“Well… you could have called someone.”
“Who?” Chase beamed. “The woman I love, who’s fucking my brother? Or how ‘bout my brother, who’s fucking the woman I love?”
Lila was stunned. “Chase--”
“I’m done talking about this,” he said, throwing his hand up. The distress in his eyes nearly ate the green orbs alive.
Apparently she’d been wrong. Chase wasn’t quite as quick to forgive as she’d previously thought. The worst part was that she couldn’t even blame him. Lila was still thrown off by his words. In fact, she was always thrown off when any man used the word love in reference to her, but that went double for Chase. The sound of the word on his lips was something entirely different from the way it had ever sounded coming from any other man.
She realized she’d made a mistake for bringing up Jack, at all. What the hell had she been thinking? It was such a sensitive subject and she’d somehow decided that Row 10 on a Boeing 777 was the ideal place to explore it. Despite what had transpired a few days ago they’d managed to get along for the entire flight and now that was shot to shit. She breathed heavily through pursed lips, feeling trapped and faced forward in her seat.
---
A jolt from the plane landing shook Lila out of a deep sleep, and as she curled up under a sweatshirt she didn’t remember bringing, she was suddenly hit with the realization that it was Chase’s. The XL Dalton sweatshirt covered her like a quilt, and was damn comfortable. A smile crossed her face, and she looked to her left to see Chase in a white t-shirt with his muscular arms crossed over his chest, shivering gently in his sleep. Why the hell were planes so cold?
Lila sat up, yawning. As softly as she could, she draped the sweater across his shoulders.
But not softly enough.
Chase’s eyes fluttered open and he smiled at her. “So this is what it takes to wake up next to you?”
Lila had to look away with a shake of her head. Letting him see the grin on her face would only encourage him.
“Good to know,” he added with a cheshire grin.
She looked back at him, “We just landed. Captain says we’ll be at the gate in less than five minutes.” Her eyes took in his sleepy face. “What hotel are you staying at?”
“Whatever hotel you’re staying at.”
“I don’t think so, Chase.”
“Don’t go getting all guidance counselor on me. Whatever fucked up shit we have going on between us doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that there’s some god damn lunatic photography school drop-out who’s following you everywhere you go. You’re in a strange city you’ve never been before while this is happening. Do you really think I’m going to let you out of my sight for a second?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Well, you don’t have to. We can just make it a little vacation. We’ve never had one of those before. Just you and me.”
Lila thought about it, then laughed. “No. I guess we haven’t.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, grinning.
“So which Hyatt are you staying at?”
She grinned at him from the corner of her eye. “How did you know I was staying at the Hyatt?”
“I know you.”
“You didn’t seem to know me so well a few seconds ago.”
“You love the Hyatt. It’s the only hotel you ever stay at because they give you free water and toothpaste. I only asked where you were staying to be polite.” He licked his lips. “You continue to underestime just how well I know you.”
The words sounded so simple, but held so much meaning. Lila couldn’t respond.
Chase’s eyes searched hers. “It’ll be good.” He reassured, “We’ll have fun.”
“Fun,” she repeated.
Lila wasn’t even sure she remembered the meaning of the word.
---
Lila was halfway through her interview with Dr. Allan M. Brandt, Dean of Students at The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and she could tell that he loved her. She’d spewed all of the perfect bullshit answers, given him her best bullshit smile, and was succeeding in pulling off an all-around bullshit interview.
“Well, Lila, I’ve been following your work with the kids at Dalton for quite a while. I imagine if you’re offered this position it would be tough for you to leave them.”
This time Lila didn’t have to pretend. “Tough doesn’t even begin to graze the surface, Dr. Brandt.”
“So tell me, if you are offered the position of teaching our Childhood Trauma course, what tools have the children at Dalton given you that you feel would help you excel in teaching this class?”
