A/N: Some closure for everyoneâs favorite (or second favorite) blonde and next chapter: Wedding! (or rehearsal for wedding. Close enough, right?)
Previous Chapters
The knock comes a few years after Theo expected it would (he thought he was safe), and the face on the other side of the door? Yeah, sheâs not the one he planned on - he was expecting the FedEx guy and Steve (thatâs his name) (Theo knows him well) (Mrs. Theo orders a lot) (like a lot) doesnât look a thing like Lauren, but itâs not like he knew it was gonna be her when he got to the door.
If he had⊠well⊠he wonders, briefly, if it would make him somewhat less of a man if, instead of answering, he ran and hid, like maybe under the bed - heâs assuming that the very very very last place Lauren would want to go is anywhere near his bed - though, if heâs logical about it, heâd be better off choosing a place just a bit higher up.
Cause, you know, tiny Lauren.
Tiny in height only and it takes all of three seconds and one glare and the sight of both her fists clenched at her side for Theo to remember that height ainât everything.
With her? It ain't anything.
So, he wonders (briefly) if it would make him less of a man and then, even more briefly (cause easy answer) if he cares that it would.
It takes all of two seconds and the sight of both those fists for him to answer.
Oh. Fuck. No.
Which is, ironically, the very first thought that runs through his mind when he opens the door to see her standing there (lie) (the first thought: damn, sheâs aged well) (which is fucking ridiculous cause itâs been like a few years, not a decade or some shit, so heâs being totally sexist, but also, she has aged well, as in almost not at all and Theo is suddenly very self-conscious of the grays dotting his head, sorta like Obama halfway through his first term except, you know, not remotely as distinguished.)
So, first thought: hot (basically). Second thought: the aforementioned Oh. Fuck. No. Third thought: I hope sheâs not armed.
Fourth thought: Actually, I hope she is, cause itâll be a quicker death and maybe thereâll be a bit of evidence and my murder - my totally justified murder - wonât go unsolved.
And then comes the fifth thought which, not surprisingly, circles back around to oh and fuck and no before Lauren finally puts him out of his misery, though not in the way heâd have expected.
âCan I come in?â
Um⊠wellâŠ
Theoâs a bit too dumbstruck (and still stuck on vacillating back and forth between hot and that other thing) to really use his words, so he just steps back, making room for her to pass.
He considers not shutting the door, so at least there might be witnesses, but then there might be witnesses and Theo thinks heâd prefer the whole neighborhood remember him as the strapping and studly dad down the block, not the quivering mass of âIâm sorryâ that heâs sure heâs about to become.
Lauren takes a look around the foyer, her glance lingering just a bit too long on the one painting by the stairs and yeah, Theo knew buying that and hanging it there (her favorite and in the spot sheâd always imagined it going, someday) was probably not his best choice but, in his defense, he didnât think sheâd ever actually see it. Hell, heâs still not sure she actually is.
He was out by the pool. And the deck was wet and slippery. And he totally couldâve slipped and fell, banging his head and, right now, heâs slowly drowning and all of this is a weird death-lusion and soon heâll wake up somewhere very warm and perfectly deserved.
Heâs not sure that wouldnât be better.
âIâd guess you werenât really expecting me,â Lauren says and, try as he might, Theo canât find even a hint of snark in her voice - she sounds almost plaintive - and thatâs actually worrisome, and so not her.
Not that he knows what's not her anymore. He hasnât in a while. Like five years kind of a while and itâs so fucking odd how it feels like just yesterday.
He can only hope it doesnât feel that way for her cause, you know, fresh pain and all.
Theo shrugs, which seems to be about the best he can manage. He wasnât expecting her. He wasnât (as noted) expecting anyone except, maybe, Steve. He thought that knock knock knock might have been a(nother) delivery. Maybe some (more) clothes or, perhaps, that blender sheâs been raving about (and yes, âsheâ is how he thinks of his wife right now, like he canât remember her name.) Or maybe it was some more of those toys sheâs been ordering.
And, it should also be noted, that by âtoysâ, he means toys. Like for a kid. Not, you knowâŠÂ toys.
She (Lisa) (her name is Lisa) doesnât order those and no, thatâs totally not one of the things heâs missed over the years. (Lie) (again.) Not that, you know, Lauren ever ordered toys. She would just borrow them from Reagan and yes, that is as extra dirty as it sounds but now, with all of that hindsight that comes with age and time and living with a wife (Lisa) (for fuckâs sake) whose idea of kinky is doing it with the lights on, Theoâs come to think of a little bit of⊠dirt⊠as a good thing.
Itâs just a thing he tries not to think about too often and, by 'too oftenâ, he means like at all, cause there are some things better off left in the past. Choices and memories and choices and people and did he mention choices cause he should have, especially since he knows that heâs the one who made all of those and heâs OK with that, really he is.
As long as he doesnât think about it too much.
Which, you know, is usually kinda easy. But then, usually, one of those choices - the only one that fucking matters - isnât staring at him like sheâs trying to see right into his soul and OK, heâs probably exaggerating that a bit.
A tiny bit.
âI didnât think⊠I never plannedâŠâ Lauren shakes her head and turns away, her eyes finding that painting again. âIs that the original?â she asks and he nods. âThought so. The colors are brighter than the one⊠we had.â
We. They. Had, as in together, as in their home, as in the place that was theirs. So, you know, that one.
It hung in their hall. Upstairs. On the way from the half bath to the master bedroom and Lauren always swore that when (never if) she found the original - and not some very good but not quite right copy - sheâd hang it right downstairs, right by the door.
âWhere everyone can see it,â she said.
Theo tries not to think about what she did with it - that very good but not quite right, all kinds of wrong, in fact, copy - on her way out that last day. Itâs best, heâs come to think, not to dwell on the flames (and yes, that's literal) (as in up in them) (as in right out on the front fucking yard.) In fact, he tries not to think of that day much at all.
And yes, tries is the operative word.
âIt looks good,â she says, somehow without a hint of bitterness or anger and oh, this is so going to end badly, isnât it? âSo do you,â she lies, but he still feels a swell of pride and yeah, he sucks in his gut (a four pack now instead of his usual six) just a little bit. âIâm sorry,â Lauren says - and isnât that supposed to be his line? - it all suddenly clicking with her just how ridiculously awkward and weird and insane it is for them to be standing here like this. âThis is⊠I donât know why⊠I should go.â
She probably should cause, well, this is weird to the weirdest, but she doesnât move and Theo doesnât either, but he does finally find his voice, so thatâs a step.
âWant a drink?â
For a second (the second longest second of his life), he thinks sheâs gonna say no, but then she nods, quickly, and follows him into the kitchen. He gets to fishing for beer in the fridge - itâs way in the back cause Lisa doesnât drink - and Lauren just stands there, awkwardly, leaning against the island, her hands resting on top of it and then down at her sides and then back on top again and Theo thinks he should be relieved that she is, apparently, as nervous as he is.
Somehow, itâs less than reassuring.
Even less reassuring is the way she downs the beer he hands her in one fell swoop (all thatâs missing is her sister and Reagan - mostly Reagan - chanting 'chug, chug chugâ) and lets out a long breath when sheâs done.
He thinks about offering her another one. But not very hard. He remembers drunk Lauren - the angry version, not the horny one (not that either would be good right now) - just a bit too well.
âHe loves me,â she says and talk about your non sequiturs and your out of nowheres and your 'I seriously thought theyâd have had this all settled by nowsâ. âGlenn,â she adds, as if Theo didn't know. âHe loves me and IâŠâ She shakes her head and taps her fingers against the side of the bottle, hunting for the words. âAnd I blame you,â she finally says and, wellâŠ
Talk about your 'what the fucksâ.
And your 'not surprising at allsâ.
Theoâs pretty sure sheâs not saying that she blames him for Glenn loving her, cause, well, if thatâs anyone's fault, itâs totally hers. And, you know, Glennâs. And definitely not his. Not at
all.
How could it be? Itâs not like he did anything to push them together. Or to make it so that a 'themâ is even a possibility. Or expect that anything would happen after the divorce.
I think we both know the last thing Laurenâs going to be is alone.
OK, so maybe itâs a little bit on him, but Glenn was already in love with her and it isnât like Theo told him he should be or that he was OK with it or gave him permission or some shit like that.
Not really. Not in those words. And he certainly didn't hope theyâd find their way to each other cause he didnât want Lauren to be alone for the rest of her life just because he'd⊠changed.
His mind.
Heâd changed his mind and yeah, it sucked and yeah, it hurt her and yeah, the whole catch me cheating cause it will hurt less plan was somewhat⊠ill-advised (to put it mildly) but he meant well and yes, he knows all about the road to hell and exactly what itâs paved with.
Stones. A whole fucking bunch of them and every single one reads 'he meant wellâ but, in the end, it worked out, right? For all of them?
Right?
Stupid fucking question, Theo, cause if it all worked out for all of them, would Lauren be here, in your kitchen, drinking your beer, and staring at you like sheâs not sure if she wishes you dead or naked?
(Oh, and cut the wishful thinking cause, really, itâs more like 'deadâ or 'slightly less than dead but, at least, in massive amounts of pain and, if thereâs any naked involved, itâs just so she can get a better shot when she kicks you in the balls.â)
(Just so we're clear.)
âHeâs waiting for me,â Lauren says, snapping Theo back to now - and out of the dead and just a bit less than dead and absolutely not naked - and then she pauses, her fingers slowing against the glass of the bottle. âNo⊠heâs not waiting,â she says. âHeâs been waiting for me. And heâs waited. And waited.â
Theo knows. Oh, how he knows. He wonders if Lauren even realizes just how long Glennâs waited.
Did she see it, he wonders. When she was stillâŠÂ his (and donât get started on any of that love isnât ownership bullshit cause you know what the fuck he means) did she notice Glenn, lingering in the background (copyright K. Ashcroft.) Theo likes to think that their marriage and her love for him was enough to blind her. He likes to think that, back then, both Laurenâs heart and her mind were so otherwise occupied that Glenn was never anything more than Reaganâs bro, a guy she knew - tangentially, sorta, a family member with a dashed line on the tree - and that even when, eventually, he was more than that, when he became her friend and her confidant and they had to work together, spending hour upon hour upon weeks in such close quartersâŠ
Oh, who is he kidding?
He likes to think Lauren didnât realize Glenn was falling and then had fallen and then was so hopelessly in that it was impossible not to see it, and that she never thought - not once - that maybe she had some of those same feelings. He likes to think that, he fucking loves to.
But, he doesnât. Cause if thereâs one thing Theoâs not?
Itâs stupid.
Or blind. Or deaf. Or so oblivious he could give high school Karma a run for her money.
So, you know four things. All of which his not being means he knows all too well that Laurenâs been aware, right from the start.
âI donât know if Iâd call it waiting,â he says, so very casually ignoring the whole blaming him bit, cause heâs sure theyâll get back to it (heâs not wrong.) âItâs not like Glenn always expected we would go belly up if he just waited long enough.â
Sometimes - most times - when he thinks back on it, Theo wishes it had been something like that. It might make him feel a little bit better about all of it, like maybe he was less to blame.
And sometimes? Like all the times?
He knows thatâs utter bullshit. He's completely to blame.
âI know that,â Lauren says. Thereâs just a hint (like the tiniest one) of 'duhâ, of 'no shitâ, of 'of course he wasnât cause heâs not an assholeâ running under her words. Or maybe thatâs just Theoâs imagination. âGlennâs not that kind of man.â
Yeah. Not his imagination.
You might think that years of practice in dealing with every conceivable variation of the Lauren Cooper 'just about to be pissedâ formula might have taught Theo something about changing the equation. And youâd be right. Totally. There was a time, in fact, when no one could defuse an L.C. Anger Bomb (patent pending) like Theo could. Not Amy (cause she was, more often than not, the cause) and not Reagan (cause she was, more often than not, too amused by it) and not even Bruce (cause he was, or pretended he was, totally oblivious in that way that only someone whoâs so used to it that theyâre immune - or Karma - could be.)
But that time was then and this is now and, even if he wanted to, Theoâs not sure heâs still got the skills. Plus, thereâs that want to. Or, in his case, a lack of it. Call him masochistic or guilty or just plain fucking dumb, but Theo kinda thinks that maybe heâs got a detonation coming.
Again, heâs not wrong.
So, he does nothing and just lets her talk which, now that the sealâs been broken, is surprisingly easy.
âRight now,â Lauren says, âheâs the kind of man who, even though Iâve been an utter fucking bitch, is still waiting for me.â She stares down at the bottle in her hand and thereâs a moment when Theo thinks maybe he should have given more consideration to defusing her.
You know, since she's armed.
âHeâs sitting in a hotel, probably at the bar,â she says and no, sheâs totally not imagining him bellied up to the bar, his usual Jack and Coke in one hand and his cell in the other, wait wait waiting on her call. âJust waiting for me.â Lauren thinks about what she said and laughs, a short 'Iâm so stupidâ snort of a thing. âNot like that,â she adds though, Lord knows, if he was waiting like that, it wouldnât be the first time. âIâm supposed to meet him, so we can go over
last minute details for the rehearsal dinner,â she says. Last minute details that were worked
out so not last minute, but Glenn humors her and heâll double and thruple check everything
with her. âTomorrow is my sisterâs wedding.â
Theo hears the words - 'my sisterâs weddingâ - and his brain hiccups just a bit. Nope, that doesnât bring back any memories. Not at all.
Tyson: âThis is my sisterâs wedding, weâre talking about. If itâs not beyond perfect, I will kill someone. All the someones. Every one of you someones. This is Laurenâs day and sheâs
only having the one and so it needs to be perfect.â
Holyfield: âWhat she said. Except replace sister with best friend and kill with⊠maim, I guess. But all the rest? What she said.â
For three weeks after the broke up, Theo flinched every time he heard a womanâs voice or steps behind him or saw a swish of blonde hair swirling in the distance; he was so convinced heâd end up just like Liam.
Party Liam. Punched in the face and unconscious on the ground and everyone laughing at his humiliation Liam. Not, you know, dead Liam.
âAmy and Reagan?â Theo asks, going all innocent, pretending like he hadnât seen the full-page wedding announcement Farrah put in the paper. Or the one she posted on her website. Or on Facebook. Or on Twitter. Or the YouTube vlog she did for the station or the other YouTube vlog she did just for her. âAbout time,â he says when Lauren nods. He says it with a laugh which he immediately reconsiders. âI mean, itâs -â
âAbout time,â Lauren cuts in and they both laugh and itâs the closest either of them have come to actually breathing since she knocked on the door. Itâs a nice moment, the kind they havenât had in years and that includes the one before the divorce, the entire three-sixty-five when Lauren felt like he was slipping away from her and Theo knew she felt it.
And knew, even then, that he actually was.
But the harder she fought to hold on, the more he squirmed and fussed and worked his way loose. It was his choice and he made it and every time - every single time - he sees his son, Theo knows it was the right choice. But stillâŠ
Oh, itâs that 'stillâ that gets him, every time, and itâs that 'stillâ that makes him think that maybe, just maybe, this is his chance, his opportunity, his one shining moment that the universe has decided to hand him and so, as he does, he takes it.
âIâve missed you.â
Theo squeezes his eyes shut (the way he should have done with his lips) even before the words are out and oh, if he was thinking that was the universeâs silver platter, the look on her face says it was more likely a fuse for that KABOOM he was so sure he deserved and now heâs gone and lit the damn thing and itâs burning.
Burning fast.
Heâs hit a nerve and thatâs what she does. But now, seeing as how thereâs no un-lighting that fuse or un-hitting that nerve, Theo doesnât see much sense in quitting while heâs ahead even
if, probably, he ought to reassess his definition of 'aheadâ.
âMost of the time,â he says, not even bothering to acknowledge that theyâre so not talking about Glenn anymore or the look on Laurenâs face or the fact that all of this might have been so better said five fucking years ago. âI do a pretty good job of not thinking about it.â
And yes, by 'itâ, he 100% (or, you know, 1,000,000,000,000%) means âherâ. He does a pretty good job of not thinking about her. There are times, heâll admit, when thatâs just a little easier than others. Times just like earlier this afternoon, out in the backyard, watching his boy hit a
tiny ball off a tiny tee (or, you know try to, cause heâs only two and not a prodigy. Yet.) Times just like last night, when he and Lisa and Anthony snuggle on the couch, like an actual family, watching some animated movie about talking animals Theo doesnât even understand, but he does understand the sound of his sonâs laughter and, really, thatâs all he needs to get.
Those are the times. But then⊠well⊠then thereâs the other times.
Times like when Laurenâs candidate won the election and there she was, in the background of every fucking picture in the news. Times like when he passes that coffee shop, the one on the corner of Dolls and Holliday, the only place in all of Austin that made those miniature chocolate stuffed croissants she loved so much but refused to eat when anyone was looking.
Anyone except him.
Or, times like those nights when the wifeâs not feeling kinky and so the lights stay off and itâs so damn easy for him to get lost in the dark, in the idea (the memory) that sheâs considerably tinier and a whole lot blonder and not whispering sweet nothings in his ear about putting another baby in her belly.
âBut then,â Theo says (and no, he's not looking at her cause, well, he doesnât want to die just yet), "I see something or I hear something or I just find myself with five seconds of peace and thereâs no one else around and thenâŠâ
And then, she's all he can think about. And that day, whichever day it might be, is pretty much just fucking shot cause once he slips down into that hole, thereâs no digging out. He lets those words hang there (the trail off strikes again) and yeah, he knows exactly what heâs doing.
He's waiting.
Maybe, he thinks (dreams) (fantasizes) (wishes but not really) Laurenâll say something like 'me too.â Or 'I know what you mean.â Or 'and then you start up with the thinking about me and, you know what? Somewhere, out there, I'm thinking about you and why, exactly are we doing all this thinking and not doing anyâŠÂ doing?â
Maybe.
Or, you know⊠maybe not. Maybe not at all. Cause maybe, right now, even though Theoâs waiting? Heâs realizing one simple truth he should have already known.
Maybe (not maybe) he waited just a little too long. Like five years too long. Or, really, six years, counting that one when he was trying to figure everything out and while he was figuring, he was also shutting - as in her, as in out - and no, he doesnât need to see the look on her face to know that, he doesnât need to see the⊠something⊠in her eyes to feel that last final nail just getting hammered home in that coffin that he stuffed their marriage (them) into.
Except⊠well⊠come to think of it - and, honestly, itâs about the last thing he ever thought heâd come to think of - maybe he does. Maybe, if he wants to be a family and not just âlike an actual familyâ, this is what he needs. His counselor - who was, at one point, their counselor, a tiny fact Theo knew Lauren had never shared with Amy or with Reagan or with anyone except, heâs sure, Glenn - would call it closure.
Theo doesnât really need a word for it. No fancy name or psychobabble term. Thatâs just a bit too concrete, too much of a thing, too definite. Itâs more of a feeling, really, more like a release, like someone tripped a pressure valve in his chest, five years worth of breaths he never took all just slipping away.
It should leave him feeling empty. He thinks it should. He's sure of it.
ExceptâŠÂ againâŠÂ he's wrong cause, in his entire life, Theo canât ever remember feeling this full.
He gets it now. He gets what heâs needed all this time. And what she needs that brought her to his doorstep after all these years. He walks to the end of the island, mildly surprised that Lauren isnât squirrelling away from him, and takes her hand. âCome with me?â
Itâs a question, not a demand and maybe thatâs why Lauren does, letting him lead her out of the kitchen and up the stairs and he feels her tense as they pass his door - itâs not the same door or the same room or the same house, but some shit just never leaves - but then she stills again as they move right on by, down the hall, to the last door on the right.
Theo cracks the door, just a little. Just enough. He steps back and lets Lauren see, watching as her eyes adjust to the darkened room and her hand finds its way to her mouth to stifle the lightest of gasps that slips from her lips.
âHis nameâs Anthony,â Theo says. âWe named him after my dad. Heâs two.â
Sheâs doing the math in her head - Theo can almost see the numbers rolling around - and it doesnât take her long to connect the dots that, no, heâs not from⊠you knowâŠÂ then.
âI met his mother about a year after weâŠâ Theo shakes his head, not quite able to say the âdâ word, not even now, no matter how full he might be. âSheâs a cardiac care nurse and both her parents are dead andâŠâ He shakes his head again, wondering what part of him thought telling her about her was even sort of a good idea. âI work from home most days,â he says, âso I can spend as much time with him as I can.â
Lauren leans against the door, blinking her eyes against the dark (yup) (the dark) (that's totes why sheâs blinking.) âHe looks just like you,â she says and oh, thatâs what does it, finally, thatâs what slaps her right across the face and shakes her in her shoes, practically fucking screaming at her.
ThisâŠÂ heâŠÂ is why.
The one thing she couldnât give him. The one thing that Theo swore up and down he didnât need, the very thing he promised her didn't matter.
Until he changed his mind.
Any wonder she blames him?
âYou tell them all itâs about the cheating, donât you?â he asks and God, sheâs never heard his voice so soft, so quiet, a level of a whisper that only a father could manage. âThatâs why you havenât been with anyone else, why youâve never remarried. Why you make Glenn wait.â
She flinches slightly, her hand on the door - not so much that anyone else might even notice, but heâs not anyone - and he knows she wants to argue, to point out that she doesn't make him wait and if he chooses to wait, well, thatâs not on her. Sheâs not responsible.
And maybe if she just believed that.
âItâs the simple explanation,â Theo says, âI know. Thatâs why I did it. Because it was easier and cleaner and yes, dumber.â He beats her to it, calls himself out for his own stupidity, regardless of how well-intentioned it was. âAnd you can use it, remind them all how you found me, in your bed, with another woman and it all makes sense and it gives you the best reason ever not toâŠâ
Not to love.
He can't say it and, really, neither can she but the problem isnât so much that she can't say it. Itâs that she can't feel it. And not 'canâtâ like sheâs unable, or 'canâtâ like he killed it in her, so she can never love another man.
Canât like wonât, like not again, like⊠like she knows, the logic of it is so right there, so obvious, and her brain is well fucking aware that she loves Glenn - loves him like sheâs never loved any other - but thereâs always that fucking canât.
Itâs like a wall.
No⊠not a wall. A wall you can climb, a wall you can go around, a wall can have a door and a wall can have a way through. Itâs not a wall, itâs a hole and Laurenâs been falling down it for five fucking years and Goddammit, itâs just bottomless.
But fuck all, she wants to climb.
âI want him,â Lauren whispers. âI donât want to make him wait and I wantâŠâ Her gaze rolls over Anthony, this tiny little man, a perfect little bit of what she just canât ever have. âI want it all,â she says, âand I want it with Glenn and he says heâs fine with it and he swears it doesnât matter, and I want to believe him.â
Almost as much as she wants to love him. But the two kind of go together and itâs like the oneâs a cork, stuck in the end of the bottle and no matter how hard she pulls, no matter how much she fights, she canât ever get it loose.
âHe promises,â she says. âWhen he thinks Iâm not listening, when I canât hear, when Iâm in his arms in the middle of the night, he promises me that we can have it all.â She turns, and sheâs not even pretending not to cry anymore. âBut so did you.â
Yeah. He did.
And if thereâs anything Theo regrets even close to as much as how it ended? It's that.
Itâs how it began.
âI was sixteen,â he says, and even to his ears that sounds like some weak fucking sauce of an excuse. âSixteen and in love. And then I was eighteen and in love and then twenty and in love and⊠and you had it all figured out,â he says, leaning against the wall. âAdoption had been the reality for you since you were twelve. You knew from fifteen that a surrogate was out, that you couldnât handle a baby that was half your husbands and none of yours.â
Fourteen. She knew at fourteen.
But thatâs kinda not the point.
âI thought it didnât matter,â Theo says and it wasnât just that he thought it. It didnât matter, not to sixteen or eighteen or twenty year old him. And even theâŠÂ next⊠him, the one who made all those well-intentioned stupid choices, even he didn't want it to matter.
But want isnât the same as does. And in the end, it did matter, it does. All the proof either of them might need is sleeping right behind that door.
âI didnât want it to matter and I honestly believed that it didnâtâ he says. Theyâre words heâs only ever said in his own head, only to himself. And, you know, to Glenn, on that one day, so many years ago. âRight up until the moment when I realized that it did. And by thenâŠâ
It was too late. There was a finger and a ring on it and a house and a home and⊠fuck all⊠he loved her. So much. So very very much.
So very very very close to enough.
âI didnât know how to tell you,â Theo says and his hand is on her cheek and heâs got no idea how that happened. âI didnât know how to break your heart without breaking you, without making you feel like you would always be something less. Because you were neverâŠÂ are neverâŠÂ that.â
âSo, cheating on me with some whore you barely knew was your way of not making me feel less?â
And thereâs that fuse. Again.
âIt was stupid,â he says (yeah, it was.) âIt was a plan, not a good plan, more like a dumb plan, such a ridiculous plan.â He tries smiling, making light, tweaking the moment just a bit, enough that itâs not a moment. âIt was like Karma and Amy faking it level dumb,â he says, âI get that.â
But it made sense at the time. Cheating, she could accept. Hell⊠cheating she would expect, it would just be her father and every woman between her mother and Farrah all over again. If heâd done that - if he was that - then it was on him, it was about him.
And not about her.
âIt was a no win,â he says. âNo matter what I did, youâd hurt. And I hope you know that I never wanted that, that it killed me to give you even one moment of pain.â
Lauren says nothing cause, really, what is there for her to say? Yeah, she knows that - she knew that, even then - and that was what made it all so fucking hard to deal with, to accept.
Even after she found out the truth.
âYou knew heâd tell me,â she says softly, even though she wants to scream at him, wants to ball up her tiny fists and pound on his chest until his heart shatters the way hers did. âWhen Glenn confronted you, when he figured it all out, you knew he wouldnât keep it a secret and you still told him.â
Of course Glenn wouldnât. He couldnât. Just imagine if she had finally given in, if sheâd stopped making him wait and just been with him, instead of just 'beingâ with him, and then she found out that he knew the truth and never told her.
