The Rivals

by Allen , Dylan

  “Not like this.” He holds me tighter. I squirm now because if I don’t get away, he’ll have his way. I won’t let him make a fool of me again.

  “Let me go. Or do you want to take what’s left of my dignity, too?” I say in a scathing tone, just loud enough for him to hear.

  It does the trick.

  His shoulders slump a little and he loosens his hold. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want that. I just—can I come see you tomorrow? Please.” He sounds so defeated and so desperate. I hate myself for caring. I need to get away from him.

  I nod.

  But, only so he’ll let me leave.

  With his assurance that he won’t follow me, I turn and walk back into the ballroom. The ground is cold and wet in places. But I’d walk over burning coals before I put those shoes back on.

  My dress is long enough. So no one who looks at me can tell that I left my shoes and my heart on the floor at Remi’s feet.

  I see my mother from across the room. She’s staring blankly at the dancefloor. Her arms are wrapped around her waist like she’s cold. “Can we leave?” I ask her as soon as I’m standing next to her.

  She turns, and her face is pale. She looks like she’s seen a ghost. And when she looks at me, it’s like she’s looking right through me instead.

  I don’t even need to ask to know that Mrs. Wilde has had her way with her as well. She attempts a smile, but her lips don’t quite make it. She takes my hand, presses a kiss to the back of it and says, “Yes, sweetheart. I’ve had enough. Let’s go.”

  This time, when we leave the Wilde house, we walk out of the door we walked in through.

  This time, I don’t look back to see who’s watching.

  This time, it doesn’t matter.

  KAL

  “Lee, wake up.”

  My eyes pop open at the sound of my mother’s hushed voice. She’s standing next to my bed, a sad smile on her face.

  “You always were such a light sleeper. That’s probably my fault, too.”

  She sits down next to me, her eyes roaming my face as she reaches up to brush a lock of hair off my forehead.

  “Mama, what’s wrong?”

  “You’re everything you shouldn’t be. Everything, I’m not,” she says absently. Her face is pale, her eyes red like she’s been crying. I’ve been in my own fog of heartbreak for two days. I feel like someone put me through a meat grinder. I haven’t left my bed, and I’ve put my phone in the drawer to keep myself from checking it for a missed call from Remi.

  I haven’t heard from him since that night. And the replay of that night is practically eating me alive. I feel a pang of guilt as I sit up and look at my mother. Something went down with her and Remi’s mom, but I’ve been so caught up in my own upset that I’ve barely said two words to her.

  “What happened?” I ask through a huge yawn.

  “We’re moving,” she says in a monotone voice.

  That clears the tiny vestiges of sleep from my brain and I come fully awake. “Moving where? Back to Third Ward?”

  “No. To New York City. I got a job.”

  “Are you crazy? Why?” Alarm rings through me.

  “It’s a really good job. And I have family up there. I think we need that.”

  “What about the bookstore? What about our fresh start, here? This was supposed to be home.”

  She looks like she’s in pain.

  “Lister bought it back. He’s sorry to see us go, but he gave me a great price for—”

  “You sold the bookstore? In one day? How could you do that?” I look around my bedroom in bewilderment. Panic and confusion whirl around in my chest.

  “It’s a chance to make a clean break.”

  Her eyes dart to my window. “But Remi—”

  “Kal, you’ve been crying over that boy for two whole days. Where’s he been? He hasn’t been by once. He hasn’t called. Nothing. That says everything, don’t you think?” Her voice is angry. She sounds defeated.

  I feel defeated. Remi didn’t come by. None of the names on my missed calls or texts, when I chanced a glance, were from him.

  She comes to sit beside me in bed and takes a hold of the hands I’ve been resting in my lap. I can’t look at her, though. I think I might cry if I do. And it’s the very last thing I want to do right now. It’s enough.

  “I need to tell you something. I promised never to tell you, but I think it’s time because I want you to understand.”

  My eyes are no longer reluctant and fly up to her face. She’s staring distantly and looks like she’s seen a ghost.

  Dread pools in my gut. “Go ahead, Mama.”

  “Your father’s not dead. He’s just never wanted anyone to know you were his.” She says flatly, with no emotion. But her words are like a wrecking ball slamming into what’s left of my heart

  “What?” I gasp and clutch my throat.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you because I’d hoped you’d never have to know. But… It’s David Lister.”

  “Lister?” My eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of my head. “He’s old enough to be your father.” I picture him with his head of silver hair. His visits to the bookstore.

  “I know. I was young. Stupid. He was married, and I was his secret. And when I told him I was pregnant, he threw me out like yesterday’s trash.” Her voice is devoid of anger. There’s just so much sadness.

  “Oh my God.” I clamp a hand over my mouth and don’t say another word.

  “I just made my way forward the best I knew how. I know I messed up, but we didn’t need him. I didn’t want you to know that your father didn’t want you. I hoped you’d never find out. At the party, your boyfriend’s mother tried to blackmail me with it. She threatened to tell you if we didn’t pick up and leave town.”

  That hits me like a punch in the gut.

  “Lister is my father?”

