Totaled (19 page)

“No. It—it’s perfect. Thank you,” I replied softly.

She paused for a moment, noticing something, and stepped closer to me with furrowed brows. I stood still, just watching her, not knowing what she was thinking but trying my damndest to read her face. She looked almost confused, but sad at the same time. She brought her right hand up slowly, reaching out to me, towards my chest. Her hand was shaking. She touched her fingertips to my tattoo over my heart, running her fingers over the ink. All the while I watched her face. Her eyes filled with tears and one slid down her left cheek. She looked up into my eyes after a few seconds and whispered the words, “
Tá grá agam duit
,” to herself, almost in the form of a question. Her pronunciation was perfect, making it obvious that she was familiar with the phrase and with Gaelic in general.

“Why did you get this tattoo?” she asked me.

“It means I lo—”

“I know what it means,” she interrupted harshly, with a bite to her tone. “Why did you get it?” she asked as tears now rolled down her face.

I reached up and cupped her jaw, wiping tears away with my thumb, loving the feel of her soft skin under my rough hand but hating that she was upset.

“Never mind. I’m sorry,” she said softly, as if she were embarrassed. She withdrew her hand from my chest, wiped under her eyes, and stepped around me to walk out of the bathroom.

I had no idea what was wrong with her, but those words had to mean something to her as well. I stood there, baffled, and shaken up. I swallowed a few anti-inflammatory pills from the bottle she’d brought in and took a minute to carefully put my shirt back on over the cold packs. When I walked back into the living room, I didn’t see her anywhere. Pat and Mick were out on the back porch, talking, so I joined Liam at the kitchen sink and told him I’d do the rest of the dishes. He didn’t argue and walked away. I cleaned the rest of the mess up from dinner and stacked everything up to dry. Just as I was wiping down the last of the counters, Mick and Pat came inside.

“Well, we better get goin’ now,” Mick declared. “We got a busy day tomorrow. I’m so damned excited ‘bout shrimp fest, I can barely contain myself. Supposed to be perfect weather too.” He and Pat shook hands and clapped their left hands on each other’s right shoulders. “Please thank Bree for dinner. It was finger lickin’ good, as usual. I’ll catch up wit y’all tomorrow. C’mon, Drew.”

I thanked Pat again and followed Mick out to the truck. Bree’s car was gone, which puzzled me because we were sort of blocking her in, but apparently she wanted leave bad enough to find her way out. Mick broke the silence as we made our way home.

“So where’d you disappear to after dinner?” he asked conversationally, though he wasn’t fooling me. He was digging for information. “You went down the hall and never came back out. Then Bree ran from here like a bat outta hell, lookin’ all frazzled.”

“I just went to the bathroom and she came in as I was walking out. She noticed me holding my bruised ribs, I guess, so she helped me wrap ice on it. Then she just left. I’m not really sure what happened,” I lied.

“Hmff. Weird. Did you say anything that might have upset her? She acts tough, but she’s more sensitive than she lets on. It’s a shame ‘bout Pat’s ol’ lady. She was a real sweetheart and she loved those kids. Bree’s had to take on a lot since she passed.”

“I don’t think I said anything wrong, but I’ll be sure to apologize tomorrow if I did,” I said curtly, wanting to end this discussion.

A few moments of silence passed, then Mick started laughing out of nowhere. Not chuckling under his breath, but outright laughing, a full-bodied, gut-shaking out-loud laugh. “I know what’s going on! I can’t believe it just now hit me. You like her!” he declared, clapping his hands together like he’d just discovered a cure for cancer. “And she likes you! I saw the way y’all were looking at each other ‘cross the table at dinner. I felt the sexual tension. You coulda cut it with a knife, ya know?”

“Oh Lord, it’s not like that, Mick. She’s Pat’s daughter! And Liam’s sister. And—well, it’s just complicated,” I said, frustrated.

“But you do like her, though, right?” he prodded.

I hesitated. I didn’t just
like
her. She made me feel things that I’d never felt before. And also things that I didn’t want to feel again. She made me feel alive and confident, but also nervous and insecure all at once. She challenged me and kept me on my toes. She made me want to make good choices and decisions. But then she made me want to throw caution to the wind and not care about responsibility. I was so conflicted and torn that it made my head spin. But the so-called butterflies that her presence drew up into my belly were like a drug to me.

