by Leanne Davis
I like to sabotage her dates. I’ve done it for the last three years. She never catches on. She is exactly how she portrays herself. Christina doesn’t lie, or pretend, or simper like other girls to please anyone. She is honest and blunt and real, and unfortunately, totally naïve to anyone else not being as open, honest, and trustworthy as she. She really has no idea how much I’ve manipulated her and gotten what I wanted from her, and for her, over the years. I am including the fact that she’s never had sex. How do I know? Because I rarely fail to ruin whatever dating thing she has going on before it happens. Yeah, Brad the college guy slipped under my radar. She did not tell me about him, or her plans, which is really rare. It made me wonder why she kept it a secret. Did she figure out what I’ve been doing all these years? I don’t think so. She’d surely have said something. Or yelled at me. She punishes me by refusing to see or talk to me. If she ever conceived of some of the things I did to end her relationships… well, I doubt she’d ever speak to me again.
Why do I do that since I don’t intend to pursue anything with her? I don’t know. Probably because I’m selfish and immature. I know what I want, and I don’t want anyone else to have it, even if I can’t.
I just have to figure out how to touch her.
Fuck. Running my hands into my hair, I finally spot some discarded sweats on the floor, which I stick my legs into. Better now, and safer, I sit back down beside her. I stare at the hardwood floor at my feet. “I want to. I want to let you lean against me.”
“Then why not? I try to understand you, but why won’t you let me?”
“You know why. I’m sorry, but your tears don’t change anything for me.”
“Do you think you’ll ever not feel that way?” She sighs with disappointment.
“I don’t see how that’ll change.”
“Counseling?”
“I barely talk to you! How could I talk to a counselor? That’s not for me, Tiny. I’m… just how I am.”
She seems calmer as she pulls her knees up towards her chest again and stares at her sock-clad feet. “How will you ever have sex? If you can’t touch people, how will you ever accomplish that?”
I am shocked. She has never even hedged about such a conversation with me. I twist my head to stare at her. “You want to know how?”
“Yes. Wait? Have you?” Her entire body goes taut.
I shrug, feeling more uncomfortable. I hate to talk to her about this stuff. It’s like talking with your sister, or someone equally incestuous. She shifts around on the bed and moves forward until she’s sitting next to me, still being careful not to touch my legs with hers. “Who? When? How?”
I don’t want to explain. “No one you know. Since I was seventeen. The usual way.”
“You’ve been having sex for years? Like, more than once?”
I shrug. Still avoiding her probing gaze.
“Who? How could you not tell me?”
“It’s weird to talk about that stuff with you. You’re my… whatever you are, but you’re not a guy. You’re a pretty girl; and no matter how much our parents try to pretend we’re related and all, we are not. I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
Her head snaps towards me. I can see it from the corners of my eyes. I still stare down. “You think I’m pretty?”
Where did this conversation come from? I have no idea what to reply. I shrug. “You know you are. You’ve been told that by everyone for your entire life.”
“Not true. But… never once by you until now.”
Her voice is kind of soft and breathy. Like it matters to her that I said that. I don’t know what to do or say, so I remain silent, my status quo. She shakes her head. “How do you have sex if you can’t even stand for me, me of all people, to just lean against you?”
“You, of all people, are the only person I want to touch me! It’s not personal. You know that. We’ve talked about it. Sex with me isn’t good. It’s impersonal. It’s quick, with no affectionate cuddling before or after. It’s… just body parts slamming together, Christina. Touching in the smallest way they can. You figure it out.”
“But…”
“Drop it.”
“No. I can’t believe how I could not know.”
“Because I don’t tell you.”
“When do you do it?”
“When I sneak off to fight usually. Chicks chase champions. End of story.”
“It’s so cold, so callous sounding. That’s what you really want?”