Sheâd have killed him.
If, you know, the guilt hadnât done it first.
âIs that why you did it?â she asks him and Theo doesnât understand the question. âIs that why you told him, so Iâd find out, so Iâd know what a bunch of noble sacrificing, I love you so much
that Iâll rip your heart out this way instead of that way bullshit youâd been up to?â
Is it?
Theo would like to say no. But he doesnât want to lie. And saying that wasnât a part of it would be nothing but a lie.
âOr did you have buyerâs remorse?â Lauren asks. She moves a step back, gently shutting the door to Anthonyâs room and oh, thatâs probably not a good sign. âYou have an epiphany about how good you had it and how bad you fucked it all up?â (Again, truth in part.) âDid you go and figure that, maybe, if I knew the truth, Iâd come back? If, maybe, I knew that you werenât really
a cheating asshole, Iâd crawl on back? Maybe Iâd even beg you to forgive me, maybe Iâd plead with you to take back your something⊠less than a woman?â
Did modern medicine finally turn you into a real girl? Or are you still the same fucked up science project youâve always been?
What was that about some shit that never leaves?
âOr, maybe,â Lauren says, âit was your fucking ego. Maybe, you just couldnât live with the idea of me thinking that way about you. Lumping you in with my dad and Liam, one more dick who thought with his dick.â She presses one hand against the door, steadying herself and doing her best (not nearly good enough) not to think about what (who) is right on the other side cause that is just one bridge too fucking far.
There are, in truth, about a million things Theo could say. Heâs had years, after all. Years to think of excuses, of rationales for everything he did, everything he said. But even back then, even when heâd fessed up to Glenn and thought for sure sheâd be busting down his door at any moment, heâs never really settled on any one of them, heâs never known - not for sure - what he would say to her, in this moment.
Oh, heâs always known it would come, always expected that heâd bump into her on the street, stumble across her in the grocery store or sitting in some coffee shop, always when heâd least expect it (and, at least, he got that part right) but he knew heâd never be prepared. He would never know what to say. And now, standing right here, staring at her, he knows what he only suspected for all those years.
It doesnât matter.
âI did it,â he says, and theyâre wrong about confession and the soul. âI lied. I cheated. I broke your heart and I was a lousy fucking excuse for a husband for far longer than you should have put up with.â If heâs thinking heâs gonna win points for honesty, heâs mistaken. âAnd I changed my mind. The one promise I always shouldâve kept, is the one I broke the worst.â
It wasnât the words. It wasnât telling her that no, he didnât care about kids, it wasnât some vow he made in front of God and her sister and all the rest of them. It was never that.
It was ten years ago, a night spent outside her room. She wouldnât let him in, but he wouldn't leave. And that? That was the moment, that was the promise.
He fucking waited.
It hits her then, like that wall it isnât, like a fucking tidal wave of everything, crashing down onto her and Lauren gets it. He made the same promise, the same one Glenn has made night after night after 'night togetherâ and 'day apartâ for the last four fucking years. And she believed him, but she canât (wonât) believe him, cause, whatâs that saying?
Once bitten, twice no fucking chance Iâm letting it happen again.
(Or, you know, something like that.)
âHeâs not me,â Theo says and oh, how she hates that he can still see right through her. Itâs not fucking fair, not even a little. âGlenn,â he says. âisnât me. Heâs not a sixteen year old dumbass who didnât care what intersex meant because whatever else it meant, it meant you.â It sounds bad, makes him sound so stupid but, back then, it was just that simple. âAnd heâs certainly not an eighteen year old idiot who canât stop thinking that the 'longâ part of 'long distanceâ is whatâs gonna be the death of him and, maybe, the best way around that is a ring and a promise thatâs even longer. So much longer than he can even see, let alone think.â
Thereâs a part of Lauren - a smallish one - that wants to yell at him (more) and swear at him (a lot) and punch him (hard) and tell him that she knows (so fucking well) that Glennâs not him.
Except, apparently, that wouldnât be entirely the truth, now would it?
âYou know why Glenn and I got to be such good friends?â Theo asks and Lauren shakes her head. Sheâd always assumed it had something to do with being the only two straight guys in their little crew. âKeep your friends close and your enemies closer,â he says. âFrom day one, the first moment I met him, the second I saw how he looked at you⊠I knew. I knew that man loved you the way I wanted to,â
SoâŠÂ not the whole straight guy thing. Gotcha.
âSome people, Lauren, they just come into your life, you know?â Theo drops his head, trying his best (and his isnât nearly good enough either) to hide the tears he canât blink away. âThey show up and you never see them coming but then⊠there they are. And once they are, well, you canât understand how you ever lived without them.â
And Lucy and Shane and (God help her) Karma and even, kinda, Jack and, once upon a time, Martin and Liam (ugh) andâŠ
Them.
Her men. Her boys. The loves of her life. And, yeah, thatâs fucking plural.
âBut sometimes,â Theo says, âtheyâre not there for⊠always, you know? Itâs a moment, a thing you need right then. And maybe that then, maybe it lasts a while. Maybe itâs a few months or maybe itâs two years.â
Maybe that then gives you something you need, something that carries you through, maybe itâs even a happiness youâve never known. But then⊠maybe it ends. And maybe that endâŠ
No. Not maybe. It does. It hurts.
And maybe that lasts a while too.
Theo reaches out, taking her hand and looking at her, right at her, and itâs like itâs some kind of magic. The grayâs all gone, the four packâs a sixer again, the ring on his finger is herâs and not herâs and heâs there again, right outside her door instead of his. Like he never left.
But he did.
âAnd when it ends,â he says - and it's him again, the other him, the one that belongs to that life behind the door - âwhen it really ends? Maybe itâs because itâs time. Because you donât need that anymore. Maybe because youâve found something thatâs ⊠not better⊠something thatâs right, something thatâs a fit, something thatâs just for you. And maybe it takes a while, maybe it takes forever to get there.â
He leans over, pressing one chaste kiss to her cheek.
âBut, maybe,â he whispers against her skin. âYouâve waited long enough.â
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Well, thatâs just a loaded fucker of a question isnât it? The kind most people know better than to ask, but knowing better and doing better⊠well⊠those are two very different things. Especially for Amy.
As weâve established. More than once.
But that was all younger Amy and this is older Amy (though not that much older, and still looking good for her age, or any age, or so Reagan says), but, honestly, itâll probably still take years or maybe decades for that particular lesson to really sink in and, clearly, it hasnât just yet.
If it had⊠wellâŠ
Her sister would be speaking to her right now, now wouldnât she?
There are more than a few things sheâs done in her life that Amyâs second guessed. Or triple guessed (thruple guessed?) or quadruple or⊠âwhatever the fuck five isâ guessed. Itâs part of who she is, in her nature - right down to her DNA, and thank you very fucking much Jack and Farrah - and her nurture. Her mother (and Karma) and her disappearing father (and Karma) and, basically, the entirety of her high school existence (and Karma), at least the parts before Reagan, had her questioning everything, even her gayness and, even now, she still spends far too much time doubting her choices.
Not about her gayness, though. But, you know, about things like using (or even thinking) the word 'gaynessâ. And not about Reagan - who, sometimes (read: all the times) Amyâs so very exceptionally glad is fluent in speaking Amy - or her choice to forgive Jack or being OK with Karma and Lucy (or OK-ish, itâs a work in progress) or her choice to let Reagan name Katie cause, letâs face facts.
Katharine is a far better name than 'little ball of snot and poop that never lets me sleepâ even if that one might still be more accurate.
But, of all those things, this one, this very specific and very definitive and very 'how can you be so fucking stupid, donât you remember what he did, and oh⊠I just called you 'stupidâ and thatâs why youâre giving me that look right now, isnât it, well⊠tough titty, cause I'm rightâ one is so not among those things sheâs second or third or fourth or infinity and fucking beyond guessed cause this one is her sister and this one is Theo and this one is so clear cut and so obvious that thereâs no way even she can have gotten it wrong.
Except⊠you know⊠what if?
He cheated on her, she says. Except 'saysâ was kinda only in her head and so⊠âHe cheated on her,â she says, again and out loud this time and, apparently, much to the surprise of her wife and her brother-in-law whoâs, now, her brother-in-law twice (bro in law squared?) and yeah, she knows that he knows that Theo cheated, maybe better than all of them, so âWhy do you look so fucking surprised?â
Glenn shrugs and Amy steams cause thatâs his default answer to everything. You want another beer? Shrug. You think the Stars will make the playoffs this year? Shrug. Is Lauren 100% the best thing to ever happen to you? Shrug.
He slept on the couch for a week after that one and, if baby Martin hadnât developed a wicked case of 'oh, if I canât sleep, then no one can colicâ, Amy suspects - quite rightly - that Glennâs banishment might have been longer.
Like, you know, until forever.
But, really, a shrug? For this?
âSheâs going to invite him,â Amy says - and she makes sure to say it out loud the first time, this time - and then she corrects herself. âSheâs going to invite them.â
Reagan eyes her across the counter, pausing in mid-sip of her way too fucking hot coffee (Amy doesnât know how to make it any other way and her wife wishes, like with all her heart, that that might be one of those things sheâd second guess), one brow lifting off just slightly at the way she said 'themâ, hushed, in a whisper, like itâs a state secret sheâs gotta hide away or some tiny bit of profanity she doesnât want the baby to hear, or as if, by saying out loud, she might just magically conjure 'themâ up and make 'themâ appear.
No matter what she says or does, Reagan can never quite convince Amy that Harry Potter isnât secretly real. Itâs like a fucking religion with her, which she supposes - all religions considered - could be worse.
âThem,â Amy says, again, a bit louder this time as Glenn, apparently, didnât reply fast enough and, Reagan knows, in the language of 'Amyâ, speed often equals volume, which is annoying in conversation, but can be kinda⊠fun⊠in certain other ways. But this is not one of those ways and when Glenn shrugs - again - Amy wishes (almost out loud) that she could put him on the fucking couch.
(Not the fucking couch, as in the place of the fucking, but the other kind of fucking couch and no, she doesnât really know how to explain the difference but see, this is what happens when that damn man gets her all worked up like this.)
(And not worked up like that and oh, that all sounded less dirty before she said it so, fortunately, she only said it to herself.)
(This time.)
What kind of couch doesnât matter (much) cause what does matter is that âSheâs going to invite her ex-husband and his wife and their kid to your sonâs baptism.â Amyâs damn near yelling now and Reagan hopes Lolo stays upstairs with the baby cause, really, the silent fucking War of the Roses thing she and Amy have going on now is bad enough without Amy finding a way to make it worse.
You know, like Amy does.
âHeâs her son, too, you know,â Glenn says, without so much as even a hint of a shrug and Amy immediately misses it, though she doesnât miss the smirk on her wifeâs face - Reagan loves the way her brother can get under her wifeâs skin - and oh, someoneâs definitely gonna be couching it tonight. âAnd,â Glenn adds, much to Amyâs even further annoyance, âshe can invite whoever sheâd like. What do you want me to do? Forbid her?â He shakes his head. âIâm not Laurenâs boss, Amy.â
That, it should be noted, was in their wedding vows.
I, Glenn Ramon Solis, promise to love, honor, and cherish you, Lauren Elizabeth Cooper, and to always remember that I am your partner and that you are not the boss of me, usually, just as I am not the boss of you.
Ever.
Amy remembers the words (almost as clearly as she remembers trying not to snort out loud at the ceremony) and she knows Glenn takes his vows seriously, like they were, you know, vows and that that isn't just because heâs (rightfully) terrified of his wife.
Itâs also (read: mostly) (read: like sickeningly, worshipfully, damn near painfully) cause he loves his wife, in a way Amy didnât know anyone could love anyone else - at least anyone that wasnât her and Reagan - and in a way that makes her almost grateful Theo was (is) such a dirty, rotten cheating fuckwit.
If she could have chosen a man for her sister, Amy knows that man would have been a lot like Glenn.
Just, you know, a little less shrug-y and a lot more listening to her-y.
Amy hangs her head - sensing defeat, already - and curses under her breath, dropping a nearly inaudible 'mierdaâ (with an almost passable accent), and Reagan smiles at the way her wifeâs still stuck in the habit of swearing in Spanish, the little trick they picked up when Katie was still a tiny tiny and they were trying not to expose her to 'all the Goddamned profanity you two useâ, as Farrah put it (without a single drop of irony.) Spanish - and a bit of French and a couple of really useful all purpose Portuguese cusses Karma taught them - was their compromise when going cold turkey just didnât work.
After all, asking them to cut the four letter words out of their vocabulary was like asking Amy to cut bacon out of her diet or asking Karma to cut plans out of her⊠plans⊠or asking Lauren to stop hating Theo and⊠ohâŠ
Yeah. Maybe, apparently, not the best example.
Amy knows sheâs not going to convince Glenn to put his foot down and knows even better that it would only result in a foot up his ass if he did, so she tries another angle. âSo, youâre telling me that you're OK with this?â she asks and Glenn doesnât shrug (so Amy doesn't punch) but he also doesnât say 'yesâ or 'noâ or 'not exactlyâ or, even, 'Laurenâs OK with it and since Iâd like to sleep in my bed sometime before my son gets to high school, yes, Iâm just fucking fine with it and thank you for askingâ so, clearly, heâs somewhat less than OK and while that probably doesnât matter, itâs still something.
Something, Reagan knows, Amyâs going to seize on and not let go and while there are certain times (read: in bed) (read: or the shower or the beach or that one time in the Planterâs parking lot) when sheâs so very grateful for her wife's⊠determination⊠this doesnât strike her as one of those times. âShrimps, baby, maybe this is something you should leave for Lolo and -â
Remember that question? What if?
What if, in that moment, Amy doesnât hold up a hand to shush her wife? Or, what if, she doesnât shush her and walk right past her - like sheâs not even there - crossing the kitchen to stand just a bit closer to Glenn? Or, what if, she doesn't ignore Reaganâs warning and doesn't keep right on pushing the issue and doesnât, as only Amy can, make it even worse by not noticing Lauren standing in the kitchen door?
Well, if Amy hadnât done any of that, then maybe she wouldnât have had to spend an hour that night trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in on the recliner in her office cause she sure as fuck wasnât sleeping in the bed and oh, funny thing, Reagan just happened to⊠suggest to Katie (the kid) and Lucky (the lab) and Ruby (the beagle) that they have a 'camping out nightâ on the couch.
And oh, if only that had been her only problem. But it wasnât - it so wasnât - cause, see, as little as Amyâs learned about not second guessing herself, sheâs learned even less about recognizing signs, like when someone knows something but, really, that something is none of your business or when, maybe, thereâs a secret that someone - or a couple someones, or maybe a thruple of someones - is keeping and you ought to just fucking trust them that keeping it from you is for your own good.
Or, you know, theirs.
âHe fucking cheated on her, Glenn,â Amy says, still ignoring Reaganâs frantic and almost pained and pleading 'Shrimpsâ. âTheo cheated on her in her bed and he broke her heart and he ruined her damn life.â
The words leave her mouth and she hears them but she doesnât quite believe them or, at least, believe that they came from her - or that the gasp she hears behind her comes from her wife or that the 'what the fuck, Amyâ from the door comes from her sister - and Amy wants to say sheâs sorry, she wants to say she didnât mean it (she didnât, at least not like that) and she wants Glenn to shrug, to just blow it all of cause, you know, thatâs what he does, except that he doesnât.
He doesnât even look at her and if there was a couch nearby right then and there, Amy would exile herself to it immediately but then Glenn does look up - at his wife - and she nods, slowly and he turns back to Amy and, funnily enough, weâre back to where we started.
Back to that question.
âBut what if,â Glenn says. âWhat if he didnât?â
Five Years Ago
The knock comes a few days after Theo expected it would and the face on the other side of the door⊠well⊠itâs not the one (or the pair) he planned on, but he knows that he shouldnât be at all surprised.
But he is.
(Also: heâs grateful, for more than one reason, but letâs not get ahead of ourselves.)
âI thought for sure sheâd send Tyson and Holyfield,â he says, stepping to one side so Glenn can come in. In truth, heâs a more than a little bit relieved Lauren didnât send her sister and her best friend. That might have gotten ugly and painful.
For, you know, him. And, you know, more ugly and painful than this already is cause itâs plenty ugly - getting caught with your pants down is usually like that - and it's more than plenty painful cause, you know, getting caught with your pants down by your wife with someone who is so not your wife gives said wife one hell of an easy target for her very very so fucking very pointy toed shoes.
Theo walked with a limp for a week and even he knows that was the least of what he deserved.
Glenn steps into the house and it feels fucking weird, kinda like he hasnât done it a million times before, but, of course, back then it was Theo and Laurenâs and now⊠it's not. Maybe itâs still the same house, with all the same rooms and all the same furniture and the same everything, but itâs not the same, not at all, and he canât help wondering if Theo feels it too. âYou do still remember I was a soldier, right?â
He doesnât even look at Theo - heâs not entirely sure heâs going to be able to, not without getting a bit⊠upset or, truthfully, more upset - but he does hold up one hand, wiggling his pinky finger in the other manâs direction and he feels it, the shift in the air, as Theo leans up against the door, fidgeting just slightly further away, out of 'I can kill you with a fingerâ (and would) (he absolutely fucking would, if Lauren would just let him) range and yeahâŠ
Message received.
Reagan and Amy might have punched him (not might) and it might have hurt (oh, it so fucking would), but Theo knows he wouldâve gotten back up from that - Liam and Jack did and, face it, heâs bigger and stronger than either of them though, apparently heâs also more of a fucking shit, which no one would have thought possible - but if Glenn decided to get physical?
All heâd need was someone to tell him where to hide the body. And Theo's got a pretty good inkling that Lauren would have all kinds of good ideas about that.
âEverything youâre here for is over there,â Theo says with a nod, careful to keep himself just out of reach - like that would really help - indicating the three stacks, a trio of cardboard mountains, box upon box, packing tape begetting packing tape and even though all the stacks are so very clearly - like in big bold permanent black marker letters clearly - marked 'Laurenâ, Glenn canât resist playing the asshole, just a little.
âWhich ones?â he asks with a smirk that shifts to a grin - and not the 'yo, man, s'up?â grin the two men usually shared - as he hears Theo sigh behind him. Itâs settling in, Glenn knows, the slow realization that nope, heâs not going to make this any easier - though a bit potentially less physically painful - than his sister and her wife would have.
Theo points, risking his putting his arm in striking distance. âTo the left,â he says.
He shouldnât. Glenn knows he shouldnât. He knows thereâs nothing funny about this - and if he thought there ever was, the memory of Lauren sobbing herself to sleep on his couch every night for the last three weeks has easily disabused him of that - and he knows all too very fucking well that this Theo is not the same Theo he shared beers with and watched basketball with and hung out with while they both did everything they could (which wasnât always enough or even close to it) to ignore that they were both in love with the same woman.
This, he knows, is no time for jokes. But, come on. 'To the left?â
It comes out without warning and - heâll claim till the day he dies - without him even choosing to say it. Itâs a blurt, an impulse that skips the brain and goes straight to the tongue and, before he can stop himself, Glennâs singing (or what passes for singing with him.) âTo the left, to the left,â he croons. âEverything you own in a box to the leftâŠâ
Theo snorts behind him and, for just a second, they're⊠them⊠again and, for just that same second, they both forget that theyâre never going to be 'themâ again. Theyâve always made an odd pair, shoved together by being the only 'boysâ in their little family and no, Liam didnât count cause he was always on the outside looking in and Lauren may have forgiven but Theo never ever did, or would and Shane was a guy, but⊠wellâŠ
Shaneâs a guy and a good one at that and they both love him but he's Shane.
They were brothers, of a sort, not like legally or anything - the brother in law of a sister in law doesnât have an exact term, like an in law twice removed or some such shit - but, if you asked anyone, theyâd be hard pressed to think of a Raudenfeld or Solis family gathering that hadnât seen Theo and Glenn holed up somewhere, usually with Bruce, talking basketball and football and whatever other balls came up.
And ignoring the fuck out of the tiny blonde elephant in the room.
Theo hums a few bars and then he catches himself, realizing a few notes too late that heâs not meant to be enjoying this moment, like not at all. It feels, to him, kinda like heâs cheating all over again.
Sort of.
(Getting ahead again. Just wait.)
âDidnât know you knew Beyonce,â he says which is, clearly, among the most ridiculous things heâs ever said cause who doesnât know Bey?
Glenn shrugs. âNot like Iâm a card carrying Beyhive member,â he says, eyeing the stacks of boxes. âBut she was clearly the best of Destinyâs children, you know?â
He glances back at Theo and, not for the first time, thereâs a rush of anger, of crippling sadness, of blood burning anger that comes over him and he has to look away, lest he find himself doing something about it. He wonders if Theo really gets what heâs done, if he understands just how far and how wide and how deep the damage heâs done reaches. The Theo he knew wouldâve, heâd have totally gotten it.
But then, Glenn figures, the Theo he knew wouldnât have done it in the first place. That Theo never would have brought home some skanky little⊠skank and he sure as hell wouldnât have touched her or kissed her orâŠ
Glenn focuses on the boxes, on the neatly stacked,secured, and packed away remnants of Laurenâs former life - and it is her life, that Glennâs thinking about (mostly) - and tries not to wonder how he could have ever misjudged someone so badly.
And ignore that nagging little tug at the back of his head that just says no fucking way cause, obviously, fucking way. Lauren saw.
She saw.
Theo speaks up and brings Glenn back to reality. âIâmâŠâ He shakes his head at the crack, the tiniest little hiccup of a thing, in his voice and God, how heâs wishing it really had been Amy and Reagan on the other side of the door cause at least maybe heâd be unconscious for this. âIâm, um, gonna grab a beer and hang out on the porch,â he says. âBetter to be out of the way like that.â
Glenn nods like itâs the most logical thing heâs ever heard - and it does make sense - and keeps right on staring at those boxes as Theo slips past him and on down the hall and then, and only then, does he steal a glance at the stairs, a move he immediately (is there something sooner?) regrets..
Lauren, maybe you should waitâŠ
What if, he wonders - for about the one zillionth time - sheâd listened to him. What if she hadnât charged up those stairs and down the short hall and through her bedroom door (for what would be the last time) and found⊠wellâŠ
The end. Thatâs what she found. The fucking end. Kinda literally.
Glennâs tried so very hard to not blame himself, mostly cause he knows thatâs just stupid - he wasnât the one who hadnât managed to keep it in his pants, after all - but itâs hard (absolutely
no pun intended) not to feel at least a little responsible. Heâd seen the car in the drive, the car that wasnât Theoâs, same as Lauren had. Heâd heard the noises, the laughter and the moans and the voices that werenât supposed to be there, same as Lauren had. Heâd felt that sinking feeling in his gut, that sudden drop, like the world stopped turning and the gravity just fucking quit and he was left adrift, nothing to anchor him, all those things that had moored his life to normal just ripped away, even before heâd seen a thing.
Same as Lauren.
Or, you know, maybe not exactly the same, but close enough, it had all been close enough, theyâd been two peas in a pod (they were 'twinningâ, as his niece might say) right until that moment, right up until they werenât. When he froze.
And Lauren didnât.
Glennâs tortured himself about it ever since. Heâs laid awake so many nights, asking himself that same fucking question.
No. Not 'what ifâ.
Oh, heâs asked that too. What if he hadnât froze, what if heâd done something - anything - other than calling out to her, so weakly, so meekly, so⊠so like he didnât mean it, like he didnât really want her to stop. And there it is, thereâs the question Glennâs been beating himself to a mental and emotional pulp with.
Why?
Why didnât he stop her? Why didnât he try harder? Why didnât he do something to try and, at least, shield her from some of it? He loves her, or so he claims (in his head, only to himself, never once out loud except that one time to Katie, but who is she gonna tell?) and yetâŠ
And yet he let her charge up those stairs - alone - and walk in on her husband with his pants gone and his mistress very much not gone and his hands on her hips and his lips on hers and
Glenn heard the muffled moan of a kiss interrupted by a scream (heâs never known if it was her or Lauren and he thinks, maybe, thatâs better) and thenâŠ
Itâs Lauren. You can imagine the 'and thenâ. Though, maybe, you might not want to.
He could have stopped her. OK⊠he could have tried and then, maybe, his conscience would be a bit clearer, maybe thereâd be a bit less guilt and a bit less doubt and a lot more room in his head and heart for doing what heâs supposed to be doing, which is being Laurenâs friend, being supportive, and being the one (or, really, one of the ones) hating the fuck out of Theo for hurting her.
ExceptâŠ
Except instead of doing what heâs supposed to be doing - literally, in this case, since heâs not walking those boxes out to his sisterâs truck in the driveway - Glennâs doing the exact opposite, instead of leaving, like he knows he should, heâs turning and walking into the house, through the kitchen, down the four stairs to the back, and out onto the porch and if Theoâs at all surprised to see him there, he doesnât show it.
He probably expected it. A Solis staying when they should be going?
Must be in the DNA.
Glenn settles in the chair closest to the door, the one he always sits in, the only one that doesnât have itâs back to the door and no, nobody ever asks why or what happened⊠over there⊠that left him with the unshakable need to limit the exposure cause, well, nobody ever asks anything about over there and he never talks about it.
Except to Katie on those nights when she was a tiny tiny and he babysat to give his sister and Amy a little break and he said a whole bunch of things he never should have said but, again, who is she going to tell?
(Besides, you know, her shrink when sheâs older.)
