Thrive (14 page)

My animal was safe. I’d protected him.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it got much, much worse.

I had no words. Just anger…only anger.

~Curtis~

“Why did you come to Joe’s? I told you it isn’t safe.”

“And I told you I’d keep us safe. If I weren’t there you’d still be fighting, the reason why lost to the urge to punish
yourself
.”

“You’ve got me all figured out, huh?” He shot a smile at me, with a hint of the charisma twenty-five year old Curtis had.

“I’m part of you. I’m in this with you.”

He nodded and pulled away when the light turned green.

“Just don’t do it again, okay?”

I wasn’t going to promise that and I knew he didn’t really want me to; he wanted to protect me, but he knew he needed it as much as I did, if not more.

“What’s wrong with Geoff?” I asked, hoping he’d be able to have the conversation now that he had a sense of accomplishment.

“He’s sick.”

“I know. What is it?”

I tried to prepare myself for the answer. I thought I knew what it would be, but there’s no way to prepare to feel the pain of someone else. Someone who was so connected to you, you breathed at the same time.

“Cancer.”

“Curtis, I’m sorry.” I raised my hand to the back of his head and stroked the hair that brushed the collar of his t-shirt. I wasn’t sure if he liked it; his back stiffened against the driver’s seat, but he didn’t shake me off. “How much do you know?”

“Lung cancer.” His voice was robotic as he reeled off what he’d been told, void of emotion and detached, looking in from the outside to keep his feelings away. “Stage three. I’ve got him an appointment tomorrow to find out more.”

“Is that what Angelica arranged earlier?”

“Yes.” He let out a long, tight breath. “I’ve got to help him.”

“What treatment is he having now?”

He shrugged, “We didn’t get that far.”

“Hey.” I swallowed down the guilt and leaned over to kiss the top of his arm. Would they have got that far if he hadn’t found me in the ring? “It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to fall. I’ll catch you.”

“I can't. I can't fix this if I'm crying like a girl.”

He turned into the carpark for his building and parked in his spot.

“Come on,” I said, climbing out. “I’ve got an idea.”

***

The bathroom was filled with rose-scented steam as the water lapped and swirled around us. Curtis’ back was to my front, my legs extending along his until they ended just below his knee, and his head was laid back on my shoulder as I ran my hands through his wet hair. His eyes were closed, his breathing was calm and regular, his chest rising and falling in time with mine. It was the most relaxed I’d ever seen him and my heart filled with the gratitude that he had let his guard down and allowed me to care for him.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked, sliding my hands over his chest in an attempt to keep the tension away with a gentle massage.

“There’s so much to say, I don’t know where to start. Thinking about it makes me feel sick.”

“Do you want me to ask questions?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “As long as you don’t stop.”

I pressed a kiss to his temple and smiled. I tapped his shoulder and pointed to the shampoo; he grabbed the bottle and squeezed some into my hand. Scraping my nails over his scalp, I lathered the shampoo into his hair. Curtis groaned and shifted, sending water sloshing over the edge of the bath, so I could reach every strand.

“I just have one question,” I said. “I promise you, everyone who ever hurt us will pay for what they’ve done, but I want to know one thing.”

“Anything.”

“If things hadn’t gone wrong, what would you want to be doing right now?”

“At two in the morning?”

“Every day. What would your life be like if it weren’t for all the obstacles that try to bring you down?”

“I can't answer that.”

“You said anything.”

“Not that.” He tried to move away, but I clamped my legs around him and dug my nails into his hair. Just a tiny amount of pain brought him back to me. “It hurts to think about it.”

“I know,” I soothed, loosening my grip on him, and used my hand to cup water and rinse the bubbles out. “Give me your pain, Curtis.”

“I’m almost forty and I'm alone. I’ve never really dreamed of another life because I'm too angry with the one I've got to see any other alternative.”

“Dream now.”

He paused, but we needed to do this.
He
needed to do this. He had to realise we had something to reach for.

