Teaching Aleck

by Muriel Garcia

  The drive to my place doesn’t take long fortunately.

  I reveled in the feeling of being pressed against him. He helps me with the helmet and get off the bike. “Thanks.” I smile softly and walk to the door, unlocking it and letting us in after disengaging the alarm before turning it back on again. You can’t be too careful.

  “Do you want some coffee or a beer or anything?” I ask nervously.

  “You have beer?” he asks rather surprised.

  “Yes, why?” I cross my arms over my chest.

  “Nothing, didn’t peg you to be the type of girl to enjoy a beer. Sure, I’d like one.”

  “Clearly you don’t know me.” I glare at him and head to the kitchen. I know I snapped, but he’s so quick to judge me. He really only still sees me as the little girl I was when we first met. He’s so wrong about that.

  I grab us two beers, walk back to the living room and sit next to him on the couch. “There you go,” I say handing him his beer.

  “Thanks.” He takes a long pull of his beer and sighs nervously.

  I take a small sip and ask him. “What’s wrong Aleck?”

  “If only you knew…” he says softly.

  “Then tell me,” I say as softly.

  “I’m not sure you’re going to enjoy this talk, Line.” He looks at me sadly.

  “I’d rather know why you don’t want me or a relationship with me, than keep playing this cat and mouse game. I like you Aleck, you know what I want. Just tell me whatever you have to tell me. It’s better I know than wonder what I’m doing wrong. What makes you not want me the way I want you.” I keep my voice even, surprising myself. I’ve never been this upfront and confrontational with anyone. I usually let people walk all over me, but I just can’t stand it anymore. I needed to tell him. I need to know if we have a future or if I should move on from whatever I thought we would have when I was younger…

  “Alright…” he sighs.

  CHAPTER 8

  Aleck

  I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to open to up, but she deserves to know.

  “I was both lucky and unlucky with the way I was brought up. We lived in a big mansion, had loads of money and pretty much anything we wanted and some more, but there was one thing that my sister and I were missing, the love of our parents. My parents didn’t love us; they didn’t care about us at all. They were more obsessed with their country club and how people perceived them, than how we were. It was horrible growing up feeling like we were abandoned by our parents. They were out more often than they were home.

  “Rose, our nanny, is the one who took the lead and raised us properly. She didn’t have to. At first, she was just our maid. I’m so lucky that she took care of us as if we were her own. We could always go to her. My mother never was maternal. When I was little, I didn’t understand why they didn’t love us or spend any time with us. We were good kids, never getting into trouble or anything. We blamed ourselves, my sister and I, we tried to make things better, but the more we tried the more we were pushed away.

  “When I turned sixteen, I found out that my parents only married for the money. Both families were quite wealthy, and together, they would be the richest family in the state. I had no idea what to do with this newfound information, it was fucking awful. They weren’t the only ones who were together for the money; my entire family was like that. Not a single one of them were together because of love. My aunts and uncles might act like they are madly in love, but behind closed doors they hate each other and barely talk to each other. It became harder to deal with when I was on my own with them: my sister wasn’t living at home anymore. She moved in with her boyfriend when she was twenty and I never told her about the dynamics of our family.

  “There was nothing I could do to fix this mess, so I just tried to live my life. I tried to leave and move in with Cassie, but they wouldn’t let me. The only opportunity I got to move out of the house was to go to college, but then again that didn’t go as planned. They picked what I would study and where. I didn’t have any say in it at all.

  “A couple of months later, I was off to College to study law. I hated it from the second I walked into the lecture hall. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. Granted I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but becoming a lawyer definitely wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t meant to be stuck in an office for hours on end every single day.

  “My life went from bad to worse not long after my sister’s wedding. Naturally, the parents didn’t come, either they were immune to it or they were just too busy being their social self to care. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Her husband wasn’t from a family who had a lot of money, so because it wasn’t beneficial to them they didn’t bother. Things were okay for a while, my sister was really happy with her husband and they had just found out that they were pregnant. I was so happy for them. We were spending a lot of time together and all of a sudden my sister stopped calling, and her husband wouldn’t let me know what had happened.

  “One day after classes, I’d had enough, I was tired of no one telling me the truth, what was happening to my sister, why wouldn’t she talk to me anymore. I went to her place and learned that she’d lost the baby. She was having a really hard time and not coping at all as the doctors had told her she probably wouldn’t be able to carry a kid again. They couldn’t exactly give her any explanation why she was unable to have more kids, and that crushed her even more, she was mourning not just the loss of her baby, but her future babies. She started to become a shell of herself and her husband was having a hard time to cope both with the loss of his kid and my sister. Or so I thought.

  “A couple of weeks after I went to see her, I got a call from the cops. They told me that my sister had killed herself and that her husband requested I move every single bit of her stuff out of their place. He didn’t want to see her stuff lying around the place, it was too difficult for him.” I take in a shuddering breath. This is really hard for me, the only two people who know the entire story are Ant and Cabe. Telling Charline why I’m so damaged is harder than I thought.

