Black Lies (29 page)

“You certainly are Brant. And you did three pages of these yesterday in the time it took me to use the restroom. So don’t tell me you don’t know how to do it.”

I don’t know how to do it
. I said nothing, only stared in her face. “I want my mom.” It wasn’t so much as wanting my mother as wanting to get away from this woman.

She looked at me. “Your mother is at work, Brant. You know that. She’ll be home at six. Until then, you’re stuck with me.”

She was a liar. This ugly woman opened her mouth and all that spewed was a lie. My mother didn’t even have a job. She stayed home all day. Spent time with me. Let me watch TV and slipped me Hershey’s kisses and glasses of milk during commercial breaks. I closed my mouth and stared at the paper. Hated this stranger.

“Do you want to work on your computer for a bit, and then return to this?”

“I want to watch TV.” The clock about the shelves showed that it was almost four. My mom would let me watch TV anytime after three.

The stranger frowned. “You don’t like TV anymore, Brant. It hurts your head, remember? Why don’t you work on your computer.” She pulled at my arm and I snatched away, her grip slipping off, the return of her hand harder, her nails digging into the soft skin in a way that
hurt
.

I didn’t know what she expected me to do with a pile of junk stretched out, a computer screen hooked to a chain of pieces. There was no computer there, just a jumbled mess of wires. The only computer I’d used was my father’s, which was simple, the first step being the large and easy-to-find power button. There was no power button there, and that only served to make me feel more stupid. I shook my head.

“Then we’re back to fractions,” she sighed. “Do these four pages now, no excuses, Brant.”

I looked up, away from the worn page that had been pushed and pulled between us until it had a small rip in the right corner. “I’m not BRANT!” I screamed, the anger pushing out of my throat like it had legs and arms and would fight to be heard.

The woman started, her head jerking back, and I saw a change in her eyes, a hesitation of sorts. A look I liked. I pushed away from the desk, standing, almost as tall as her, a growth spurt already putting me a head taller than my classmates. Giving me strength over others. Over this woman.

“Shush, Brant!” she scolded, regaining her footing and putting a hand on my shoulder, digging in her nails and trying to push me down, into the chair, the muscles in my legs fighting her attempt without struggles.

“I’M NOT BRANT!” I screamed and reached out. Shoved both hands into her chest, having a moment of adolescent pleasure at the forbidden feel of female breasts, even if they were attached to an old woman. She fell, stumbling, her hand leaving my shoulder and waving wildly on its way down.

I moved closer, sitting on her stomach, like how Rowdy Roddy Piper had done to Hogan on TV a few weeks earlier. The move worked well, she struggled and yelled but went nowhere. Hulk had done an athletic spring jump that had thrown Roddy off and across the ring, but she only squirmed underneath me like an overanxious dog.

“Brant!” she yelled, hitting my chest and using the voice that my mother did when she was really serious about something.

“I’M NOT BRANT!” I swung with a fist, the way my father taught me, in our garage, against his baseball glove, my thumb safe, my wrist strong. Saw her head snap, her yells stopping as her hands flew up to protect her face, swing after swing breaking easily through the fluttering of her hands, her voice becoming a river of sobs, finally quieting by the time my hands tired.

My father had been clear in his teachings. You only allowed someone to push you to a certain point, then you pushed back. Stood up for yourself, first with your words, then your fists if the words weren’t effective. I had used his words against this liar. Asserted myself clearly before using violence.

The fists. I had enjoyed using the fists. I looked at the still woman beneath me and almost hoped she called me Brant again. Crawling off of her, I looked at my hands, ignoring the moan from behind me.
I have blood on my hands
. Someone else’s blood. A first for me. I brushed them off on my pants, realizing too late, that my mother would be upset by the streaks of red against the tan fabric. Then I head for the door, certain that somewhere nearby there will be a TV. And I had almost two hours to watch before my mother would be here to pick me up.

I climbed the unfamiliar set of stairs and smiled, certain my father would be proud.

Brant finishes the story, torment ripping vulnerability through his eyes and for a moment I think he’s going to cry. Break in front of me. I grip his hand, bring it to my mouth. “Brant, it wasn’t you. You know that.”

“What I just saw… where I just went… that was me. Me peering into another world that makes no rhyme or reason.
I did that
. I hit her over and over, like she was an object, a game. My mother…” His voice drops and his hand comes up, pinches the skin between his eyes. “My mother came home and found me on the couch, watching television, eating popcorn, with fuckin’ blood on my hands.” He lets out a hiss. “I remember that. Like it was me, even though it wasn’t. Why am I suddenly remembering that? After twenty-seven years of nothing.”

“Do you know Lee? Remember anything of him?” I am almost scared of the answer. Of Brant’s reaction to Lee’s memories.

He shakes his head. “No. I have… nothing, Lana. One memory, that’s it. That’s enough. After that, I don’t want any more.”

I squeeze his hand and release it. “Let’s go inside. Stop thinking for a bit and let me baby you.”

Anna has earned every bit of her salary. We walk into a house that smells of food and home, the staff fading into unobtrusive corners upon our arrival. Brant sits down at the kitchen table, silence falling over the room as he puts away a crabmeat omelet and two waffles. He avoids my eyes, his stare on the food before him. When he finishes, he stands with a quiet cough, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. “Please tell Christine thank you for the breakfast.”

“I will. Anna drew a bath if you’d like one.”

“I think I’ll take a shower instead.”

Any thought I have of settling into hot bubbles with him disappears. I nod, smile. “Of course.”

Suddenly strangers, two lovers awkward in their own home. I don’t know what to say to him and he seems embarrassed, all over a fact I have known for two years. I want to hug him. I want to pull out his fears and lay them to rest. Kiss him and tell him I will always love him. But he steps, moves, speaks—all with a cloud around him, one that screams ‘Don’t touch!’. I stay in place and watch him head for the bedroom.

