Trouble (Orsen Brothers #1) (9 page)

“I don’t understand why you behave like this,” she’d say, leaning against the bathroom door with a look of contempt as I vomited. Then, she’d smack her lips together and shake her head at me as if I was the single greatest mistake she ever made.  “Do you want to end up like your father?”

It was her usual repartee.

“Mom,” Luna would start, holding my hair back away from my face.

But it was never any use.

“This isn’t about you,” my mother would tell her. “You’re the good one. Your sister, however, needs to harness onto her inner power and get over this life hurdle.”

Life hurdle? Inner power? What hippie bullshit.

Since when was she so prolific?

Freshman, sophomore, and junior year rolled by like nothing and by the time my senior year was coming to a close I had garnered a reputation that followed me across the stage as I accepted my diploma. One of my “friends” even joked that she hoped I lived through college.

I spent those years drinking before class. Drinking after class. Sometimes even drinking during class. I kept empty bottles of Pavlov stuffed beneath the twin bed in my dorm room as reminders of my idiocy, and when they piled up too high to hide any longer, I began sticking them in every nook and cranny I could find.

People around campus knew me as the girl who needed to be carried home from bars but always caught a second wind; the girl who never seemed capable of remembering a thing. But it would take my freshman roommate asking to be reassigned to a different room for me to realize the full extent of my problem.

As a result, I spent the rest of that year and the following years hung over and alone, but my grades spiked and I graduated with honors, as well as a list of fuck-ups that would impress even the most seasoned alcoholic.

Except now my drinking was no longer so easily excused. Excessive drinking, it turned out, wasn’t acceptable outside the pockets of high school and college—out in the big bad world where you need it the most. And everyone who took notice made sure to remind me of it; their tones soothing, their eyes laced with judgment.

I could practically hear their thoughts.

‘Why doesn’t she just quit?’

‘It cant be that hard can it?’

But they didn’t know a thing.

If they did, they’d know that what small amount of power I had left was relinquished to a girl I once knew as my stepsister and a bottle of peach schnapps when I was still just a kid.

Chapter 11

—

I
paced back and fourth in front of the glowing emergency entrance and clawed my fingers through my dripping hair. The chain of events that led me here were a blur, but my scrapped knees, tattered dress, and muddy hands were pretty good indicators.

I was relieved when I stumbled upon the bridge. Not because it was practically safe looking, but because for the first time in what felt like hours, I had managed to find a landmark I recognized. One that pointed me towards home.

But it was the towering man standing on the edge of it who took me off guard. He was intimidating and under normal circumstances—I might have been afraid to be alone with him. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

I stepped on the unsteady platform and approached him hesitantly, not wanting to catch him off guard with my presence.

“Careful,” I called out to him, gripping the railing until my knuckles flushed of color. If the fall didn’t kill him the strength of the water certainly would. “The current is strong tonight.”

He jumped when he noticed me and for one brief moment we met eyes. Everything that happened next unfolded in slow motion. He struggled to regain his balance on the buckling wood and right when our fingers touched, he slipped from my grasp.

I wasn’t strong enough to pull his hefty form back over the edge—and so he fell—all twenty feet—into the harsh current below.

The world spun slowly off its axis.

My empty stomach lurched forward and before I realized what I was doing—I was taking action—clawing my way down the rocky hill and into the water after him.

He was still alive when I pulled him onto the edge of the muddy bank, although just barely. And as I bent my mouth to his, I silently thanked myself for taking that CPR class my freshman year of college.

After finishing off my cigarette and squeezing the excess moisture from my hair, I entered the emergency room lobby and approached a woman seated behind a glass partition. She raised her head and slid the window open when she noticed me, grazing her eyes over my frazzled appearance. “Admittance or visitation?”

“Uh…” I rubbed my throat as I searched for the right response. “I’m here to see the man who was brought in about an hour ago. For a near drowning.”

“Are you a relative?”

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. Was this really so hard for her to figure out? The smell of murky river water practically radiated off of me. “I’m the woman who pulled him from the water.”

A look of sudden understanding etched its way across her face. “Of course.” She nodded and sat up straighter in her chair, pressing a button that opened up a second set of doors. “He’s in room 201. Walk to the very end of the hall. It’ll be the first room on the right hand side.”

I thanked her and made my way down the dimly lit hall as my wet heels clicked against the tile. When I approached the room I lingered nervously outside of it.

I swallowed hard when another man stepped into view, lingering over a hospital bed with his muscular back turned away from me. I tried to turn and walk away before he noticed me but it was too late. The sound of my heels must have given me away.

“You’re her,” he said, taking a step towards me. His glazed over blue eyes gave me a slow once over as a look of pure gratitude surfaced in his expression.

“I…” I shook my head, feeling my mouth go dry. But before I could finish speaking, he pulled me into a tight hug that made my heart beat a little faster in my chest. He smelled amazing. But that wasn’t something I should have been noticing given the circumstances.

“I’m Liam,” he said huskily, extending a calloused hand to me. He nodded at the bruised man asleep in the bed.  “That there is my brother Anders.”

“I know,” I answered automatically. “I mean…”

“Right.” Liam laughed, rubbing his neck. “You saved his life.”

I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot and let go of his hand as a lump surfaced in my throat.

“What’s your name?” he asked, twisting the toothpick dangling between his teeth. His eyes never left mine.

“Venus.”

“Like the planet?”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “I mean I guess…”

“Well, Venus,” he said, waving at an empty chair beside two beeping machines. “You look like you might want to sit down.”