âIt doesnât make sense,â he says and Theo doesnât look at him or ask what 'it isâ, though thereâs a list of possible 'itâsâ a mile long. âIâve gone over it and over it,â Glenn says, trying not to get a bit⊠bothered when Theo still just slowly sips his beer. âAnd all I ever come up with is that either youâre the stupidest fuck alive orâŠâ
He trails off (yeah, cause the trail off ever ends well) and lets it dangle there, hanging between them, and if heâs waiting for a reaction?
Heâs gonna be there a while.
'You remember the day she caught you?â Glenn asks and yes, it is mostly a rhetorical question cause, duh, Theoâs probably got a vague recollection. "You remember where she was?â
The words 'with youâ trip off Theoâs tongue with the kind of ease reserved for basic facts of the universe: waterâs wet, the skyâs blue, Liam Booker was a manwhore of epic proportions, you know, the obvious stuff.
Glennâs surprised - just a bit - by the way it stings, by the sudden sharp pang of guilt he feels in his gut, like heâs the one in the wrong here, like he did something bad. He didnât, not really, but he remembers enough Sunday school to remember thereâs some sort of rule about not coveting another manâs wife, but coveting ain't cheating.
And rules? Donât get Glenn started on rules.
Rule #1: Do the right thing, always, and you donât need any more fucking rules.
Though, technically, coveting is probably not the right thing, but heâs just going to ignore that, OK?
âWe had that conference,â he says, ignoring the insinuation he isnât totally sure Theo meant to make cause, well, itâs easier that way. âThe one for the mayor, to kick start his campaign for governor,â he says. âAnd it was supposed to run all day, remember? Till like five or six, at least.â
Theo takes another sip of his beer. A bit slower this time.
âWe weren't supposed to be back,â Glenn says. His fingers are digging into the armrest of the chair, his nails chipping the wood, not that he notices. âWe were supposed to be gone all day and then go to dinner after and we weren't supposed to be here then.â
'But you wereâ. Thatâs what Theoâs supposed to say. If there was a script for this -like the whole thing was some crazy ass plot twist cooked up by some whackadoo writer typing away at a tiny little computer at a tiny little desk and oh, then it would make so much more sense - then Theoâs next line would be 'but you wereâ and heâd say it all bitter and angry like, as if it was Glennâs fault that he and Lauren showed up when they did, like he was blaming everyone but himself like all the cheating asshats, like him, do.
Theo says nothing. Not a thing. Not a single fucking word and so, no, heâs not following the script, like not at all.
âSheâs always figured that was it,â Glenn says, like 'alwaysâ is 'foreverâ or 'for so very longâ and not just for three tear filled weeks. âThat was what made you think you could get away with it, why you thought⊠why you dared to bring her here.â
A schedule. A plan. A Lauren Cooper devised and laid out event (that went off without a hitch, that went off perfectly) that had a set start and end time and Theo had to know, he had to be so sure off all the timing cause, come on, it was 'Campaign by Laurenâ.
Who could blame him for thinking it was safe?
Glenn stands, tugging his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his messages. It takes him a minute - his phoneâs been bombarded by texts recently, the 'Iâm crying and alone at two in the fucking morningâ kind in particular - but he finds the one heâs looking for and reads it and then he reads it again.
Just to be sure.
T-Money: Howâs it going? Everything on track?
He tosses the phone down on the table in front of Theo, and heâs not surprised - much - when he doesnât even look at it, doesnât even check the reply.
Or, you know, the evidence.
âI texted you back,â Glenn says, settling back down into 'hisâ chair, hands on his knees. âI told you it was all going great, so great, better than even Lauren could have planned and we both know thatâs gotta be pretty fucking awesome.â
Theo sips his beer and stares straight ahead. He says nothing, still.
But yeah, he knows.
Glenn runs one hand through his hair, which is kinda pointless since he still keeps it buzzed to his damn scalp and thereâs nothing to run through, but itâs a nervous habit, a tic, the sort of thing he did when he was younger and he was asking Amanda King to the prom. Heâs worried⊠no, not worried.
He's scared.
Heâs fucking terrified, worried that heâs right and maybe a little more worried that he's not and he doesnât know what heâs going to do with either, but heâs still gotta try, heâs gotta push on cause, you know, he froze.
He owes her this much.
âI told you,â Glenn says. âI told you things were going to finish up early and we were going to stop home before the dinner.â He watches Theoâs fingers close tighter around the beer. âI told you weâd be here. You knew. You knew and you broughtâŠÂ her⊠here anyway.â
'What can I sayâ and 'thrill of danger, the risk of getting caughtâ and 'she got off on itâ all come spilling out of Theo in a jumble, a mess of words that run together and if that didnât make them sound rehearsed - like heâs been waiting for this - the fact that he canât even look at Glenn, that he pushes the beer and the phone away and lets his head fall into his handsâŠ
Yeah, Glenn can read that tell. HellâŠÂ Karma could.
âYou wanted to get caught.â Glenn says - fuck 'saysâ, he snarls - his hands balling into fists in his lap. âYou wanted Lauren to see you with her, you wanted to hurt her -â
âIt was the lesser pain,â Theo blurts and then cusses himself under his breath. He didnât mean to say it, heâd sworn to himself that he wouldnât. âThis is why,â he mutters, âthis is why I wished sheâd send them.â
Amy and Reagan wouldnât have pushed because they wouldnât have known and, more to the point, neither of them would have cared. Theyâd have punched first, not asked questions at all, loaded all the boxes second and, probably, punched again.
And heâd have deserved them. That would probably be the only thing Theo might think that theyâd agree with.
âWhat the fuck does that mean?â Glenn snaps. Heâs forcing himself to stay in the chair - not that heâd actually, you know, use his pinky (probably) - trying to give Theo a chance to explain, even if he canât, for the fucking life of him, think of anything that could explain any of this. âYou think finding you and her was somehow 'lesserâ?â His fingers curl the air quotes around the word as it burns its way off his tongue.
âThereâs degrees, Glenn,â Theo says. âDegrees of everything. Love and hate and⊠pain. And yeah, as much as it killed her, Lauren finding us that way was the lesser pain, like a thousand degree burn compared to falling into the sun. I know it sucks and itâs ripping her up, but sheâll get through it.â
He says it like thereâs another option and not just some other, fucking mythical pain that Lauren couldnât get through. Thereâs no such thing, no such pain or challenge or obstacle she just canât overcome. Glenn knows that. Heâs sure of very little in this world, but he's positive of that.
âSheâll get through it by hating you,â he says. âBy despising you and cursing you and regretting the day she ever met you.â All of which, he doesnât mention, Laurenâs already doing in fucking spades. âAnd that, all of that anger and hate, it will burn like the sun, but itâll never last. It just canât. Sooner or later, itâs going to burn itself out and then? Lauren will be empty. Youâll have your little whore, but sheâll be alone and thatâs whatâs going to fill in those hollow, empty, burned out places you left in her.â
Theo snorts - a bitter and angry grunt of a thing and, really, where the fuck does he get off with that - and shakes his head, ignoring the bits about the damage he did (he doesnât need Glenn to remind him, the ring still on his finger does that just fine) and focusing, instead, on the one thing that he can even kinda get upset about.
âI think we both know the last thing Laurenâs going to be is alone.â
And there it is. The heart of the matter. The elephant in the room who isnât even there but canât be ignored any more.
âFuck you,â Glenn says - and so much for 'brothersâ - pushing his way up and out of his chair and now heâs the one with the burning suns scorching just beneath his skin. âIf you think I would ever use this to -â
âI donât,â Theo says and the edge has slipped from his voice, the knife edged words sheathed again. He slumps back over the table and Glenn doesnât know what to make of it, or how to process the way this guy he thought he knew so well is shifting gears right in front of him. âIâd never think that. Not of you and not of her.â He laughs again and this time itâs almost genuine and not at all bitter of angry. âHell, if you even tried, Iâm pretty sure your sister would fuck your shit up, family or not.â
Heâs not wrong.
âBut youâll be there,â he says. âLike youâre always there. Like youâve stayed all along, when you knew her heart was somewhere else and you didnât care.â Theo looks at him, finally, and itâs all right there in his eyes. âYou love her. You love her the way that I did⊠the way I do⊠and that means youâll stay.â He looks away, biting at his lip, the pain keeping the tears at bay. âAlways.â
Thereâs an obvious retort, a clear comeback just teed up for him and Glenn sees it, right there, just waiting. But thatâs just it, isnât it? It's obvious, it's clear, it's easy and all of this, from them walking in on Theo and her to Lauren having his shoulder to cry on to Theo not even fighting the divorce at all - he offered her the house, for fuckâs sake (she said no) (for, again, all the obvious reasons) has been like that.
Obvious. Easy. Clear.
Heâs the bad guy, the cheating dick, the loser who threw away years - his entire life since high school - for a cheap side piece.
Yeah. Obvious. Easy.
And, suddenly, itâs all a lot more clear.
âWhatâs her name?â Glenn asks and Theoâs head snaps up. âYour mistress. Whatâs her name?â
âWhat?â
Glenn bites back the 'did I stutter?â, trying to keep his temper in check. âWhatâs her name?â he asks, again. âWhere did you meet? How long was it going on? You gonna marry her, now? Is she even interested in that, or was this just about fucking a married man?â He takes a step to the table, leans over it, looming - as much as someone a good foot fucking shorter can - over Theo. âWhatâs. Her. Name?â
Theo scoots back, just a little. âWhatâs. Your. Point?â
WellâŠÂ fuck. Just⊠total and absolute fuck. Like all the fucks all in one place and that place?
Right smack between Glenn and Lauren. Because now, he knows. Maybe not all of it, maybe not exactly why - but just wait, heâll get there - but he knows enough.
âYou threw it away on purpose,â he says and Theo doesnât argue the point so, yeah, fuck. âYou made sure you did the one thing sheâd never forgive and no, thatâs not the cheating. Itâs being made to look a fool. And you made sure⊠with my help⊠that she caught you.â
Glenn staggers back and falls down into his chair. His brain⊠it doesnât work this way, it doesnât think like his sisterâs or Amyâs or even Karmaâs (especially not Karmaâs.) He sees everything in all itâs simplest of terms, in kill or be killed, be happy or not, love or donât. The messes Reagan told him about from back when she and Amy first got together? Theyâre as foreign and as weird to Glenn as carrying an M-16 through a fucking desert would be to his sister or to her wife or to Karma (yes, especially Karma, again.)
So, this?
Yeah⊠this is some Star Wars live long and prosper world of wizarding he who shall not be named shit.
(And yes, he knows those are all different. Heâs spent far too fucking long around Amy not to.)
âYou had it all,â Glenn says and heâs incredibly proud that he keeps the judgement out of his voice. âEverything. Youâve been in love with her since high school, you survived four years apart in college, you had the most sickeningly fairy tale wedding that Iâve ever seen, and you threw it all away, on purpose, when you had everything you ever wanted.â
âI know,â Theo says so simply, so obviously. âBut thatâs just it. What if⊠it wasn't everything?â
The first time Amy says those three little words, Reaganâs right there with her.
âI hate you.â
She isnât actually next to Amy, at the time, or even near her, really. Sheâs in the back, by the pots of coffee - regular and decaf and something called half-caf that sheâs not really sure she understands or wants to as, really, she prefers her coffee like her women: strong and rich and able to rev her engine with a single taste - but, for once, she doesnât mind a little distance from Amy. She doesnât even mind (much) that it's Karma next to Amy or even that itâs Karma who's holding Amyâs hand.
(OK, maybe that part bugs.) (A little.) (If, by âa littleâ, you mean a lot.) (Like all.)
But still, it's⊠OK. (And yes, OK is absolutely as far as sheâs gonna go.) This is what Amy needs right now. Karma is what Amy needs right now and yes, Reaganâs sure that 'right nowâ really means 'in this one very specific time and placeâ and is not code for 'has secretly always wanted all along and will dump you and go running back to Karma as soon as she makes a pit stop at her house and pulls out the I Heart Karmy tee shirt sheâs got hidden way in the back, under her suitcase.â
At least she thinks sheâs sure and, really, she knows that means sheâs not sure, like at all, but Amy told her and if thereâs anyoneâs word Reagan would take on how Amy feels?
It's not Amy.
But Lolo said it too, and sheâs standing right there with her (her being Reagan) and that is good enough, or at least close enough to good enough - like good enough adjacent - to get the job done.
And, as she keeps reminding herself - and may soon resort to having Lolo remind her too - this whole mess was a mess long before her and long before Lolo and long before any thought of liking girls (or anyone, really) had even started to cross Amyâs mind. This is a mess, a fight, with history.
History, when it comes to Amy, equals Karma. At least, Reagan keeps reminding herself, for now.
So there she stands, in the back (said that), by the coffee (said that too), close by Lauren, which means close by Theo (which Reagan doesnât really mind) and close by Shane (all good there) and that means close by Liam.
Wait. What now?
Yes, Liam. As in Booker. As in Asshat A#1, Duke of the Dicks, Sultan of Shit, King of the Fuckboys.
(She couldnât come up with an insult that started with 'Kâ, though she tried, but that took more than like thirty seconds and that was far more time than Reagan was willing to giveâŠÂ him.)
She wasnât sure why Liam was there, except that the new girl - the one sheâd seen him and Karma with, right before Karma had gone all Mike Tyson on Jackâs face - was there and, it seemed, wherever she went, Liam was sure to follow. He was like a puppy.
It wouldâve been cute if it had been, wellâŠÂ anyone else.
And so, yes, new girl was there too and yes, she did seem sort of, kind of, in ways Reagan didnât really want to think about, less than new.
Reagan couldnât remember the new girlâs name (liar) even though she knew sheâd heard it, once, from Liam, and so, yeah, you might understand why she wouldn't want to remember,
why sheâd be willing to do damn near anything to forget it, even though she knew she never ever would. New girl was a permanent fixture in Reaganâs brain already, she had herself a cute little cubbie, right in the center of brain town, just off to the left of the four story office building that was Amy and the slightly shorter tower that was Lauren, somewhere just behind the little collection of bungalows that were Shane and Theo and, God help her, Karma.
And if she was going to keep thinking in real estate metaphors, Reagan was going to need something a lot fucking stronger than coffee.
It wasn't just her name that Reagan remembered, even if she said she didnât. It was her face. Reagan knew, from like the very first moment she saw her, she was never going to forget that face. How could she?
It was just like Amyâs.
Karma said once that the first time she saw new girl (oh, for fuckâs sake, Lucy) that she looked sorta familiar. Reagan said once that Karma was in fucking denial, cause saying Lucy looked familiar was like saying Lolo looked kinda like the girl from Bunheads and sure, she was probably like one of six people who ever even watched that, but come on.
Itâs called Google. And IMDB. Look it up.
The point (she did have one) was that Lucy looked a lot like Amy. Like Amy, if Amy had Karmaâs hair (the style, not the color, though Reagan had to admit, Lucyâs strawberry blonde dye work was on fucking point.) Like Amy, if Amy had a splash of Laurenâs cheekbones and like even one one-hundredth of Laurenâs skill with blush and shading. Like Amy, if Amy had just a bit of that impish smirk of Shaneâs.
Assuming that imps were constantly looking at everyone they talked to like they were imagining them naked. And yes, she meant everyone.
It was all of that - the Karma hair and the Lauren cheeks and the Shane smirk - that unnerved the shit out of Reagan the moment she saw Lucy, all up close and personal and not just on a street corner. But she could get past that, even if she couldn't forget it. It was the just like Amy part she was having some trouble with.
Lucy looked just like Amy, or close enough. 'Just likeâ adjacent. (Hey, it was a good line the first time, right?) Maybe close enough that you could tell they were related, that maybe you might think, at first glance, that Lucy was a slightly younger (six months and three days), a bit less infatuated with doughnuts (she prefers crullers) (whatever the fuck those are), and so much less weight of the world (read: weight of Karma) balancing on her shoulders version of Amy. But that was just it.
She was just a version. Amy was the original, the one and only, accept no substitutes.
Unless, of course, you were Jack. In which case, it would seem, you would just accept right the fuck away. Which was, obviously, the entire reason for those three little words.
âI hate you.â
(Remember those? Weâre getting there. Promise.)
But still, Reagan couldnât get past it. Her eyes kept drifting to Lucy. Not because she liked her or wanted to like her or was even thinking of liking her. No, it was because as just like Amy as she was⊠it was the differences that were like a fucking tractor beam, pulling Reaganâs eyes to her. Lucy seemed - right up until the moment Amy dropped those three little words - like she was happy. Relaxed. Easy going and carefree and untouched by anything. Except, you know, maybe, Liam.
Reagan refused to think about how that might make her even more just like Amy than she already seemed.
In general, she was trying - and mostly failing - to refuse to think about Lucy at all. She didnât want to think about Lucy, cause that would mean thinking about Lucy and Jack and that would mean thinking about years.
Nine of them to be precise.
Nine long years when Amy had been with Farrah and failed marriages numbers one through Bruce. Nine long years when the closest thing Amy had had to a father was Lucas Ashcroft and, no offense meant to Karmaâs dad but⊠well⊠he was Karmaâs dad.
Not to suggest that his daughterâs shortcomings painted a failing picture of him as a dad butâŠ
Where was she? Oh. Right. Nine years.
Nine years of Amy being alone in ways no one else could ever understand. Nine years of her trying to remember only the good times she and Jack and her mother had had - Farrah had assured Reagan that there actually were some - but all of those memories being drowned out, shouted down, buried every single time by that other memory.
Because of you. Iâm leaving because of you.
The first time she met Jack, a week ago yesterday, Reagan punched him in the face. She spent the rest of that night wondering if maybe, just maybe, she was getting a bit too used to resorting to violence to solve her problems. First Liam, now Jack. And then she remembered that, she imagined a younger, weaker, more heartbroken and not tough enough to hide it version of Amy, sitting alone in her room, those words running over and over and over in her head.
And then, she thought, maybe she hadnât been quite violent enough.
Thatâs the other reason, besides the whole history thing (and the fact that Karma nearly pushed her out of the way to be by Amy and Amy didnât seem to be bothered by that) sheâs back here, by the coffee. Sheâs afraid - like genuinely concerned - that she might punch the fucker again, the moment he opens his mouth.
Of course, had she realized what Amy was planning, Reagan might not have been so worried about that.
âI hate you,â Amy says. (Told you weâd get back to it.) âI donât know why youâre here and I donât really care, I don't want to know.â Reagan resists the urge to mutter a 'you go, girlâ (itâs not still 2003, after all) but she can see the Laurenâs blonde mane bobbleheading up and down, silently cheering her sister (and fuck DNA and biology and blood, sheâs Amyâs sister) on. âWhatever it is that you think you came back here for? You can forget it. You can forget me.â Amy turns to go, but pauses, and turns back. âYou did that for nine years. Iâm sure you can remember how.â
Reaganâs impressed and she doesnât impress easy and, yes, she knows thatâs bullshit because when it comes to Amy she impresses oh so very easy, but you get the point. It (her speech) was short and sweet and to the point and didnât give Jack any time or any chance to even say a single word -
Words he would, apparently, have to be saying through another bloody lip cause Amy takes all of two steps before pausing - again - then turning and delivering a right hook to her fatherâs face that makes even Reagan wince and, sheâs pretty sure, draws a very not manly whimper of pain from Liam.
Itâs all she can do not to laugh.
And then theyâre off. Amy and Karma and Lauren and Theo and Shane, across the shop and out the door, the other customers parting like the sea. Lucyâs already by her fatherâs side and Liam⊠well⊠heâs justâŠÂ there. He looks to the door like he wants to follow the others, but he knows he really canât, and he looks to Lucy and Jack like heâll stay there but thereâs already a wall of sorts up around them, a circling of the Raudenfeld Lee wagons and heâs on the wrong side of that too. Heâs stuck there, for a moment, lost and confused, until he finally just shakes his head and drifts off, seemingly headed to parts unknown and Reagan can only hope maybe heâll stay there.
She almost feels sorry for him. Almost. After all, sheâs still there too. She didnât follow the train out of the station with all her friends. (And, you know, Karma.) But unlike Liam, thatâs got next to nothing to do with her not knowing where she belongs. Quite the contrary, really.
She knows this is exactly where she needs to be.
Lucy glances back over her shoulder at her as Reagan slips down into the booth across from Jack, but Reagan pays her no mind. Sheâs not about to let herself get distracted by little Miss Almost-Amy, not right now. Thereâs a napkin and some silverware on the table and she - very nonchalantly - twirls the knife on the tabletop, spinning it with a finger.
âRound and round it goes,â she mutters, barely holding back a smirk at the way Jack flinches at the sight of the spinning metal, or at the way Lucy suddenly reaches out - far quicker than Amy ever could - and snatches the knife from the wood. Reagan looks up, locking eyes with Jack before she speaks again. âShe doesnât mean it, you know.â
âWhat?â Itâs Lucy who asks and itâs Lucy who Reagan ignores, again.
Reagan repeats the knife act with a spoon, but that doesnât elicit quite the same reaction as the knife. âYou probably donât know this since, you know, you donât really know her, but Amy didnât mean that. Any of it.â
âIt sure looked like she meant it.â Lucy again. Reaganâs tempted to tell her to go chase after Booker and let the grown ups talk, but Jack beats her to it, resting one hand on Lucyâs, a silent father to daughter moment.
Nine years. Theyâve had nine years to learn that. Nine years they stole from Amy.
Reagan sort of wishes she had the knife back.
âShe wants to,â Reagan says. âShe wants to hate you. Actually, she really wants to not give a fuck about you one way or the other. She wants your presence or, more likely, your absence, to not mean a thing to her.â
The 'but it doesâ, she leaves unsaid. Jack gets it, she knows that. But him, actually hearing the words⊠well, that might be just a bridge too far for Reagan right about now.
âBut see, thatâs the thing about Amy,â she says and even Jack, who doesnât know Reagan from fucking Adam, can see the look in her eyes, can tell how much this 'thingâ makes her love and hate her girlfriend all at once. âShe forgives. Always. Eventually.â
Thereâs a moment when Jackâs tempted to ask if this is about him or about that girl, the one he remembers all too well, the one that was holding his daughterâs hand. But he doesnât ask cause he already knows.
And heâs not stupid.
Reagan drops a hand down on the spoon, stilling it in mid-spin. âShe wants to forgive,â she says. âShe needs to. Itâs in her nature. Maybe not her DNA, but in her.â
Forgiveness is Amy. Even Farrah knew that.
Someday, Karma Ashcroft is going to come walking up to my front doorâŠ
It isnât that Reagan doesnât understand, cause she does. She gets it all too well. Amyâs spent years hating - or trying to hate - Jack. Hate him for what he did before he left and the way he left and for staying gone for all this time. Sheâs spent so very long trying to hate him for all of that and yeah, Reagan gets that, she knows a thing or two about how that feels.
âIt feels exhausting,â she says, not realizing or caring how out of nowhere that might sound. âIt wears you down, carrying that with you. Thatâs why people always say that forgiveness is really for you, not for those you forgive.â
Jack nods and Reagan wonders if thereâs a step for that, if one of the twelve heâs supposedly on speaks about forgiveness.
Even for those who donât deserve a lick of it.
âShe wants to hate you,â Reagan repeats, you know, for emphasis. âAnd I do. And that is never going to change. There is nothing you can ever do that will make meâŠâ she slowly shakes her head and pushes herself out of the booth. âWay I see it, Jack, youâve got two choices. You can do what you do best, what you taught her to do. You can run. You can pack up you and your⊠Lucy⊠and leave the same way you came in, slipping out in the dark where no one can see.â
Jack nods again, finally speaking, his tongue slipping out between words to swipe at the blood pooling on his lip. âAnd my other choice?â
Reagan shrugs. âYou can start giving her reasons to do what she already wants to do,â she says. âAnd maybe, one day, like ten years from now, youâll wake up one morning to discover youâve got an actual relationship with your daughter.â
The 'but Iâll be there, right there, watching every move and waiting, just waiting, for the inevitable slipâ she leaves unsaid too.
They both already know that.
âAmy came here today because she thinks, somehow, that youâre still worth a chance,â Reagan says, leaning against the edge of the booth and hating every word of it, even though she knows itâs all true. âIf she didnât, she would have just ignored you, kept right on pretending that you just donât exist. Sheâs pretty good at that, you know. Must be in the genes.â
Jack doesnât reply cause, really, what could he say?
Reagan runs a hand through her hair and she wonders, not for the first time, what might have happened if sheâd just listened to the fucking GPS. âAmy thinks youâre going to stay,â she says, and a deaf man could hear the doubt ringing in her voice. âSheâd never say it out loud, but sheâs got just enough Karma in her that somewhere, way deep down, Amy honestly still truly believes in happy endings and that the good guys always win and that peopleâŠÂ all people⊠theyâre just inherently good.â
It is, in fact, one of the things Reagan secretly loves so very much about Amy. One day, like ten years from now or so, she might even tell her that.
It is, though, one of the things she and Amy donât have in common and Jack has already picked up on that. âAnd what about you, Reagan?â he asks. âWhat do you think?â
Itâs a loaded question and he knows it and she knows it and Lucy knows it, even if thatâs just about the only thing she knows about any of this. Reagan sort of envies her for that. âI think that you and I both know better,â she says. âPeople arenât inherently good or bad. Theyâre just people. And people do good things and people do bad things. And some people you can count on and othersâŠâ
She shrugs. Others, it says (screams) you can count on too. To let you down. Every. Fucking. Time.
âYou donât think Amy can count on me?â Jack asks her.
