KNOT: A Wake Family Novel (50 page)

REGGIE—Saturday, June 5, 2010

I
was hysterical. It was a panic attack like I’d never experienced.

I’d called her from the waiting room once, but she didn’t answer. So I walked out to the rental car in the emergency room parking lot—totally freaked-out—and called her again. I’d never been in that kind of situation before. I’d never seen anyone beaten. I’d never feared for the life of someone I loved.

The fact that it was my little sister had my stomach inside out. My mind was going in every direction, and I couldn’t calm down. Couldn’t breathe.

“Who did?” she said, concerned. “Where are you?” I heard water running over the phone. What was I thinking? It was so early for her. I probably woke her up.

I fucking hated time.

Fuck.

I was sweating, scorching hot and freezing cold. My heart escalated to an exhausting rate and I couldn’t fight the impulsive urge as the words crept up my throat.

“Ten. Nine. Eight,” I keened and tried to catch my breath. Leaned over the steering wheel, my body felt like it was locking up. Shutting down. I gasped for air, but no matter how much I got, it wasn’t enough to fill my stiff lungs.

Nora continued for me.

“Seven. Six. Five.” She sounded so calm, and I focused on her. I listened to her voice and tried to regain my composure. “Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. Just breathe,” she instructed. “In and out.”

I’d feel it ebb, then it would wash over me again.

He tried to fucking kill her.

She counted with me, over and over, until I felt the panic resend to wherever it metastasized.

“Now explain what’s going on,” she inquired gently. I heard her typing.

“I’m in Seattle for my parent’s anniversary. I’m not sure what was going on. All I know is she went to their old house to get some papers signed, and now she’s in a fucking hospital bed.”

She’d looked so frail.

She’d looked dead.

“I’m going to kill him,” I said, knowing in that moment—if given the chance—I would. “He could have murdered her, Nora. He had a fucking gun. The police shot him.”

She gasped, but didn’t comment.

It kept replaying in my head. Her bloody, lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs. My little kid sister who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

“Is she going to be all right?”

“We don’t know anything right now. They’re running tests. Her head. Oh, God, she was bleeding a lot.” I wasn’t speaking very well; it was hard to get my words out through all of the chaos in my brain.

“Do you want me to come there?” she offered. “I can be on a plane to Seattle in a few hours. What can I do?”

I knew how busy she was, and I wasn’t even sure what I was walking back into through the doors of the hospital. Hell, I’d already been out there on the phone long enough.

“Listen, I still don’t know what’s going on. Don’t make any promises you can’t keep right now.” It was a terrible thing to say, but I said it. I was angry and pissed, and she was the only one available to take it out on.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, knowing I should apologize.

Fuck, where did I start?

She beat me to it. “Reagan, I’m so sorry.” Who knows what she was sorry for? We were both to blame for so many things.

“I didn’t mean it, Nora. Well, I meant it, but I shouldn’t have said it.”

I heard her resigned breath on the line. “Call me or text when you know more.”

I said I would, but I wasn’t sure it was true. I was only stirring shit up. I wasn’t even sure why I’d called her anymore.

The next few days were long. I slept in the waiting room for two nights. None of us wanted to leave until we were sure the doctors were right, and she’d be fine. Things slowly got better, and her swelling went down, but nobody really knew for sure until she woke up.

I’d talked to my friend Paul, who worked for the Seattle Police Department, and he informed me they’d let Grant go.

I had to get out of there.

There was nothing I could do, and so I took a red eye home.

When I walked into my apartment, I immediately knew she was there. Nora had a way of filling a space. A presence. Or maybe every sense I had was trained to always look for her.

She was laying in my bed, and I was too tired to fight. I wanted sleep.

I took my clothes off and climbed in behind her.

“I thought you didn’t sleep in beds by yourself,” I mentioned, but I could feel myself already nodding off. My arms wrapped around her, and as if she were a security blanket, I started to relax. I knew the relief wouldn’t last long, but I was desperate for a little peace.

“It smelled like you,” she answered around a yawn. “I sweet-talked Dirk into letting me in, then I remembered I still had your key.”

I was glad she was there, regardless of what it meant for the morning. I understood what she’d said when Janel died. I did feel better just touching her, being with her.

Better
and
worse.

When I woke up, she was sucking me off. I was caught between the twilight of waking and the blistering heat of a desert sun. I didn’t protest; I let it be.

My hips rose as I looked down my body at her.

She moaned something that sounded like good morning, and I fell back onto the pillow. My hand tangled in her hair, and she blew my mind with her mouth and hands.

I didn’t warn her of my careening climax, there was no point. She knew what the signs were—the effect she had on me—and didn’t shy away when I came down her throat. When she finished, she got up and climbed into the shower.

I joined her and returned the oral favor before I took her from behind with her favorite shampoo still lathered in her hair. The same fucking bottle, that after a year and a half, I still had.

We knew how to do this, but would we ever be good at anything else? Could we have ever really been what the other truly needed? It was so fucking complicated.

