Текст книги "Rule"

Автор книги: Jay Crownover

Соавторы: Jay Crownover
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

My mom and Jack showed up sometime near dawn and my dad came as well.  I told Ayden I didn’t want to see any of them which of course caused a huge scene but when my mom started screaming that it was probably one of the thugs I had met while I was dating Rule Ayden totally lost her cool and informed all of them that if it hadn’t been for my mother giving Gabe the code to the security door of the apartment this would have never happened it shut everyone right up.  My dad forced his way in using his medical connections anyway and I spent a solid hour ignoring him and glaring at him while he apologized profusely over and over again.  When he went to kiss my cheek I turned my head away and made sure he could see the absolute disgust in my eyes.  Part of Gabe’s obsession had to do with all the things these people encompassed and I just couldn’t abide having it around me right now.  They all left after a nurse threatened to call security if they didn’t stop disturbing me.

Ayden pulled up a chair and propped her feet on the edge of the bed and we both fell into a fitful sleep as morning rolled around.  I would only doze on and off needing more pain meds as my shoulder started to ache and various other parts of me that had been abused made themselves known.  Ayden vanished somewhere around noon which was fine because it was another round of doctors and detectives.  Gabe’s dad had managed to get him out on bail but there was no arguing how bad he had hurt me and the police were looking at charging him with attempted murder.  They made me tell my story over and over again and I never wavered from the brutal facts.  Gabe was sick, he needed help, but more than that he needed to be somewhere where he wasn’t able to do this to someone else.  Feeling entitled enough to own another person despite their feelings in the matter was beyond mentally unstable.

Ayden came back in with yogurt and some granola looking sheepish.  “I called Cora to let her know what was going on.  I didn’t even think about the fact that she would freak out while she was at work.”

I went completely still and turned wide eyes to my friend.

“Apparently Rule through a major hissy fit when he heard what happened and needless to say he’ll be here in like five minutes.  Sorry, but I figured you should know.  I guess I can ask the hospital staff to keep him out if you want, though I have a feeling stopping him when he gets all worked up might be a chore and that’s another ex you might be sending to the slammer for the night.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about him coming here.  On the one hand all I had wanted for the last month was to see him, to have him acknowledge me, but on the other it shouldn’t take a vicious and violent wake up call to make that happen.  I sighed and rocked my head back and forth, she was right anyway, keeping him out if he had made his mind up to storm the castle was going to more of a hassle than I needed right now.

“It’s fine I can handle him.”  My voice was still raw and scratchy but at least it hurt marginally less to use it now.

“You don’t look like you’re in any kind of shape to handle anything.”  She wasn’t wrong.  My arm was in a sling, I had a three inch gash glued shut and wrapped in a white bandage on my forehead matching the set up on my hand, my lip was split open and crusted with blood, I had a wicked ring of black and blue bruises circling the pale skin of my throat and to top it all off I was sporting a dandy set of black eyes from being shoved face first into both the door and the floor.

“It’ll be fine.  He can come see that I’m alright then go about his day which is all I’m sure he wants to do.”

She gave me a skeptical look and patted my feet where they were stacked up under the itchy hospital blanket.  “Alright then if you swear you’re going to be okay then I’m going to run and find someplace that has coffee that doesn’t taste like tar and I’ll be back.”

I wasn’t going to ever really be okay again, I didn’t think anyone that had been through what I had in the last few months would, but I wasn’t scared of Rule and almost being raped by a lunatic had given me a whole new perspective on what was missing from my life and what I was going to do differently from this point on.  I wanted to fidget with my hair, but it was snaggled together with dried blood and who knew what else and it wasn’t like  there was going to be any fixing my face.  Rule was just going to have to face the horror show full on and deal with it.

I was messing around on my phone, returning texts from Cora and surprisingly most of Rule’s boys, letting them know I was fine when the door opened and he came in.  I looked up and watched him so I saw the initial anger that was stamped all across his handsome face quickly bleed into horror at the sight of me all battered and bruised.  I saw his chest inflate and deflate as he sucked in an audible breath and moved to the end of the bed.  We stared at each other in silence and I noticed absently that his hair was still normal and unruly as well as it’s natural dark brown color. I still hated it because it made him look like a stranger.  His eyes looked wild and too big for his face; a full blown blizzard was sweeping out of the cold depths.  He was messing with his lip ring like he did when he was nervous and I realized if I didn’t say anything there was a good chance we would spend the rest of the afternoon watching each other warily.