Reagan laughs. Like a legit laugh. âShe counted on you to stay gone and you couldnât even manage that,â she says. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she doesnât have to check to know itâs Amy or Lolo (sheâd prefer the former but figures itâs more likely the latter) wondering where the fuck she went. âIn the end, Jack, I think youâre just sober enough, just guilt ridden enough that youâll try. Youâll do everything you can to make yourself believe that sheâs actually right about you.â She leans down, pressing her palms flat against the table, so she can look him in the eye. âBut in the end, I know sheâs not.â She laughs again, before straightening back up to walk away. âTen bucks says you donât even make it to graduation.â
Itâs not Jack, but Lucy who calls after her as she crosses the shop. âTen bucks? Thatâs it? Not so sure of yourself after all, are you?â
Reagan pauses by the door. Thereâs a witty comeback, a razor-sharp line already poised and set, ready for her to let it fly. But that would keep her there, that would make her linger. Another second to turn, another three or four to say the words, another five or six to watch them land, to see if, maybe, Jackâs ego is as fragile as his face.
But see, her phone? Itâs buzzing again. And this time, she does check, slipping it from her pocket even as she walks.
Shrimps: Where are you? I sent Karma and everyone else home. I need you.
And when Amy calls? When Amy needs her? Well, that math is the simplest there is. See, that ten bucks? Itâs just like that one or two or six more seconds here instead of with her.
Itâs all more than Jackâs worth.
Eight days after the fire
Sheâs drunk.
He doesn't need to be an expert on the subject to be able to tell that - not so long as he can see the way sheâs staggering around and slurring her words, or the sounds he thinks are trying to be her words - but, it just so happens that, when it comes to being full on, sloppy as all fuck, youâd best be praying to whatever God you believe in that you donât remember this tomorrow morning drunk?
Jackâs got a fucking Ph.D.
He supposes thatâs why Amy called him. Or, rather, why she settled for him, why she realized maybe - for like the first time ever - he was her best choice. That, he knows, was just plain old dumb luck. Amy had called Lucy trying to find Karma and she did find Karma, she found the both of them, together - though Jack is pretty sure they aren't really together, not like that - with him, in his living room in his house, even if he was almost never there anymore and especially even if Karma had sworn never to take even one step over the threshold.
âIâve spent enough time in your house over the years,â she said. âMore than you have so, Iâll just stay on this side of your new door, thank you very much.â
Jack could be forgiven if he heard that as âfuck you very muchâ. It was, after all, what she'd meant.
Sheâd stuck to it, even then, showing a bit of that famous Ashcroft stubborn streak, refusing at first to come inside. But after the fire and after the doctors finally let Lucy come home from the hospital, Jack refused to let Lucy out of his sight and, apparently, Karma did as well and, when neither one of them seemed inclined to back down in the slightest, Lucy sighed, walked over, and took Karmaâs hand and led her inside and that was just the end of that.
And that was yesterday.
Still, twenty-four hours of house guests, is just that. Twenty-four hours and maybe heâs lost a few (or more than a few) brain cells along the way, but Jackâs not so stupid that heâs letting any of this make him think anything has really changed. Karmaâs at his house and Amyâs asked him for a favor (and it was actually an âaskâ and not a âtellâ and yes, that was different) and thatâs all well and good and progress and he knows the mantra: one step at a time.
But his next step? Yeah, thatâs the tricky one. The one heâs stumbled on pretty much every day for the last seven years, the one thatâs always there to remind him that progress or no progress heâs still him.
That next step is Reagan.
Once she, you know, notices him standing there and all. Sheâs still a bit too stagger-y and yell-y and clutching that bottle in her hand like itâs her life-y to have spotted him.
So, no, Jackâs got no illusions about anything. He knows this isnât a total sea change, itâs not some seismic shift in his life, a massive one-stop-shop fix for his relationships with just about everyone (read: everyone who isnât his daughter) (the daughter he came with, not the one he left) and he knows that none of this is about him or about him and Amy or about putting a few more planks into the bridge over the chasm between them (the one he made, the one nine years pretty much dynamited into permanence.)
Hell, this isnât even about Reagan, not really. Itâs not about who she is or what sheâs doing or what sheâs lost, even if all that is what got Amy on the phone and why she sucked up her pride and tucked away her resentment and anger and sadness and anger and frustration - and did he mention anger - and actually asked him for help.
âShe hasnât even cried,â Amy said. âNot since the funeral and I think she cried more at Liamâs than atâŠâ Jack could hear it over the line, the ache and the empty and the powerlessness, the total inability to help the one you love.
Heâd hoped to never hear that again. Not from her, not from Amy.
Hearing it from her mother - about him - had been enough of that for one lifetime.
Jack spares a moment to look away from Reagan - sheâs less staggering and more leaning now, on a tree that doesnât seem likely to let her fall any time soon - and glance up at what used to be his daughterâs home away from home, at least in the physical sense. He understands, so much more than anyone gives him credit for, that Amyâs real home stopped being a place a long damn time ago. It turned from a where to a who (Karma, at least at first) right about the time her other home - the real one every kid is supposed to have - disappeared into the Austin night, never to be heard from again.
Except here he is - that disappearing home - and never, apparently, is a fuckload shorter than the word suggests.
But now, that home - Amyâs home - isn't the girl sitting who spent all those years in the house Jack built and abandoned. Itâs not the woman she's become either, the one silently watching over Amy's sister, much the way she used to watch over Amy, standing guard as Lucy sleeps fitfully, tossing and turning and crying out in fear as nightmares of flame and smoke and Liamâs ash and soot covered face dance inside her mind.
Amy loves Karma and everyone knows that and everyone knows she always will. But Amy's home is five feet in front of him, leaning against a tree, muttering under her breath, clutching to a bottle in way Jack finds both terrifying and oddly familiar - and yes, heâll grasp at any straw of similarity when it comes to him and Reagan - and he knows he canât ever undo the last sixteen years and, if the fire has taught them all anything, thereâs not a single shred of a guarantee that there will be sixteen more.
But the here and the now? Maybe he can do something about that.
Besides, you know, fucking it up.
The building, such as it is, well⊠itâs not really a building anymore. Thereâs walls still standing, sure, and some of the roof and the insurance guy, the one Amy dealt with while Reagan lurked in the background, giving him a glare Jack had once thought was reserved for him, did say that it wasnât a total loss.
Insurance guys, Jack thought (then and now) probably out to sit down and redefine 'totalâ, cause he was pretty sure no one he knew agreed with Mr. Insuranceâs assessment in the slightest.
There was a booth left. One, from the back, as far removed from ground fucking zero as it could have been and still been in the building. It was⊠salvageable. A couple of semi-standing chairs, a light fixture or two. A stance of menus that had somehow been protected beneath the melted glass of the front display case.
âIf youâre going to rebuild,â insurance guy had said, âitâs not much, but itâs a start.â
It had been all Amy could do to keep Reagan from punching him, a habit Jack had thought sheâd finally outgrown. But tragedy, he knew, could make anyone backslide.
Anyone.
He thought about it now, about that word. Start. A start from an end. Two of them, really, and it was almost four. Jack doesnât like to think about it, heâs spent almost every single minute of the last eight days actively trying to think about anything else. Trying not to think how close Jana came to not making it - itâll be another week, minimum, before they send her home - and trying even harder not to thinkâŠ
Heâd almost lost her.
Sometimes, Jack knows, he focuses so much on Amy, on fixing or at least not worsening, things between them that he almost forgets Lucy. She says that she doesnât mind, she says that she understands and she and Jack both let that be true.
He has a feeling that might not hold up anymore.
She almost died. Another minute, another two, maybe three, another two or three or four more breaths and she wouldnât have taken any more. A little more smoke, a little more flame and those thoughts make Jack shut his eyes and try not to think about it and yeah, if that actually ever works, heâll be sure to let you know.
In the end, Lucy escaped. And no, thatâs not quite right. She didn't escape, she was saved, she was pulled, dragged, somehow carried to safety by a young man Jack had sort of come to think of as a son. And that, he knew was just more of his usual bullshit. It wasnât 'sort ofâ or 'kind ofâ or a 'little bitâ. Liam had been the first real friend Jack had made in years and yes, thinking of it, of him, in sort ofâs and kindaâs and the like, it does help to stave off the grief and the guilt, at least for a moment or two.
And then it all comes roaring back and Jack remembers that heâs not supposed to be free of the grief or the guilt (especially not that) but just because he has to live with it⊠wellâŠ
That doesnât mean she does.
He takes one step closer and thinks - remembering how Reagan hasnât outgrown punching after all - that maybe thatâs close enough. He stuffs both his hands in the pockets of his jacket, itâs unseasonably cool for a Texas night, and stares up at the not-a-building anymore.
âKarmaâs acting like itâs all⊠I donât know,â he says and yes, he knows how stupid it is to begin any conversation with Reagan by making it about Karma. But heâs much like his daughter, not in an obsessed with Karma way. Heâs just a bit of a⊠round the way kinda talker. Heâll get there, heâll settle on the point, eventually. You just gotta hang on for the ride.
âIâd forgotten how 'glass half fullâ she could be,â he says. âSheâs acting like itâs all going to be just fine, like Liamâs just popped on down to the corner store and heâs gonna be back any minute now.â
Karma and Liam. If he's looking to get punched, heâs on the right track.
Reagan doesnât turn or look or otherwise acknowledge that she even hears him, if sheâs at all surprised that heâs there. If sheâs shocked that itâs him or that heâs talking about Karma and Liam instead of her father or the bottle in her hand, Jack canât tell.
Spoiler Alert: she's not. Reagan knew someone would come and she knew it wouldnât be Amy and - honestly - that it shouldnât be. Not yet. And as for Jack talking about anything other than the giant fucking elephant in the room..
Sheâs been with Amy for seven years. She knows the drill.
âIn some ways, Karmaâs really grown up,â Jack says and heâs right, too, even if Reagan might not be at a point to admit that just yet. Karma has grown. Sheâs less all about her and more about others, less flighty, less prone to insane plans (future Harcroft spawn notwithstanding) and, in most ways, sheâs got both feet planted firmly in the real world.
In most ways.
âSometimes though,â he says, with a slow shake of his head. âShe still slips back, you know? Back to her little house on the corner of Denial Ave and Fantasy Lane.â He leans up against a tree and turns, looking at her for the first time since he got there. âMust be nice,â he says, âbut it doesnât work for everyone, does it?â
âFuck!â
Itâs more of a scream than a yell, something guttural, something past pain, more bordering on desperation and it breaks Jackâs heart. Despite what Reagan thinks, he has come to love her and even if he didn't⊠no one would wish that kind of agony on anyone.
She hurls the bottle (a bottle) (sheâs got another one in her hands already and heâs got no idea where the hell she had that hidden) across the caution tape border surrounding whatâs left of what used to be her place, listening with something akin to satisfaction - or whateverâs close enough to that that could actually break through - as it shatters on the remnants of the front steps.
No. Denial doesnât work for everyone.
She staggers a couple steps back and leans against another tree. Itâs the first of the ones that arenât scorched or burnt or still covered in a layer of soot and smoke. It hasnât rained since the fire - the forecast calls for thunderstorms over the weekend, but Jack isnât naive enough to think anything short of another Noah is gonna wash any of this away - and this is as close as she can get without getting into ash and soot and tangled in that tape and, he thinks, itâs funny the things you never realize about fire.
The distance, for one. The way it reaches out, its flickering fingers of flame touching everything, scratching and clawing and digging in, desperate for purchase, fighting to stay alive till their very last breath. Jackâs eyes wander over the wreckage and thatâs another one: the remnants. You always think of the damage it does, of the things it burns and melts and destroys.
You donât often think of what it leaves behind.
Jackâs surprised at that. Heâd have thought himself an expert on things left behind.
Fire is those burned out husks, the buildings gutted, the belongings - the possessions - charred to ash. But itâs so much more. Itâs the trees gone black, likely to be removed, maybe replaced and theyâre not the only thing, but theyâre the easiest, the least painful, one tree is the same as the next and oh, if that were only true for everything. And itâs the grass - right down to the tips of each blade - burnt like marshmallows sizzling at the end of a stick. Itâs the coughs that linger for days, the dark grime under your nails that you canât get out. The way your breaths catch in your throat and youâre not sure another one is ever going to come.
Itâs the eyes of a woman who looks, for all the world, like sheâs not sure she wants it to.
Not that heâd say it to Amy, but Jack would be more surprised if Reagan wasnât drinking. She lost so much. A father. A friend - and Liam was that, in the end, Jackâs sure - and a building, a business, a home. Even if that had been all of it, the sum total of everything Reagan lost that night, it would still be enough to drive almost anyone into a bottle.
She still hasnât acknowledged him, which is good, in a way. After all, that means the bottle is still in her hand and not yet flying by his head. Itâs dark, too dark for him to see the label, to recognize her choice in poison, but, he supposes, what it is is considerably less important than that it is. It is what it is, Lucy would say. And what it is, right now, no matter the vintage or the malt or the label, is an escape. Trouble is, Jack knows all too well how easily, how quickly, how without warning, that escape from something can turn into a far more permanent trap. Not that he, or anyone else, thinks Reaganâs going to follow down his path. No, for him, that bottle was a life.
For her, itâs an excuse. A high proof, finely aged, burn the inside of your throat until it matches the scorched outside of your world, reason why she isn't picking herself up off the mat, why she hasnât even started to get on with the getting on. But itâs only been eight days and she doesn't need an excuse. No one - least of all the woman she loves - expects her to be the old Reagan just yet, not now, maybe not ever. But Jack knows better. The excuse isnât for all of them.
Itâs for her.
âShe send you?â
That Reagan gets the words out clearly and smoothly and correctly tells Jack that sheâs either not drunk enough, or that she passed 'enoughâ an hour or so ago and now sheâs fully on the downward slope to a sober that will end up tipping that new bottle right down her throat, in a desperate attempt to stave reality off, even if just for five more minutes. Trouble is, that five is never enough. Thereâs always another five, another ten, another hour, another day.
Another nine years. Give or take.
âShe sent you, didnât she?â Reagan asks again, this time glancing at him over her shoulder, as she points and jabs at the air with one finger from the hand still death-gripping that bottle.
Itâs Jack. The bottle.
The irony is strong with this one.
âWell, you can just go right back to her and tell her that I am just A-O-fucking-K,â Reagan says, turning her back to him and staring off into the dark. Itâs a moonless night and Jack knows she canât actually see the details, just the outlines, the shape of things. He also knows that matters very little, as in not at all. âI donât need her sending babysitters after me. And, you know what? You tell her Iâm a little hurt. I didnât even rate Lolo? I had to get you?â
He could remind her that Lauren is still out of town, that she has been since the night before the fire, that she was the one who talked to her on the phone and told her it was 'fineâ and there was nothing 'she could doâ and she should finish up with everything with Theoâs sisterâs wedding and then come home and that would be just 'soon enoughâ.
He could. But heâd prefer to not get bottle bombed just yet.
âShe think youâre gonna scare me straight?â she asks. âThat it? You hear to remind me of the dangers of alcohol? Show me what I might become?â
Jack shakes his head, not that sheâs looking. âYou wonât become me,â he says, silently leaving off the 'youâre far too strong for thatâ. âI think Amy just⊠she thinks maybe thereâs something I can do for you that she canât.â
Reagan wheels on him - as best she can - and Jack braces for impact but it doesnât come, at least not physically.
âIn the history of the world,â she says, âthere is nothingâŠÂ nothing⊠that you could ever do for me.â
She slumps back against the tree and, if he could see that well in the dark, Jack would know her knuckles have gone white around the bottle neck. Her legs give out beneath her and Reagan slides down the trunk till sheâs on the ground, her head tipped back against the tree, her eyes squeezed shut against the dark.
âOK,â she mutters. âMaybe there is one thing.â She fumbles in her pocket, dragging her keys out and flinging them in Jackâs general direction. âI donât want to be here anymore,â she says and yeah, Jackâs going to just go right ahead and assume she just means here, like the literal place and not the moreâŠÂ global here.
Reagan doesnât strike him as the suicide type. No matter the hell sheâs living in.
âI hate you, you know,â she says and yeah, he knows. But he still scoops her keys up off the ground, wondering which will piss her off more. Him driving her truck or her riding in his car. In the end, itâs six of one and a half dozen of the other and, he knows, by the time heâs done, sheâs gonna hate him more anyway.
So theyâll take the truck. At least the windows all work.
They donât go home.
âThis isnât home,â Reagan says and, clearly, being three sheets to the wind - though Jack suspects the cool night breeze and the lack of any further imbibing has made it a little closer to one and a half sheets by now - hasnât impacted her firm grasp of the obvious. âThis,â she says, staring out the open window, âis so not home.â
Jack slips the truck into park and stares at the wheel, collecting himself. This was his idea, and he still thinks itâs the right one - even if it maybe isnât all that good a one - but that was, you know, before.
Before they got here and before he remembered and, in this case, remembering isnât just a river in Egypt or a vague sense of recollection tickling at the back of his brain. Itâs more like an ice cold hand, reaching up and squeezing his heart, slowly wringing the life out of it like water out of a sponge and he wonders, just for a second, if Reagan would give him that bottle if he asked.
Itâs only a moment, but it feels like⊠well⊠it doesnât feel like forever.
It feels a lot - like exactly - like a thousand and one moments he had over a thousand and one nights and Jack cringes, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a long deep breath, at the thought of how many of those nights ended here, instead of at home. How many of them ended with him on the ground - his own holy ground, but still the fucking dirt - instead of safely tucked away in his bed, in the loving embrace of his wife.
âDo you know how many nights Amyâs crawled into bed with me?â Farrah asked him once, after heâd been gone for two full days. âHow many nights sheâs taken your place because she heard me crying and wanted to make it better?â
Jack didnât know then and he still doesnât know now, but heâs got the feeling she wouldnât have asked if it had just been once, even if once was already more than too many.
He pulls his phone out and taps away as he kills the engine and yes, kills is probably a poor choice of words, all things considered, but if heâs lucky, nothing else will die tonight. Not him. Not his relationship with Amy, the one dancing on the thinnest of ices.
Thatâs the hope, but then hope doesnât just spring eternal for people who make good choices and do the right thing.
Itâs there for fuckups like him too.
âWhy are we here?â Reagan asks and yeah, that is the million dollar question, but Jackâs got no good answer, at least not a good one he can say.
This, he knows, is more of a show than a tell kinda situation, so he says nothing as he taps out the last letter of his text message - like heâd have ever guessed that learning to do that would actually come in handy - and presses send before tucking Reaganâs keys into his pocket, a move she doesnât miss.
âMaking sure I canât run?â she asks and Jack thinks - for like a hot minute - of pointing out that even only one and a half sheets pretty much guarantees she canât actually run, but heâs not drunk (or stupid), so he just slips out from behind the wheel without saying anything, making his way around to the passenger side of the truck, tugging Reaganâs door open.
It sticks a little. Still.
Jack gets it on the second pull and Reaganâs still too confused - and sheâs hurtling right past confused and straight on to pissed as fast as her soused brain can get her there - to actually notice, so at least heâs spared a bit of mockery.
âCome on,â he says, offering her a hand out (that he knows sheâll refuse.) âI want to show you something.â
She does refuse his hand - like thatâs a shock - but she eyes it for a moment, in that way most people might eye a hissing cobra, her eyes tracking itâs every move (Jackâs holding perfectly still but Reaganâs a bit of a weeble at the moment), mesmerized but wary, before she finally slides out of her seat, stumbling slightly when her feel hit the ground.
âLead the way,â she says, waving ahead of them and Jack knows full well she just doesnât want him to watch her weaving and wobbling as she walks and, having been on her end of that deal more than⊠wellâŠÂ a lot⊠in his life, he politely nods and turns, walking ahead without waiting for her. Sheâll follow, heâs sure enough of that.
Heâs still got her keys after all.
Sheâs on his heels soon enough, as he crosses the small lot and through the old gate that creaks like bones as he pushes it open and God, could this get any more cliche?
Reagan pauses just on the other side of the gate, looking at the rusted plaque hanging to the left. âA cemetery,â she says, her eyes darting from the plaque to Jackâs back and then to the plaque again. âYou brought me to a cemetery,â she says. âAnd it isnât even the right one.â
Jackâs phone shakes in his hand, but he doesnât look down, turning instead to face Reagan, still on the other side of the invisible line, the last barrier between the living and the dead, assuming you donât count six feet of earth and pine boxes of varying quality and age. He knows what she means, knows full well that the 'right oneâ - the one they buried her father in three days ago - is on the other side of town.
But itâs not her ghosts theyâre here for.
âItâs just over there,â he says, nodding toward the back corner of the small lot before turning and walking ahead again, not giving her a chance to argue with him. He takes the chance to sneak a peek at his phone, the three words blinking back up at him giving him a sense of relief thatâs wrapped up in an eggroll of dread.
On my way
Well, heâs all in now.
Reagan doesnât move, not right away, but eventually the creepy of standing in a dark graveyard by herself outweighs (barely) the creepy of following Amyâs father through said dark graveyard and soon sheâs right behind him again, so close he could reach out and take her hand before sheâd even be able to stop him.
But he doesnât. Jackâs got no interest in getting buried alongside his memories here tonight.
He comes to a stop at the far end of the cemetery, the most sparsely⊠populated⊠area, only two or three headstones within reach, nothing there but a tree. And, really, calling it a 'treeâ is sort of like calling him a 'drunk.â
The wordâs right, by definition, but it somehow misses the scope by like a country fucking mile, if a country mile was the distance between here and the molten core of the sun.
More or less.
Itâs huge and Jack swears itâs grown, even if logically he knows thatâs not possible. It was old when he was last here - the day he left, the hour after he told Amy it was because of her - and heâs actually a bit amazed itâs even still here.
But of course it is. Some things - some pains - will outlive us all.
âWho?â Reagan asks, stumbling to a stop beside him. âWhoâs buried here?â
Jack shakes his head slowly, not quite trusting his voice just yet.
âCome on, Jack,â she says, the drunk edge to her words fading and the old bitter blade heâs used to slicing through the air between them coming slowly back. âYou brought me here for a reason, right? What is it? Who is it? Whatâd you do? Drink and drive and kill someone?â
He lets out a shuddering breath and, for a moment, Reagan thinks that might actually be it and oh, that's⊠wellâŠ
Fuck.
âNo oneâs buried here,â he says, not even noticing as he takes a couple slow steps back and leans gently against one of the few gravestones. It could be seen as rude or disrespectful but Reaganâs the only other living one here and her opinion of him canât get any lower. He nods at the tree. âThere,â he says, nodding again at a spot low on the trunk.
She looks between him and the tree for a second before, slowly, stepping closer, and kneeling next to it in the dark. She fumbles in her pocket for her cell phone, bringing the screen to life and shining the dim light on the trunk, the jaggedly carved letters highlighted in the faint glow.
KJR
Reagan looks back at Jack, the question written all over face, even as the light of her screen fades to black.
âDid Farrah ever tell you why I started drinking?â he asks. Reagan shakes her head no. She and Amyâs mother talked about him - more than she and Amy ever did - but that was the one subject she doesn't remember them talking about. Like at all. âDidnât figure,â Jack says, ânot that it matters. The 'whyâ doesnât excuse the 'whatâ of it all. ButâŠâ
He runs a hand through his hair and then crosses his arms over his chest. For once, Reagan isnât pushing - sheâs not doing much of anything - and Jackâs grateful. This is hard enough at his own pace.
âI was always a bit of drinker,â he says. âAnd maybe 'a bitâ is underselling it, but it wasn'tâŠÂ I wasnât a drunk, not at first, not in the beginning.â
Everythingâs got a beginning, everythingâs got a trigger.
âWhen Amy was two, Farrah discoveredâŠâ he trails off and laughs, a harsh bark of a thing, ripping through the quiet of the dark night. âDiscovered makes it sound like she found it while exploring new trade routes to India or some shit,â he says. âWhen Amy was two, Farrah got pregnant. We got pregnant.â
Reaganâs eyes flick back to the tree and she wishes it was just the booze making her stomach roll.
âWe never even told Amy,â Jack says. âWe wanted it to be a surprise. We were going to tell her at her birthday party. Like itâŠÂ she⊠was a present.â
If Jack thought that was going to slip past Reagan unnoticed⊠âShe?â Reagan slumps back against the tree, her subconscious somehow, even drunk, making sure she doesnât cover the letters. âAnother girl?â
Jack nods. âKatharine Josephina Raudenfeld. After Farrahâs mother⊠Nana⊠and my gram.â
KJR.
Reagan pulls her knees to her chest and drops her eyes to the ground. She canât - she wonât - look at him right now.
Jack stands, pushing off the gravestone, but he doesnât otherwise move. âFarrah was three and a half months along when it happened,â he says. âDoctor said it was just a freak thing, was just nature. We didnât do anything wrong, we didn't make it happen, it just⊠did.â
He takes a couple hesitant steps forward, kneeling near her and he wouldnât even have noticed if she pulled away, but Reagan doesnât move an inch. She watches his hand running along the trunk, so close but yet so far from those letters.
âThere was nothing⊠we didnât have a body to bury,â he says. âCouldnât have a funeral, I mean, who does that for someone who was never really a someone, right?â His fingers shake as they drift ever closer. âShe was never Katharine, she was never really real.â If he sounded any less like he believed that⊠âThey say that youâve lost the baby, but how do you lose something you never had, that you never held or touched orâŠâ
Jack presses his palm against the aged bark of the tree, feeling the cracked and worn wood digging into his skin.
He was going to say 'or lovedâ. That you never loved.
But that would have been one lie too many, even for a Raudenfeld.
âIâm not surprised Farrah never told you when I started drinking,â he says and Reagan notices, not for the first time, the way her name sounds on his lips and it hits her then - and she doesnât know how sheâs missed it all these years - the simplest of truths about Farrah and Jack.
He left her. But she never left him.
âI imagine,â he says, âthat thinking about that⊠it probably hurts her more than anything. That one day, it cost her so much.â She canât see him clearly in the dark, but Reagan can feel his tears dripping down his cheek. âFate took Katharine from her. And then I took the rest.â
Reagan hears the soft sounds of footsteps crossing the lot before he does, but she doesnât look, an odd sense of⊠duty?⊠to Jack - or maybe to Farrah or the baby she never knew - keeping her there, in that moment.
