by Sienna Ciles
“He sounds like an amazing older brother,” I remarked.
Kain smiled sadly. “He really was... I still miss him, even though it's been years since he passed. Many years... but the wounds still sting like they’re fresh.”
“I know exactly how you feel. My dad was very close to me, and obviously it wasn't really anything like this relationship you had with your brother but it was nonetheless very powerful. He was my role model, my hero... And like you said about your brother, I still miss my dad every day.”
Kain seemed a little taken aback. I guess he hadn't quite been expecting that sort of response from me.
“Oh, wow,” he remarked. “I didn't realize you had lost your father. I'm sorry to hear that.”
“I'm sorry, too. And thank you. He died in a motorcycle wreck.”
“That's tragic, it really is. I'm really sorry for your loss, Mandy.”
“He at least died doing something he enjoyed. He loved riding motorcycles, working on them, and fixing them up. I guess he knew the risks involved in riding, and he was prepared to take them. Maybe he would still be alive today if he had given up riding but that would have killed his soul, and he would have been miserable. I'm glad he got to live such a full life, and that he got to watch me grow up and graduate and see me become successful. I just wish he'd been around long enough to see me get this job. His last words to me were 'make me proud.' And I'm working on that. I really am. I believe he's watching over me, and that he is proud.”
A sob began rising in my throat, and tears started burning at the corners of my eyes. Kain noticed and reached across the table and took my hands in his. He squeezed them gently and looked into my eyes and smiled.
“That was beautiful,” he said softly. “And it makes what you're doing for us, for my company, I mean, that much more meaningful and profound. And you know what... I bet that he is watching you, and that he is proud. I would be if I were him.”
“Thank you,” I said, only barely managing to fight back the tears. “That means a lot.”
He nodded. “You know, I think Jimmy is looking down on me, too. And hopefully, he's proud as well. Because I wanted that, too. You know, to impress my hero – my older brother. To make him proud of me.”
“It looks like we both understand each other pretty well, at least in this area. We have more in common than we first realized, don't we?”
“We do, Mandy. And that's why I now know that I have to tell you about my brother.”
“Well, you don't totally have to,” I said. “If it's something that truly is painful to talk about, then you don't have to.”
“No, no,” he insisted. “I need to talk about it, I really do. With you.”
“All right. Then... let it out, Kain, let it out.”
He sighed deeply and looked away for a few moments before responding, staring at some unseen sight in the distance.
“I'm ready,” he eventually said. “So, like I told you, my brother was my hero, the person I most looked up to in the world. But not only that, he was my dad's favorite, too. And my dad had planned his future out for him completely. Half of the reason my dad worked so hard on his company was so that it would be something huge for Jimmy to take over when he came of age. He loved Jimmy, loved him more than life itself it seemed sometimes.”
“But then something happened...”
He nodded sadly. “Not something. I happened.”
“How? What did you do?”
He laughed softly and humorlessly. “I took Jimmy's silly dreams seriously.”
“And that was what ended up causing his passing?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“But... how?”
“Jimmy, didn't want to take over the company. He didn't care about business at all. He had no desire whatsoever to live the life of a CEO and climb the corporate ladder. The older he got – toward the end of his teenage years – the more he started to rebel against everything my dad believed in. He tried to major in art and drama studies but my dad wasn't having it. He still learned to play guitar in his own time, and joined a theater troupe, too. But one of his main passions was the ocean. He had always loved it, from the time we were kids. He wanted to learn to scuba dive, and to become a dive instructor, so that he could work and live all over the world in the best dive spots, doing what he loved doing. My father, of course, absolutely refused to indulge any of this. Jimmy was going to take over the company, and that was the end of the story. Jimmy was going to be the next CEO, even though it was the last thing in the world he wanted.
“I saw how this tore him up inside, how it was hurting him, that my dad refused to let him pursue his dream. So, I figured that I'd help him to pursue his dream if my dad wouldn't. I had a friend whose dad had some diving equipment and asked him if he could take us out with it and show us the basics. I didn't know that you were supposed to do your training in a swimming pool... I just... I was a kid, I didn't know. Neither did my friend.”
“Oh, no... I think I can see where this is going,” I murmured.
“So, one day when my friend's dad was out, he got the diving equipment out of the garage, called me up and said we could go to the ocean and give it a try. I told Jimmy, and he was up for it, of course. So, we drove out to the ocean, found what we thought was a good, safe spot. And then Jimmy put on the diving stuff and went into the water. His last words to me... his last words were... 'Thank you, Kain. Thank you for doing this for me. I'm so happy now. You're the best brother ever.’ The best brother ever...”
I could see tears forming in his eyes – something I had never thought I would see on his face.
“He never came out of the water. At first, we thought he was just really enjoying himself but then an hour passed. And then another. That was when we called the police. They found his body the next day.”