“Yes,” I confessed and sighed loudly. “Yes, I like her…a lot. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll tell ya what yer gonna do. Yer gonna go get her!” he insisted, elbowing me in excitement. “Never mind all the other stuff. If ya like her, ya have to tell her. Ya have to pursue her. True love don’t come ‘round but once in a life time. Sure, it’s a risky move, but you gotta take certain risks in life or it ain’t worth livin’. Lemme tell you a little story, son.”

For the whole drive, Mick told me the story of how he and Joan got together. He was just a poor country boy and she came from a well-known and much respected family, complete with a Southern Baptist preacher for a father. They met on the beach one afternoon when he accidently hit her in the head with a Frisbee and spent an hour trying to apologize to her. He asked her on a date and she told him that she was only sixteen and wasn’t allowed to date anyone yet, especially an eighteen-year-old boy her parents didn’t know. So he said he would wait. And he did wait. He waited an entire year, if you call bringing her cards and flowers after school every week for a year waiting. He felt like a stalker, but she seemed to enjoy the attention and flattery. One evening, while waiting outside her bedroom window for her to look down and smile at him, her father came outside and found him. He invited him inside for dinner with their family. Her father told him that night, right in front of Joan and her mother and brother, that she was not to see him ever again. She stormed away from the table in tears and while Mick wanted to run after her, he knew not to move.

“So what happened? What did you do?” I asked.

“I told her daddy right there that I was in love with his daughter, and he may not have thought I was good enough, or rich enough, or Christian enough, but that no one would ever treat her better or love her more than I did. And that I’d waited patiently for a year for her since we met because she told me she wasn’t allowed to date yet. I told him that I hadn’t done anything wrong or disrespectful, just gave her reminders to let her know how interested I was, so she wouldn’t forget about me,” he said. “And I told him I intended to keep remindin’ her until she told me herself to stop. Then I got up, thanked her mother for a wonderful meal, and excused myself.”

“Holy shit! You’ve got some balls,” I responded. “What happened next?”

“Joan came to see me when I was getting off of work at the paper mill the next afternoon. I was surprised to see her, honestly. She told me to ask her again. I said, ‘ask you what?’ She said, ‘a date. Ask me on a date again.’ So I did. And she said yes. I asked if her father gave her permission and she said yes.”

“Seriously? That was it?” I questioned.

“That was it. Sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in and lay claim to what you want. It was a risk, but what did I have to lose? He already wasn’t lettin’ me see her,” he pointed out. “It didn’t matter to me. Even with the potential rejection, the potential failure, and the potential ongoing uphill battle with her daddy, she was worth it all.”

“But how did you know that she was worth the risk? How did you know you were in love with her before you even went on a date with her?” I inquired.

“I just knew. I knew it when I saw her that first day on the shore that she was it for me. I follow my gut and it hasn’t steered me wrong yet. You just have to trust that gut feeling you get. It’s there for a reason. Trust it,” he urged.

“You don’t understand, Mick. I’m no good for her.” I wished that he could understand.

“You keep sayin’ that, but that’s not how I see it at all. I see a guy who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have the confidence to go after what he wants. Yer scared and I don’t get it.”

“Just let it go.” I was so tired of keeping the secrets hidden, but I couldn’t allow myself to say the words to this man who had become like a father to me.

“Drew.”

I heard him say my name, but I didn’t turn my head. I wasn’t ready to open up, for someone to know all of me. What if this man I looked up to, this man I just met and obviously formed an attachment to, hated me after I told him what happened? What if I lost him?

“Drew,” he said again, and waited a beat before speaking again. “Drew, you just need to let it all out. Let me in. Help me understand.”

I glanced away from the road to look at his face and saw him staring at me, sincerely and firmly wanting me to open up to him. I felt like I owed it to him. The thoughts racing around in my head were at the top of a wave, threatening to break, and I just couldn’t fight them cresting over any longer.