With him.
Just when she thought her life couldnât get any weirder.
âIâm not here to scare you straight,â Jack says, his hand still pressed⊠no⊠still clutching to the tree. âNo one thinks youâre going to be me, Reagan, no oneâs worried youâll fall into a bottle and never be able⊠never want⊠to climb back out.â
The steps grow still, just behind them and Jackâs eyes flick that way in the dark. He canât see her there, sheâs swallowed up by the night, but then again, heâs never needed to see her, now has he?
âEveryoneâs got it wrong, you know,â he says to Reagan - and yes, to her, too - slumping down, his head coming to rest against the rough bark of the trunk. âEveryone thinks my sin⊠that my addiction was the booze. That I got lost in the drink. And thatâs just not right.â
Not entirely, at least.
He turns slightly, eyes seeking out Reaganâs face in the shadows. âDo you know why Amyâs not here?â he asks her, not surprised when the darkness shifts, swirling in space as she shakes her head. âItâs because Amy knows,â he says. âShe knows my sin was never the drinking and thatâs what scares her, Reagan. That's how she thinks you just might be me, after all.â
Jack tenses, stiffening even as the words tumble out of him. Comparing her to him, well, thatâs a much deserved one way ticket to punch town, but Reagan doesnât move and she doesnât say a word and maybe, he thinks, thatâs why she'll never be him.
âAmnesia,â he says. Itâs almost a whisper, but it might well be the loudest thing heâs ever said to anyone. âThat was my sin, my addiction. Forgetting. Forgetting her,â his hand slips down the trunk, tracing a slow path over the border of those letters he carved so many years ago. âTrying to, at least. But I never did. I neverâŠâ
Those steps again. Closer. But halting, holding their distance. But just barely.
Jack turns again, facing Reagan in the dark. âI never forgot her,â he says, âit didnât matter how much liquor I tried to bury her under. And I know youâll never forget him either, your father.â He reaches out, his hand finding hers and maybe itâs just because she canât see it or maybe itâs, oh, who knows why, but she lets him take it. âBut I did forget, Reagan. I forgot whatâŠÂ who I had. I forgot I wasnât alone.â
Those steps again, not stopping this time. And why would they⊠why would she? Jack called her here.
Your daughter needs you. The one you chose. Sheâs with me.
With the one you lost.
âAmyâs not here,â Jack says, âbecause you know you have her. You know sheâll never go, that wherever you are, sheâsâŠâ He trails off, he doesnât actually say it, but then he doesnât have to.
Reagan hears it anyway. She hears it every day.
Jack squeezes her hand and then, slowly, deliberately, he lets go. âAmy needs for you to remember,â he says. âThat itâs not just her. You lost a father and that sucks beyond sucking and thereâs nothing that can ever bring him back. But youâŠâ
âYou still have a family.â
Reagan turns to those words, spinning in the dark, those steps finally breaking through, and she doesnât need to see to know Farrahâs there, right where she always is. Waiting for her to slip out of the dark, to find her way.
Her way home.
Itâs only three steps but it feels like three million before Reaganâs tipping and toppling into her arms⊠her motherâs arms⊠and maybe itâs the feel of those arms around her or the way she instinctively just knows theyâll never let her go, but whatever it is - and the what doesnât really matter, not in the end - thatâs when the dam breaks, when the rush of everything sheâs tried to bury, just the way they buried him, comes hurtling out of her in sobs and heaves and, for just those few minutes, Reaganâs not sure itâll ever stop.
But sheâs sure - she remembers - that even if it doesnât?
Her family is never far.
Three years from now
The last time Reagan ever says those three little words, Amyâs nowhere near.
Itâs still so weird to her, being here - Farrahâs house - with him, with Jack. It doesnât matter, not a whit, that Farrah is OK with it. And it somehow matters even less that Bruce says heâs just fine with it.
Fine. Fuck that. Reagan may not have invented 'just fineâ, but sheâs Goddamned perfected it and if you donât believe that, well, you can go right ahead and ask Amy.
But probably do it⊠later. Amyâs time is something of a precious commodity just now.
âIt feels like a betrayal,â she says, leaning against the kitchen counter next to her father-in-law, well, one of them, anyway. âHim being here. Him staying here. I mean, yeah, I know this was his house first -â
âAnd thanks for the reminder of that,â Bruce mutters and for a moment Reagan thinks sheâs said the exact wrong thing and oh, like that would be a first. But then Bruce gives her a grin, that old goofy 'I'ma fuckinâ with youâ good old boy grin of his - the one sheâs never quite squared with the man who spawned Lauren 'Satanâs ninjaâ Cooper - and nudges her with his shoulder. âI get the sentiment, Rea,â he says, âand I certainly appreciate it, butâŠâ
He shrugs and thatâs only about the five hundredth time someone has done that in the last six weeks, itâs happened so often itâs become a part of their familyâs unspoken language and yes, itâs nice that they have something like that - and that she gets to be a part of, rather than apart from it - but it still just pisses her off.
Like thatâs a first, either.
âBelieve me,â Bruce says, âI know how you feel. I know Jack makes you uncomfortable and trust me, having my wifeâs first husband living here, itâs not my idea of a good -â
She cuts him off. Hard. âIt was your idea,â she says, turning against the counter, and scooting closer so she can whisper, lest Lucy or Karma or - worse - one of the kids hears her. Reaganâs been down that particular road with both her sister-in-law and her bff-in-law, and she knows they absolutely hate it when she speaks ill of Grampa Jack in front of the children. âYouâre the idiot who suggested it.â
âBecause I knew Farrah wanted it,â Bruce replies, ignoring the 'idiotâ part, and lowering his voice as well. He smiles politely at Emma as she snags an apple juice from the fridge and makes her way back out of the kitchen. âAnd I knew Amy wanted it.â He shrugs, again and Reagan grips the counter to keep from smacking something. âAnd itâs not like heâs gonna be here that long.â
Heâs right. Heâs so very very very right. But all the rightness in the world, doesnât do a thing to keep them both from freezing in place at his words, their eyes doing a slow pan around the kitchen, out to the living room, just to make sure no one heard that.
Itâs horrible to speak ill of the dead. Thatâs one lesson - maybe the only one - Reagan got from her mother that actually stuck. And, she supposes, that probably should apply to the nearly dead too.
Or, it will, if either of the nearly deadâs daughters (or Karma) or his granddaughter (or Emma) (or even Luke, even though his father wasnât the nearly deadâs kind of son, but both of them still call him Grampa Jack and no, thatâs not weird at all and God, sometimes Reagan thinks this family of hers needs a fucking flowchart) heard them.
Bruce nods, mostly for lack of anything better to do - and at least itâs not another shrug - but when he leans back on the counter and waves to Farrah, out in the living room with her little Katie-did on her hip, the smile crossing his face doesnât match his words, not at all. âYou donât like it and I donât like it and Lord knows Lauren doesnât like it,â he whispers softly, âbut this? It isnât about us.â
He pats Reagan lightly on the shoulder and heads out of the kitchen, ruffling Lukeâs hair on his way as - not for the first time - Reagan wonders why heâs not Papa Bruce or some such homey shit and yeah, she gets it, Karma and Shane are closer now to Jack than they are to Bruce and yes, she knows thatâs only logical (heâs Karmaâs family now, after all) but it still just⊠bugs.
Some things, she thinks, really never change.
She sighs and fires off a glance down the hall, at the very closed door to the spare bedroom that Bruce and Farrah added on a few years back. It was meant, at the time, to be a room for Katie, a nursery of sorts, first, and eventually her own bedroom, so she wasnât just fitting into her mom or Aunt Loloâs old room. It was meant that way and, Reagan supposes, it might someday still be that. Maybe.
Or maybe, when itâs all said and done, theyâll bulldoze the fucker to the ground and start all over.
The doorâs shut, like it almost always is. She wonders sometimes - always silently to herself and never out loud, especially not to her wife - if keeping it shut is more for Jack's privacy or their benefit. Thereâs something to be said for out of sight, out of mind, even if she knows full fucking well that Jack hasnât been out of anyoneâs mind in months.
Cancer has a way of doing that.
Death does too.
She doesnât need to do another scan of the room to know exactly whoâs MIA, whoâs behind that closed door. Sheâd watched as Amy headed off that way almost as soon as they got here, not before handing off Katie to her Nana (and yes, Reagan knows thatâs a family tradition and thatâs who Farrah is now, and sheâs fine with it but, to her, there will always be only one Nana) and she hasnât been seen since.
If she sticks with her usual pattern - and Mama Amy is nothing if not a creature of habit and routine now - Reagan wonât see her again, at least not for another hour and no, that doesn't really bother her. It doesnât bother her so much that she only brought it up once, wondering if maybe Amy was spending a bit too much time with Jack.
âHe doesnât have much time left, Rea,â Amy said, in much the same soothing voice she used to try and get Katie to sleep at three in the morning, and yeah, that probably had something to do with both being somewhat lost causes. It was Amyâs 'mamaâ voice and, if it wasnât such a sweet and oddly arousing thing, Reagan might have objected to being 'motheredâ.
The fact that she was holding her daughter, who had finally fallen asleep, in the rocking chair in the nursery - the chair Jack fucking built - and it was just about the most perfect moment sheâd ever experienced had absolutely nothing (read: everything) to do with it.
âI just worry,â she said softly, careful not to wake the sleeping beauty. âI donât want you see you get hurt.â
Amy nodded and smiled and if it didnât quite reach her eyes⊠well⊠they were talking about the death of her father. And that, more than anything, was precisely why she so easily humored her wife about it all, why she didnât object or get offended any time Reagan brought it up. Younger Amy might have. Younger Amy would have probably agreed but then argued just on principle.
(Read: for the make up sex.)
(Mostly.)
But Mama Amy wasnât younger Amy and Mama Amy had spent the better part of thirteen years with every version of Reagan. She knew her wife inside and out and she knew that every time Reagan mentioned her spending a little less time with Jack?
It was always about her wish to spend more. She knew that when they talked about it, like this, they werenât always - or even mostly - talking about the death of Amyâs father.
So, Amy did what Amy always did and kissed her wife softly and pressed an even softer kiss to the top of her daughterâs head and gently reminded Reagan that she couldn't get hurt, not by him, not anymore, and that now was the time, the only time, because time was one thing Jack just didnât have much of.
âYou heard the doctors,â she said.
Yeah. Reagan heard them. She heard their words - stage four, lungs, and maybe six months (or weeks) (she heard that too) - and she heard Jack joking about always thinking it would be his liver but he 'must have pickled that bad boyâ just a little too well (and she was the only one who laughed) and she gets it. She really does.
Getting doesnât equal liking.
And neither of those equals being comfortable - something sheâs never been and never will be when it comes to Jack and his place in their family - and yes, Reagan's also heard every one of the lectures (from Karma) (no one else would dare) about how holding a grudge, especially one against someone who never, you know, hurt you, is probably a bad idea and definitely not what a mature woman trying to be a role model for her little girl would do.
âKatie's three months, Karma,â Reagan said (said, not snapped, and see? She's matured.) âBy the time sheâs old enough to know what a grudge even is, Iâll be over it.â
She left off the 'cause heâll be dead and allâ and see (again)? So. Fucking. Mature.
But Reaganâs heard it all and she's tried, really she has. She keeps her comments to herself, mostly, or to Bruce. Sometimes Lauren. Occasionally Katie, but only during middle of the night feedings and never in front of her mother or her Nana, and so, most of the time, she falls back on that other old chestnut that Martin taught her, for dealing with her own mother.
If you canât say something nice? WellâŠ
At least have the decency to whisper.
So she keeps quiet (mostly) and even tries to not let it seethe inside her, to not let herself dwell on it - and thatâs so obviously working, right? - and to try to see Amyâs and Farrahâs and Lucyâs side of it all. She tries and sometimes she even succeeds, a bit, but it still feels⊠wrong. It still feels like a betrayal, though not of her, not really. Of something bigger than just her, bigger than one or two broken hearts (even if one of those was her wifeâs), something likeâŠ
Them. All of them.
See, the thing Reagan canât get past is that she remembers. She so remembers that moment when Amy told her what Jack said, about why he left. And she remembers the first time Amy told Jack she hated him. She remembers the first time Amy punched him, the first time she did, hell, she remembers the first time Karma did - and yes, every one of those was a first, not a last, or an only - and she remembers how Farrah threatened him with severe bodily harm when she found out he was back and the way Shane glared and Lolo tensed every time he was near. It wasn't just her.
They all hated him.
And yes, Reagan knows that hate is a fuck all lousy thing for anyone to need to unify them, to bring them together and she gets it - she really does - that somewhere along the line, hating Jack got to be more work for them than it was worth.
You think she never had that moment? That she never once thought about him with something other than hatred and disgust and disdain and a few more synonyms she canât think of right this minute?
Reagan looks out into the living room, smiling at the sight of Farrah and Bruce bouncing her daughter between them, laughing uproariously at her every smile and giggle.
Her daughter. Katie.
âKatharine?â Amy asked her, in the hospital, as they laid her daughter in her arms for the first time? âI love it,â she said. âBut it wasnât on our list. What made you think of it?â
Reagan just shrugged and smiled and said sheâd always thought it was a beautiful name and that wasn't a lie. Not totally.
So, yeah, sheâs had that moment.
And maybe now she's always having that moment, every time she talks to him, every time she sees him and she finds herself cursing him under her breath for making her heart break - hers, not her wifeâs - and for confusing her, for making it damn near impossible for her to tell anymore why it breaks.
Why it's breaking.
If thereâs one lesson sheâs learned from Jack, itâs this: itâs so much fucking easier to hate.
Sheâs alone there, in the kitchen, and Reagan remembers standing right here, right next to this counter as Amy helped prep the meatballs and Farrah slapped Bruceâs hand to keep him from stealing any more of the garlic bread - Martinâs recipe - and Lauren looked on with a bemused look on her face, like she knew she was seeing the beginning of something special, and she remembersâŠ
Candles. Trick fucking candles.
And fuck all⊠why did she have to remember that?
It takes her about half the steps to that closed door - fourteen, if youâre counting along - before Reagan realizes sheâs even moving. But once she does, you might think sheâd stop, you might think that the fact that she has never once set foot in that room since it became his room, would be enough to bring her to a screeching halt.
And youâd be right.
But, if youâd think she wouldnât just shake it off, that she wouldnât just put it aside and start walking again?
Well, then youâre clearly living in the past, which is something you and Reagan might have had in common until about forty seconds ago but see, there it is again. Time. Living in the past is keeping yourself stuck in time.
And ainât nobody got time for that. Not Amy or Lucy or Farrah or - God, help her - not even Reagan. Not anymore.
She doesnât knock and Amyâs not surprised itâs her when the door opens. Anyone else would've knocked, but Reagan's not anyone else. âHey,â Amy says, not looking up from the spot on the bed where her hand is resting over her fatherâs, neither of them moving. Reagan canât help but notice the stark contrast, the way Amyâs skinâs still suffused with pink, all the blood, the life still flowing freely, and Jack is soâŠ
Heâs pale. Thatâs the word for it. Pale. Thatâs all he is. But itâs not all he almost is and Reagan has a moment - just one - where she wonders if this is it, if thatâs why sheâs here, finally, after all this time, cause somehow she knows this is her last chance.
Sheâs not wrong.
Jackâs been stubborn and Jackâs hung on, months longer than he should have, and every day seems like maybe it's the day, but damn does he keep fighting and lingering andâŠ
Waiting.
âWhereâs Katie?â Amy asks, even though she already knows and Reagan suspects that her wife knows, as in knows why sheâs here, in the doorway, unable - just yet - to take that one final step.
Again, sheâs not wrong.
âYour mom and Bruce have her,â Reagan says and she knows sheâs whispering and she knows thatâs fucking pointless - Jack canât hear and even if he could, what difference, really? - but she canât stop. âWe may have to fight them for her when itâs time to leave.â
A time, she thinks, thatâs coming faster for some of them than others.
Amy nods and stands, her thumb ghosting one last time across Jackâs knuckles. âIâm gonna go see if I can steal a few minutes with my nephew then,â she says and Reagan doesnât even think of pointing out that Luke isn't really related, cause he so is and none of that is even remotely the point right now. âIâll be back in a little bit.â
She pauses, just for a moment, as if sheâs waiting for Reagan to stop her, to tell her no, donât leave, Iâm not staying with him, what kinda cray cray talk is that? But when Reagan just nods and steps into the room, so that she can step out, there are tears in Amyâs eyes and, this one time, they're not about Jack.
The door shuts silently behind her and Reaganâs alone. Alone with him and that almost never happens but every time it ever has, she always says the same thing.
âI hate you.â
In truth, sheâs lost track of how many times sheâs said that to him over the years. She know that probably says more about her than it does about him, like, for instance, that sheâs obsessive and possessive and vindictive and probably a few other 'iveâs she doesnât know but sheâs sure apply.
But stillâŠ
âI hate you,â she says again, settling down into the chair next to the bed, the one Amy was just in. Thereâs one on the other side as well, Lucyâs, and somehow Reagan doesnât feel right in that one, as if this one is somehow perfect. âAlways have,â she says, her hand resting on the bed, not on him. âAlways will. Dying isnât a get out of jail free card. Just so you know.â
Thereâs silence in the room and Reagan notices that she canât actually hear anything on the other side of the door. She knows theyâre out there.
But she's in here.
âSometimes,â she says, âI wonder. I know itâs stupid and self-centered, but Lord knows I can be both of those from time to time.â
He doesnât argue. He wouldnât if he could. And not just because he learned not to argue with her - about anything - long ago.
Reagan scoots the chair a little closer, so she can rest her elbows on the edge of the bed. âI wonder⊠why? Why did you stay?â It sounds heartless, even to her, questioning an almost dead manâs motivations, but⊠âI know you say⊠I know you do love her. But, sometimes I canât help wondering how much of it was about Amy and how much of it⊠how badly did you just once want to prove me wrong?â
Ten bucks says you donât even make it to graduation
That was the first time. Jack learned not to argue and he learned that, no matter what he said and what she said, Reagan was always right.
Except when she wasnât. And that was almost always about him and yeah, she suspects he took no small amount of joy in that. She would have, if sheâd been him.
âI should have known,â Reagan says. âI should have seen it was a suckerâs bet. You're her father and youâre both living proof that stubborn is genetic.â
She hears the word - 'livingâ - fall from between her lips and OK, maybe not the best choice there, but come on. Itâs not like she can offend him.
âYou made it to graduation,â she says, remembering him there, in the back, in the last row of the faculty. He was still the Hester art teacher back then, the cool Mr. Lee, even if, by then, they all knew that was really his middle name. âYou didnât cheer,â she says. âNot for Amy or Lucy or for Liam.â Her fingers clench and unclench atop the sheets âBut I saw you. You didn't need to cheer, did you?â
He glowed. Fatherly pride and yeah, she spent most of the ceremony staring daggers at him and thinking howâŠÂ wrong⊠it was that he got to feel even one shred of that. She was so busy staring, she almost missed Amy crossing the stage until Farrah almost toppled out of her seat from the sheer force of her whooping.
âI should have seen it then,â Reagan says, as she leans forward, letting her forehead rest on her upturned palms. âIt should have been so clear, the way it all worked. I would figure zig, so then youâd zag. Iâd think left, so youâd go right. Iâd think goneâŠâ
Heâd do stay.
When they left for New Orleans, she was sure. Like 100% certain, like positive that there was a better chance Liam and Shane would end up a couple, than there was that Jack would still be there when they came back.
âFour years,â she says. âFour fucking years and nothing here for you the whole time. It was so clear, so obvious.â She shakes her head and almost smiles. âAmy actually considered staying, you know. In New Orleans. Weâd made a life and a home and we were happy.â
She leaves off the 'without you aroundâ. Maybe she can't offend, but thereâs no need to kick a man when heâs down.
And who would have ever thought sheâd pass up a chance to kick him?
âI convinced her to come back. I talked her into moving home with Karma and the whole time, I was so sureâŠâ Reagan leans back in the chair, forcing her hands into her lap. âI knew that you hadnât left yet, so Iâd been wrong about that, but maybe it was just⊠timing.â
Heâd hung on, waiting out the college years. Waiting for his daughter to come home so they could pick up where theyâd left off - not that that was anywhere special - but Reagan was so very sure (yes, again) that seeing Amy, the grown up and fully adulting Amy, would do the trick, would make Jack feel useless and pointless and make him wonder just how long it would be before his very smart and now very independent and not scared of anything daughter cut him the fuck off. Like she should have, long long ago.
âYouâd hightail it,â Reagan says. âEither out of town or into a bar and no, it didnât really matter which. Same end result, you know?â
And he did hightail it, he did run. Right to the nearest bank, where he took out a loan so he could expand the coffee shop - his foothold, his foundation in Austin - and open a second location. Reagan fully expected it to fail.
She wasnât wrong then either.
But when it didnât do so well, Jack didnât throw in the towel or throw back a bottle (or six) and stuck it out, waiting and working and doing all the little things until it did work and wouldnât you know that everyone (read: Amy and Farrah and even Lauren) was suitably impressed and, yet again, Jack had zigged instead of zagged.
âYou persevered,â she says and yeah, the word still tastes a little bitter on her tongue. âJust like you did with Amy. Except that was no coffee shop, was it?â
No. It wasnât. And - again (sense a pattern, yet?) - Reagan thought that would be it, that the longer it took and the less progress he made with Amy, the more she made him jump through hoops and follow rules and the more nowhere he got for itâŠ
âIt would take a toll. It would drain and punish and hurt and you donât deal well with that,â she says - and sheâs not telling him anything he doesnât know - and she was sure not dealing well would eventually translate into fucking up and, again, she wasnât wrong. Not entirely.
Jack fucked up. The second shop thrived, for a bit, right up until it didnât and then it sank like a stone and he almost lost everything. He tried dating one of his baristas but then he cheated on one of his baristas with one of his baristas and they both quit.
But he didnât.
Reagan remembers more, the long catalog list of the fuck ups of Jack. âYou argued with Lucy so much about college that she didnât speak to you for three weeks,â she says. âYou thought buying Planterâs was the dumbest thing ever and you begged Amy not to help me. You even went to Farrah, to try and get her to talk us out of it.â
Remember how those first punches werenât the last punches?
Now, you know why.
Also, Farrah didnât talk them out of it. She chipped in.
âEvery time,â Reagan says. âEvery time you could have⊠should have⊠just cashed out. Like when Lucy went to college and left you. You couldâve just moved with her, itâs not like nobody else tailed a Raudenfeld girl off to school.â
And even that wouldnât have been wrong or enough. It wouldnât have been leaving, yes, but not like that.
But he waited. He stayed. And then, when Lucy came back after graduation, they did leave. A two month trip to Brazil and they sent Amy pictures every day, Skyped twice a week, and Jack was as stone cold sober - with a nice tan and a new appreciation for spicy food - when he came back as when he left and yeah, Reagan hadnât seen that coming.
âYou came back with her number, too,â Reagan remembers, with a small smile that she canât quite kill, cause damn did Jack still have some game. âThat little cutie from the surf shop. Her number and her email, but you still managed to fuck that up too, huh?â
He did. But she doesnât really remember how, but she does remember the way Jack shrugged it off when Amy asked him about it at her birthday dinner and - now - she remembers the way he was talking to her, but staring at her mother, and yeah, that probably explains all anyone really needs to know about the how.
Or at least the why.
He fucked up and he made messes and he ruined shit and any one or all of them⊠they should have been enough. They should have pushed him out of town, or out of his mind, or right into a scotch and soda - hold the soda - and every time Reagan was sure.
âIâm not usually wrong, you know,â she says. âNot that much. Not that often.â
Reagan sighs and tips back in the chair, her eyes falling to the nightstand beside his bed, to the frames sitting on it. Theyâre those clear acrylic ones you can get for like 99 cents and she sees her own face smiling back up at her from one of them, right alongside Amyâs and Katieâs. Sheâs all of three hours old in that picture and Reagan still remembers that Bruce had to take it cause Farrah couldnât stop crying enough to focus.
Jack had asked for that picture, when he moved in, but Farrah wasnât sure that was the one he really wanted. âI can get you a different one,â Farrah told him. âOne of just Amy and the baby, if youâd like.â
Subtlety was never Farrahâs strong suit.
But Jack hadnât liked. That one, he said, would do just fine. Reagan suspects he thought it would annoy her. Or that, maybe, he actually loved her too.
Yeah. No.
She plucks the frame from the table, cradling it in her hands. âAmy was three months along when the doctors told you,â she says. âThree and a half when you told everyone else. Six months away.â
Six months. For Katie. And for Jack.
They said it was a long shot. Six months was the outside, the far end of the scale, that anything past three⊠well⊠that was just Jack living on borrowed time. Maybe, with treatment, the most aggressive, they could⊠prolong things. Maybe. But heâd be in the hospital the whole time and his immune system would, basically, cease to be and sure, if he could last long enough, heâd be able to see the baby.
From behind glass and from a distance and that was only if he was lucky and the docs, they didnât put all that much stock in luck. No matter what he did, it was going to be a race and it didnât seem the odds were in his favor.
Not that Jack listened and oh, thereâs a shock. âIâm going to hold her,â he said, even before they knew it⊠she⊠was a, well, she. âIâm not going to see her under glass, like some exhibit at the zoo.â Oh, he told everyone exactly what was going to happen, heâd tell anyone he could get to listen - and itâs probably not that surprising the number of people who suddenly listen when they know you're dying - that he was going to make it.
âWith time to spare,â he said. âIâll see her born. And then some.â
Reagan sets the frame back down, and scoops up the other one, staring down at it like itâs the first time sheâs ever seen it, not like sheâs the one who took it. âI remember,â she says, âwhen Amy suggested that maybe she get induced a little early. So you could 'beat the clockâ.â
It was probably the only time Reagan can ever remember seeing Jack angry with Amy or raising his voice to her.