“Oh, my God, Kain,” I whispered. “I'm so sorry. That is such a sad, tragic tale.”
“I'm sorry, too,” he murmured. “I've never really gotten over it. And neither has my dad.”
“But you realize, surely, that it wasn't your fault. I really hope that you haven't been blaming yourself for what happened to him.”
“Of course, it was my fault!” he snapped. “If I hadn't gotten this kid to lend us the scuba gear, it would never have happened! He would still be alive today if I hadn't done that!”
“No, you can't blame yourself. It was a tragedy... but it was an accident. It wasn't anyone's fault, Kain. It certainly wasn't yours. You were just a kid. Just a kid who loved his brother so much that he wanted to help him realize his dream.”
“And that love... it cost him his life,” he said, standing up. “That's what love does. It kills.”
And with that, he ran out of the restaurant, leaving me alone at the table.
Chapter 14
Kain
I had to get out. I had to leave the restaurant. Everything had suddenly become overwhelming, and all sorts of memories and emotions were crashing through my mind in a mad cascade. The day my brother had died suddenly seemed so recent, so real, as if it had been just yesterday – and all the terrible emotions associated with it came thundering back.
As soon as I got outside and could breathe a little fresh air, I felt a little better. Not much better, mind you, but there was a measure of relief there.
I couldn't believe how the words had just started tumbling out of my mouth as soon as I had started telling Mandy about what had happened to my brother. It was as if a dam had broken, and the water contained within had just been gushing out with a mad fury.
I still didn't know just what it was that had made me trust her so much, what it was about her that just made me feel as if I could totally open up to her but there was definitely something. That, I had always found, was rare for me – to have a connection like that with another human being. I couldn't decide whether this excited me or terrified me.
I stared up at the sky, bright with the lights of Los Angeles.
“Are you up there, Jimm
y, looking down?” I whispered to the sky. “Are you proud of me? I hope you are... I really do. And I hope you know how sorry I am about... About everything. Not a day goes by where I don't think of you, where I don't regret what happened. And where I don't wish that you were still here with us.”
The few stars visible in the sky twinkled gently. I suddenly felt an eerie sensation – not a bad one, just a weird one – as if someone was watching me. Maybe it was Jimmy...
I stood quietly for a while, my hands in my pockets, just breathing and thinking. After a while, I heard some footsteps approaching. I turned around and saw that Mandy was walking toward me.
“Hey,” she said gently. “How are you doing?”
“I'm all right,” I replied.
“I waited a few minutes before coming out here because I figured that you'd need some time alone.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I did. And I'm feeling a little better. I uh, I had a little chat with Jimmy. And it almost felt like… like he was here.”
She nodded. “I understand. I talk to my dad all the time as well, and when I do, I also get that feeling, like he's here, like he's near me. It's a strange feeling but it's comforting.”
“Comforting... Yes, Mandy, that's the word I was looking for. I did feel comforted after speaking to him and feeling his... his presence, if you want to call it that.”
“Presence is definitely how I would describe it. But anyway, are you okay now? Do you want to go back inside now?”
“Yeah, let's do that.”
“Wait a second,” she said suddenly, stepping up to me and staring right into my eyes. I felt the surging electricity of a powerful connection flowing between us.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Thank you for telling me about Jimmy,” she said. “I realize just how deeply personal that was, and how painful those memories were, and how vulnerable you must have felt opening up to me like that. I really appreciate the fact that you put enough trust in me to open like that. Seriously. And if there's anything else you want to discuss, or if you just need a sympathetic ear, I'm here. Any time.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that. It wasn't easy for me to open up like that, and I'm not even sure why I did it... But thank you for being there.”
I said this with conviction, and I honestly did really mean it. I could see that she understood this.
“Come, let's go back inside,” she said. “The main courses should be arriving soon.”
“Yeah, let's do that,” I said, and together we walked back into the restaurant. I felt an impulse to hold her hand but decided that perhaps it wasn't quite the right time for that.
We headed inside and went back to the table, where the waiter was busy placing our main courses on the table.
“Ah, you guys are back,” he said. “For a minute, I thought that you were gonna do a dine and dash – although usually when that happens, it's after the customer has finished the main course.”
We all laughed.
“No dining and dashing going on here,” I said. “Just needed a breath of fresh air.”
“And it looks like we got back just in time,” remarked Mandy. “This food looks fantastic.”
“I hope you two enjoy it,” said the waiter with a smile.
“I'm sure we will,” I said as I sat down.
We were both hungry at this point, so we both tucked in and started eating. The food was amazing, and we both ate in silence for a while, simply savoring the flavors, but then we started to talk again. Once more, I felt as if I really could open up to her.
