
“First of all, there is no relationship to speak of, so calm yourself. Secondly, I am well aware that my physical attractiveness is on par with most other women.”
“Way above par.” James called to us nonchalantly.
I had to suppress a chuckle and a gleam of pride.
“Third, I have no interest in boys who are of my physical age. I do not find them attractive externally or internally. In regards to all of the aforementioned points, you will be pleased to learn, also, that for once, I do not know something in certainty. I do not know what he and I are.”
I could sense that my gentleness, though it was minute, was surprising her. I was far more civil than I had been in days.
“But he has been good to us. He saved my life. As a result, I was able to save yours. You know that I do not trust many people, but I trust him.”
“Do you love him?” She asked in a voice saturated with condescending sarcasm. “Never mind! You don’t love anybody!”
“Don’t be silly. I feel strong affection for people. But with him, it is too early to tell. I must stress again that I do not know what we are. Tomorrow, I will probably be shunning him again. For right now, though, I need you to keep quiet about this.”
“Why should I? What have you done for me?”
I stared at her, crossed my arms, raised my eyebrow and pursed my lips. I watched her expression dissolve and she nodded, realizing that a better question to ask was what hadn’t I done for her?
“I don’t approve of it and neither will they.” Violet informed me and I heard a resolution in her voice that gave me little room to doubt that she was serious.
“Luckily for us, we do not care what you think.” I smiled at her and walked back to James.
“Well, is it over again?” He asked me. I shook my head and grasped his arm. “Not until tomorrow, right?”
I looked up at him and rested my chin on his shoulder now.
“Do not start being callous.” I stood on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You have to be patient with me. Okay?”
He sighed heavily and raised his eyes to meet mine. Then he leaned forward to kiss me again quickly.
“I know. And I will be.”
XXX
Elijah was not keen to suspicion but Maura realized immediately that things had changed between James and I. She had always told me that I would never find love with a boy my own age and yet her disapproval of James was resounding. Sure, she liked him as a person. He made her laugh when the rest of us could not even get her to smile. But the idea of him and I was not one she could tolerate.
“It is like it's always nighttime. Do you think it will be that way on Pangea?” I asked her randomly as we sat in front of the large window in the Atrium. It was particularly quiet in there that day, as many people were crowded around the televisions in the recreation room. Some were betting on a football game that had long since passed in real time. Others were engaged in a “chick-flick marathon.” I was not quite sure what that meant, but Violet insisted on going, saying she needed her spirits to be boosted by the idealism presented in all of the films. Though it was a line that I would have used to explain my presence at that estrogen-charged soiree, I couldn’t help but shake my head slightly at how young she still was. If she had matured, she would not need that assurance from films that led girls to believe in princes and happy endings.
The cuteness was too exhausting to think about for long periods of time.
“I don’t know,” Maura replied, “Maybe you should have gone with Violet.”
“Why? Am I bothering you by sitting here quietly?”
“No. I just think that maybe you’d see in those movies how it is supposed to be.”
For the first time since I had sat on the couch across from her, I noticed a glass of some copper-colored liquid that I knew to be liquor. Fantastic...
“Do you think I’m blind, Brynna?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you think I’m stupid? I realize that you believe yourself to be the smartest person still alive and maybe you are. But that does not mean that the rest of us are so stupid that we don’t see what is going on.”
“And what, dare I ask, is going on?” I asked after getting up to pour a drink of my own. “What exactly are you hinting at?”
“I know about you and James.”
“Oh?” I asked icily. After taking a gulp from my glass, I felt the liquid burning my throat all the way down before detonating inside of my stomach. It felt spectacular under the circumstances.
“Yes.” Maura replied defiantly.
“Is this the part where I am supposed to confess all? You are expecting some small revelation but I will end up supplying several gory details you never expected. Is that what is supposed to happen now, Maura?”
“I want you to be honest right now. I want you to tell me everything.”
“You never answered my question.”
“You asked several. I would ask you which one you would like me to answer first, but I was the first one to ask a question, so you’ll answer mine.”
“You never asked a question. You suggested something that is untrue in every sense.”
“Are you really going to lie to me? Isn’t that below you? You have always been overly blunt about everything, almost to a point of mercilessness. Now you’re going to start lying? Is that to protect me or to protect yourself?”
