Rule (38 page)

I spent one more day in the
emergency room but when I got out I realized there was no way on this earth I
was going back to my apartment with Gabe out on bail restraining order or not. 
Luckily Cora had an extra couple rooms open in the house she rented in the
Washington Park area because both of her roommates had recently got engaged to
each other and had moved out to get their own place so Ayden dropped me off at
her place and returned a couple hours later with all my essentials packed up
for an extended stay.  She said the property management company was working on
getting the place cleaned up but even with that it still gave her the creeps to
be there alone so it didn’t take more than a week for her to ask Cora if she
could crash in the last room at her house as well.  They even agreed to let us
break the lease without paying a penalty because of what happened to me.  Being
around the girls did wonders for both my mental health and my physical state. 
They never let me get down and someone was always there to remind me that
everything I was feeling was temporary.  They also refused to let me freak out
over pressing charges against Gabe.

Things were moving fast and a few
times it looked his father was going to use every trick he had to get Gabe off,
but magically Alex Carsten had stepped in and now Gabe was on an ankle monitor
and being charged with not only aggravated assault but breaking and entering as
well.  I didn’t for one second think that was a favor my mother called in, but
Rule and I were back to radio silence so I never called to ask him or to thank
him.  Of course the Davenport’s had the best defense lawyer in town on the
payroll, but all signs pointed to a slam dunk for me so I tried to stay
positive.

I was refusing to talk to either of
my parents.  In fact I hadn’t told either one of them I moved and I had changed
my phone number within hours of leaving the hospital.  The fact of the matter
was I had nothing to say to either of them, all the things I had said to Rule
held true for them as well.  I deserved better and if they weren’t willing to
give me the love I showed them without restrictions or demands then I didn’t
want them in my life.  I knew my mom was struggling with the fact that she had
to be accountable for the fact that she ultimately is the one that let Gabe
corner me alone, but like I told Rule the only person I blamed was Gabe.  It
was more important to me that she recognize that she should have never pushed
him on me when I told her I was in love with someone else in the first place. 
If they couldn’t figure out how to love and appreciate me for me then I would
make do without them.

Ayden and I were settling into a
new routine and we both adored Cora.  It was nice to be living in a house
rather than an apartment and as each day went by it got a little easier to
breathe around the hole in my chest where my heart had once been.  It had only
been two weeks but it felt like a lifespan we had been apart.  This time faking
it to make it was so much harder, maybe because I knew for real it was the end
but there was no fake smiling, no pretending to glide through life.  I was
struggling and I was struggling hard.  I missed him.  I loved him.  I couldn’t
have him and it was killing me in an entirely different way than when I had
loved him from afar without him knowing it.  Cora was back to keeping all talk
of work and the guys at bay but every now and then she would let something
about him slip and every time it felt like a shard of glass in an open wound. 
It should have made me feel better that he didn’t sound like he was doing much
better than me but it didn’t.  We both deserved happiness, it just sucked that
we couldn’t seem to find it together.

It was a couple days before Saint
Patrick’s Day which not only fell on a weekend this year but also happened to
be Rule’s birthday.  The girls had decided that instead of sitting around being
sullen and grousing about things that we needed to go out and have fun.  I didn’t
want to go, I mean I really didn’t want to go and not only because my face
wasn’t entirely pretty again but because I didn’t think I could handle being in
a crowd just yet.  I was pretty sure it was going to be an awful time and that
I was going to have zero fun but because I loved them I let them bagger me into
agreeing to go and to my surprise after a few martinis at an out of the way
lounge Cora knew about I relaxed and actually having a good time, strike that
it was a fantastic time that I totally needed.  Getting up for school the next
morning was awful and I was tempted to skip but I had missed so much because of
the attack that I couldn’t afford to.