“I’d want to be with you. That’s one thing that has and never will change. But things would be simple; I wouldn’t have to force myself on you to keep you here. I’m too paranoid you’re going to leave that I can't enjoy you. We wouldn’t live here, we’d live outside the city where it’s safe and we’d be able to go for walks and picnics in the park. I’d travel for hours a day so I could get back home to you at night and know you were safe.

“We’d have children and they’d have their own rooms. They’d have your eyes and passion. I’d worry about the girls – making them wear longer skirts and insist on meeting every friend so I could pick out the risky ones. Our daughters would hate me but they’d be safe. I’d play football with the boys and make sure they respected and looked after you and their sisters. We’d have dinner together every night. I’d work through the night while you were all sleeping so I could be home in the evenings and hear about your days. I’d never complain about having to help with housework or shopping. I’d change every dirty nappy, every pee-stained bed sheet, and every mud-ruined rug.

“And I’d do every night feed so I could cradle each of our children while I watched you sleep, and tell them how lucky they are to have a mother as precious and strong as you.”

A single tear dripped from my eyes onto Curtis’ chest and disappeared into the water.

I kissed his cheek and ran my hands over every inch of his body that wasn’t submerged in the water. “I’m going to give you that life.”

Curtis was sleeping when I climbed out of bed, closed the door with a soft click and went to the living area. I grabbed the wallet out of my bag, picked his iPad up off the sideboard and poured myself a glass of brandy before I curled up on the sofa and pulled the blanket over me. I sat with the internet open and stared at the screen. There were so many things I wanted to search, so many answers I wanted to find, but the tabs Curtis had open grabbed my attention first. Jesse Kennedy – the death of the Kennedy family, Arthur Kennedy a big name in the investment industry with questionable strategies. The news article, published in January, said the entire family had died in a house fire on Christmas Day. I remembered reading about it online. The article reported that Jesse had died with his family, but I knew that wasn’t right. When Curtis asked for him the other night, he spoke as if Jesse was still alive. He was lost and unstable, but he knew Jesse was alive and I would find him. I set the iPad to the side and took a sip of my drink as I pulled the wallet onto my lap and tipped out the contents.

I kept the images face down and looked at the documents. Newspaper articles reporting Oliver’s death. I read each one with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes as I relived that night all over again. Why would my father keep, and hide, the reminder of the death of his only son? Wasn’t the pain enough? There was nothing on the pages I didn’t already know. Oliver had been scheduled to fight Jackson Garrett and it was in Oliver’s favour until a slip of concentration led to the fatal accident. I hated that word,
accident
. No death was ever an accident and Oliver’s certainly wasn’t. It could have been prevented. I could have prevented it. As I read the final section on the last page of articles, I realised why I’d had such a bad feeling when Curtis mentioned buying himself out of trouble. Had Oliver won the fight, he would have won thirty thousand pounds, but whoever wrote the article had strong views on fighters’ insurance – that they should have a clause in their contract that meant they were insured should the worst happen. Oliver hadn’t won a penny by fighting and losing his life that night. Curtis had a contingency plan before we’d even become whatever it was we were back then. He had given me his money to leave. I tossed back my drink, trying to swallow down the nausea that crept up, and tried to stay focused. Curtis didn’t deserve to be punished; he’d suffered enough. He did what he thought was right. He wanted me to have a chance at a good life and I did. I got to spend five glorious years with Thomas and I wouldn’t have had that without Curtis.

We would have drowned each other if I’d stayed; he knew that then, and I knew it now. I kept telling myself that as I reached for the pictures and mindlessly turned them over.

A tormented scream tore from my throat and I threw myself forward, allowing a sob to rip through me.

Curtis shot out of the bedroom, ready to fight, and fell at the floor by my knees, pulling me into him without thought. I slid off the sofa and clung to him, clawing at his naked body – trying to climb inside him to rinse away what I’d seen.