“I have not given you any reason to believe that I am lying. But if I were, I can assure you that it would not be for your benefit. Nor would it be for my own. As I have not lied thus far in this conversation, I should not even be saying that. But if I were beating around the bush, as they say, it would be because what you are asking is none of your damn business. So why don’t you finish
your drink and pass out before you say something that you will regret as you nurse your hangover tomorrow morning? I do not want to have to deal with your pathetic apologies. They always involve tears and you know how that sickens me.”
I will admit that calling her out on her drinking was overly cruel. But for her to assume that my business was her business was ridiculous, in plain words. The woman had raised me to the best of her ability and then spurned me without warning as though I had never existed. Plus, in our joint past, there was one huge issue that was irreversible and irreparable. That is not exaggeration.
She slammed her glass down on the table and I stared at her, unfazed by her anger’s sudden rise. She was giving me exactly what I wanted. She was giving me weakness to prey on.
“I show the slightest bit of concern for you and you insult me.”
“I didn’t insult you. I spoke truthfully. I suppose that the truth does hurt. Let me make it a little bit more uncomfortable.” I leaned forward and exhaled smoke from my newly lighted cigarette in her direction. “You are a drunk. When you are intoxicated, you say unkind things. They do not hurt me because nothing hurts me. But they do irritate me.”
“What? Are you waiting for me to say that you’re a heartless bitch who left her parents to die?’
“Do you see what I mean?” I asked with a slight smile.
“I have been thinking it but I haven’t said it! And now you’re just going to go start screwing James? Why do you insist on self-destructing, Brynna Claire? He will destroy you! Have I taught you nothing?”
“You have taught me next to nothing. I possess the worst of you, Maura. All of your goodness was given to the other three. You and I both know that. Isn’t that why we don’t see eye to eye?” I blew smoke towards the ceiling. I watched it billow upwards, almost glimmering against the black backdrop whisking by outside of the ceiling window. “Whatever James and I choose to do is our decision. I am twenty-two years old and fully capable…”
“And he is, what? Forty? Forty-two? Forty-five? You might think you are mature. I do not believe that you are as mature as you think you are. In your heart, I don't think you believe it, either.”
“That statement was completely redundant...” I interrupted her with an amused grin on my face.
“He will be the end of you, Brynna.”
“I would give you the benefit of the doubt by saying that I believe all of this is coming from a good place. It is coming from concern. But then, every last instinct I possess is telling me that this entire conversation is malicious.”
“It is not malicious!” She exclaimed in a rage that the situation did not warrant. “I care for you! I force myself to care for you even though you are so cruel! You are so heartless! I do not understand you at all, but I force myself to care because I’ve had you since you were a child! But please, do not think that I am so blind that I don’t see what you are! How you could do that to your father, I will never know!”
Checkmate. My grin only grew in width and my eyes gleamed with vicious triumph.
“Oh, so this is about him?” I asked with a derisive chuckle. “Everything is about him, isn’t it? Are you really so pathetic that you still love him after what he did to you? Aren’t you the one that told me to show them no weakness? No mercy? And yet here you are, some twenty years later, still wailing about the one that got away.”
“Do you see what I mean? You have no heart. If you can say something like that, then you have no heart.” Her voice was on the verge of breaking now but I saw a deep anger in her eyes that was stronger than her need to cry.
“Maybe I don’t.” I shrugged, still smiling slightly, “You want to know about James and me? We are taking it a day at a time but yes, there is something there. Is that what you are upset about? I was supposed to be a failure like you. But now, I am more intelligent, I am prettier and the man I want also wants me. That’s the trifecta of one-up-manship in this particular case, is it not?”
In a blur, she leaned forward, brought her hand back and went to slap me across the face. I was used to those furious, drunken spasms. I had even grown used to the cutting remarks she made while intoxicated. The things she said to me over the years were some of the cruelest I had ever heard. In those words, I found my own malice, my own dark inclination to hurt people.
I grabbed her wrist without even looking in the direction her hand was coming from. I held it hard in my hand, feeling my eyes flash over to that blood red color of inescapable wrath. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to choke her. I wanted to cause her as much pain as I could. But there was affection for her, even if it was so complicated that contemplating its strength was like attempting to complete a math problem without actually seeing the numbers. So when she cried out in pain, I released my grip.