No, I want you. But I can’t say that to her. I want her big eyes looking at me, all dewy and soft and in love. But I can’t because I just don’t think I can give anything back to her. I can’t be even a fraction of what she needs and wants and expects. She knows she’s worth love and respect and care, but mostly, affection. I can’t give her the one thing that would make her the happiest. She can’t handle it if I have sex with her and refuse to show her any affection. That’s what I did with the other girls. It was simply sex and nothing more. Not even a kiss on the cheek! It was merely the act of removing only the clothes that absolutely needed removal, and hoping the girl wanted what she claimed she did. Yeah, not exactly what I would ever choose for Christina.
I’m a jerk, an ass, and a total bastard. I know that. I always have been as far back as I can remember. Remember my brother, Derek, the used-to-be drug dealer? He was never like me. He is the nice one. The decent one. The one who genuinely cares for other people. I never possessed an ounce of guilt, or a conscience. The only reason I have what little bit I do now is truly because of Christina. If she hadn’t taken me in as her friend in the first few days I was here, I’d have never stayed. I would have never given Lindsey and Noah a chance. I’m a better guy now than I would have been had I not stayed, but not by much. And I’m not nearly the person Christina believes me to be, and therefore, the rest of our extended family believes. See the gross factor? Our family. What’s really weird is: I see her little sisters as pesky, younger cousins. I actually get there with them, and do think of them as my related family. I tease and annoy them; but I would hurt anyone who tried to hurt them. But Christina? I never got there with her. I can’t consider her my cousin.
But I think she does, and has from the start.
Right now, she’s looking at me as if I just announced how much I enjoy killing the neighborhood cats. I shake my head and try to smile. “I don’t like any of them. I like you.”
She lets out a breath. “I was so mad at you. Why did you call my dad?”
Because I can’t stand for you to be used by a guy like me. That’s a really shitty, two-faced way to treat her, isn’t it? I know it too. I know it’s wrong, but something inside me can’t allow her to be as bad as I am.
“Will made me promise to look out for you. I was simply doing that.”
“I’m allowed to have boyfriends! I’m eighteen. I can do what I want with them. Isn’t it a totally stupid double standard you can do it, but I can’t?”
“Yeah. Completely. But I, most likely, won’t get hurt. You will. Come on, Tiny, you wear your heart on your sleeve. You can’t handle what you were setting yourself up for. You can’t even handle me not wanting to hug you. You can’t fuck some random guy and not feel like total shit about it.”
She’s staring at me with her mouth open. I look right at her. My eyes are cold and my face is blank. Master. I am the master of it.
“Am I supposed to thank you?”
“Yeah. Maybe. It kept you from getting hurt.”
“Screw you, Max,” she snarls at me. She jumps to her feet and I glance up, shocked. She never yells at me. But the way her sweet voice tries to sound so badass, and her little body shakes in indignation now, instead of sadness, I feel relieved. I’m glad I’ve pissed her off and launched her out of her melancholy. That, I could not help with; this, I could.
“We just established you wouldn’t like that.”
She nearly screeches at me. “You ass. You had no right. You are just as—”
“Tina.” I stand up and my voice is softer. Quiet. She’ll have to stop yelling to hear me. She does. “I called your dad because I didn’t want you upstairs with some random guy. I could tell you I wanted to protect you, but that’s a lie. If I wanted to do that, I’d have come in there myself and taken on the prick. I wanted you to stop what you were doing. So I called him.”
She slides to her feet and shakes her head. “But why? I can’t understand why you would care so much. Is it really some archaic thing if I’m a girl? I mean, you can do it, but I can’t?”
“No. It’s because you’re the girl in question.”
“What does that even mean?”
I stare into her eyes. We are now eye-to-eye, and almost toe-to-toe. But not touching. The air thickens between us. “It means,” I say, my breath falling over her face, “I want more for you than I do for any other girl. Or even myself.”
She shakes her head. “You are such a coward. You think taking on guys who are older and bigger than you makes you brave, but it doesn’t. You’re really nothing but a coward. Say it! Say the real reason.” She whispers the last part. Her eyes close, and tears fall down her cheeks again. “Please, just say it.”