I was standing in front of the
mirror doing my hair and trying in vain to cover up the yellowish remnant of my
black eye when I had a startling revelation.  Loving Rule had never been easy,
it was always hard and painful and the payoff had been years coming, but I had
never decided he wasn’t worth it.  To me loving him had never been a choice, it
was just something I had decided was inevitable, just like I had decided him
ever coming to care about me was never going to happen.  Last night I had been
so sure I wouldn’t have any fun, that going out was going to be miserable and awful
but after doing it I had a blast and it was totally worth the risk and
harassing I had suffered to get me to go.  I had done what I swore I never
would, I had walked away because there was no guarantee in the end, no
guaranteed happy ending for us.

I set my curling iron down on the
sink and stared at myself in the mirror all the sadness and missing part of
myself clear in the reflection staring back at me.  Rule was the one thing I
had always wanted and when it got hard to hold onto him I had just let go
rather than fight to keep ahold of him and that wasn’t right.  I deserved love
but I also deserved him and whatever form that his love came in.  Rule wasn’t a
normal guy, there was never going to be hearts and flowers or poetry flowing
with words that made me blush, what there was always going to be was give and
take, ups and downs and a passion that burned both of us to the core.  When he
asked me at the hospital ‘what if” my answer should have been if you’re asking
you already do because I knew it now, could see it as clearly as I could see my
own face in the mirror, Rule loved me he just didn’t know that’s what it was. 
Neither one of us really had shining examples of healthy loving relationships
to draw from but the second he had told me he wanted to try I should have known
he was falling in love with me.  He never tried for anyone.

Someone knocked on the bathroom
door and Ayden popped her head in the room.  “We have to head out soon are you
almost ready?” 

Considering I only had the right
side of my head curled I think the answer was obvious.  I turned to her with
huge eyes.  “We need to go dress shopping after school.”

She propped a hip in the doorway
and lifted a dark eyebrow at me.  “Any particular reason why?”

“Rule’s birthday is this weekend.”

“Cora might’ve mentioned that.”

“He’s gotta be having a birthday
party.”

“She might’ve mentioned something
about that as well.”

“Well we have to go.”

“Why?  I thought you were done with
all that noise or is this martinis from last night talking?”

I shook my head and picked the
curling iron back up.  “I have to give him a present.”

“Oh yeah?  What if he’s there with
someone?”

I cut her a look.  That possibility
hadn’t even occurred to me.  “Is that likely?”

She muttered something under her
breath and brushed her long bangs out of her face.  “No.  Cora said he’s been
pretty much a hermit since you guys split, that and his temper is on fire so
everyone that doesn’t want to be flayed alive is pretty much staying the hell
out of his way.  What are you planning on giving him anyway?”

“The only thing I think he wants.”

She snickered.  “More jewelry for
his face?”

I laughed a little.  “No…me.  I
think the only thing he really wants is me.  We were both just too messed up to
realize it.”

She rubbed her hands together. 
“Well it should be interesting either way.”

Interesting didn’t even begin to
cover it but my new leaf was all about self-gratification and Rule was
ultimately what I wanted to be gratified.  I could only hope he hadn’t gone so
far down the tunnel that I couldn’t pull him out.

Rule

“Hey dude, happy birthday.”  I
traced a finger over the horseshoe on the headstone that I insisted on being
there and cleared away the emotion that was clogging my throat.  I didn’t come
here enough but every year on our birthday I made sure to stop by and let Remy
know I was thinking about him.  It was hard, being reminded once a year that he
wouldn’t be turning twenty-three right alongside me, that I was getting older
and he was stuck in time at twenty, his life cut way too short.  “I’m pretty pissed
off at you right now.  My life is all upside down and I can’t seem to find my
footing and all the stupid shit I normally do to ignore the hurt and confusion
just doesn’t hold any appeal.  I don’t understand why you didn’t just talk to
me, why you used Shaw the way you did and I really don’t get how you just let
me act like a total asshole to her for years and years knowing she had feelings
for me.  Well here’s a newsflash bro, I have feelings for her too and now
things are so jacked up I can’t see any way to make it right.  Everyone always
gave me hell for being difficult, for being temperamental and complicated,
turns out you had more going on under the surface than Rome and I could ever
imagine and yet you were still the favorite.  Isn’t that just a kick in the
balls?”  For the second time in a few short weeks I felt tears well up in my
eyes.  “Shaw kept your secret.  All this time, even when things got intense between
us she kept your secret.  She loves you but she loves me too and I just didn’t
know what to do with it so I got mad and I shut her out and as a result she got
hurt and wouldn’t let me back in when that’s all I wanted.  It sucks, love
sucks and I feel like if you were here none of this would have ever happened in
the first place so you suck too.”