“And now… Now I don’t even know what you are.” I grimaced when tears began to run down her face. “I think you’re possessed, Brynna. I think you always have been.”
Her tantrum had drained whatever energy was left. The alcohol had numbed her enough that she could sleep. I knew that she was ready to lose consciousness, having ushered her to her room and gotten her safely tucked away in bed so many times before.
“You have always been evil.”
“Yes, I know.”
I put her arm around my neck and walked her slowly out of the room. While we were on the stairs, she stumbled over her feet several times, forcing me to practically carry her. When her legs finally gave out, I lifted her with one arm and walked the rest of the way as she muttered over and over again how sadistically twisted I was.
“It is the devil. If I believed…”
“Just shut up and go to sleep.” I snapped as I laid her down in bed. I covered her up with the thin blanket and sat down across from her on Violet's bed. I knew that she and Violet fell asleep every night clasping hands across the space between them. Perhaps in her inebriated state, she believed that I was my sister, though we looked nothing alike. Maura's eyes were fixed on mine when she reached out for my hand. I stared at her before scoffing in condescending disbelief. How she could expect my comfort after all she had said, I did not know.
“Brynna...”
In her voice, I heard a soft, tremulous plea. She needed my support, for whatever reason. She needed a moment of compassion from me. At first, I refused her request. Then, with a roll of my eyes and a muttered expletive, I reached out to link her fingers with mine.
Just before she passed out, she looked up at me and whispered:
“I should have smothered you in your crib.”
I watched her eyes close as her body dropped into a heavy, unshakable sleep. I nodded slightly to myself, bemused by the fact that I had nothing to say. Even if I did, she was away in some dreamless world where I, mercifully, did not exist. After some time draped in a thoughtful silence, I found a suitable response.
“Yes. Perhaps you should have.”
I felt arms wrapping around me and I jumped, whipped around and threw myself on top of the person I believed was attacking me. I looked down to find that it was James, looking more brilliant than ever in my eyes that had flashed white.
“Should I have said something?” He asked quickly as he held his hands up in surrender. “I should have said something.”
I let out the breath I was holding and laid my head down on his chest. A peculiar but dreamily comforting wave of warmth passed all throughout my body when his arms came up to hold me. After his lips pressed to the top of my head, I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply the scent of his cologne, and become steadily more hypnotized on the sound of his beating heart.
“So Maura is cut off from here on out.”
“Good luck.” I propped my head up to look at him and rolled my eyes. “Elijah and Violet have been requesting that she stop her frequent binge-drinking for many years now. They even offered to accompany her to Alcoholic's Anonymous.”
“You could have just called it 'AA.' I wouldn't have thought less of you, just so we're clear...”
> I frowned at him and slapped my knee in a sarcastic show of enthusiastic amusement.
“I knew you'd appreciate that one. On a much less lighthearted note, does Maura say that she wished she had committed infanticide with Violet and Elijah, too?”
“Of course not. That would be terrible.” My gaze diverted from his. “I was not aware you were listening to mine and Maura's slight disagreement.”
“I was. Well, I overheard the tail-end of it. I doubt she meant the things she said. But even if she was just pissed off, she was wrong to say all of that.”
“Wrong in the context of what she said or wrong in saying such a potentially hurtful thing at all?”
“Both.”
“Not many people would agree with you on the former though surely, many would agree with you on the latter.” I paused and mauled over my statement. “Actually, both the former and the latter would be agreed upon by most people. I was wrong in suggesting that they would not be.”
“Who cares what they think?” He reached out and gently moved my hair away from her face.
“You felt that way a few times.” I laid my hands on his firm chest and rested my chin on them so I could look at him still. “When I was aggravating you, I’m sure you thought the same, even if it was not clear to you.”
He turned so that I was now lying on the cot and he was above me. He came down and kissed my lips gently; that scintillating wave of warmth streamed through my body once again.
“I could never think that about you.” He whispered before grinning wryly. “Even when you're abusing me for not paying attention to my faulty tires, I don’t think that.”
I reached up to put both of my hands on his face. I found myself smiling, as well.
“If I didn't abuse you for those things, you would scarcely know what to do with yourself. Besides, I hardly abused you. I merely assailed you with a stick of mozzarella cheese. I knew that any injuries you could sustain would be minor.”
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 21