I am. I’m a coward. I can’t tell her what I really want because I don’t know how to be what people consider “normal.” I don’t know how to give her love. She deserves love. I might feel it, and even long to share it with her. I could probably tell her. But showing her how I feel? How? I can’t touch her. I can’t stand for her to touch me, as we just established, so how can I tell her the truth? My truth? It makes my heart hurt. Like someone is punching me. Why can’t I just say, “I want you. I care about you. I love you”? I want to so badly, and the selfish part of me whispers just do it. Make her settle for me. Make her deal with it… with me, as I am. But I also know the sex for her would be like I’ve already had it in the past. And I don’t want to do it like that with her. Mechanical. Cold. Using only the parts that need to have contact, and working to get off as quickly as possible. There is really nothing more than that with them.
I lie instead. “You are my family. I have to protect you. I won’t apologize for doing that. I’d do it for you and your sisters all over again, no matter how old any of you get.”
Her eyes pop open. I am hiding behind our collective family unit. I try to remove all the feelings and intimacy of us, Max and Christina, from my purpose. There is an “us” that no one fully comprehends, or how close we are. Only we know, despite how often we deny or downplay it. She bites her lip and shakes her head. “You’re a real prick sometimes.”
I am that too. I don’t argue. She turns from me and sits down again, this time on the chair to my desk. A place where she is safely away and not so close to me. I long for her closeness. I anticipate it. I want it. Yet when it gets too real, like it might actually happen, or it does happen, I hate it. I dread her proximity and want her far away from me. How can that be love?
I don’t understand it myself. How can I expect anyone else to?
I clear my throat, trying to dilute the weirdness that seems to have engulfed us. “So, this stuff with your parents. Shit. I’m sorry, Tina.”
She spins on the office chair and stares up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe it. All those stupid times I was mad at her for being so moody, or kinda checking out on all of us. I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought. I mean, I think I thought it was like depression or something. But how could I be so insensitive if it really was that? Am I a selfish bitch? Am I just learning that about myself?”
I come forward. Her eyes drop from the ceiling to my bare chest. Okay, I should have put a shirt on; but I like the way she looks at me. She’s usually subtle, and glances at me before averting her eyes, erroneously assuming I don’t notice her gawking. I am a nineteen-year-old guy, and all I think about is Christina. I’m weak for her attention. Any way I can get it. When I masturbate, I often think about her body, her mouth, her being under me, or over me. I’m a jerk. As I said, I’m well aware of that. I screw up her relationships. I don’t want her with anyone else, but I can’t be with her either. I won’t even acknowledge what is happening between us. I think we both feel it. We both know it’s there, but coward that I am, I continue to ignore it, and tacitly refuse to acknowledge it with her.
“You’re none of those things. So you got mad at her? I doubt your mom’s upset about that. She would understand. She probably realized what she did, and understood you didn’t know what she was doing, but she couldn’t tell you. Not yet.”
“That’s what she said to me.”
“Then believe her. You’re a good daughter. And a good friend. And a good cousin.” I smile. As if we were ever, even for a day, cousins.
“You always have so much confidence in me.”
“That’s cuz I’m your coz!” I force a grin. She rolls her eyes at my cheesy statement. I call her that sometimes, teasing, when I need to make sure our invisible walls are all built back up. We both need them now, desperately; but I need them much more.
“I’m sorry I tried to hug you.”
I shrug and dig my hands into the pockets of my gray sweats. “I’m sorry I can’t let you.”
“I know. I know that, Max. I shouldn’t have done that; it was mean and selfish of me.”