  “No, he’s the sperm donor who made me your mother. He only sold us that bookstore because I threatened to sue him for back pay of his child support.”

  “He’s always known that he’s my father?” I ask and think about the time he’s spent with me.

  She nods. “He doesn’t deserve that title and you’re better off. I promise.”

  I shake my head, dazed. “Why are you telling me this.”

  “I told you.” She snaps.

  “Mrs. Wilde?”

  “Yes. She thinks you’re going to ruin her son’s future. After yesterday, I think it will be the other way around. Those fucking people. They may have all of the money in the world. But they are empty vessels. I pity them,” she says in a voice dripping with disdain.

  I told her about my humiliation on our walk home. She hadn’t said a word then, and I was glad. But, right now, I need answers. My mind is reeling. That man is my father? And he hasn’t wanted to know me?

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper numbly.

  “It’s simple,” she snaps. “Boys like him don’t ever take girls like you to parties like that. They don’t marry girls like you. All of that is for girls who come from good families. With mothers who are all members of the same club.”

  “But… we were different. He made me promises.”

  “Clearly he didn’t mean them. We’re leaving tonight.”

  “Tonight? What? No,” I cry, the melancholy that has gripped me for the last two days clears, and I scramble off the bed to stand in front of her.

  “Yes,” she says firmly.

  “But… I don’t understand.” I look around my room and can feel all of the pieces of my life slipping from my grasp.

  “I got a job in New York. My cousin Sabrina’s going to put us up until I find us somewhere to live. I start work on Monday, I need to enroll you in school. We have things to do. I know it’s sudden, but I also think it’s divine timing. One door was closing, and another one opens,” she says with manufactured enthusiasm.

  “I don’t know what to say. I need to talk to Remi—”

  At the mention of his name, her pa
tience seems to snap.

  She grabs my arms and rattles me slightly. Her eyes burn into mine.

  “Don’t be a fool. His mother couldn’t have done any of that if he’d told you the truth. It’s better for you to have a broken heart now rather than live with a string of them your whole life. He’s one boy. You’ll meet others. Someone whose feet touch the ground. We can’t play on their level, Kal. I put all of those fool ideas in your head, but in truth, you’re no different than me. Forget this fantasy.”

  I start to sob and sit back on my bed.

  “Now, pack.” She points to the suitcases lined up at the door and walks out without saying another word.

  The shock and humiliation of that evening have feasted on the sorrow that followed and now, I’m just numb.

  She’s right, there’s nothing here for me.

  So, I slide off my bed and start to pack my life up.

  Again.

  Chapter 14

  GONE

  REMI

  * * *

  The bookstore has been abandoned.

  The books are still there. They look like they’re open for business, but the lights are off and the doors are locked.

  I’ve been by every day this week and have finally accepted that they’re gone. Without a trace. Without a word. Everyone is shocked. The square is ablaze with chatter about them packing up their car and leaving in the middle of the night. Lister owns the store again, according to Regan’s intel.

  I haven’t been this close to crying since the night I met her.

  I’ve never felt more frustration and helplessness in my life. There’s an ache in my chest that has grown more and more acute every day.

  I stroke the tiny box in my hand and shove it back into my pocket. I shouldn’t have waited to give it to her. I had the locket made just last week. A W is engraved on the front. Be Legendary engraved on the back.

  The morning after the party, I went to To Be Read. Her mother refused to let me in. She had cut the trellis down after the first time I climbed it and threatened to call the police when I started throwing twigs at Kal’s window in hopes that she’d come talk to me.

  I left. I didn’t want to make an already fucked-up situation worse. Surely, she would calm down after a few days and talk to me.

  How wrong I’d been.

  I haven’t slept well or been able to eat since that night. I’m sick with regret and now, fucking scared at the prospect of not ever seeing her again.

  I’m also out of time. I’m leaving for school in a few days. and I haven’t even told my family that I’m heading to Washington, DC and not Austin.

  I haven’t spoken to my mother since the night of the Gala. I blame myself more than anyone. I lied to Kal. But she orchestrated it so that she found out in the most humiliating way possible. I haven’t been able to stand being in the same room with her.

  But with every step I take away from the bookstore and toward my house, I start to look forward to this conversation.

  “Two can play that game.”

  “What game would that be?” My grandfather steps into the foyer just as I open the door and I jump out of my skin.

  “Stop sneaking up on people, Pops,” I grumble.

  “Well, I wouldn’t need to sneak up on you if you hadn’t spent the last three days avoiding everyone.”

  His voice is gruff from years of chain smoking and drinking whiskey. Yet even as he scolds me, there’s a tenderness in his manner that softens the often stinging bite of his rebuke.

  “Easy on the guilt trips, old man, they don’t work anymore.” I start walking toward the stairs.

  “Remi. Come to my office.” He’s using a tone he hasn’t taken with me since I was a boy. He’s not taking no for an answer. I follow him into his office and sit on one of the chairs on the other side of his desk.

  “Glad you’re finally listening to someone.”

  “You’re not the one I’m mad at anyway,” I grumble and sit across from him. He hands me a small silver frame that’s always on his desk.

  “That’s Tex Harrison, former coach for the Harlem Globetrotters and that’s two-year-old you in his arms.”