“Well…” Lila’s eyes widened. What a broad fucking question if she’d ever heard one. “Listen, Dr. …”
Dr. Brandt’s eyes widened in interest at her sudden change in tone.
“I’m going to give it to you 110% right now, okay?” Lila unbuttoned the middle button of her suit and sat forward. “I’m sure you have fifteen more people just like me, just as educated and just as qualified, who are going to come in and interview for this exact same position, and you’re asking me to regale you with the horrors stories that my children have told me in order to gain leverage in your mind as someone who is worthy of this position, but I refuse to exploit them that way. They’re way too good for that… and in a lot of ways they’re way too good for me.”
Dr. Brandt had leaned back in his chair, now looking riveted with a mix of surprise in there, as well.
Lila rolled her eyes towards the ceiling.“My sister killed herself when we were both terribly, terribly young. I wasn’t prepared for that kind of pain in my life, and it still affects me to this very day. The real reason that I’m so close to those kids at Dalton is because… I need to know that if one of them decides to end it all today at least I know that I took the time to throw a few roadblocks in their way. That might make me seem like a really caring individual, but it doesn’t. It makes me a selfish individual who is using all of these kids as a way to fix what she so gigantically broke all those years ago with her baby sister.”
Dr. Brandt nodded.
“It’s easy to pretend that I am the shining martyr that saves these kids from themselves and welcome them with open arms but the real truth is that I’m not saving anybody. Chase, one of mine, his parents died in a car crash. They drove drunk. Porsche-- exploded.” Lila made an explosive sound and threw her hands into claws for emphasis. “Just like that. GONE.” Her eyes widened. “Fucked him up pretty good, but you know what?… You’ll never meet a better guy, a more forgiving guy, a more giving guy. He’s only eighteen but he’s the real person who should be teaching this class because, out of the two of us—I’m sorry, the three of us—he’s the only one with any real balls. The only one with the strength to face forward instead of constantly looking back. I was there for him for a while because his asshole brother was too busy dealing with his own grief to even notice he was alive and, hey, what do you know, here’s another person shaken with so much darkness and sadness that he was drowning in it that I could be a rock for. But, there I go again, Dr. You see?” Lila pointed to her temple. “I call myself his rock, but that’s bullshit. If I was really his rock I would have let him go a long time ago. I would have let them all go, but I can’t do that.”
Dr. Brandt’s face was stricken. “And why not?”
Lila sighed. “Because pain doesn’t work that way. Greif doesn’t work that way. Trauma sure as shit doesn’t work that way. It’s complex, it’s fucked up, and it’s a rough fucking ride in a way I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of how to even begin explaining during a ten week college semester to bunch of entitled brats who think they know better than me.” Lila took a deep breath. “I can’t save your kids, Dr. Brandt.”
“Well, you’re right. Most of the students here are entitled brats. What most of them need is a good sock in the jaw, not a good saving.”
But Lila wasn’t even listening to him. “He always tells me that I s
aved his life but he’s so, so wrong. It’s…” Lila looked up at the Dean.
He was leaning forward on his desk, eyebrows furrowed.
“He saved me.” Lila finished, blinking in shock when a tear tumbled out of her eye and down her cheek. She immediately covered it with her hand and looked down into her lap, attempting to hide her face. “Sorry,” she gasped in chagrin.
“Don’t be sorry,” was all the Dean said. “I think I’ve heard all I need to hear.”
---
Back in New York City, Jack was re-reading a sentence on a legal brief that he had read ten times, already. He couldn’t retain a single ounce of information about anything. He couldn’t think.
Bitsy told him to leave it alone. In fact she’d told him more than once, all throughout that frustrating day, to leave it alone.
Leave her alone.
Jack knew that his grandmother was right, but after sixteen hours of burying himself in mountains of paperwork he’d had enough. The last paralegal had left almost three hours ago, begging Jack to give it a rest and join her for a drink at the bar, but he knew he couldn’t leave. Anything outside of that cold, lonely office would cause too much temptation to go after Lila.