It was much more complex than monogamous and polyamorous. It was distance. It was ensuring she had all that a life without me could give her. It was my pride. My ego. My vanity.

We were pretty complacent after we came, and we unabashedly watched each other as we washed ourselves again.

It hurt seeing her. Was any of this fucking agony even worth it?

“When was the last time you were with someone else?” I had to know, even if I didn’t want to answer the question myself. Even if it wasn’t my damn business. Was she living the lifestyle she’d always talked so highly about? Was she getting all of the things I wanted to give her but knew I never could?

“I haven’t been,” she answered before walking under the spray. I found that hard to believe. I hadn’t expected her to be getting around, but I certainly knew how much she enjoyed sex. How she loved it. How she loved watching it.

“Not at all?” I asked and almost laughed.

“Nope. Nothing. The last time I was with two people was you and Simone. Other than that. Just you, and that doesn’t happen very often.” She stepped out of the shower and pulled the largest towel from the rack and wrapped it around her arms. Then she continued, “I know you think this is all easy for me, and you pretend like I hated being in a one-on-one relationship with you, but that’s not what it was. You kept an open mind the whole time. I didn’t.”

I was about to learn
my something new
for the day.

“What do you mean? What was it then?”

She dried but didn’t meet my eyes. “It was a lot of things. It was you probably wanting to get married somewhere down the road and knowing I’d never be able to do it. And you deserve someone who believes in that, too. You deserve someone who has faith. I don’t have that in myself.”

She shrugged and continued, “Then it was the having you do things that I knew deep down you really didn’t want to do. I felt so guilty most of the time. I was ashamed of how jealous I was. I’m not a jealous person, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I’m not made for that. I’m not cut out for committing my feelings to someone that way. It only ends up hurting everyone in the end.”

The way she was talking reminded me of how we used to be in the beginning when we were honest.

“When did we stop telling the truth?” I asked and took the towel she handed me. The moment held so much levity. There we were naked and clean, but still hiding behind excuses.

“When we fell in love,” she answered. “I guess when you have something worth lying for, you’ll lie to protect it. Even if it is just to yourself.”

What she said blew my mind.

I was still reeling as I pulled up my jeans. Since she hadn’t unpacked, she zipped up her suitcase when she was finished dressing.

I sat on the bed and put on my socks.

She thought about getting married? Or not, as it turned out?

She was jealous?

She thought I was doing things against my will?

Damn her for never telling me any of that. Damn her for coming here and reminding me when it was too late.

Then, she asked, “When was the last time you were with somebody?”

The fork in the road. I’d brought us there.

“Last Wednesday,” I answered. I wasn’t proud, but it was the truth. “It’s never like it is with you though.” I didn’t know whether she’d care or not, but I was curious as hell.

I remember one time hearing her say she got
great pleasure
knowing her lovers were happy with others. I wasn’t
happy
with others, but I was with them from time to time.

Would
that
give her
great pleasure
?

I heard the air shove from her lungs. I guessed it didn’t.

“Then why do you do it?” she spat.

No.
She was angry, which sadly didn’t bother me. It felt like we were even.

You’re on a roll, Reggie. Why stop?

“Because sometimes I want to see if I’ll be able to forget you. See if I can fuck you out of my head. See if I can get some goddamned peace.”

“And?” she deadpanned, her foot tapping against the hardwood. Her knuckles white around the handle of her travel bag.

I looked up, but she was staring at the floor. She was already gone.

“It
never
works.”

She stomped to the door. I followed to watch her leave. It was good for me.

Her hand on the knob, she said, “Well, Reagan, I’ve never known you to give up
that
easily. I suppose you’ll have to try harder.”

Then, she left.

It was sick, the things we had in common.

REGGIE—Sunday, September 19, 2010

I told her I’d given up. I had.
Many times.

After what had happened with Ives. After every single other shitty time we screwed ourselves further into the mess. Every time I gave up.

It was so much easier to quit than win, especially when you have no chance in hell.

“I don’t want you to give up,” she said looking down at me between her long legs.

After I’d confessed probably my biggest offense I’d ever committed, I continued to kiss her, but it wasn’t as sexual anymore. I was kissing her skin because it was hers, it just happened to be the closest to my mouth.

Fundamentally, I knew it would always be her. I was confident about that.

If this was really it, and we were putting this affair to bed, I’d need to accept some gruesome truths.

I may eventually find another woman.

I may have sex with her.

I may even enjoy her company and then marry her.

Lost in my thoughts, I felt bad for the poor woman who lived in my future. She’d only get half a man. Nora was the only other human who made me whole.

Whole and happy. Whole and dead inside.

I was only ever one hundred percent when I was with her. Good or bad.

That night we’d ran the gamut. Dominant.
Submissive
. We made love.
We fucked
.

“You don’t get a choice in the matter. Neither do I,” I replied.

Then, she uttered words that said it all. The ones that shackled us. Ones we’d been both gently nursed
and
brutally beaten with, but—until then—she’d never
just
said them.

Her timing crushed me. Stupid time.