  “I was fucking pissed at him. He had a beautiful and amazing wife, I thought he loved and cared about her, but he cast her and her stuff aside so easily. He couldn’t even fucking do it himself! I did it, I had to, I couldn’t let him get rid of it all, they were the only things I had left of her. I went through everything, sorting what I wanted to keep and what I could donate. I found a letter in one of her keepsake boxes and it just broke my heart.” I wipe away a tear, I can’t talk about Cassie without crying. I take my wallet out of my back pocket and take out a worn out envelope and hand it to Charline. “Read this,” I say softly.

  “Are you sure? This is rather personal,” she says as softly, shock written all over her face.

  “Yes, I’m sure, Gorgeous.”

  “Okay.” She takes the letter and opens it carefully.

  My sweet Aleck,

  We’ve been to hell and back with our parents, not that they were treating us badly, they just didn’t love us. I wish I had stayed home instead of moving in with Marc. Things were good in the beginning, we were happy and in love, or so I thought. He was very adamant about us getting married and having a child together. At first, I didn’t think much of it. I was still in my happy place, I had found the perfect man who wanted a family and the same life I wanted. I was loved and was beyond happy, but my happiness was short lived.

  After the wedding, he started to become distant, he would come back from work later and later every night and some nights not at all. I tried to revive our flame and for a while, it did work and then I got pregnant. We were over the moon to be having a baby and it really did bring us closer. He wasn’t coming home late anymore and he was very loving and sweet to me. It was such a nice change. We tried to tell the parents, but again, they didn’t care because Marc was a regular guy and had a regular job. They could never accept it, or him.

  Things were fine with Marc until one day. He was at work and I was cleaning the house, noth
ing out of the ordinary, but then I started to feel really dizzy and contractions started. I freaked out because I was only three months gone, I couldn’t possibly be in so much pain this early in the pregnancy. I called Marc to come back home and take me to the hospital, that something was wrong with the baby. He was annoyed, but did come home to help me.

  I was so scared when we got there. I was still in incredible pain and I had started to bleed, not much, but enough to worry everybody. The news I didn’t want came not long after. I had miscarried and they told me I never would be able to have a kid naturally. It crushed me. It affected Marc too, but I have no idea how since he wouldn’t talk to me anymore.

  At first, I thought he was just heartbroken that I wasn’t going to be able to have his children like I was. I hoped we could adopt or go another route, but no. Instead, I found out that he would only inherit his grandfather’s money when he marries and have a child. Our loss put a dent in his perfect plan to pick the first idiot who would want to marry him and have a family just so he could get the money.

  He immediately started to pull away and was being a complete asshole to me. He became really short tempered often yelling at me and calling me names. I ended up hating him, I wanted nothing more than to divorce his ass, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought. He would never give his consent as his parents had spent a lot of money on the wedding.

  Remember the life insurance the parents set up when we were younger? He was after that. All he was interested in was money. I had to go to great lengths so he wouldn’t get one cent of that money. I managed to get a lawyer to draw up papers so you would be the one to get the money if anything happens to me. It might sound crazy to you, but seeing how Marc has become, I fear for my life. I don’t know if he would be capable of anything, but I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want him to get one penny of the money I have.

  I love you Aleck, always and forever.

  Cassie xxx

  I see her turn to the second page and I can’t help but tense. I don’t know why I keep this letter with me. It kills me having it always with me, but it would feel wrong not to have it with me at all times, it’s still a piece of her.

  Dear Aleck,

  If you are reading this letter, it means that I am no longer with you. I hope that Marc or whoever found it will bring it to you.

  I’m so sorry I took the coward way out. I couldn’t handle it anymore. The pressure from Marc, his rejection, his hate towards me, had become too much for me to handle them. I wish I were stronger. I wish I could have been there for you, always. I wish we could have had one last day together, like we used to.

  I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to keep fighting. I know how you feel about relationships. Knowing mine was a failure, just like every single one around us, isn’t going to help you trust and want to be with a woman, but you’ll meet the one, my angel.

  She’ll make you feel alive like no other and you’ll want to run away, but no matter how far you run, she’ll always be there for you and bring you back to reality. You might not see it now, but she’s already right in front of you. Don’t push her away too often, you might lose her, and I don’t want that for you. I want you to be happy.

  I know one day you’ll be strong enough to trust that woman and be happy with her. Until then, don’t be such a pain in the ass and be nice to her or I’ll come and haunt your ass!

  I’ll be watching over you, forever. Whenever you feel the hair on the back of your neck standup, whenever you feel like someone is with you even if you are alone, whenever you feel like you want to give up, know that I’m the one watching over you. Always and forever. You are my baby brother, and I have always loved you, from the time I knew I was going to be a big sister to this moment as I’m writing this letter, that I wish I didn’t have to write. I’ve always loved you, and I always will Aleck, no matter what, know that you’ll always have my love, and I’ll watch over you.