And his office was quickly proving too much, as well.
Against Bitsy’s better judgment Jack snatched up his phone, dialed his travel agent, and booked the next flight to Cambridge.
---
After sunset Lila and Chase sat in the grass on the edge of the Charles River Basin, which overlooked the beautiful Harvard campus. Between them were a couple of sandwiches from Capriottis and two chocolate milkshakes.
“How was the campus tour?” she asked, bringing her knees to her chin and breathing in the green air. New York didn’t have nearly enough of it.
“That depends,” Chase said around the large bite. “How was your interview?”
“I yelled at him,” she answered honestly. “I cried a little.”
Chase was horrified. “You’re such a basket case. My god.”
Lila chuckled, it was something he always used to say to her when he was younger. Before they’d fallen away from each other. “He’s probably regaling the wife and kids with tales of my crazy ass at the dinner table right as we speak.”
“How did you get on the subject of something that made you cry in front of a Dean at Harvard University?” Chase was baffled. “What in god’s name were you guys talking about for you to have failed so epically?”
“About the kids back at school. Lonnie, Heather, Drew…”
Chase was nodding, recognizing the names and knowing the stories of each student she listed.
“You,” she finished.
Chase looked at her and set down his sandwich.
“You hear that?” he asked, looking across the bay where a cocktail party was being held on one of the docked boats. The subtle strings of Sinatra wafted all the way across the water to grace their quiet sub-sandwich dinner. “This was my mom’s favorite song.”
“I remember,” Lila said, closing her eyes. “For a long time it was the only thing that could calm you down.”
He swiped his hands together and stood tall, holding out his hands. “Let’s go, Short Stack. Dance with me.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “No.” She gasped when, before she knew it, Chase bent down, grabbed her arm and threw it over his shoulder. Her legs were off of the ground in seconds and she had no time to react.
Stunned at his speed and strength, Lila could only laugh as he set her on her feet before wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her to him. She begrudgingly allowed him, taking the hand he offered as they started a slow sway, each of them taking in the new sights and sounds that every step brought.
“I hate it here,” Chase said, looking down into her eyes.
Lila looked right back up at him, wondering when he’d gotten so tall. “I know… but it’ll get better. Trust me, when you’re twenty-two and graduating Harvard you’ll understand why everyone pushed you so hard to go.”
Chase smiled over the top of her head. “I wasn’t talking about Harvard.”
Lila knew he hadn’t been, but she hadn’t had the courage to address it.
“So...” She shook the hair out of her eyes and clutched Chase’s hand a little tighter. “How’s Ashley?”
Chase blinked, as if the name were foreign to him, “Drunk? High? Probably some crazy combination of the two, I don’t know.” He shrugged and a slow smile lit up his face when she laughed. The sound seemed to encircle him in a warmth he’d almost forgotten existed. With the hand he had around her waist, he pulled her a little closer.
Lila didn’t miss that Chase’s hold around her had grown tighter, or how much stronger he was. His bicep pressed into the side of her ribcage with a steely strength, encasing her all the way across her back to a hand that clutched her waist almost fiercely. She felt small, delicate. “I really hope you’re not doing drugs.”
Chase made a face.
Lila blushed. He was right. She knew him better than that.
“I may have had a drink or two, but…” he trailed off.
“I know. It was silly of me to even suggest it. You’ve never been a drug kind of kid.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, softly. “I do seem to have a drug of choice. It’s just not the kind that will destroy me. Not chemically, anyway.”
Lila wasn’t sure what he was alluding to, and narrowed her eyes. They danced in silence for a long while. “I got the job today.”
Chase’s face brightened. “Holy shit, that’s amazing!” He took her waist in each of his hands and pulled at her, as if to shake some excitement into her when he saw her somber face. “Why the hell didn’t you say so? That’s unbelievable, Lila. You’ve always wanted to work at a University.”