“You didn’t have to come.  I’m fine just a little banged up.”

His big hands tightened on the end of the bed and I watched as the snake head bend and flexed with his aggravation.

“I wanted to see for myself that you were alright.  You could have called to let me know you were hurt.”

I refused to look away from him and he seemed infuriated each time his gaze landed on another part of me that was broken.  “Well considering you haven’t spoken to me in almost a month it didn’t seem very logical to let you know what was going on.”

His mouth tightened.  “You’re right.  I should have been there.  You shouldn’t have been alone.”

I sighed and clenched my hands in the blanket.  “You’re right, you should’ve been there but not because Gabe is crazy and not because I needed protecting from him, you should have been there because you cared about me as much as I care about you but that isn’t the case.  No one is to blame for this mess but Gabe, he’s sick and broken and chances are even if someone had been with me he still would have gone all stalker crazy so it is what it is.  I don’t hold anyone accountable but him, besides my body is already on the mend it’s my heart that still feels like it went through a food processer.”

“Shaw,” he tried to interject something but I held up my good hand and looked him right in the eye.  “I’m tired of my love not being good enough.  I thought when this started with you I would be okay with whatever it was you were willing to give, thought I could love you enough for the both of us since I had been suffocating in it for so long, but I realize now that I deserve more.”  I blinked back tears that snuck up on me.  “I deserve it all because I’m willing to give it all.  I would have worked through the darkness with you, Rule.  What I won’t do is watch you walk away from me every time something happens that has the potential to hurt you.  I’m sorry I never talked to you about Remy but I told you all time and time again we weren’t a couple, you had the undeniable proof on my birthday, you should be mad at him for keeping it a secret, not me.  You were right all along; we don’t trust each other enough to ever have had a chance at making this work.  I think I wanted it too much and you didn’t want it enough.”

I was surprised to see moisture in his eyes when I was done talking.  The only time I had ever seen Rule cry was at Remy’s funeral.  He reached out a hand like he was going to lay it on my leg but retracted it before he ever made contact.

“Shaw what if I did love you?”  His voice was just a hint above a whisper.  “Seeing you like this it makes me want to murder Davenport with my bare hands, but it makes something deep inside me hurt.  I’ve missed you these last few weeks but I was also furious with you, I just couldn’t get the two to ever line up.”

I gave my head a sad little shake and let the tears gathered in my eyes fall.  “What isn’t enough.  I’ve spent my entire life trying to live up to unreachable expectations, you were the only thing I ever wanted for myself and once I got you, you felt like you had to entirely change who you were in order to be with me, I refuse to put the same kind of expectations I always struggled with on someone else, even if I didn’t ask that of them.  Parts of us are great together, Rule but other parts of us just don’t work.  All this,” I waved my good hand over my reclining form.  “Will knit itself back together.  It’ll be fine and we’ll just go back to whatever it was we were doing before.”  I made sure that he understood I was talking about everything from the gash on my head to my abused heart.  I would get over him, there just wasn’t another option.

“You’ve always been in my life Shaw.  We should’ve been able to make this work.”  I wanted to shrug but I only had one working shoulder so that wasn’t an option.  Instead I swiped at my tears with the back of a hand and offered him up a shaky smile.

“There are a lot of things that maybe should have gone one way and didn’t.  I know most people thought you and I being together was a long shot anyway so we should just be grateful for what we had.”

“I feel like I’m letting you down, letting everyone down and for once it’s bothering the hell out of me.  I just don’t know how to work around what’s going on up here.”  He tapped his temple with a finger.

I was crying in earnest now and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that if he could just love me, just learn to let me love him the way he deserved, the way I desperately wanted to then it would all be fine but that wasn’t the case.  we needed to believe in each other, needed to trust that we were enough without trying to be other people in order to be together and that just wasn’t happening so I closed my eyes and for once was the one to shut him out and fall into the dark.

“Some things just aren’t meant to be.  I’m getting tired can you send a nurse in on your way out.  I think the pain killers are starting to wear off.”