Curtis hadn’t seen them and a distant plead for him not to look left my lips as he held me with one arm and reached for the pictures that were crumpled in my hands.

“Please, Curtis.” I sobbed and choked. “Please. Please, don’t look.”

The word
please
left me countless times as he pried my hands open and held the photos out of my reach. His body turned to marble and he shook from head to toe as he flipped through the four pictures.

He dropped his arms to the floor, letting go of me and dropping his head in defeat. I clung to him, desperately begging him not to leave me.

“He did this, didn’t he?”

He squeezed my cheeks in one hand, tipped my head back to look into my eyes and read the answer I couldn’t voice.

Yes.

Four disgusting images. Four images that would stay with me forever. Four images that ruined the tiny shred of hope I was clinging onto. Because evil did exist, it did, and I knew for certain because of the four thin scraps of paper I held in my hand that provided all the evidence I needed.

~Curtis~

Curtis moved from room to room with no purpose. His hands gripped his hair and he mumbled incoherent words to himself as he paced the apartment. I watched him stumble into the bedroom and charge across the living room to the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Curtis come apart; I was still on my knees, a crumpled, broken mess on his living room floor.

“Go and take a shower,” he said, his voice laced with the familiar tone I’d heard only once before, when he sent me away.

“Curtis,” I started, shifting to face him as he stood behind me.

He held his hand out to put an end to any plans I may have had to move closer to him, “Just do it.”

I couldn’t stand, but I had to be strong. I couldn’t let Curtis bear the brunt of this on his own. I waited for him to disappear into the bedroom and I crawled to the bathroom. I peeled his t-shirt off my body and struggled to my feet to turn the shower on. I sat on the floor of the shower, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them.

I was numb.

How had I not noticed? How had I not known something was wrong? Oliver and I were one person; I should have felt his pain. I should have known what he knew and I should have accepted his death as a
tragic accident
. It wasn’t.

What were the pictures that were now engrained in my mind and would stay with me until I was six feet under, forever obscuring my vision to fill me with the guilt and disgust that Oliver had died and been forgotten, his death never investigated – his story never told?

They were pictures of my brother; comatose and lifeless during the last hours that he was kept alive. He had tubes in his nose and the tube of a ventilator in his mouth held in place with tape. He looked peaceful, like he was getting the sleep he desperately needed after he did everything he could to get us out of a life he knew about but kept from me. Three pictures of my brother in his final hours on Earth, powerless to stop the click of the camera and unable to cry for help and tell us what really happened to him. The pictures were a souvenir. A sick memento of a life that had been stolen.

My father killed Oliver.

How did I know this? The fourth and final condemning photograph. A picture of my father and Jackson Garratt in the locker room. Jackson was covered in my brother’s blood and my father was smiling with his arm around his shoulders.

The brandy surged up and out of my mouth, burning my throat and covering me with the well-deserved punishment for what I’d done.

My father killed my brother and he’d gotten away with it for eleven years.

Curtis entered the bathroom and stepped into the shower fully clothed, pulling my body into his. I sagged against him, unable to cry with the pain I deserved. I didn’t deserve redemption. I didn’t deserve sympathy or comfort. I deserved to be punished, like Phillip.

“I’m so sorry, Skillet.”

I said nothing. I stared blankly at the wall of the shower until the water ran cold and shivers wracked our bodies.

“We’re going to get him.”

“Geoff,” I muttered through chattering teeth. “We have to help Geoff first.”

A primitive sound of desolation left Curtis as yet another hurdle was placed in front of us. His fingers flexed into my back and I knew what he was thinking.

“We can't let him go through this alone. We have the power to help him and we have to try.”

“I know.” His hold softened and I took a lungful of cold air. “I know.”

“Come on.”

I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around Curtis’ waist. If there was ever a time when I knew the sacrifice would be worth it, it was now. When I was falling apart, Curtis held me together and when he was ready to fall, I was waiting to catch him. Every moment we were together, we saved each other. Being apart was not an option now, and it never would be. We were nothing without each other.