“Uh—” I ran a hand over my damp dress and turned for the door. “That’s nice of you to offer but I just came to see if he was okay…”

“He’s fine,” Liam answered without missing a beat. “Just a little banged up. Nothin’ a few days rest won’t fix. They’ve got him pretty looped up on pain killers right now but he should but up soon…”

I hesitated in the doorway and eyed the sleeping man, remembering the haunted way he looked at me after I gave him mouth-to-mouth. His bloodshot eyes, two pools of icy blue, gave way to his confusion. And her name. He wouldn’t stop saying her name. Not even when the paramedics arrived and took him away.

“Come on,” Liam urged, extending his hand to me. “Stay awhile. I’m sure he’d like to meet you, all things considered.”

“I don’t know…” I started, but before I could finish speaking, a deep groan left Anders throat and his eyes fluttered open.

He looked back and fourth between me and his brother and I averted my gaze to the floor, feeling suddenly on-guard. I hadn’t even thought out what I wanted to say to him.

Liam approached the edge of his bed and ruffled his brother’s hair.  “Perfect timing man,” he said, meeting eyes with me. “There’s someone here to see you. I’ll leave you two alone for a few minutes…”

I started to open my mouth to protest but he was out the door before I could. I folded my arms over my chest and bit down on my bottom lip, feeling Ander’s icy gaze against my face.

“So,” he spoke up, finding his voice, “what are you doing here?”

I frowned and shook my head. There was something condescending about his tone. Something I didn’t like. “I don’t know,” I answered with a shrug, “I just wanted to see if you were alright.”

He laughed and furrowed his brows, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Well?” I questioned a little louder, “are you?”

“You bet,” he replied sardonically, clenching his jaw. The fall did a number on him. His face was a mirage of purple and red—one giant bruise—and a bandage was wrapped around his forehead that he lifted his arms to adjust. “As good as ever.”

But it was the scars that took me off guard—vertical and brutal looking along the insides of his forearms. He caught me staring and adjusted, rolling his eyes with me. “Like what you see?”

“Sorry,” I managed, shaking my head, “I was just…”

Without thinking, I reached out to touch his hand but he pulled back and frowned at me. His eyes were cold and laced with resentment. “Spare me the pity, princess.”

“Excuse me?” Now I was really done. “What, are you brain damaged too?” It came out harsher than I intended but it wasn’t like he didn’t have it coming. My bottom lip trembled the way it only ever did when I was pissed or upset and I tore my gaze from his.

“I didn’t need your salvation,” he said firmly, “If you expect me to be eternally grateful to you, you’re in a rude awakening. What you did was stupid. Plain and simple. I’m not—”

Unbelievable.

“You’re right,” I interrupted, pacing for the door. I couldn’t stand to be near him for a second longer. In fact, if I never saw him again it would be too soon. I just wanted to go home and forget this ever happened. “I made a mistake.”

“You know that’s one hell of a moral compass you have!” he called after me. “You could have killed yourself.”

I paused in the doorway with my hand on the frame. I was practically shaking. “First of all—don’t call me princess,” I said through clenched teeth, “second of all—I was just trying to do the right thing. I didn’t realize what a miserable asshole you were.”

He chuckled. “That’s the spirit!”

“Fuck off.”

I had to get out of here.

I made my way down the hall—past Liam—who was bent over the nurse’s station flirting with a young blonde intern. Past a paramedic wheeling someone on a stretcher inside an empty room. And past the woman sitting behind the glass partition.

Anders husky voice rung in my ears.  “You don’t know anything about me!” he yelled after me. The machines he was connected to began to beep chaotically as he got louder. “Not one
fucking thing, sweetheart!”

Chapter 12

—

I
woke up the following morning bleary eyed with a pounding headache. A groan escaped my mouth as I sat up and stretched, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror across from my bed. My hair was a wild mess, my make-up was running down my face in streaks, and my dress was stiff against my body.

I rubbed my bloodshot eyes and padded into the kitchen, reaching for a bottle of painkillers and popping one in my mouth. My stomach was in knots, every one of my limbs ached, and I couldn’t get the ungrateful bastards face out of my head.

With a deep sigh, I stripped off my clothing and stepped into the shower, turning the water on and letting it blast until it was scalding. I liked my showers this way—with a bite to them. Stephen always joked that I was a bit of a masochist. I pressed my forehead against the wall as the water raked its way down my battered body and before I knew what was happening, I was balled up on the floor sobbing.

It wasn’t any one thing. It was everything.

After a few moments I began to calm down and regain my composure. It was true what they said about a good cry. There was something healing about it. I inhaled a deep breath and turned off the shower, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around myself.

My mind wandered.

I wondered what Stephen was doing. I could envision him sitting behind his heavy oak desk with his glasses on, drawing up the divorce papers with his lawyer on the phone.

After changing into more comfortable clothes, I made a pot of tea and gathered up the heap of fabric on my bedroom floor, stuffing it in the washer along with my dress from the previous night.

A picture of Stephen and I on our wedding day caught my attention. It was sitting sideways in an unpacked box of clutter beside the dryer. I picked it up and wiped a layer of dust off of the frame as I studied our smiling faces. He made me laugh at something and Luna—having just discovered her love of photography—snapped a shot of us at just the right moment.

We looked so genuinely happy together that it was almost unsettling; how we could go from that to whatever we were now in the course of a few short years. A bitter feeling settled over me and I set the picture back down in the box. I didn’t know those people.