“Shaw, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too Rule, really I am too.”  Because I had spent a lifetime in love with him and as much as I wanted to be strong and pretend I was going to put it all behind me, letting go of what I felt for him was going to be the hardest thing I ever did.  We stared at each other for a long, sad minute then he turned on his boot and left.  When Ayden came back in the room I was crying inconsolably and she had to crawl up on the bed to wrap her arms around me.  I cried longer than I ever had before, I cried until there was nothing left inside me to cry out and when I was all done I let my best friend hold me as I fell apart.  The nurse Rule sent in came in with a pain killer but when she saw the state I was in she turned right back around and came back with a sedative.

I spent one more day in the emergency room but when I got out I realized there was no way on this earth I was going back to my apartment with Gabe out on bail restraining order or not.  Luckily Cora had an extra couple rooms open in the house she rented in the Washington Park area because both of her roommates had recently got engaged to each other and had moved out to get their own place so Ayden dropped me off at her place and returned a couple hours later with all my essentials packed up for an extended stay.  She said the property management company was working on getting the place cleaned up but even with that it still gave her the creeps to be there alone so it didn’t take more than a week for her to ask Cora if she could crash in the last room at her house as well.  They even agreed to let us break the lease without paying a penalty because of what happened to me.  Being around the girls did wonders for both my mental health and my physical state.  They never let me get down and someone was always there to remind me that everything I was feeling was temporary.  They also refused to let me freak out over pressing charges against Gabe.

Things were moving fast and a few times it looked his father was going to use every trick he had to get Gabe off, but magically Alex Carsten had stepped in and now Gabe was on an ankle monitor and being charged with not only aggravated assault but breaking and entering as well.  I didn’t for one second think that was a favor my mother called in, but Rule and I were back to radio silence so I never called to ask him or to thank him.  Of course the Davenport’s had the best defense lawyer in town on the payroll, but all signs pointed to a slam dunk for me so I tried to stay positive.

I was refusing to talk to either of my parents.  In fact I hadn’t told either one of them I moved and I had changed my phone number within hours of leaving the hospital.  The fact of the matter was I had nothing to say to either of them, all the things I had said to Rule held true for them as well.  I deserved better and if they weren’t willing to give me the love I showed them without restrictions or demands then I didn’t want them in my life.  I knew my mom was struggling with the fact that she had to be accountable for the fact that she ultimately is the one that let Gabe corner me alone, but like I told Rule the only person I blamed was Gabe.  It was more important to me that she recognize that she should have never pushed him on me when I told her I was in love with someone else in the first place.  If they couldn’t figure out how to love and appreciate me for me then I would make do without them.

Ayden and I were settling into a new routine and we both adored Cora.  It was nice to be living in a house rather than an apartment and as each day went by it got a little easier to breathe around the hole in my chest where my heart had once been.  It had only been two weeks but it felt like a lifespan we had been apart.  This time faking it to make it was so much harder, maybe because I knew for real it was the end but there was no fake smiling, no pretending to glide through life.  I was struggling and I was struggling hard.  I missed him.  I loved him.  I couldn’t have him and it was killing me in an entirely different way than when I had loved him from afar without him knowing it.  Cora was back to keeping all talk of work and the guys at bay but every now and then she would let something about him slip and every time it felt like a shard of glass in an open wound.  It should have made me feel better that he didn’t sound like he was doing much better than me but it didn’t.  We both deserved happiness, it just sucked that we couldn’t seem to find it together.

It was a couple days before Saint Patrick’s Day which not only fell on a weekend this year but also happened to be Rule’s birthday.  The girls had decided that instead of sitting around being sullen and grousing about things that we needed to go out and have fun.  I didn’t want to go, I mean I really didn’t want to go and not only because my face wasn’t entirely pretty again but because I didn’t think I could handle being in a crowd just yet.  I was pretty sure it was going to be an awful time and that I was going to have zero fun but because I loved them I let them bagger me into agreeing to go and to my surprise after a few martinis at an out of the way lounge Cora knew about I relaxed and actually having a good time, strike that it was a fantastic time that I totally needed.  Getting up for school the next morning was awful and I was tempted to skip but I had missed so much because of the attack that I couldn’t afford to.