“I know.” She said with wide, joyful eyes. “I have… and teaching! At Harvard! It’s more than I could have ever asked for. It’s beyond…” She held her arms out at her side, motioning to the school across the water. “It’s beyond anything I could have asked for. Anything.” She took a heavy breath, rolled her eyes and let her hands fall to her sides. “But I’m not going to take it.”
Chase cocked his head back. “What? That’s crazy.”
“I can’t leave the kids at Dalton.” She blinked rapidly. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t know how to leave them.”
They stood, toe to toe, watching each other in silence before a bewildered Chase took her hand, again, and wrapped his arm around her waist. They began in a slow circle in the grass once more, neither knowing what to say.
“I think you’re making a big mistake,” he said softly into her ear, a grimace clouding his face.
Lila gripped his hand. “I’ve had a lot of practice with big mistakes so I should pull this one off flawlessly.”
“Or just don’t make it at all,” he came at her with a counter offer, gritting his teeth when she didn’t reply.
Lila didn’t know what she was doing here. Dancing with Chase in the grass when she’d just left Jack only a few nights before. God only knew what kind of reaction he would have if he saw the two of them here in Cambridge. He would have probably assumed that they’d set the whole thing up-- that they’d been having secret rendezvous’ this entire time. She placed her chin on his shoulder as her eyes scanned her surroundings. She told herself how foolish it was that she was here, she knew how foolish it was, but she couldn’t make herself walk away. Being near Chase had become something she hadn’t even realized she needed until she’d run into him on the plane.
“So I was watching Titanic the other night…” Chase started out of the blue, hungry to lighten the mood.
Lila snapped her head back, holding back a laugh. Titanic had been one of their favorite movies of all time since the first time they’d watched it together. Even five years ago Chase had the same dry, biting wit that he had now, never letting a single cheesy line or mannerism go un-challenged as they watched that movie. Dozens of the Titanic jokes t
hey’d shared from all the years blazed through her mind, and she couldn’t help but laugh. They must have watched that movie a hundred times, finding something new to laugh about each time.
Chase stared at her smiling lips. “What an offensive piece of filmmaking,” he said with disgust. “Do you remember the night when we counted how many times Jack and Rose said each other’s names?”
Lila threw her head back, laughing joyously. “Oh god! What was it? 155 Jacks and—“
“177 Roses.” Chase shook his head. “It’s like they were confirming that, yes, they did know the name of the person they were screwing and were happy to confirm it by screaming it at the top of their lungs every five seconds.”
“Jack!” Lila cried, flailing her body dramatically.
Chase held her steady. “Rose,” he yelled into the starry sky. “Rose!”
Lila came to a quick halt. “And the mom?” she beamed.
“That crazy white woman.”
Lila died laughing.
“What an acid bitch,” Chase breathed with a shake of his head.
“Scattered to the winds.” They both said at the same time, in the same over-the-top, cheesy tone of voice that Rose’s mother had used throughout that entire movie. They burst into simultaneous laughter.
“God forbid she have to work a day in her life,” Lila said with a roll of her eyes. “You know what, though?… I don’t even care. It’s still one of my favorite movies.”
“You’re sick.” Chase mumbled, looking away for a moment before meeting her eyes, again. “I guess I can give it a few points for being so unintentionally hilarious.”
“That it is,” she agreed, holding her breath when his hand slid from the middle down to the small of her back.
“I miss you,” he whispered.
Lila’s stomach fell to her feet, and she tried to pull away.
But he wouldn’t let her. “Don’t,” he admonished, his eyes searching hers with a flash of impatience.
“Chase, maybe we shouldn’t be… dancing together on a bayshore. I already have some crazy person following me. God only knows what they would do if they got a picture of us dancing. I could say goodbye to Dalton, that’s for sure.”
Lila's Thunder: The Almeida Brothers, Book One Page 17