And it was definitely the only time she could remember agreeing with him. Or understanding why.
She stares at the picture. Jack and Katie, both as bald as can fucking be, both looking right at her, and Goddamn if her little girl doesnât have her grandfatherâs eyes. âYou made it,â Reagan says, softly. âYou made it. You got to see her born⊠and then some.â
She sets the picture back down, carefully, and turns to the bed and then her hand⊠itâs on his and he can't take it and, truthfully, Reagan isnât even sure heâs still really there. But Amy is and Lucy is and sheâs not going to take that from them.
Sheâs spent long enough trying to take Jack away.
âI hate you,â she whispers. âI hated you before I ever met you. Because you hurt her. Because you somehow got it in your stupid head that leaving her was better for her and I will never ever be able to understand how anyone could leave her. Ever.â
Her eyes flick to the picture. Her and Amy and Katie and no, she canât ever imagine a time when leaving her daughter would be anything close to an option. But then, she doubts Jack ever could either. Not until he did. Not until the math just added up.
Because of you. Iâm leaving because of you.
âYou said it wrong,â Reagan says. âNot 'because ofâ. For. You left for her, before you and Farrah ruined each other and she had to watch.â
A little pain, Jack had figured, was worth it. A little hurt, a little loss⊠well⊠it was math.
Her eyes drift to the other picture, to his smiling face, and yeah, the smile is as big as the world, but his⊠he'sâŠ
âI remember when I took it,â she says. âI remember thinking you shouldnât have been there. Not because I didn't want you to be, cause I did. But you shouldâve beenâŠâ
Gone.
Until the day she dies, Reagan will never tell anyone, not even Amy, about the next few minutes, about the way she presses her cheek against his hand - so cold, already - or about the way she heaves and sobs, like she did in Farrahâs arms so many years ago. Those are the first and last tears she sheds over Jack.
And theyâre just for her.
When theyâve passed, when sheâs got herself back in one piece, Reagan stands, still holding his hand in hers. She leans over him, memories of a coffee shop table and a stupid fucking bet that sheâd lost even before she made it, flooding her mind. She kisses him, one soft press of the lips atop his head, and she whispers.
âYou left for one little girl, Jack. And you stayed for another. And I swear to you, Iâll take good care of them both for as long as I live.â She squeezes his hand one last time. âItâs OK,â she says. âYou can rest now.â
Reagan walks from the room and down the hall and out the front door without a pause, without slowing or speaking to anyone. Lauren starts to follow, but Amy catches her arm and shakes her head. Reagan climbs into her truck - not Lightning, not anymore, cause some things do change - and she drives without thinking, though she knows where sheâs going the entire time.
The text from Amy comes as sheâs leaning over Martinâs stone, her fingers tracing the letters of her fatherâs name.
Heâs gone.
âTake good care of him, dad,â she whispers. âHe earned it.â
It takes you all of thirty seconds to decide, another twenty to make the call and so thatâs less than a minute and thenâŠ
Well, then thereâs nothing to do but wait and letâs face it, youâre fuck all at that. But, even though itâs the longest ten minutes of your life, you do manage to spend all 600 seconds of it not doing anything to actively making this any worse, so at least youâve got that going for you.
A winâs a win, right? No matter how small.
Youâre about to crack, about ten more seconds from losing your nerve and turning right around, walking right back into the diner and right up to Reagan and putting your lips right on hers and yes, that is an awful lot of rights and yes, you know theyâre all mostly wrongs, but itâs been ten minutes with no Reagan and no Sophie, neither of them looking for you, and that's left you alone with just your thoughts and those are about the worst fucking company you can imagine.
You used to think no one could have more insane plans per minute than Karma.
Oh God, were you wrong.
Your hand is on the back door, the one leading from the break room to the alley and you know youâre on the wrong side of it, but that hand⊠itâs pressed against the door, holding it shut cause apparently some part of you still has some fucking sense but that sense is just about worn thin, like barely frozen ice youâre about to fall right the fuck through and thatâs when you hear it, the sound of your savior, the familiar rumble of your motherâs engine.
Her carâs engine. You havenât heard her engine rumble since the last time Bruce came back to Austin to visit Lauren and, as Farrah put it, âthese things just⊠happenâ and yes, you do realize now that these things do indeed just happen.
And you realize even more than youâd like, right now, in this so very rumbling (the car) and stumbling (you) (thatâs all that youâve been doing for what seems like forever now) and barely holding it together - and, in the case of that door, shut - moment, that you are far far far more like your mother than either of you ever imagined.
Once upon a time, that might have been a good thing.
Thereâs no reason - except sentiment and guilt a heart not quite as broken as it should be and yup, you are just so her - for Farrah to still be driving that big old fucking boat (a Goddamned yacht) of a car that Bruce bought her in those last few months of their marriage. It was all circling the drain by then. Her affair with your father (and yes, thatâs as odd to think as it is to say) coupled with Bruceâs wild all or nothing homerun swings at provingâŠÂ somethingâŠÂ about his manhood or his prowess or some such macho bullshit (hence the yacht) was nothing short of a walking, talking, nonstop disaster (Epic Fail would have been kind) and it was all you and Lauren could do to, somehow, sometimes, look away.
âItâs like a car wreck,â you said. âLike a ten car pile up and youâre so worried someone might be dead, but you canât stop looking and wondering and then⊠youâre almost disappointed when theyâre not.â
Lauren nodded and watched - with horror and fear and rapt attention - as Farrah tried, and mostly failed, to appear something close to grateful or happy or anything other than the oh my God, why? she was feeling, but not saying, as Bruce gave her the grand tour of her new wheels.
The tour lasted like twenty minutes and you swear that was just the time it took to walk from one end of the fucking thing to the other and did someone say overcompensation?
âSometimes,â Lauren muttered, turning to go back in the house (the one she was increasingly concerned wouldnât be hers much longer), âitâs time to quit the CPR and just give up the ghost.â
Sometimes, she said, itâs time for the head to tell the heart what it already knows.
Dead is dead. And there ainât no coming back.
Lauren, youâve decided, wasnât wrong. (Like thatâs something new.) And, you know that your call to make⊠wellâŠÂ the call (to your mother) and your hand pressing shut on the door (to the diner) (to Reagan) is your head talking to your heart.
Youâre just not sure itâs listening yet.
(Actually, you're absolutely fukcing positive it isnât but youâre equally as not sure you want it to and yes, thatâs as confusing as it sounds and you know it must mean something when all of this shit with Reagan and Sophie and Reagan and Sophie is all so royally fucked up that itâs actually enough to make you miss Karma and her mixed like a Long Island Ice Tea signals.)
(It means something.) (God help you if you have the first fucking clue what.)
You watch as Farrah squeezes the yacht down the alley and alongside you and youâre diving into the passenger seat almost before sheâs even had time to slow down, not that the sheâs actually going, you know, fast. For all itâs size and power, the yacht goes zero to sixty in about a fucking week but even as slow as it is, it still takes a good four or five more feet before your mother is able to actually bring the beast to a complete stop.
Farrah clutches the wheel and lets out a long shuddering breath as the brakes squeal so loudly youâre sure they heard them in Dallas (or, you know, behind that door thatâs still not opening even though youâre not holding shut anymore.) Since the damn thingâs not moving anymore and she needs a moment to collect herself again - now your mother is also turning, which means, unfortunately, taking a good long look at you.
And if the long slow sigh isnât a tip off how that she doesnât like what she sees⊠well⊠it really is. Youâve been hearing that sigh from Farrah for years and yes, youâre used to it, but letâs face facts here. Thereâs a metric fuckload of things youâre used to.
Sophieâs crappy coffee. Karmaâs two am drunk texts. Sophieâs snoring. Laurenâs looks (you even have an alphabetical list of what every one of them means.) Sophieâs habit of brushing her teeth with your toothbrush, Sophieâs incessant need to play that fucking Lola Montez song every time some new girl turns out not to be the girl, Sophieâs borderline obsession with finding a way to use the dancing lady emoji in every text conversation.
Youâre sensing a pattern here.
(Besides the pattern of your roomie being somewhat nuts.) (Takes one to fucking know one.)
And yes, that pattern - the real one - is that you are used to a ton of things and now damn near every one of them feels like a thousand tiny knives in your heart and yes that fucking sigh from your mother is one of those.
Farrah is your OG. She was the first one you let down, the first one you failed. Clearly, not the last, but thatâs not the point right this second.
She reaches out - the mother in her still seeing you as a tiny, as her little girl, even if youâre, you know, a grown up now (supposedly) -Â her hand hovering in the air just above your eye and itâs like you can feel the gentle brush of her fingers coursing through the air and youâve got no earthly idea how you manage to not flinch, to not pull away.
âIt looks worse than it is,â you mumble, your eyes unable to meet hers and that little lie is really just for you, cause this is Farrah weâre talking about.
She can always see your truth for the bullshit it is. At least when she wants to.
Her hand drops back to the seat between you and you let out your own slow, staggered breath, one that you hadnât realized you were holding in. âYouâll want to ice that,â she says, âwhen you get back to the dorm. Before the swelling really sets in.â And then her hand is back on the wheel and the beastly yacht is slowly working its way to the other end of the alley.
The dorm. The dorm.
Well fuck.
Every inch the yacht chews up and spits out is one inch and then two and then six and then a whole fucking foot and 5,280 of those makes a mile and like ten of those makes a spot in the parking lot outside your dorm.
Which is, you know, not just yours.
How that particular thought didnât occur to you till just now, well, who the fuck knows? Sure, you have some other⊠things⊠on your mind, but letâs not bullshit here, OK? Those other things? Like 99.9999995 percent Reagan - and 99.9999994 percent of those thoughts involve her with far less than 100 percent of her clothes - and like⊠the rest, which is more maths than you can handle right now are all Sophie, so maybe that explains how the whole dorm thing slipped through the cracks.
And oh, how you wish there was a crack or two you could slip through right now.
Farrah doesnât say anything else - and neither do you, not until you hit the highway and thereâs enough distance between you andâŠÂ them⊠that you feel you can breathe again - and you can tell, surprisingly, that neither of you even wants to say anything.
Youâd expected a lecture or, at the very least, a stern talking to. But Farrah, you realize, has come to the exact same conclusion you did in the ten, fifteen, twenty seconds before you made the call. The damage has been done. And thereâs nothing you can do, no words you can say, no Harry Potter spell or crazy monkeys with typewriters that will even begin to come close to undoing it.
Youâve made your bed - and itâs in the fucking dorm - and now youâve gotta lie in it. (And yes, lie is the right fucking word.)
Unless⊠maybe you donât.
The idea comes fast and hard (yes, like Reagan did when you did that⊠thing⊠with your tongue and your hands and oh, why canât you stop thinking about that?)
(Dumbest. Fucking. Question. Ever.)
You shove those thoughts away (for now) and focus on the idea, the one that seems so simple and easy and perfect that you canât believe you didnât think of it before now. Itâs the oh so you solution.
Itâs running. Except, sort of, running to instead of away, or at least you can claim it is and youâre the only one who can call you on that bullshit and you figure youâve got at least⊠a week, seven days⊠before youâll do that.
You donât look at Farrah as you speak, focusing instead at the white lines counting down every one of those 52,800 feet. âSo,â you say, as the car shudders its way onto the highway and the air returns to your lungs for the first time since you saw your phone in Sophieâs hand. âI was thinking⊠I kind of miss you. And home. And so maybeâŠâ
Farrah doesnât give you an answer. But when she exits the highway some 15, 840 feet sooner than she should, well, that tells you all you need to know.
Home is where the heart is. Or, you know, where it hides.
That âitâ is an ice pack and no, it doesnât do much of anything, not for the pain or the swelling you can already feel starting in your cheek and around your eye, or for the regret and all the burning self-recriminations that started long before Sophie drilled you in the face. The bitter and painful cold of that ice, pressed tightly against your eye, doesnât do much of anything for any of that.
The feel of Reaganâs hand, holding it there? Well⊠that does a lot. More than it should, more than youâd like.
And now thatâs just another of your fucking lies and you know it even before you think it. Youâd like - love - that touch to do even more, to make you feel more. You could quite happily spend hours or days or, you know, the rest of your life, letting that touch make you feel everything.
Youâre pretty sure (past pretty) (more like totally, completely, infinitely sure) that, no matter what happens here today, no matter how many more punches you take, or what comes after, that no matter how many other touches there may be from other people in all the time still to come, hers is the touch you will always remember, the one you will always compare every other one to.
And they will all come up lacking. Sorely.
Which is, you know, the problem in a nutshell. Or, you know, in something else, what with your allergy and all and, yes, youâre totally debating what the problem is in, just so you donât actually have to face it - her - cause she's right there, with one hand holding the ice to your cheek and the other⊠oh, the other.
That other is slowly and carefully and delicately brushing the hair out of your face, gently tucking it back and away from the ice. That other is treating you more like the victim that you know you most certainly arenât and not the criminal, the perp - and letâs keep it real and call it (you) what it (you) is (are) - the bitch, that you most certainly are.
The other is just Reagan being Reagan and, until this very moment, that was something youâd never even considered as anything but a good thing.
Chalk that up as one more thing youâve ruined.
You push yourself up from the chair, the one she sat you in, tucked away in the employee break room in the back of the diner, her hand - the other - dropping uselessly to her side as you clutch the ice pack yourself, wincing as you accidentally press it too hard against your skin, the rough corner of the plastic coating catching your cheek and if Sophie hadnât managed to draw blood, youâre pretty sure you just did.
Reagan takes a step back, leaning against the wall and even now, even after years apart, you can still read her. The way her arms fold, crossing against her chest, one leg bent at the knee, foot pressed against the wall as if sheâs ready to push off, just waiting for the starterâs gun, the signal to run. Again.
OK, that last bit might be a little projection. (Might be?) (Might be?) It was you who was always the runner. Though, in all fairness and yes, now seems like a perfect time to start being fair to you, itâs not like Reagan was just blameless in that.
You ran. But, it wasnât like she didn't push.
(And no, youâre not the least bit concerned that you might be blaming the victim, here, or, at least, one of them.)
Still, you can read her - read her eyes as they find the floor - read the way her perfect brows knit together and thereâs that crinkle between them, the mark of her 'deep thoughtsâ and you know you shouldnât, but you canât help remembering a time when those deep thoughts were almost always either worries - about Karma and about you and about you and Karma, mostly - or they were musings on what might happen five, ten, or fifteen minutes later, when everyone else was finally gone and it was just you and her and a lot of clothes that would be just as gone, just as fast.
Somehow, you doubt either of those things are going through her mind right now.
And somehow, even after all this, even after Sophie and Sophieâs broken heart and Sophieâs fucking hell of a right hook, youâre still disappointed by that. And that, is the real problem and you may not know much about nuts (take that any way you like it) but you know enough to know thereâs no shell in the world big enough for that.
âI probably had that coming,â you say, mostly to break the silence before it chokes you both. âI just never knew she could punch like that.â
Reagan mercifully leaves the 'probablyâ part of that alone, choosing to ignore the fact that reality was somewhere north of 'probablyâ and closer to 'absolutelyâ or 'definitelyâ or 'she could have jumped on you and pounded you for an hour and it still might not have been enoughâ. âThree years of Krav Maga in high school,â she says, without looking up, the criss-cross of her arms tightening against her chest. âShe never told you?â
You shake your head, slowly, and even that little bit of movement sends more fresh ripples of pain cascading through your cheek and your jaw and now youâre suddenly overjoyed that youâre in a restaurant that serves nothing but eggs, cause youâre not quite sure if youâre going to enjoy chewing again any time soon.
Reagan nods. âShe had a crush on the woman who taught the class,â she says. Thereâs just a hint of a smile there, you can see it, and even that tiniest of hints, very nearly does to your heart what Sophieâs fist did to your face. That was your smile, once upon a lifetime ago. âAnd then she ended up hooking up with this whole other girl, one she accidentally punched in the face during a class,â she says, and thatâs when those eyes come up, finding yours across the tiny room, and you think youâd give anything to hold them there forever, but youâre almost definitely sure, youâve lost the right to hope for that. âI donât think this is gonna work out quite like that.â
You and Sophie making out? Yeah, no. You doubt thereâs even going to be any making up, much less hooking up.
The ice pack shifts under your hand and a chill trails down your cheek. âSophie never said anything to me aboutâŠâ You trail off, stifling the moment of indignation or jealousy or whatever the fuck it is youâre feeling about Sophie sharing something with Reagan and not with you. After all, itâs pretty damn clear who the real Khaleesi of Never Mention is in this equation. âYou two must have talked a lot,â you mumble, shifting the ice slightly, wincing again as the cold finds yet another spot to burn.
Reaganâs voice is as soft as youâve ever heard as she damn near whispers âAll last nightâ and the silence that follows hangs heavy and loaded, the 'after she found outâ left unspoken but sure as fuck not unthought.
All last night. All last night⊠well⊠all last night, you were wallowing in your misery again and Reagan was doing the work, all the heavy lifting, picking up the pieces of not just one, but two relationships youâd taken a damn flamethrower to.
Yeah, you so had that punch coming. And then some.
Reagan watches as you fidget with the ice for another moment and then, suddenly, sheâs right there,her hand covering yours, and she guides you in steering the cold, her other hand catching you by the shoulder even as you start to pull away. âHold still,â she says, or, really, commands (and no, you're not thinking of other times sheâs used that tone, not at all, because, even you know that right now your face is the only thing that should be getting wet.) âIf you donât ice this properly now, youâre going to look like youâre smuggling golf balls in your cheeks tomorrow.â
She pauses, waiting, because - much to your surprise - she can still read you and this is an Amy moment, if there ever was one. Come on, golf balls in your cheeks?
That shit writes itself.
But maybe youâre older or wiser (or maybe just massively distracted by the way the fingers of her hand on your shoulder are brushing against the bare skin of your neck) but whatever the reason, you keep your mouth shut.
First time for everything, right? Except, you know, for you not screwing over your best friend with your apparently insatiable appetite for fucking the exact wrong person at the exact wrong time.
Reagan, satisfied that the ice is properly positioned, takes a small step back, but that hand, oh, it doesnât move.
Or, really, it does, just not back (and away) like the rest of her, but rather down. As in slowly down the length of your arm. It takes all of three, maybe four seconds, but thatâs a thousand times longer than it probably should, something far closer to a forever, and you are utterly and completely aware of every single moment. Reaganâs eyes are locked on yours the entire time, your heart a stuttering tick-tock clock in your chest and you swear someone has cast a spell on it, slowing the time down, stretching every moment into lasting an eternity thatâs still over far too soon.
God, you are so absolutely screwed.
Reaganâs fingers dance across the border between short sleeve and bare skin, tickling their way past your elbow, down to your forearm and then your hand. She doesn't hold it, and she doesn't take it - and you don't give it, even if every part of you is screaming that you should - but her fingers curl against you, digging into your knuckles, before she finally (far far far too late) pulls her hand away, taking another - bigger - step back.
âSorry,â she mutters, staring down at her hand as if it somehow betrayed her, as if she doesnât understand what the hell it was doing.
That one word, that one fucking syllable⊠it kills you⊠and all you want to do, all you need to do, is scream at her, that she shouldnât be sorry, not for that, and not to you.
No.
Thatâs another one of your lies - this one to just yourself, except your self ainât buying it any more than anyone else with half a clue would - cause that is so not all you need to do. What you need, what every part of you aches to do, is to reach out and catch that hand and take it, and hold it, and tell her that you know (now) you never should have let go of it, not then, not now, not ever.
Anything else would be a lie.
And maybe, you think, now is the time. Maybe this is the moment when all the lies end and the chips fall where they may, even if every one of them is a little bit of Sophie, a tiny or not so tiny sliver of her heart and, no, youâre not thinking about what kind of friend that makes you, no, not at all, cause if you doâŠ
You canât.
You just⊠canât. Not this time. Not with Reagan and not with this second (or is it third) chance, not with an opportunity to, for once, be utterly and completely honest in every way. That, you know, is whatâs always been your downfall, your Achillesâ heel, the thing that did you in and not just with Reagan. With Lauren, at first. With Karma, obviously. With Sabrina, even if in that case, doing you in meant doing her for far longer than you probably should have, given that she wasnât the one in your heart - another lie you told yourself - and even with Sophie.
You never tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. With you, itâs always been fragments and fractions and asides to the audience (read: Shane or Lauren or whoever was the ear on loan at that particular moment.) Maybe, you think, itâs time to go all in, to place your bet on honesty and coming clean.
Maybe, you think Reagan getting dropped on your doorstep was the universeâs way of giving you a chance and maybe, you think (again) thereâs only one way to find out.
âReagan, I -â
And, maybe, the words die in the air as she turns. Her hand - that same hand - finding the handle for the break room door, tugging it open (and itâs so much more than a tug, too violent, too much force and power and, almost, desperation), her feet crossing the threshold even before itâs swung open and even you can see that, can recognize it for what it is.
Of course you can. Takes one to know one. Itâs what you do.
âWe should probably get back out there,â she says and yeah, sheâs pretending - and doing it well - to have never heard you. âSophieâs still waiting and waitingâŠâ She hesitates, one foot in and one foot out, but you know thatâs just a function of movement, itâs not a metaphor in the slightest.
That foot might still be there, but Reaganâs already gone.
âWaiting just leads to wondering,â you say, incredibly proud of yourself for not choking on the words. âAnd wondering⊠well⊠that just never ends well, does it?â
Reaganâs hand tightens on the door and for a moment - a fucking tick and a fucking tock before the clock breaks - you think maybe sheâs changed her mind.
âNothing ever ends well, Amy,â she says. âSometimes, all you can do is manage the pain.â
The question comes without thinking. âIs that what weâre doing?â
She shakes her head slowly, that foot finally finding itâs way out the door. âNot very well,â she says. âNot very well, at all.â
And then thereâs nothing but her back and the sound of her steps echoing (far too quickly) in the hall and thenâŠ
Sheâs gone.
And the only thing you can think is that this must be what itâs like, to be the one thatâs left, rather than the one that's leaving. So, yeah, maybe, you think, you had the right idea in the first place, all those other times, cause it seems so much better to run, than to be run from.
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Thereâs silence. No. Not silence. Silence. Like, itâs so quiet you could hear yourself breathing, you know, if you were. But youâre not. Your breath has stopped and oh, if only your heart had stopped with it, instead of doing a fucking drumline in your chest, the beats ratcheting up harder and louder (those you can hear, thrumming in your fucking ears) and thicker than any Reagan has ever laid down.
Fuck. Reagan.
(Yes, youâd like to.) (Again.) (And that's so not the point.)
(Except it kinda is.)
Sheâs right there. Right there and yes, youâre emphasizing things a bit, but she's right fucking there and Sophie is right⊠there⊠like the other there, the across from you, staring into your eyes and daring you to try and spin some bullshit to get out of this there.
And youâre tempted. Sorely tempted. Tempted to the point of desperate cause, right now, the only way you seeing this end is you, alone, sitting here eating eggs you never fucking wanted, while the two people who just might matter the most to you are⊠wellâŠ
Just say it. You know youâre thinking it.
Theyâre gone. Again, in one case. And for good, in both.
So, yeah, youâre tempted to try and weasel your way out of this, to try and sell Sophie on some utter bullshit and hope (fucking pray) that Reagan goes along with it, that maybe together you can convince her not to ditch you both, even though thereâs a pretty good chance (like 75%) (at least) that one of you is going to end up with a very Sophie-less life.
The thought of it being you absolutely breaks your heart. Yesterday notwithstanding - and all the pictures on your phone and all the feelings you never really felt for anyone else, not even the girl you dated for two fucking years also notwithstanding - youâre used to a life without Reagan. You can't imagine one without Sophie. So, youâre crossing your fingers and maybe your toes and offering up a few silent prayers.
Youâre praying for Reagan to get dumped. Again.
God, you suck.
But⊠how about that bullshit? Hmmm⊠letâs see. Maybe the classics?
(Theyâre classic for a reason, after all.)
Itâs not what you think.
That one is always an option. Lord knows, you used it on Karma a time or two or, you know, six hundred. Except, well, that was easy because you always knew what Karma was thinking.
Sabrinaâs a bitch. Sabrinaâs going to cheat on you. Sabrinaâs going to break your heart.
Itâs funny⊠in the end, Karma wasn't entirely wrong. But thatâs pretty much par for the Karma-course. Sheâs never entirely anything.
But the trouble is, Sophie isnât Karma. (And, any other time, that so wouldnât be âtroubleâ.) You donât know what she thinks. Maybe sometimes, like maybe when sheâs watching Beckyâs ass as it saunters away or like when sheâs had one too many and sheâs staring at the pictures of you and Farrah and Lauren that sit on your desk, looking lost and more than a little jealous, the wish for a family like that practically written across her face. But right now?
You havenât a clue.
You know that she knows - she fucking told you that like five seconds ago - but you donât know exactly what she knows or how she knows.
And then you spot your phone, resting on the table under her hand, the phone you havenât been able to find since you left (fled) (the word youâre not looking for is fled) Reaganâs apartment and, yeah, now youâve got a pretty good idea about the 'howâ, at least.
âI always told you,â Sophie says. Her voice is soft and thereâs no anger lacing her words and ohâŠÂ fuck⊠that just terrifies you. âSomeday you were gonna leave this in the wrong place.â
She slides the phone across the table, unlocked (she knows the code and yes, you realize now that might have been a dumb idea but, hey, itâs not like you havenât had more than a few of those lately,right?) and the screen open to your gallery.
Which, to your eternal fucking horror, means open up to Reaganâs almost nude body, sprawled out on your high school bed, with your high school self curled next to her, equally as 'almostâ and what was that about dumb fucking ideas?