“You know,” I said, “taking over this company from my father has been one of the most stressful things I've ever experienced. Seriously.”
She nodded. “Just from the pressure on me in my position at the company, I can understand that. It's a very fulfilling job but the pressure to deliver and perform can be overwhelming. Is that what that phone call was about earlier?”
A sour taste formed at the back of my mouth at the mention of that phone call. It seemed as if my father wasn't content with controlling my life in terms of work – now he even wanted to control it in terms of who I was going to marry. Tracy Hendrikson. This was who my dad wanted to set me up with. He was pretty adamant about it, too.
To tell the truth, I had seen it coming for a long time. He and Tracy's mother, Marsha Hendrikson, had been friendly rivals for many years now. Marsha was CEO of a company similar to ours, and it had been going almost as long as my dad's. The two companies had always been neck and neck in terms of profits over the years, with our company coming out on top as often as Marsha's.
Tracy was a few years younger than me, and she was your stereotypical spoiled rich girl. She had been brought up with every demand catered to, every whim indulged, and I doubted whether anyone had ever said no to her in her life. She was really pretty – she had done some modeling, not because she needed to work but just so that she could say that she was a model.
Beyond her good looks though, there was very little to her. All she cared about was her looks and money. The reason my dad wanted to get me and her together was almost entirely political, like some sort of medieval king consolidating his power and influence by wedding his son off to a foreign princess. I think that he had a dream that somewhere down the line the two companies could merge, obviously with his being the dominant one that would absorb Marsha's. My being married to the heir of the company would almost certainly make this dream become a concrete reality.
The problem with this, however, was that neither I nor Tracy seemed to be permitted to have an opinion on our impending wedding. Well, to be fair, I was pretty sure that she would be down for it regardless of what I felt about the whole thing. She had always been into me; I could tell from the way she looked at me, from how she spoke to me.
Me? Well, she was hot, yeah, but that was all there was to her. And I hadn't done anything with her because I didn't want to encourage anything. And anyway, there had always been plenty of hot women who I could entertain myself with without consequences such as marriage.
Now, however, it seemed that my father's plans for me were finally catching up with me, and I didn't imagine I could evade them for much longer now that I was the CEO of the company. In fact, now that I had been CEO for a month, it seemed that my days of freedom were almost certainly numbered. After all, my dad had set up a date between Tracy and me, and he had made it very clear that there was no way I could get out of it.
“Uh, Kain?”
I snapped out of the daze of thoughts I had drifted into, and jumped back to the present. “Oh, sorry Mandy,” I mumbled. “I was just, uh, just drifting off there.”
“I was asking you about that phone call,” she said.
“Ah, yes, the phone call,” I replied. “Um, no, it wasn't about work stuff. Well, uh, it was but not really...”
I kind of trailed off, unsure of what else to say here. I didn't want to tell her about this situation with Tracy, and the pressure my dad was putting on me to get married, to settle down and become a family man. She didn't need to know about all of that just yet.
“What do you mean?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, just, more kind of family stuff,” I replied. “Just stuff between my dad and me. It's not really important, and I don't really want to get into details about it right now. Let's just say that there are many things that he and I don't see eye to eye on.”
“Okay,” she replied. “We don't have to get into it.”
I was thankful for that.
“So,” she said, “I guess now is as good a time as any. Since we kind of talked earlier about what happened between you and I the other night, I guess what I wanted to talk about was this: where do we go from here?”
Ah. I knew that this question was going to come up but to tell the truth, I wasn't really sure how to answer it. All sorts of things had been going through my mind but the bottom line for all of them was that I wanted her to be in my life in some capacity. I wasn
't sure how she felt about the idea of a relationship, and hell, I wasn't even sure what I felt about that. It was difficult to communicate such uncertainty without coming off sounding flaky. Still, it had to be talked about.
“I like you, Mandy,” I said. “I really do. And obviously, there's some really powerful physical chemistry between us. But then we're both really busy at the moment, and we both have a lot of pressure on us. I don't know if going forward... being closer... is a wise or practical decision for either of us at this point.”
A strange look crossed her face as I said this. Was it anger? Disappointment? Relief? All of those? I couldn't really tell.
“I think that you're probably correct,” she said. “I don't know if either of us is ready for... for a commitment. Not just yet, not with all this work and pressure.”
I nodded. “It looks like we're on the same page then.”
“I guess we are.”
“So... we can be friends then?” I asked, not sure that it was what I actually wanted but not knowing if now was the time to ask for more.
Again, that strange look came across her face, and I couldn't really tell what she was thinking. But then the look passed, and she smiled at me.
“We can be friends,” she said. “Or, at least, we can try to be friends.”
Chapter 15
Mandy
“I'm glad that you're okay with that,” he said. “I mean, not that I'm glad that we're not going to be anything more. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant to say that—”