I start to answer when my bedroom door bursts open. I turn in surprise towards Lindsey. She never bursts in on me. After all, I am a nineteen-year-old guy, and though she thinks of me as her “son” or whatever, I most definitely am not. There are well-defined boundaries around here when it comes to my privacy, which I demand. I require it. I need it. She usually respects that. But her gaze isn’t on me. It’s on Christina; and her eyes are filled with worry. She rushes forward and scoops up Christina in her arms for a long, aunt-niece hug. Lindsey and Christina are close, way closer than most aunts and nieces. I think before my arrival, the Hendricks girls were Lindsey’s surrogate daughters. And so begins the awkwardness of my feelings for Christina.
She can also give Christina the comfort I can’t. I feel almost bitter with jealousy, which makes me worse than an ass. How dare I deny Christina what she most needs right now just because it pisses me off that I can’t be the one to give it to her!
“Your mom called. She told me you know about her history. I know what a shock it must be. I do. I remember the first time I heard it…”
Christina pushes back and looks up at Lindsey. “You didn’t always know?”
She shakes her head. “You’ve heard about our relationship. How we didn’t get along. How our dad pitted us against each other. That extended to long after this happened. I found her… upset one day. I went to get Will and then, I heard about what happened to her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my place to tell.”
“You told me what your husband did to you.”
“That’s how I chose to handle it. Your mom needs privacy. I’ve pretty much spent the last decade doing everything I could to ruin my ex-husband’s reputation, as well as bring attention to the signs of spousal abuse. After all, he was a public figure, so there was no hiding it from people after his unexpected death.”
“But they were scrutinized by the public too. How could I not know?”
“Their story was everywhere for a little while. But like all things, the attention died down and literally disappeared pretty much until I landed here. But years have passed since anything about it has been mentioned.”
“There’s more. Dad said there was more than just what he told me.”
Lindsey stroked Christina’s hair. “Just start with that.”
Christina’s arms are locked around Lindsey’s waist. “It surprises me how much it hurts.”
“I know. That’s why they never told you. Understand, if I had kids, I don’t know if I could have told them either. The media broadcast my plight as well as all the charity work I do. But to actually tell you about the details? Think how often I have not done that. I don’
t really talk about it, not really, except with Noah.” Lindsey was abused by her ex-husband, the governor of Virginia, years ago. He was killed in a sniper attack. To this day, a huge mystery surrounds his demise, and no one has even come up with a theory of who might have been the suspect. I believe Lindsey knows, somehow, who did it. And I wouldn’t blame her if she was involved either. She inherited her ex’s substantial fortune, but she and Noah did not live on it or spend any on themselves. She uses it to fund charities, compensate victims, and advance public awareness. She also set aside college funds for Christina and her sisters… and of course, for me. Not that I’d ever be using it. But still, it’s kind of surreal to me that someone actually set aside money so I could go to college if I ever wanted to. Six years ago, never, ever would that have been a possibility. I was trotting down the glittery path that ends up in petty crimes or much worse. Then Lindsey and Noah Clark came along, changing the entire course of my life. Why then, can’t I be a better guy? Why can’t I live up to their trust, what they so generously invested in me? I often hear that thought filtering through my brain, and my heart sinks as I realize, yet again, how often I fail them.
Lindsey even once contemplated running for state senator until I fucked it all up. She says she might try running again now that I’m older. I wonder quite often if she doesn’t regret not doing that instead of adopting me, and all my bullshit. I put her through a lot for years. Especially for the several days-a-week of speech and occupational therapy she insisted I have.
Finally, however, Christina leans back. Lindsey releases her as she glances at me and scowls. “Put some clothes on.”
I grab a shirt, feeling a little glad she doesn’t know I spent half the time in my underwear. She steps forward and motions at my head. “Looks painful. Get some ice on it. Good thing your tetanus shots are up to date; no telling what you might get exposed to with your favorite hobby.”
I let it pass. I know she says it out of concern for me. She wants to reach out and ruffle my hair, or do something like any woman might do to her grown-ass son, but she drops her head with a rueful smile. Unlike Christina, she doesn’t fight me. I nod, letting her know I hear her and will follow her advice.