Apparently, there not just a recent thing.
You hear Reagan gasp - short and surprised, like those times when you snuck up on her in the shower and slipped your hand between her legs (that one time) (and she slipped and fell and almost cracked her head open on the tub and you both resolved that all⊠shenanigans would take place on dry land) and, yes, just as pained as that time - and it occurs to you that she showed you the picture she kept (if dropping it on the floor counts as showing and oh, it fucking does and you fucking know it) but you never showed her yours.
Thereâs a metaphor in there about hearts, but youâre not about hearing that, right now.
âI can explain,â you say, the words bumbling and stumbling their way out of you before you can stop them and you wish you could, cause even though - maybe - theyâre true? Not bullshitting doesnât solve the far bigger problem.
You donât know who youâre saying them to.
Sophieâs hand lingers by the phone and all three of you stare at the screen, in all itâs nekkid glory - and no, thatâs not weird at all - until the tiny bell over the front door chimes and Reagan has to actually, you know, do her job, and go seat someone. A little old couple, shuffling in for their morning eggs (they can so have yours) and if you looked, youâd see them - all of like a hundred and twenty combined - still holding hands like a pair of teenagers.
And if you could tear your eyes from the screen, youâd probably note that youâve never seen Reagan move quite as fast as she does bolting from the table, not even the night she almost broke up with you at Communal.
And youâd probably wonder if thatâs an almost she wishes she could have back.
But you canât look away and itâs not just because itâs Reagan and sheâs almost naked or just because your brain - traitor that it fucking is - is remembering exactly how she felt that day, that whole afternoon when Farrah and Bruce were at some dance recital thing for Lauren and the two of you had the house to yourself.
What does it say about you that you can remember every sight and sound and touch and feel and taste (oh⊠the taste) from just those few months with Reagan and yet, you can barely even remember how Sabrina sounds when she laughs?
Two fucking years.
You know what it says? It says you suck. Like a black hole.
But, you really canât look away because thereâs nowhere safe for you to look at. If you look at Sophie, you know what youâre going to see. That look of sadness, of betrayal, her eyes filled with the sad realization that you are just like them.
And Sophie has a long list of 'themâsâ to choose from. You just never imagined youâd be on it.
âYou canât even look at her, can you?â
How the fuck does she do that?
âIt makes sense,â Sophie says, her hand slowly drifting back to her side of the table, out of your sight. Itâs almost like sheâs not there and oh, how that stings. âYou donât really handle guilt well.â
The response is automatic. Defensive. Blame shifting at itâs finest. âI donât feel guilty about her,â you say. âReagan⊠she⊠it was a mutual thing. Not like I forced her or something.â
Would you? Would you have made a move, would have you pushed it, would you have instigated - more than you did - if sheâd tried to resist, to hold out?
You squeeze your eyes shut and yank the phone across the table, locking it and clearing the screen. Some questions, you know, are better left unanswered.
âI feel bad for what we did to you,â you say, realizing halfway through that you don't know that Sophie knows what you two did, but, really, it doesnât matter. Because that isnât even on the same scale, like not even the same planet, the same universe as the lie, as not telling her the moment you and Reagan met in the hall.
And isnât that always the way? In the end, itâs all about the didnât versus the did. And, in your case, the lie⊠those words you didn't say, you know, are so much worse than the deeds you did. You would have thought youâd have learned that lesson from Karma, from Liam, from Reagan the first fucking time.
Apparently, you would have thought wrong.
âNot gonna lie,â Sophie says, and that fucking calm and collected and not even hinting at anger or sadness or much of anything - she could be a fucking android right now - tone is driving you crazy. âYou hurt me. You both did.â She drums her fingers on the table in front of her, you can feel the vibrations. âBut how mad can I really get? Whatever you did to me, itâs not half as bad as what you did to each other.â
That's enough to make you look, to pull your eyes from the phone, to stare across the table at her in shock and confusion. âWhat we did to each -â
You never do get the 'otherâ out. She moves faster than you can think, and all you can think is that itâs been building inside her, ticking down like a bomb. Maybe it was the way you looked at her, maybe it was the confusion in your voice, maybe it was the sight of Reagan behind you, helping that little old woman into her chair, seeing you and her even sort of together.
Or maybe it was etching your name on that list of 'themâsâ, of realizing how badly youâd hurt her, of how broken every single rule was. The sense of betrayal and rejection washing over her and soaking into her skin and needing somewhere to go, some way to get out.
Then again, maybe she was just really pissed.
Whatever it was, it spurred Sophie into action, sent her shooting out of her chair, leaning across the barely there table and - with somewhat surprising force - landing a right hook to your face that would have made Ronda Rousey (before she sucked) proud.
It sends you sprawling backwards in your chair, clattering to the floor, your head coming to rest within spitting distance of that old womanâs shoes, staring up at the ceiling and willing yourself to ignore the shocked - and concerned - look on Reaganâs face as she looks down on you.
âThat mad,â Sophie says - and that tone, the other one, the calm fucking Spock-bot emotionless tone - oh, that is so fucking gone. She pushes back, away from the table, her chair legs scraping across the floor. âI guess I can get that mad.â
A/N:  I swear on⊠somethingâŠ. Iâm going to finish this.  Almost there.
Previous Chapters
Amy doesnât understand.
Not that thatâs anything new, itâs not like itâs the first time (or second time or third time or fourth time or the you get the fucking idea time) someone could say that about her cause, letâs face it, thereâs a lot Amy doesnât understand.
The list - and itâs not a Karma list, but it damn near could be - is long and varied. Thereâs the appeal of kale, why anyone would willingly listen to reggae, and how on Earth anyone could think blondes have more fun (like, seriously, has anyone checked her life circa all of fucking high school?) And then thereâs math. As in all of it. As in everything beyond addition and subtraction and even, sometimes, those and itâs not like she hasnât tried to learn it or even had help with it.
Lauren spent the better part of two years in high school going over the quadratic equation and the Pythagorean theorem (as in over and over and fucking over) and the only thing Amy ever really understood - and still understands - is that a-squared plus b-squared equals her needing a fucking drink-squared.
âI have a calculator,â Amy said - also over and over and fucking over - ignoring Laurenâs rolling eyes and protestations about broadening horizons and well rounded education and critical fucking thinking. âA calculator and a cell phone. A fucking smart phone, and both of them can do math a thousand and one times faster than old Pythagoras ever even dreamed of,â Amy said, and that was the point at which Lauren almost always gave up.
Not that Amy was done.
âAnd, more importantly,â she said, always punctuating this part with a wagging finger, âif I had a dime for every time I have ever needed or will ever need to find the length of the third side of a triangle, do you know what Iâd have?â
Lauren never answered. Sheâd learned the math on that one, the law of diminishing returns.
âIâd have zero fucking dimes,â Amy said. âThatâs what Iâd have.â
Clearly, Amy did understand the basics of currency.
So thereâs math, obviously, and kale and reggae. But thereâs more personal stuff too. Like, for instance, Amy doesnât understand - like at all - how the whole Karma and Lucy thing happened.
âKarma was faking,â she says to Lauren or Shane or sometimes Reagan, but only when sheâs drunk or exhausted or looking for a fight and no, that has nothing to do with how fantastic (like even more than usual) makeup sex with Reagan is. âShe was faking and now she's kissing and just how the hell does that happen and no, Iâm not jealous, Iâm just confused, cause Karma's kissing and itâs my sister and stop giving me that look, Iâm just trying to understand.â
And you can so add in why everyone (read: especially Reagan) thinks Amy ought to let that particular sleeping dog just fucking lie to the top of the list of things that Ms. Raudenfeld just doesnât understand.
(Even if she really does. Like really really.) (But it's Karma. And Lucy. And seriously, W the absolute F?)
More? You need more?
Oh, there's more.
Amy doesnât get - like at all - why Lauren is so pissed at Theo for choosing to go to a good school (at least he's going and not just staying and no, sheâs never said that out loud and if you think she might, well, where the fuck have you been for the last two years?) She doesnât have the first damn clue how Bruce puts up with her motherâs continued fixation on everything Jack does.
Or why Jack does anything.
She is utterly - like 100% times infinity (and beyond) - bewildered by the sheer physics of her girlfriendâs eyebrows. There hasnât been one moment since the first moment when sheâs understood even a little of why Reagan is with her. And, more than all the rest, Amy doesnât understand how anyone could have ever cheated on Reagan.
âI get the literal how,â she told Lauren once - one of the many many many times Lauren wondered if being real sisters was worth it (she always decided yes, but stillâŠ) - âlike I understand the mechanics of it, but seriously? The desire, the want to. I just donât get it.â
What she does get?
Sheâs incredibly grateful that someone (hi Shelby) (you bitch) was that stupid.
So, yeah, thereâs a lot of things Amy doesnât understand and now, right fucking now, you can add a tiny velvet box, held out in front of her - daring her, calling to her, a fucking Siren song of temptation sheâs barely resisting - to that list.
Also: how Reagan could think that now (right fucking now, as noted) is a good time to propose given, you know, that they just got back from visiting Amyâs soon to be new home. The one thatâs 511.9 miles away (she can use Google Maps, too) and, really, thatâs more like a world and, last time Amy checked, that world wasnât going to be including Reagan.
Stupid world. Stupid fucking waste of a world.
âNo.â Reagan says and Amy nods, even though itâs not a question. âNo,â Reagan says, again, and it's still not a question but Amy nods again anyway which, to her, seems at least slightly counterintuitive (at best) and fucking rude (at worst), like sheâs not just saying no.
She's hammering it. Sheâs driving that no nail right between those perfect brows with every fucking nod, but she canât stop.
Sheâs a motherfucking bobblehead.
âItâs not that I donât want to,â Amy says, finally finding a word that isnât ânoâ. And it really is the truth, she does want to. If thereâs anything Amy does understand, itâs the very simple - and yet massively complicated - idea that she wants, more than anything, to spend the rest of her life with Reagan.
Just, you know, not right now.
Reagan arches a brow (fucking physics) and Amy does her best not to get distracted. âI do,â she says and no, the irony of that phrase is not lost on her. âI just⊠I mean⊠I didn'tâŠâ
She sighs and drops her eyes, but not far enough that she misses Reagan taking a step back, just one, crossing her arms over her chest, the tiny box (Goddamn Pandora, thatâs what that shit is) disappearing from view.
âNo,â Reagan says, mulling the word over, rolling it round and round, letting it sink and soak in.
âReagan, baby -â
And if thereâs one other thing Amy understands, itâs that that - fucking baby? - was just about the worst thing she could have said, and if she didnât understand it?
Allow Reagan to explain.
âBaby?â Amy tips her head back and curses the fucking stars for letting her speak. âSo now this is a 'babyâ moment?â
Baby moments (aka a lesson in the Amy Raudenfeld Handbook for Dumbasses):
Reagan, baby, it doesnât bother me that Karmaâs kissing my sister.
Reagan, baby, of course your ass is still bangin in those sweatpants.
Reagan, baby, I know you wanted to go away this weekend but KarmaâŠ
Reagan, babyâŠ
Amy watches as that one brow goes from cocked and loaded to full on ready for space launch and she backpedals furiously, even if she doesnât actually, you know, move. âLet me explain,â she says (pleads.) âPlease?â
Reagan says nothing and Amy knows thatâs as close to permission as sheâs gonna get.
âItâs not that I donât want to,â she says again and Amy knows that every word out of her mouth is a tiny little shovel that just keeps digging and digging and digging. âI do. I so do. But, I just didn't⊠see it coming.â
Ainât that the fucking truth.
(and for once, with Amy, it might actually be the whole truth)
âThere was no warning,â she says and there wasnât. There wasnât a warning, there wasnât a hint or a moment when even the thought of it - marriage - crossing Reaganâs mind crossed Amyâs at all. There were no funny looks from Lauren, there wasnât a single attempt at subtle probing from Karma (or, you know, not so subtle, cause, well, Karma) and there was just no way Reagan had been planning this and at least one of them didnât know. âAnd youâve just been so distant,â Amy adds and yup, she still sucks at math, and oh, look, the first ever pair of fully orbital eyebrows.
âIâve beenâŠâ Reagan takes another step back and turns, facing off to the side, looking out over the view theyâve shared so many nights. âDistant,â she mutters but Amy notes that, as annoyed as she sounds?
Sheâs not disagreeing.
âYou have,â Amy says, pushing her luck, yes. But really, what does she have to lose at this point? âAnd itâs not like Iâve been doing much to fix it,â she says quietly. âWeâve both been ignoring the gorilla in the room so long, we never even noticed the wall it was putting up between us.â
âElephant,â Reagan says, not even needing to look to see the confused look crossing Amyâs face. âItâs the elephant in the room. Itâs bigger than a gorilla and less mobile, so it just kinda sits there taking up space and⊠and itâs a figure of fucking speech so⊠just never mind.â
Elephants. Gorillas. Fucking monkeys, thatâs all they are. Monkeys playing around and keeping secrets and not talking about the things that actually matter.
âHonestly?â Amy says. âI wouldâve been less surprised by a break up.â
And oh, why does she ever fucking speak.
But, again, it should be noted that Reagan doesnât say a word in argument. And Amy does note. Oh, how she fucking notes.
âItâs crossed your mind,â she says, âhasnât it? Ending this before I lea⊠before I go to school.â
Reagan stares at the ground, the box squeezed tight in her hand. âLeave,â she whispers. âThe word you were looking for, the one you couldn't say? Itâs 'leaveâ. Before you leave.â
Apparently theyâre not ignoring the elephant anymore. Theyâre fucking riding it.
âReagan, you know thatâs not what Iâm doing,â Amy says. She takes one hesitant step towards her girlfriend, who doesnât even so much as move. âIâm not leaving. Iâm going to college. Yes, itâs another state and itâs far away and it wonât be easy butâŠâ
Amy trails off, no fucking idea where sheâs going with this, but she canât help remembering that, historically, the trail off has never been their friend.
âBut itâs what you have to do,â Reagan says. âItâs your dream and I want it for you.â She chuckles and shakes her head. âSometimes, I think I want it for you more than you do.â
âRea⊠â Amy closes the distance, her arms snaking around Reagan and she lets out a breath she didnât know she was holding as she feels the older girl sink into her embrace. âI love you,â she whispers. âYou⊠youâre my everything. And I know you think this is the way to keep that, to make sure college and distance doesnât ruin it⊠ruin us. But marriage? I mean someday, maybe -â
Reaganâs head snaps up and she swivels in Amyâs grasp. âWaitâŠÂ what?
"I said youâre my everything and I know what youâre trying to do and why, but -â
Amyâs arms fall to her side as Reagan takes a step back, holding up a hand to shush her. âNo,â she says (irony) (again). âNot that part. The other part.â She watches as Amy goes over it in her head, slowly retracing her words. But, as usual, impatience wins out. âMarriage,â Reagan says. âYou said marriage.â
âWell, yeah,â Amy says with a small nod toward the box. âThatâs what I was trying to say. We canât get married or even engaged. Not now. Not for this.â She shakes her head. âThatâs why I was so surprised. I didnât even know you were thinking about it.â
âWell,â Reagan says, reaching out and taking Amyâs hand, dropping the box into it. âThatâs probably because IÂ wasnât.â
Seven Years and One Month Ago
The room is small. Like teeny small. Teeny tiny, smaller than her apartment small. Like small enough that Amyâs room back home might laugh at it (and swallow it), like small enough to make the 'size doesnât matterâ joke die on Reaganâs tongue.
It would just be unnecessarily cruel.
Reaganâs not sure - cause sheâs never actually seen it - but she suspects that even the Spawnâs nursery might be bigger than this.
(The Spawn = the baby = a name most definitely not on the list = exactly what Reaganâs going to call it - in her head - until they come up with a name.)
(And by 'theyâ she 100% means Karma and by 'untilâ she 110% means always. Like forever.)
Sheâs gotta think, even if she canât be sure - not Spawn sure - that the nursery is bigger than this, again, not that sheâs seen it. And yes, thatâs been mentioned (once or twice) (usually by Karma) (and by 'usuallyâ she means⊠you fucking know what she means, weâve been doing this shit long enough, no?) but it does bear repeating. You see, Reaganâs the only one who hasnât seen it.
And it should be noted that that isnât hyperbole or exaggeration, not in the slightest. This isnât one of those 'only oneâsâ like 'oh, youâre the only one whoâs never seen that movieâ - like Amy and Princess Bride, once upon a time - when thereâs literally thousands of other people who have never actually seen it.
Reagan really is the only one.
Karmaâs seen it, which is to be expected since itâs in her house. Not that thatâs weird at all, nope not one single tiny bit. Shaneâs seen it too, but - again - kinda expected since lately he basically lives with the Ashcrofts and no, thatâs not weird either.
(It is.) (It's weird.) (So fucking weird.) (So weird that even Liam has commented on it, going as far as to outright ask Shane if heâd gone straight - Karmasexual, that was his term and Amy almost fucking died on the spot - and yeah, Shane might have brushed it off and laughed at the very thought, butâŠ)
(He might have laughed just a bit too hard.)
So, Karma and Shane have seen it but they live with it. And Liamâs seen it cause, well, duh, and Laurenâs seen it (which means Theo has seen it) because, well, Lauren.
Cause Lauren and cause her weird bond with Karma and yeah, Lolo was still Reaganâs BFF but this thing with her and Karma⊠it'sâŠ
Weird.
Whatâs weirder?
Farrahâs seen it.
Farrah.
And Amyâs seen it because Farrahâs seen it.
âMolly asked me to come see the nursery,â Farrah said out of the blue, one Wednesday and Reagan remembers it was a Wednesday because Wednesdayâs are spaghetti night and the kitchen already smelled of Bruceâs special sauce - a phrase Reagan never thought she would ever utter or like - and Amy was already trying to sneak a taste out of the pot.
âWhat?â Amy said, spoon dripping red sauce onto the stovetop and God, could she ever eat anything without dripping something?
(Obviously, the answer is 'not if sheâs doing it right and you so need to get your mind out of the gutter.)
(Not that Reagan wasnât thinking the same exact thing.)
Farrah took the spoon from her daughter before Amy splattered the floor - again - and dropped it in the sink. âShe asked me to come check out the nursery. She said she wants another motherâs opinion and, apparently, the other PFLAG moms donât have my⊠taste.â Amy rolled her eyes and Reagan chuckled, both of them knowing exactly how Molly had hooked Farrah.
With her? Flattery really will get you everywhere.
âIt would be impolite for me not to go,â Farrah said, lightly slapping Amyâs hand as she tried to filch a piece of garlic bread from the loaf by the sink. âAnd I am not going alone.â
It was simple, Farrah said, trying to convince her daughter to accompany her. A five minute visit, she promised. In and out, no harm, no foul, quick like bunny rabbits, done in a flashâŠ
âFuck it,â she muttered under her breath, running clean out of cliches. âEither you go with me, or thereâs no camping trip for you and Reagan next weekend.â
Reagan could see the wheels spinning in her girlfriendâs head as she remembered camping, which, really, was remembering the table and the bed and, oh, that spot on the rocks down by the lake where those two teenage boys stumbled upon them and finished off puberty in about ten seconds flat.
Which was three seconds longer than it took Reagan to finish off Amy once they realized they had an audience, but that was neither here nor there, because what was here was Amyâs intense desire to not go there - she hadnât been in Karmaâs house in months and that had been weird, at first, but now it was more⊠comfortable - but Farrah was holding all the cards.
So, yeah, Amy went. And then Bruce went because⊠well⊠Reaganâs never been sure why but sheâs got ideas (mind, gutter, you get that idea, right?) and then Jack - fucking Jack - went too (and oh, to have been a fly on the window for that five minute car ride) because of the whole mentor-slash-father figure-slash-sure, he can be a dad to fucking Liam thing and where Jack went (and where Karma was) then so went Lucy and so, yeah.
Only one.
Sometimes - usually when sheâs trying not to think about it, which is like all the times - Reagan thinks thatâs pretty much the sum total of whatâs going to happen to her. The only one. The only one not moving on, the only one not moving up. The only one not growing and not changing, the only one not trying.
The only one left.
(And not just left behind, though, yeah, thatâs the biggest bit of it all.)
So, sheâs never seen the nursery and she doesnât think she ever will, but sheâs gotta think itâs bigger than this⊠room. If thatâs what you want to call it. Reagan can think of other words.
Hole. Closet. Dent in the fabric of space and time. Tiny little hidey hole. Cupboard under the fucking stairs and nobodyâs sending a 'Surprise! Youâre a wizard!â note here.
Oh. And one more.
Hell.
(That last one, obviously, has less to do with size and more to do with location, as in it's not Austin, and kinda everything to do with the way Karma and Molly are already softly whispering about where she and Amy can put their stuff and how cozy it will be and oh, yeah, cozy with the girl she was once in love with, cozy like no room to move or think or breathe, gonna be on top of each other⊠yupâŠ)
(Hell.)
Farrah leans against the door - like thereâs anywhere else she could stand - and surveys the room with a quick (very quick) (like Barry fucking Allen wouldnât be able to keep up quick) sweep of her eyes.
âIt's⊠homey,â she says, her lips pressed in a tight smile and yes, Reagan can add 'homeyâ to her ever expanding list of synonyms for 'ridiculously fucking tinyâ. And yes - again - sheâs totally noticing the way Farrah canât quite look at her, like her sorta-mom knows exactly whatâs going on inside her head. She probably does.
Farrah is a lot of things. Dumb ainât fucking one of them. But knowing what Reaganâs thinking and being able to convince her that sheâs wrong are two very different things and, realistically, thereâs not much chance Farrah could pull it off.
Still⊠it might be nice if someone tried.
âIt has character,â Molly says - another synonym for the list - running a hand over the not too rusted metal bed frame of the bottom bunk. âOr it will, once the girls get through with it.â
Reagan tunes out as Molly starts in with a list of things the girls can do - at least she knows now where Karma gets that particular habit - especially when that list starts with taking the bunks apart and putting the beds side by side like a fucking sleepover.
Karmaâs standing at the other end of the beds and she, at least, has the courtesy to blanche at that idea and she shoots Reagan a quick look, one the older girl thinks is supposed to say 'Iâm sorryâ and 'that's not gonna happenâ and, yeah, itâs not like Reaganâs really worried about that.
Much.
âItâs a room,â Karma says, steering her mother off the discussion of the beds and where to put them and how theyâll be sleeping in them - cause, yeah, sleeping is the concern - and back to more practical matters. âDorm rooms arenât meant to be palaces,â she says, forgetting (or trying to) the fucking suite Laurenâs got at Yale. âBesides, weâll be busy in the city and on campus and doing⊠you know⊠college things. Weâll probably only stagger back in here for sleep and a shower.â
Her eyebrow arches of its own accord, Reagan fucking swears.
âShowers,â Karma corrects, almost (but not quite) immediately. âPlural. One for me. One for her. Totally separate and not at all at the same time and yeah⊠so⊠â
Reagan shuts her eyes as a hush falls over the world - or at least this tiny (so fucking tiny) little corner of New Orleans. She tries to ignore it, to not let it steer her into thinking about how silent her actual world is about to go.
And she remembers a time when she was so much better at trying.
Itâs Karma who breaks the silence - and oh, thatâs a shock - the desperation to salvage this trip before it⊠well⊠before it becomes everything theyâve all been expecting it to since pretty much the moment they left Austin, echoing in the pitch of her voice, cracking out almost an octave too high. âSo,â she creaks, pausing to cough and reset. âMaybe⊠we should go check out the rest of campus? Iâm sure Amyâs ready to sample the cafeteria, right Aimes?â
Eight eyes turns as one to look at Amy, who hasnât said a word or even moved - like, not even an inch - from her spot by the window since the moment they all dogpiled into the room. And none of them, except maybe Molly (whoâs still murmuring about the fucking beds) are surprised by what they see.
Reagan gets it first, of course, the moment she catches Amyâs eyes. She's so not surprised, not by the look - she expected it - but maybe a little by how much it still manages to break her heart, all her expectations be damned.
She sees it first and then itâs Farrah, only a half a heartbeat in front of Karma and it's her - of all fucking people - who reaches out, one hand brushing gently against the back of Reaganâs arm and itâs supposed to be comforting, itâs supposed to be a signal, a 'hey Iâm still hereâ and a 'itâs gonna be fineâ. 'Itâs just a lookâ and 'thereâs nothing to worry aboutâ.
But, really? All it is a sign. A fucking neon blinking billboard in the night, screaming that that is utter bullshit, because there's everything to worry about. Because that look? That one Amyâs casting out the window - the one actually sort of big part of the room, overlooking campus with the flickering and blinking lights of the city in the distance - that look isn't just anything.
It's everything. That look speaks volumes, even if it only says two words.
Iâm home.
(Technically, that's three, but who the fuck is really counting?)
For the first time she can ever remember, Reagan looks away from Amy. She has to, she has to drop her eyes as if sheâs been staring too long into the sun and oh fuck no, she is not going to cry, not here, not now, not in front of⊠well⊠any of them. Sheâs not. She wonât.
She already is.
Itâs Karma, again - and fuck all, when did she get a clue? - who bails her out. âCome on,â she says, crossing the room and tugging Amy by the arm towards the open door. âGreasy college food awaits,â she says, ushering her best friend and Molly and Farrah out into the hall, glancing back one last time at Reagan, staying behind to collect herself.
Alone.
Oh, like thatâs going to help.
But then, like not even a minute later, itâs Karma - again - coming back through the door, a half crumpled paper in her hand, as she strides across the room (itâs like two baby steps, thatâs all it takes) and shoving it into Reaganâs chest.
âYouâre an idiot.â
Reagan blinks back the tears, her hand coming up to take the paper, crumpled as it is, noting, barely, a bunch of those little tear off tabs at the bottom. âWhat?â
âAn idiot,â Karma repeats and they both remember a time when she wouldnât have dared to say something like that to Reagan - it was right after the time when that sort of thing was all Karma could say to her - and thereâs a look in her eyes that Reagan doesnât quite recognize.