  Stay safe and don’t get into trouble. You are worth it. You are worth all the happiness and love in the world. I wish we had it when we were younger, but you don’t choose your family. Find the right people and surround yourself with them. Those people will become your family and will love you no matter what you do. That’s what family is.

  I love you Aleck, always and forever.

  Cassie xxx

  Charline folds up the letters and hands them back to me. “I’m so sorry Aleck, I didn’t know about your sister,” she says softly.

  “It’s okay, only Cabe and Ant know the fully story. I’m surprised Ant hasn’t told Ayd already.”

  “He keeps telling her that it’s your story to tell.” She shrugs.

  “Yeah, I wish I didn’t have to talk about it, but you deserved to know why I can’t be with you.” I don’t dare look up at her. I keep staring at the folded letters in my hands.

  “Look at me, Aleck,” she says in a rather authoritative voice. It takes me a few seconds, but I look up and lock eyes with her. “I think there’s so much more to the story than you are willing to tell right now, and I respect that. What I don’t understand is, while I get that every single relationship around you failed, why aren’t you letting yourself try?”

  “I tried once. A couple of years ago, when you were away for college I met this girl. Everything was fine, we were getting along well and we were happy. I knew I wasn’t in love, but things were good, it felt good then one day she just disappears. She broke my heart. Even though I wasn’t in love with her, I did trust her enough to not let me down and crush my heart, but she did. She came back a couple of months later wanting to get back together, saying it was a mistake and that she was scared. I gave it another try, but I really struggled to trust her again. I was really trying and then she was taken away from me.” I sigh rubbing my face. I can’t tell her everything. She wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t accept it.

  “What happened?” she asks softly.

  “She passed away,” I say without any emotion. Call me an insensitive prick, you might be right, but I don’t care. I liked Emma, what we had was good, but she broke my heart and my trust. It’s horrible that she died, but I just can’t dwell on it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t. Being sorry won’t bring her back or fix things. I’m not the guy you need or want, Charline. I’m not the type of guy you are going to bring home to mom and dad. I’m the guy you get freaky in the sheets with and that’s it. That’s all I’m willing to give. I don’t want to get hurt again. You’re the one who would hurt and crush me the most. I don’t want to hurt you either, because I know I will, in the end. I couldn’t forgive myself.”

  “Thanks for making the decision for me and not giving me the choice. Love might not come easily to you, but you are running as far as you possibly can from it without giving us a try, without giving me a try, but I understand Aleck, you are a self-centered bastard who’s going to wake up one day when you’re older and wonder what you did with your life, why you let so many opportunities go. I hope for your sake, that you will have by then overcome your fear of commitment and love. I don’t want you to be alone, I don’t want you to be sad when you’re older Aleck. You deserve so much better. I don’t know your sister, obviously, but she is right. You are worth it. You are worth all the happiness in the world, it’s only you that can’t see it.” She shocks me into silence. Never in my life have I felt like such an asshole.

  “I’ll always have the club and my brothers.” I don’t want to admit that she’s right, and that what she said has scared the shit out of me.

  “Yes, you will, but they won’t be there for you through the good and bad times that only a lover can help you get through. Allow yourself to be happy, Aleck,” she says softly, kissing my cheek.

  I want nothing more than to kiss and fuck her, but I can’t. “I should go.” I kiss her forehead and head out the door. I need air and distance between us. I want her just as much as I need to be far away from her. The effect she has on me is unnerving.

  CHAPTER 9
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  Charline

  Aleck just left and I’m still flabbergasted. I wasn’t expecting this. I thought it would be a case of a girl he dated broke his heart and that’s about it. Not what he told me, I can’t believe parents would deny their kids love, the love they need and deserve. Why have kids if you’re not going to love and nurture them? I don’t understand some people, they need a slap on the back of their head…with a baseball bat!

  His sister’s story is heartbreaking. Having to take your own life in fear of what the man who supposedly loves you might do to you, it’s just horrifying. I can’t even begin to imagine what they both have been through.

  I’m lucky that I had the love of my parents and still do. Even if I don’t see them as often as I should, we still talk on a weekly basis and I visit whenever I can. I can’t imagine not having your parents through some of the roughest times in your life.

  I now understand why he’s so secretive. He does have the club, but it’s not the same and never will be the same. It’s his version of a family.

  I finally understand that nothing will ever happen between Aleck and I, and it hurts…so much, but I’m not one to cry over a man. Sure, I cry when I’m upset, but I’m done shedding tears for a man who will never be able to feel for me what I feel for him. I need to move on. A part of me wants to hold onto those feelings and help him open his eyes, the other part is just like ‘fuck it! No man is worth wasting your time or chasing after him’. I want nothing more than to listen to the part willing to give him a chance and wait for him, but I just can’t sit around waiting for him to make up his mind.