“What time is your appointment?”

“Ten.”

“Okay. So let’s get dressed and try and sleep for a couple of hours. We’ll go and get Geoff and do this together, okay? Always together.”

“I need you,” he confessed. He wrapped a towel over my shoulders and rubbed the top of my arms. “I hate to think what would happen if you weren’t here.”

“You’ll never have to find out.”

I dropped my gaze knowing I’d just made a promise I couldn’t keep.

We dried and climbed in bed, holding each other as the darkness began to lighten and night time began to morph into the incoming day.

“I can't close my eyes,” Curtis whispered, dragging his hands through my damp hair.

“Me either. I just don’t understand why.”

“I don’t know, baby. But we’re going to find out. For me, you and Ollie.”

“I have to tell you something.” I snuggled into his side and hooked my leg over his. “It might change your mind about me.”

He pulled me closer, “Nothing could change my mind about us.”

“I loved someone,” I confessed and took a deep breath. “I loved him so much, I would have done anything for him.”

“I know.”

“If he were still alive, I wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here, like this. You’d be alone and I’d be happy.”

“I know.”

“But I think it’s okay. I think it’s okay that I love you, too. Thomas isn’t here and I know he would want me to be happy. I don’t want to be without you.” I sucked in a breath and the words rushed out in a panic. “I can't be without you. I love you, Curtis. I love you, too. I don’t know how I can love two people so much, so completely, but I do. I would lay my life down for you and never look back.”

“I know, baby.” He crept into the panic and brought unexpected comfort with him. “I know about Thomas. I’ve known about him for years.”

“But-”

“You were happy and you deserve to be happy. You deserve so much more than I can give you, but I can't let you go. I won't.”

I stared up at him in shock and brought my hand up to caress his cheek, running my thumb along his bottom lip. His teeth grazed the pad of my thumb, his tongue soothing with one gentle flick.

“Don’t let me go. Not ever.”

He kissed where his tongue and teeth had been and enveloped my hand in his before he settled them over his heart.

“I love you,” he said, resting his chin on my head so I couldn’t look at him. “But it’s more than that. Love is just a word.”

“So what is it, if it isn’t love?”

“Oh, it’s love. But love is a word that collects everything up so we can just use the one word to convey everything. Love isn’t a thing you feel. It’s everything.”

“Tell me about it,” I sighed, nuzzling into him. “Explain it to me.”

“It’s everything, Skye. It’s sunsets and apple trees, kisses and cuddles, night and day. It’s every one of your senses multiplied. You feel the other person; you taste them, see them, hear them, smell them,
everywhere
. Every day. Love is happiness and devotion, loyalty and trust, submission and control. It’s give and take; it’s danger, desperation and sacrifice. It’s never-ending, always changing. You become the other person. You need them to live. To survive. To win, to lose, to fight, and to know when not to. You need them to die. We can't die without loving
someone
because it’s all we’re ever searching for. Someone to tie ourselves to and to tie to us. Someone to live forever with so that when the time comes, we die with them and prove infinity. When two people really love each other, it never ends. Ever. And it’s possible to love more than one person…it’s possible to have two infinities.”

I froze, staring straight ahead with eyes that welled with tears but refused to release them. He had it; in a few minutes, and with a tone filled with the fear of rejection, yet breaming with certainty, he had it. He was right. I would have infinity with Thomas because he died knowing I loved him and he loved me. And I would have infinity with Curtis because we were about to fight for it.

“Will you do something for me?” I asked.

“Anything.”

“Will you close your eyes and dream of our happy ever after?”

He shifted; the pain of the torture he knew sleep would bring stiffened his body and set his heart racing.

“I can't.”

“Dream of our happy ever after, Curtis. I’ll close my eyes and do the same. We’ll meet each other there.”

I waited until he relaxed and we said nothing more. When his breathing slowed and calmed breaths left his lips, I closed my eyes and searched for infinity.