As I reach for his plate, Anna scurries around the corner. “Let me get those, Ms. Fairmont.”

“Thank you.” I drop my hand. “Did you reach the doctor?”

“Yes, she’ll be here within the hour.”

“Can you show her to the master suite when she arrives?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you.” Having no more purpose in the kitchen, I walk to the bedroom, easing open the door quietly before stepping inside. The lights are off, the only illumination the dawn, dim over the Pacific. Behind me, the crackle of the fire takes the chill out of the air. I enter the bathroom, check to see that towels are heating, my eyes pulling to the fogged glass of the shower.

I stare at the glass, trying to guess what this man wants. Coming up blank, I pull off my clothes, leaving them on the marble floors, and step into the shower.

The shower is a cloud of fog, the hand before me hidden by a mist of white. I stumble through the steam, my feet feeling their way across the stone floor until I hit the warm body of Brant, his skin jumping underneath my touch. I say nothing, only step closer, into the hot spray, my arms wrapping around his body, my head resting on his wet chest.

“I’m not very good company right now,” he mutters, his hands sliding down and around me, a hard hug squeezing me into his chest.

“You’re always good company.” I stand on my tiptoes, pressing a soft kiss on his lips, my first attempt missing as our movement clashes.

“I’m so lost right now, Lana,” he whispers.

“You have me. Together, we’ll never be lost.”

“I have you for how long? You aren’t going to want to put up with this.”

I run my hands up his arms and across his shoulders, my hands ending up where I wanted them: cupping his face. “Forever. I’ve been telling you that for years, Brant. Years in which I knew about your condition. Years I’ve loved you through. I don’t love you
despite
this. I love you,
including
this. Every part of you, even parts you don’t know.”

He growls, his chest vibrating against me. “That drives me crazy. I’m jealous of him, you know that?” His gruff tone holds an edge of possession, and I smile, glad he can’t see me.

“Who, Lee?”

“Yes,
Lee
.” He says the name like it is dirty.

“It’s a mutual dislike. He’s extremely jealous of you.”

“He is?” The shock in Brant’s voice makes me chuckle.

“Are you kidding? The billionaire who spends his nights with my sexy ass? Of course he’s jealous. He knows how much I love you, even if you are blind to it.”

He lowers his mouth to me and I feel our connection return, a righting of the balance between our souls. “This is why, right? Why you won’t marry me?”

I swallow. Run my hands down his chest and around his back, bringing my mouth to his skin and kissing the line of his collarbone. “It was why I
wouldn’t
marry you. Because of my lies, the secrets I kept from you because of it. I didn’t think you deserved a wife with a secret.”

He lowers a hand until it cups my ass. Squeezes it lovingly. “And now?”

I pull away enough to look up, into the steam where I can barely make out the features of his face. “And now… there are no more lies. Not from me.”

His entire body freezes in that moment, skin tightening, rigidity forming, my hands and body feeling the change. When he speaks, it is only his lips that move. “Are you saying… that now…” his voice drops, vulnerability carrying through the whisper of his words… “that you’ll marry me? With me like this?”

I step forward, pressing every piece of me against him, wanting to crawl into and hug his broken, terrified heart. “I’m saying nothing would make me happier.”

He groans, pressing his lips against mine so hard, so strong, that it almost hurts, his hands grabbing at my skin with long, possessive grasps, pulling me against him as if he will never have the chance to touch me again. “That’s a yes?” he asks abruptly, pulling off my mouth, as if the last-minute verification is needed.

I smile, finding his eyes. “That’s a yes, Brant Sharp. I will marry you and be your wife whenever you want to have me.”

“Yesterday,” he blurts, returning to my mouth. “Now.” He presses forward and pulls me tighter, my body made aware of the size of his need. “Forever.”

Then my future husband makes love to me in the shower of our home. And I make sure, for the next fifteen minutes, that no one else crosses his mind. Literally or figuratively.

“When will the doctor be here?” Wearing boxer briefs, Brant pulls on a T-shirt, his hands reaching for jeans when I’d really rather him be in pajamas, in bed, behaving as my patient.

“In the next half hour.”

He opens a drawer and reaches inside, grabbing a bottle of Aciphex and tossing it to me. “Ask her what this is, and what it’s meant to treat.”

I examine the bottle, twisting open the lid to see it stocked with white tablets. “These aren’t Aciphex?”

“No.” He looks, for a brief moment, sheepish. “Jillian told me they were to control my blackouts.”

“Your what?” I hold up a hand. “Wait. We have so much to discuss it’s crazy. The majority of it concerning Jillian. Can you tell me everything in fifteen minutes?”

He shrugs. “I can do it in five.”

I pocket the bottle of pills. “Let’s sit on the deck and talk.”

“When I was eleven, everything in my life started to change. It came with the onset of my family’s purchase of a computer, the introduction to advanced technology affecting more than just my interests. It was as if my brain turned on full force, in a hundred ways at once, an unlocking of a door that I had shut. I was always intelligent, but I was suddenly gifted. I began to apply the simple facts, concepts, mathematics that I knew, and used them in the way that the computer did – as simple rules that can work with each other to conclude an output. My brain was reborn and it was obsessed with discovery. I could think, could process more, do a hundred calculations in a minute, but I also was bombarded with colors, images, thoughts… more than I could handle at one time. I’d want to build three things at once. Or have two different opinions on the same subject, at the same time. I’d argue with myself, presenting both sides of an argument, my mind understanding the nuances and opinions of either side and feeling strongly on both points.” He collects his thoughts, then continues.