  “You’ve only told me a million times.”

  He ignores my churlish words.

  “Your father loved basketball. But he wasn’t any good at it. But, he loved watching it. Did you know, it’s how he met your mother?”

  “No. I didn’t know. Not sure I care.” I hand him back the frame.

  “She was working the concession at The Summit nights while she was in school. She was assigned to our box. He came home one night and told me he’d met a girl with a fire in her eyes and he thought she might be… something. I took one look at your mother and knew he was right. She would be something, all right. She had a bigger pair of balls and I knew she’d be the making of him. Or at least, I hoped.” His voice is wistful.

  “Still think you were right?” I ask.

  He contemplates me, like he’s sizing me up.

  “Your father was in love with somebody else,” he says and completely blindsides me.

  My jaw drops.

  “Say what?” I sit up straight and lean toward him. The weight that had felt like it was pressing against my chest eases as shock and curiosity replaces it. I hadn’t expected that at all.

  “Yes, when he first went off to college. Before UT. We didn’t approve, and he got over her, Remi. Met your mother and got to work building a family. Because that’s what men do. They don’t lick their wounds.” His eyes come to me then, full of reproach.

  I flush, embarrassed that he’s calling me out. “I’m not licking my wounds.”

  “You’ve had a wonderful summer. You’ve got an important year ahead of you. Focus on that.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “She just wants what’s best for you,” he chides.

  “She wants what’s best for the family.”

  “Those are the same thing, Remi.” My grandfather’s stark white brows raise in question.

  “If you say so.” I purse my lips.

  “Remi… try to understand your mother. She’s damaged. Your father, before he died…”

  “What did he do before he died that you all talk about him like this?” I have never asked this question because I know that they won’t answer it. But I can’t take this shit right now.

  He appears completely unmoved by my outburst. He gives me the once over. “He was my spitting image. You don’t look like us. All that dark hair, those dark eyes—that’s your mother.”

  He gestures to the picture of her on the small table beside his chair. “But everything else about you is just like every Wilde male that came before you. We love beautiful girls. We make fools of ourselves for them. And in some instances, we ruin ourselves for them. It’s happened to every man, in every generation, and, Remi, as harmless as it may sound, it’s never been anything less than devastating.”

  I do roll my eyes now. He’s not prone to dramatics. But maybe his stroke did more damage than I thought. “You seem okay. Dad died young, but you can hardly blame Mom for that.”

  “Let me tell you how I’m okay. I married a woman I could live without.” I look at him like he’s crazy. “Nana must have loved knowing that.”

  “She didn’t know. And I loved her. Just not too much. I had a vision and I knew everything would have to come second.”

  “I don’t want that kind of relationship.” I shake my head.

  “What you want doesn’t matter. What I want doesn’t matter. Any woman you have to go after, steer clear of. That path is lined with mines that will explode without warning and cut your legs out from underneath you. Trust me. You’ve got a lot to lose. Don’t go and blow your life up over a girl you just really like to fuck.”

  My cheeks flame at his crude language. “That’s not all I want.”

  “Well, then I’m doubly glad she’s gone,” he snaps.

  “Of course you are.”

  “Look at the Rive
rses. They’re only one bad marriage away from having no more heirs. The woman Jacob married is a disaster. She’s a shrew, and it’s a house in constant turmoil.”

  I look at him askance. “How in the world do you know that? Did you cross the border of Rivers Wilde and actually go and see them?”

  “I would set myself on fire before I ever set foot in those people’s house. I regret like hell letting your father talk us into adding their name when we were naming this development. They just spat in our faces and live in that stupid mansion like they’re kings and this is their fiefdom. Like we are their serfs.”

  The venom in his voice when he talks about the Rivers family never fails to surprise me. He’s a ruthless businessman, but he’s more of a float like a butterfly, sting like a bee type of man. When he talks about the Riverses, it’s with pure contempt and a very aggressive anger that is so unlike him.

  “Do you know that Regan is friends with one of those boys? That girl has no loyalty. His name is Stone of all things. What kind of name is that?”

  “Oh, come on,” I chide him. “Regan isn’t friends with any of them.”

  He looks at me askance, but his eyes aren’t focused. “One day, they will come and kneel and pay their respects. And the minute they do, I’ll make sure they never get back off their knees again.” He slaps the arm of his chair.

  “Pops. Chill you’re going to give yourself another stroke.” I nod at his fist. He’s clenching the newspaper so tightly that it’s nearly balled up.

  He relaxes his hold and brushes his still full head of white hair off his forehead. “You’re right, and they are certainly not worth it. Lazy and lucky is what they are.”

  I change the subject because once he really gets going on the Riverses, he can talk for hours. I reach into my back pocket. Pull out the letter I’ve been carrying around.

  “I need to show you something.”

  “What’s that?” he asks and I hold it out to him. My heart thumps a little because I already know what he’ll say.

  He eyes me intently for a few seconds before he takes it from me. His fingers, gnarled by hard work and age, tremble slightly as he opens it. His eyes, rheumy yet with still nearly perfect vision scans the letter and he then he holds it out to me again.