I pulled my truck over into a shopping center lot and parked on the edge, where no other people or vehicles were. The air inside the car was thick and my throat didn’t want to open for me to say anything.

“I’m here to listen, not to judge,” Mick reminded me softly, encouraging me to start. “Sometimes it helps to just get it all out in the open. Your shoulders can’t take much more of this burden you carry around all the time.”

He was right. I was exhausted. So I cleared my throat and began. “You remember me telling you that my parents are both dead?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Well, how they died isn’t such a good story.”

“It doesn’t matter, Drew,” he said, his voice patient and kind. “It’s your story. It’s part of who you are, good or bad. Nothing is going to change the way I see you, son. I’m here to help you.”

“Thank you, Mick.”

Chapter Twenty-One

BREE

After driving around aimlessly for over an hour, I made my way back to my house. Seeing that Drew’s car was no longer there produced a strange feeling within me. I was sad that he was gone but so relieved that I could go in and withdraw to my bedroom to continue to process the weird bathroom scene that transpired earlier in the evening.

I didn’t stop to say anything to Liam or my dad. I went straight into my room, softly clicked the door shut, and exhaled. I didn’t care about saying goodnight. I didn’t care about washing my face. I didn’t care about anyone but myself in that moment. Quickly changing into a t-shirt, I fell into the familiar comfort of my bed and closed my eyes, falling quickly to sleep.

The sunlight shone bright, filtering through the clouds and warming the spring day perfectly. Sounds of lawnmowers doing their weekend tasks drifted through the neighborhood air and smells of freshly snipped grass permeated my nose.

“Higher, Liam! Push me higher!”

Swinging was the most fun. And Liam could push me the highest.

I giggled at my hair, the breeze blowing the whispies away from my face as I flew forward and how quickly they blew back into my face, tickling my cheeks when my swing retreated backwards.

Closing my eyes, I felt on top of the world.

“It’s MY turn now, Bree! Let me get on the swing,” Liam barked, snapping me out of my flight.

“Okay, I’ll get off. Push me as high as you can so I can flip.”

“Mom said that we aren’t supposed to flip off of the swings.”

“Just DO IT, Liam. We’re eight years old now. I’m big enough to do it.”

He pushed harder and I soared, going so high that I could feel the swing set shaking and almost lifting slightly out of the ground. When I reached the peak, I released my hands from the chains and propelled myself forward, leaning and tucking my knees in to flip over.

Something was suddenly wrong. I wasn’t flipping. I was stuck, caught. My dress was tangled on the corner of the swing seat, holding me hostage. I thrust my hands forward to catch my fall and felt my foot connect with something hard before I hit the ground with a thud.

I can’t breathe. I can’t get a breath. Why can’t I breathe? With my chest tight, I turned to look at Liam and saw him crouched on his knees, holding his face in his hands.

Oh my God, Liam. I hurt Liam. Trying to catch a breath enough to scream, I yelled at the top of my lungs, “MOM! Mommy! Liam is hurt!”

In seconds, she was in the backyard, assessing us and surveying the scene.

“What happened? Are you both okay?”

“I was trying to jump off of the swing and I think I kicked him in the face. Make sure his eye is okay. Liam, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Stop,” Liam said petulantly as she doted over him, looking into both of his eyes. “Check Bree. She landed hard.”

“I’m fine,” I said with a scratchy voice. “Can you see, Liam? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to kick you. My dress was caught on the swing. I didn’t mean to do it.”

Coming over to me, my mother gasped and I brought my eyes up to meet her shocked expression. I followed her eyes to look down at my wrist, where her gazed was fixed.

“Bree, don’t move, okay? Your wrist is broken.”

“It’s fine, Mom. Just make sure Liam is okay. I promise. I’ll be fine. Is Liam going to be okay?”

“Bree, stop,” she said softly and firmly. “Stop worrying about Liam. We have to get you to the doctor. Does it hurt?”

“It will be fine. It doesn’t even hurt,” I replied, lying through my teeth. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Liam’s face, already swelling around his left eye. Tears began to roll down my face, not for my wrist, but for Liam, my brother, my best friend. I had hurt him.