There was no answer, just the sound
of my shallow breathing and the wind moving the trees.  I felt really alone for
the first time in a long time and the loss of my twin was really pressing down
heavily on me.  The last month and a half had been rough; everything with Shaw
had left me strung up and stripped bare.  My normal response to that
overwhelming flood of emotion would have been to drink my liver into submission
and screw any and every girl that looked my way.  Neither of those things had been
on my agenda, booze wasn’t enough to make my conscious stop screaming at me
that I should have tried harder, should have handled my shock and anger better
and the idea of taking anyone to bed that wasn’t Shaw made everything I had
below the belt freeze up.  I was working a ton, trying to keep tabs on the
situation with Gabe through Mark and Alex because I was determined to keep him
away from her permanently even if she didn’t know I was doing it and I was
spending a lot of time with the boys licking my wounds.  Even though she had
been so upset with me for trying to change to be better for her, I think I had
affected some major changes on my own despite myself and that wasn’t bad.  I
was allowing myself to feel everything and while the feelings tied up in the
failure of my relationship with Shaw burned at least I was processing them and
not drowning them in bad habits.

I was getting ready to say goodbye
when footsteps crunching on the thin layer of snow still covering the ground
made me lift my head up.  I felt my eyes narrow involuntarily and the corners
of my mouth pull down when I recognized the figure making her way towards me. 
Every instinct I had was to get out there before she could ruin my day but I
stayed put because she was looking right at me and for once there wasn’t
contempt or hatred shining out of her eyes.

“Mom.”

“Happy birthday Rule.”

I cleared my throat because I had
no clue what to say to her.  I knocked my knuckles on the hard headstone and
gave my brother a silent goodbye.  “I’ll take off so you can have some time
with him.  I’m sure today is hard for you.”

I nearly fell over when she reached
out a hand and put it on my forearm.  My mom hadn’t touched me voluntarily in
years and it was enough to stun me into silence.

“It’s hard for all of us but that’s
not why I’m here.  I actually called your work to see if I could maybe take you
to lunch for your birthday.  I figured you wouldn’t answer if I called your
cell so I asked your roommate where I might find you and he pointed me here.  I
guess if I hadn’t been so busy trying to shut you out all these years I might
have figured that out on my own.”

I took a step away from her because
I was pretty sure aliens had abducted my mom and that this creature before me
wasn’t real.  The things coming out of her mouth were almost too much for me to
take in.  “Where’s dad?”

“Home.  He’s working on getting
through to your brother and after all that’s happened I needed to be the one to
come to you.  Can I take you to lunch or maybe for coffee?”

I didn’t want to go.  I didn’t
trust her or her motivations but it was my birthday and we were standing at my
dead brother’s grave so turning her down just didn’t seem like a viable option
or one I could live with later on.

“Coffee would be alright.”  She
gave me a smile that was sad, I mean really, truly sad and I realized for the
first time that my mom had a dark tunnel she disappeared into as well, that
maybe it was a trait I learned from her.  We walked back to the parking lot in
silence and I followed her back to Brookside even though all I wanted to do was
keep in driving back to Denver.  We stopped at the Starbucks I always hit up
and I let her buy me a coffee while I settled into a semi secluded corner and
stretched out my legs.  I could tell she was nervous so I tried to relax and
not be as guarded as I always was around her.