Right up until she does and it clicks where sheâs seen it before. The night of the party. Right before Karma kissed Amy and itâs been so long since she even thought of that, but now it comes rushing back, water crashing over the levee, and oh⊠this⊠whatever it is, it really isnât going to go well.
Color her fucking surprised.
âYou think this is her new world,â Karma says. Her hands are on her hips and sheâs trying to seem all determined and tough, but that look in her eyes dispels that right fucking quick. Itâs a look of sad resignation, of knowing what she has to do, but really not expecting it to amount to fuck all in the long run. âYou think sheâs coming here and itâs all going to be new and different and exciting and it is. But you think⊠you think sheâs going to find something here.â
Something. Someone. All the somethings, all the someones.
Reagan sags down onto the bottom bunk, the paper still clutched in her hand. âYou saw her, Karma,â she says. âSheâs not going to find something here. She already has.â
There isnât much Karma can say in argument. They both saw it. Thereâs no arguing with the truth. But when the hell has even the cold hand of the truth slapping her right across the cheek ever stopped Karma?
âYouâre right,â she says and yeah, thatâs making Reagan feel just a metric shit-ton better, like seriously, go for a career in counseling, Karms. âAmy has found something here. A chance to be something other than her.â
Reagan wants to ask - she wants to fucking scream - just what the hell is wrong with just being her? Amy. Shrimps.
Hers.
âCan you imagine, Reagan?â Karma asks. âA chance to be something other than the girl Jack left and the girl Farrah basically tried to replace. Something beyond the once fake lesbian and the 'myâ in Karmy.â
Or the 'myâ in Reamy. Same difference, right?
âAnd donât you even go there,â Karma snaps - sheâs legit pissed and Reagan didnât see that coming - staring down at the older girl still slumped on the bed. âDonât go substituting Reamy for Karmy in your head, because we both fucking know itâs not the same. It never was.â
Damn. When Karma goes for insight, she goes hard.
âThis is everything Amyâs dreamed of since she was seven,â Karma says and Reagan doesnât have to ask why that age, she can still see that fucking photo on the living room wall as clear as day in her head. âBut see, hereâs the thing, Reagan,â she says, squatting down to force herself into Reaganâs vision. âThose dreams we have when weâre little?â Karma drops her head with a slow, sad shake. âSometimes, we get stuck in them and we canât see past them and we canât understand that⊠when we grow up, those dreams should too.â
Yeah⊠not so sure theyâre talking about Amy anymore. At least not only Amy.
âShe gets that, you know,â Karma says, smiling, but barely. âAmyâs dreams⊠they grew. Bigger than getting out of Austin, bigger than college, biggerâŠâ She shakes her head again, the 'than meâ left unsaid. âShe understands that.â Karma stands and walks to the window, looking out at the city. Itâs everything they talked about since they were little, everything two tiny girls once thought meant⊠everything.
But everything tiny must grow. And everything that growsâŠ
âIt changes,â Karma says softly, focused on a light in the far distance, a blinking speck just under the horizon. âTime changes and people change and prioritiesâŠâ She leans against the glass, close enough to blur her own reflection and yeah, that seems just about right. âWhat was it you called this?â she asks. âAmyâs whole new world?â
Reagan nods. âIt is,â she says. âA whole world of possibilities.â She doesnât know how else to put it, to make it obvious that it isnât the people sheâs worried about, it isnât the thought of Amy falling in love with someone else that scares her.
Itâs the thought of Amy falling into life. Without her.
âItâs a world of chances, Karma,â Reagan says. âSo many chances for her, just like you said.â
It's almost funny and Karma almost laughs. This, of all the times, is finally the time Reagan chooses to listen to her. âYeah,â she says without turning around. âA world. But thatâs just it. It's a world⊠not her world.â Karma turns from the window, staring at Reagan, and the older girl can see her heart - and itâs not quite breaking, but itâs not quite all in one piece, either - right there in her eyes.
SometimesâŠÂ usually when she least expects it and always when it seems most capable of absolutely wrecking her - Reagan understands perfectly why Amyâs never let Karma go.
âThis is all wonderful and great and so many chances and itâs going to be an incredible time for her,â Karma says. âBut youâre her world, Reagan. You have been since the moment she met you.â
âKarma -â
âNo,â Karma says, cutting her off. âYouâre not going to tell me different because⊠well⊠youâre just not. Itâs the truth and we both know it.â And they do, even if one of them never wanted to believe it and the other oneâŠÂ canât. âShe would drop this,â Karma says. âShe would walk away from school, give up on here, move back to Austin⊠Amy would throw it all away for you. All youâd have to do is say the word.â
Reagan doesnât offer up an 'I never wouldâ. Why bother? No one goes around telling everyone that the Earth is round or water is wet.
What is understood? Doesnât really need to be discussed.
Karma steps back softly toward the bed, reaching down to tap the crumpled paper in Reaganâs hand. âAmy would give up everything for you,â she says. âShe already did.â
I choose you. I choose us.
Reagan glances down at the paper, at the tabs at the bottom, the phone number printed on them in neat twelve point font. At the words, just beneath Karmaâs finger, still brushing the paper.
âMaybe, Reagan,â Karma says. âItâs time you returned the favor.â
Amy doesnât understand.
Yes, weâve been here before. Recently, even. Some things⊠well⊠they just donât really ever change.
But, apparently, some things - and some people - well⊠they do.
The box - now open and resting in the palm of Amyâs hand - doesnât hold the ring that Amy was both expecting and fearing. Sheâs relieved, really she is, but thereâs just the slightest rustling of something else starting to shiver inside her. Itâs not disappointment, it canât be that, cause letâs face it, even for Amy, that would just make no sense.
She said 'noâ, after all. Why would she be disappointed?
(Why, indeed?) (But thatâs a question - and an answer - for another time.)
(Like a few years later, right on this spot.) (But weâre getting ahead of ourselves and we wouldnât want that.)
So, itâs not a ring, though, really, could anyone blame Amy for thinking it was? A tiny velvet box, held out to her by the love of her life (something she has never doubted) and there was such anticipation and hope dancing in said love of her lifeâs eyes - and oh, how long has it been since Amyâs seeing either of those in Reaganâs eyes - and itâs all happening in a spot so definitively and uniquely theirs.
Come on, thatâs like something out of Proposals 101. How could Amy think it was anything else?
Well, for starters, she could have remembered this was Reagan and Reagan doesnât do anything 101.
Or, you know, she could have just opened the box.
And found the key.
âA key?â
Never let it be said that Amy doesnât, at least, have a firm grasp of the obvious.
âI donât understand.â
Oh for fuckâs sake⊠here we go again.
âI mean, I understand,â she corrects (and she sorta does) (kinda) (maybe) (not really at fucking all). âI know what a key does and what itâs for, but⊠I already have a key to your place.â
Penny in the air.
âYeah, I know that,â Reagan says, remembering quite clearly the moment she gave Amy that key. (It was a Tuesday and you know what that means.) (That it was a Tuesday.) (Not every day is a special food day, you know.) âIâm going to need that one back,â she adds, gently nudging Amyâs hand - and the box still in it - a little bit closer, urging her on, leading the horse to water, trying to teach the man to fishâŠ
Oh, fuck the metaphors. She wants Amy to look at the tag - the tiny tag tied to the end of the key with tiny pink string that Karma gave her - like she desperately, achingly wants her to look at the tag and put two and two together and come up with four. Math even Amy can do.
âBack?â
Thereâs a ripple of pain trembling in Amyâs voice that Reagan didnât expect, which isnât much of a surprise. Truth be told, she didnât expect any of this. It never once crossed her mind - or Karmaâs or Laurenâs - that Amy might see the box and think ring and then make the jump from ring to proposal and even if she (or they) had?
Not a one of them would have thought 'noâ would be the answer.
So, yeah, this is going about as bass-ackwards as it could possibly go and see? This is what you get when you listen to an Ashcroft.
âYou want your key back?â Amy asks, again and oh, shit, sheâs going to cry, Reagan knows the signs and, even if she didnât, the tears already leaking are a pretty good tip off. âBut, I mean⊠why⊠â
The trail off. Fuck all, itâs the trail off.
Amy blinks her eyes, flushing the tears and - Reagan knows - trying to gather her strength, fixing on her 'Iâm not hurting and itâs all good, no worriesâ face. Which looks oddly like her 'I want a doughnutâ face, but then most of Amyâs faces do.
âI mean, itâs fine, Iâve got it right here,â she says, shuffling the box into her other hand and reaching for her pocket. The keyâs there, right where it always is. Amyâs lost the key to her house three times, the key to her car four times, and the key to Laurenâs journal (donât ask, just donât) once, but she has never not known where that key is.
She loves that key. Itâs her⊠thing. She finds it. When sheâs stressed or terrified or worried about Jack or the future or pissed (at Jack or the future) or just missing Reagan because sheâs working her fourth straight late night catering shift. Amy finds it and she holds it and she runs her fingers across the teeth of it, tracing the grooves, the jagged points of the metal soothing her until whatever it is? It passes.
Reaganâs hand on her arm stills her movement, but that just sets those tears bubbling right back up. This is it, Amy thinks, this is that breakup that she wouldnât have been surprised by. A thousand thoughts wash through her mind, tidal waves crashing against the rocks, but one cries out louder than the rest.
I canât.
And she canât. She thought she could. She thought - on those dark nights when even the key didnât soothe - that if this is what Reagan was going to do, if this is what Reagan thought was best, wellâŠ
Then fuck her.
âI had a speech,â she mutters. âIt was a good one. A tough one. All about how if you couldnât just be happy for me and if you were going to let milesâŠ.â Amy shakes her head. Words. It was all just words and she's known that all along. She canât lose Reagan. Not like this. Not like at all. She twists her arm in Reaganâs grasp, slipping their hands together, fingers lacing like they were made to do nothing else.
Fuck the speech.
âI wonât,â Amy says. âI wonât go. Iâll stay. Iâll stay here and go to UTA and Iâll live on campus, Iâm sure I can find some nice girl to share a room with, one thatâs not Karma, one that would never look at either of us like that.â
âAmy - â
She hears Reagan - sort of - but talks right over her. âTheyâve got a⊠decent⊠film program and sure, Karma will be a little pissed, but weâll be fine. Weâve survived worse.â
âAmy -â
âAnd it doesnât matter, anyway,â Amy says, rolling right along. âCollege is just⊠college. A lot of very well off and quite happy people never went to college, you know.â She squeezes Reaganâs hand in hers. âYou didnât go, and youâre doing just fine.â
âAmy -â
âNo,â Amy says, another shake of her head, standing up firm and tall. âIâm not giving you the key, Reagan. If I give you the key then thatâs it and that canât be⊠that wonât be it. I just wonât let it.â
She takes a step back, trying to tug her hand free to show her resolve and all, but Reagan wonât let go. And if Amy had thought, even for a second, that there was any real chance Reagan ever would?
Well, then she just didnât understand Reagan at all.
âShrimps,â Reagan says, finally getting her girlfriend to pause, to slow down, to put the resist at all costs train back into neutral. âThe key,â she says. âThat one,â she adds, nodding towards the box. âLook at it, at the tag.â
Amy glances that way, almost afraid to let Reagan out of her sight, as if she might vanish into the ether if she looks away. Reagan lets go of her hand and Amy reaches over, plucking the key from the box, reading the tiny lettering on the tiny tag.
215 Treme Street. Unit 1C.
âTreme Street,â she says softly, the pieces settling into place âThatâs like three blocks fromâŠâ
Her eyes light up and she looks from the key to Reagan and back to the key and back to Reagan.
And for once?
Amy understands.
âYouâre coming? Youâre coming to New Orleans with me?â
Reagan nods. âYeah,â she says. âRecently, someone⊠surprisingly wise⊠pointed out that maybe it was my turn.â
The tears are back and itâs all Amy can do not to throw herself into Reaganâs arms right then and there. âYour turn for what?â
Reagan thinks about it for a moment, searching for the right way to put it. âMy turn,â she says, smiling, âto try orbiting my world, for a change.â
Amy shakes her head, the confusion back in her eyes, but that's⊠well⊠itâs OK. Reagan understands enough for the both of them.
(Like sheâd ever give Karma credit. Out loud.)
She catches Amyâs hand and pulls her close, slipping her arms around the blondeâs waist as she sinks back onto the swing. âDid you really think Iâd break up with you?â
Amy shrugs and then nods and then, finally, slowly shakes her head. âMaybe for a second or two,â she says. âBut I knew better.â
Reagan breathes - for what feels like the first time in forever - as Amy leans into her, her girlfriendâs lips brushing lightly across her own. âYou knew, huh?â she asks and Amy nods.
âYeah,â she says, turning and settling lightly on Reaganâs lap. âI know,â she says. âI know that wherever I am?â Amy clutches the key - her new key - in her hand, fingers already memorizing the grooves and edges. âYouâre never far.â
Her Latest Flame Chapter 12: Hidden in Plain Sight
Previous Chapters
So.
This was new.
There had been a time (or two) (or maybe more and she just didnât want to think about that right now) (especially now) when Reagan had been on the other side of this equation. When sheâd been firmly on Sophieâs side. A time or two (or, oh fuck it, four) when Reagan had been the one slowly turning circles - literally and in her mind - feeling that sickening feeling, that pain mixed with jealousy mixed with the urge to duck and cover as all the pieces seemed to click into place by falling square onto her.
A time or four when sheâd been the one cheated on. When she was the cheated, instead of the cheater.
Maybe (not really maybe at all) that was why she didnât say anything, not a single word in her own defense. Maybe it was empathy or sympathy - one kind of âthyâ or another - that stilled her tongue as she simply stepped aside and let Sophie pass, let the other woman (oh, wait, that was Amy) slip inside the apartment without a word.
Or, maybe that was just because, really, what the fuck could she say?
She could have tried. The words came to her, easily and quickly. The words sheâd heard before, the explanations that seemed so⊠easy, so obvious, so perfectly typical.
Maybe a little 'Itâs not what it looks likeâ? Well, maybe it wasnât. Maybe Sophie was reading this entirely differently, thinking it was a one time thing - and oh, how sick Reagan felt at that notion, that maybe it was - and maybe she hadnât pieced any of the rest together.
Not yet, at least. But she would or, in the end, Reagan would tell her because if she didnât, then Amy would, for sure, because if there was one thing that Reagan still knew about her ex?
With her, the truth would always out. Maybe not willingly or pleasantly or in a way that actually did any good for anyone, but it would.
Reagan considered - for about ten seconds - trying a bit of 'I can explainâ? She knew that was always good, a classic, a canât miss, probably line number one on page number one of the So You Got Busted Fucking Around handbook, the definitive guide to what to say when you get caught with your hand between some other girlâs legs.
Except⊠she can't explain. Reagan doesnât know how it happened (lie) and she doesnât know why (bigger lie) and she has absolutely no idea how she feels about it.
OK, Pinocchio. Whatever you say.
(Your nose is showing)
And even if she could explain - and she so fucking can, but she so fucking wonât because, recent choices notwithstanding, Reagan isn't stupid - thereâs a bigger problem. Those legs she got metaphorically caught between?
They donât belong to just some other girl. Not for her.
And not for Sophie either.
That means the lie is out and the explanation is way out and, really, that leaves Reagan with only one thing to say. The one thing she knows is absolutely true and absolutely wonât make even the tiniest bit of difference, but she says it anyway.
âIâm sorry.â
The words slip free in a sigh as she shuts the door, leaning back against it and she wishes them back between her lips almost before theyâre out. Reagan knows those words - those words in this situation - as well meaning as they are, she knows thereâs only one person in this equation that they do anything for.
And itâs not the one they should.
Those words are for her - the wrong her - and all they do is slap a band-aid (a tiny one, one of those miniscule round numbers meant for a paper cut and this is a fucking chest wound) on her guilt. If she was Sophie, Reagan knows, those words would probably be met with scorn or derision.
Or a right to the fucking face.
But she isnât Sophie and Reagan knows Sophie wonât do that. There will be no punching.
(And, later, Reagan will wonder exactly how many times in one day can she be wrong?)
So when Sophie doesnât say anything back, the silence is almost a relief - and Reagan's almost ashamed to even think that - and she doesnât even look in Reaganâs direction. That would only distract her, would take her focus from the slow and steady appraisal of every single thing in the apartment.
Fuck. Reagan knows that look. She hates that look.
It isnât so much the look as whatâs in it. The question. The questions, plural. None of them good, and the answers⊠oh, the answers are so much worse.
Did they do it over there? (Yes.) (At least some of it.) Were they one the couch when they kissed? (Does up against count as on?) (As if that would help.) Did they kiss? (Yes.) Or was a kiss too⊠intimate? (No.) Or is that who they were, who they are? (Were, yes. Are⊠who the fuck knows?) Were they intimate, more than just a quick fuck, more than just some instant attraction they couldnât ignore - no matter the consequences - more than just a desperate need and lust? Was there actually something there?
Reagan knows - knew - the answer to that. And she knew the other answers would hurt, would wound, would cut.
And that one would kill.
Her mouth was dry and her lips couldnât part and the words⊠well, this time they seemed bound and fucking determined not to come out no matter how hard she tried.
Which wasnât all that hard. Not really. Not at all.
But, in the end, it didnât matter. Cause Sophie had the question.
âYouâre her.â
And, apparently, she had the answer too.
âYouâre her.â
The first time she ever kissed a girl - really kissed a girl, not some stupid peck on the cheek playing some stupid game with some stupid boys - Sophie knew. She knew she was gay, she knew that, for her, it would always be girls and only girls, she knew that her life had irrevocably shifted with the touch of just two soft lips.
What she didnât know was how the hell she hadnât known.
Sort of how she was feeling just then. If, by 'sort ofâ, you meant exactly. Exactly how she was feeling right then. How? How had she not known?
It was all right there, if sheâd only looked. Literally all right there, in the far corner of the room, the spot Reagan had breezed over in the grand tour, the one Sophie herself had ignored - she had had far better things to look at - tucked away in the shadows next to the bookcase, by the window.
DJ gear.
Two turntables and a microphone ran through her head and Sophie almost smiled but then, instead, she remembered. (As if she could have forgotten.) It was all right there, in that corner, two decks, a pile of tangled headphones and cords. A stack of vinyl as high as her waist. It was all right there.
It was always right there.
âIt was there,â Sophie said, softly. âThe night I was here. When you wereâŠâ
When Reagan was ready. Ready to forget. Something Sophie wished, right then (and five seconds later, and an hour later, and an hour and five minutes and one punch later) she could do. Forget.
âItâs funny,â she said. âThe stuff we donât see. When we donât want to.â
Reagan took one short step toward her, one hand reaching out, but not quite getting there, not landing on soft skin or wrinkled shirt, catching nothing but air. That was Reaganâs choice - an idea that seemed to cover a brand new multitude of sins - because Sophie didnât flinch. She didnât pull away, didnât make a mad dash toward the door.
Reagan didnât touch her - Sophie had an inkling that would never happen again - but Sophie stood her ground.
âYouâre the ex,â Sophie said, surprising even herself with how little bitterness there was to it, how even that word - 'exâ - didnât snap off her tongue like a curse. âYouâre the one that dumped Amy in high school,â she said, her eyes never leaving that darkened corner. âBecause she wasnât gay enough for you.â
Thereâs a moment - itâs brief and passes quickly, though maybe not quickly enough - when Sophie can feel Reagan fighting it down. That urge to protest, to argue, to say 'no, thatâs not the way of itâ (read: thatâs some bullshit.) Sophie can almost hear the words battling it out inside the other woman, the other words, the other reasons, the ones sheâs sure Reagan has spent the better part of two years trying to convince herself were the real reasons.
Karma. Amyâs lies. Liam. Karma. Amy just wasnât ready for a relationship. Karma. Their lives were going in different directions and it just wasnât there time and it wasnât really anyoneâs fault.
Did she mention Karma?
But - and this time itâs to her credit - all her (inner) protestations aside, Reagan doesnât argue with the simple truth.
âI was stupid,â she said, taking a step back, her hand slowly dropping back to her side, as she confirmed Sophieâs suspicions without, you know, actually confirming. âStupid and young and Iâd had my heart and my trust broken.â
There was a split second of pause, a humming moment of silence when they both waited to see if Sophie would point out the obvious: she knew the feeling.
âWhat your ex did to you⊠the 'phaseâ one?â Sophie nodded slowly. âWhat she did to you, it just sucked.â
She heard Reagan take a short quick breath behind her, the knowledge sinking in. Sophie knew. She knew all of it. She knew about Charlotte and she knew about her and she knew about her and Amy and about her and Amy and the breakup. Sheâd known all of it, all along.
Everything except the one part that mattered.
âItâs my own fault,â Sophie said. Sheâd drifted somehow - Reagan didnât understand how she hadnât seen her move, she was looking at her the whole damn time - and was now by the gear, one hand lightly brushing against a pair of headphones. âI was the one who made the rule, I was the one who said no names.â
She laughed then. A soft, hollow, itâs not funny, itâs ironic - like actually ironic, Alanis - little cough of a laugh. One word. One name. It all could have been prevented with one damn word.
âIt was that night, wasnât it?â she asked. âThe night I⊠introduced⊠you two. That was why you bailed on our date.â
Reagan slumped back hard against the counter, as the memory of Amyâs face - of Amy's everything - rounding that corner in the hall outside their room, flooded her. âYeah,â she muttered. âThat was the first time weâd seen each other since⊠well⊠since she tried to get back together with me.â
Itâs Karma, isnât it?
And then it was Reaganâs turn to laugh - though hers was just a touch more bitter, a shade more 'should have seen this comingâ - because, well, yes.
It really was karma.
Sophie took another few steps, her fingers drumming atop the stack of records. In a bad movie or a TV show - the kind of shit theyâd show on MTV, probably - sheâd pick one up. Smash it on the floor while Reagan watched. And then another. And then another. One for every one of those multitude of sins.
The records stayed neatly stacked. Sophie wasnât a rager, she wasnât the kind for tantrums, she wasnât a violent angry woman.
Not yet, anyway.
âWhy didnât you?â she asked, surprising herself and Reagan. âWhen Amy came to you and asked you to take her back, why didnât you?â
She left the rest of that mercifully unsaid. You werenât in love with Heather, not even then. It was still Amy, even then. You hadnât let go, even then. You never let go.
I know. Because you told me.
âIt wasnât that simple,â Reagan said. She pushed off the counter and crossed the room to the couch, her defeated and guilty posture slipping aside, replaced by⊠something Sophie couldnât quite read. âI had Heather and AmyâŠâ
The rest of that sentence screamed itâs way across the room.
Amy had Karma. Or, more accurately, Amy had her want for Karma. Her need for Karma.
âShe wasnât running to me,â Reagan said. âShe was running from Karma. Why would I have taken her back?â
The word - love - rolled its way up from inside of Sophie and she had to bite it back, gnash it crush it beneath her teeth. Ten minutes ago, she would have said it.
Ten minutes ago, she might have believed it would have mattered.
âShe came to you,â Sophie said instead, marvelling to herself at her grasp of the blatantly obvious. âDidnât that count for anything? Amy could have gone anywhere but she -â
Reagan cut her off so softly, Sophie almost didnât hear her. âShe did.â
She turned to the older woman - the one sheâd thought⊠well⊠what sheâd thought or imagined or projected or fucking dreamed didnât seem all that relevant now - and watched as Reagan slowly, but inexorably, crumpled, sliding down along the arm of the couch, her knees coming to her chest.
There were tears in her eyes - fucking tiny puddles that Sophie could still imagine falling into and God, when was that going to stop? - but Reagan was refusing to let them fall. Maybe she thought she didnât have the right (she really didnât) or maybe she thought crying would just piss Sophie off (it probably would) or maybe, really, when it came right down to it?
Reagan had cried enough damn tears over Amy Raudenfeld.
(She had.) (She most definitely had.)
âShe did go anywhere,â Reagan said. âOne minute Amy was standing in my doorway, wanting me back. The next she was on a bus.â She wrapped her arms around her knees. âShe told you about the bus, right?â
Sophie nodded, a glimmer of understanding - and fuck all, that wasn't fair - slipping in. Amyâs bus stories, the tales of her summer on the road, were the one set of stories where they didnât need the rules about names.
Amy didnât remember most of them anyway.
âI heard all about it from one of my friends in the band,â Reagan said. Sophie stood rigidly in place, refusing to even acknowledge the faint hint of sympathy or empathy - fuck all the 'thyâs, fuck 'em all to hell - she felt tingling its way up from her toes. âEvery little detail cause, letâs face it, wild child Amy is an awesome story. And letâs also face it, I was over her, right? I was with Heather, after all.â
Reagan shook her head and swiped at one eye with her sleeve. Sophie leaned up against the bookcase and slowly sank to the floor across from her. She watched as Reagan fumbled with Amyâs phone, the one sheâd never actually put down.
âThat summer, Amy couldâve gone anywhere,â Reagan said. Her thumb ghosted across the screen, her touch light and tender as it slipped across Amyâs smiling face. It was the touch of a lover, and Sophie had to look away. âAnd she did. She went anywhere⊠anywhere else.â
Reagan didnât say 'leaving me heartbroken, leaving me in a loveless relationship, leaving me wondering what might have beenâ.
She didnât say 'leaving me with the wrong girlâ.
She didnât say it. But Sophie still heard it.
The phone slipped from Reaganâs hand, clattering on the floor, landing squarely between them and neither of them made any move to pick it up. âAmy just walked right out my door and she disappeared.â
She glanced around the apartment, as Sophie tracked her eyes, knowing exactly what she would find. No one but the two of them, anywhere in sight.
âApparently,â Reagan said, âsome things never change.â