I was standing in front of the mirror doing my hair and trying in vain to cover up the yellowish remnant of my black eye when I had a startling revelation.  Loving Rule had never been easy, it was always hard and painful and the payoff had been years coming, but I had never decided he wasn’t worth it.  To me loving him had never been a choice, it was just something I had decided was inevitable, just like I had decided him ever coming to care about me was never going to happen.  Last night I had been so sure I wouldn’t have any fun, that going out was going to be miserable and awful but after doing it I had a blast and it was totally worth the risk and harassing I had suffered to get me to go.  I had done what I swore I never would, I had walked away because there was no guarantee in the end, no guaranteed happy ending for us.

I set my curling iron down on the sink and stared at myself in the mirror all the sadness and missing part of myself clear in the reflection staring back at me.  Rule was the one thing I had always wanted and when it got hard to hold onto him I had just let go rather than fight to keep ahold of him and that wasn’t right.  I deserved love but I also deserved him and whatever form that his love came in.  Rule wasn’t a normal guy, there was never going to be hearts and flowers or poetry flowing with words that made me blush, what there was always going to be was give and take, ups and downs and a passion that burned both of us to the core.  When he asked me at the hospital ‘what if” my answer should have been if you’re asking you already do because I knew it now, could see it as clearly as I could see my own face in the mirror, Rule loved me he just didn’t know that’s what it was.  Neither one of us really had shining examples of healthy loving relationships to draw from but the second he had told me he wanted to try I should have known he was falling in love with me.  He never tried for anyone.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door and Ayden popped her head in the room.  “We have to head out soon are you almost ready?”

Considering I only had the right side of my head curled I think the answer was obvious.  I turned to her with huge eyes.  “We need to go dress shopping after school.”

She propped a hip in the doorway and lifted a dark eyebrow at me.  “Any particular reason why?”

“Rule’s birthday is this weekend.”

“Cora might’ve mentioned that.”

“He’s gotta be having a birthday party.”

“She might’ve mentioned something about that as well.”

“Well we have to go.”

“Why?  I thought you were done with all that noise or is this martinis from last night talking?”

I shook my head and picked the curling iron back up.  “I have to give him a present.”

“Oh yeah?  What if he’s there with someone?”

I cut her a look.  That possibility hadn’t even occurred to me.  “Is that likely?”

She muttered something under her breath and brushed her long bangs out of her face.  “No.  Cora said he’s been pretty much a hermit since you guys split, that and his temper is on fire so everyone that doesn’t want to be flayed alive is pretty much staying the hell out of his way.  What are you planning on giving him anyway?”

“The only thing I think he wants.”

She snickered.  “More jewelry for his face?”

I laughed a little.  “No…me.  I think the only thing he really wants is me.  We were both just too messed up to realize it.”

She rubbed her hands together.  “Well it should be interesting either way.”

Interesting didn’t even begin to cover it but my new leaf was all about self-gratification and Rule was ultimately what I wanted to be gratified.  I could only hope he hadn’t gone so far down the tunnel that I couldn’t pull him out.

Chapter 17

Rule

“Hey dude, happy birthday.”  I traced a finger over the horseshoe on the headstone that I insisted on being there and cleared away the emotion that was clogging my throat.  I didn’t come here enough but every year on our birthday I made sure to stop by and let Remy know I was thinking about him.  It was hard, being reminded once a year that he wouldn’t be turning twenty-three right alongside me, that I was getting older and he was stuck in time at twenty, his life cut way too short.  “I’m pretty pissed off at you right now.  My life is all upside down and I can’t seem to find my footing and all the stupid shit I normally do to ignore the hurt and confusion just doesn’t hold any appeal.  I don’t understand why you didn’t just talk to me, why you used Shaw the way you did and I really don’t get how you just let me act like a total asshole to her for years and years knowing she had feelings for me.  Well here’s a newsflash bro, I have feelings for her too and now things are so jacked up I can’t see any way to make it right.  Everyone always gave me hell for being difficult, for being temperamental and complicated, turns out you had more going on under the surface than Rome and I could ever imagine and yet you were still the favorite.  Isn’t that just a kick in the balls?”  For the second time in a few short weeks I felt tears well up in my eyes.  “Shaw kept your secret.  All this time, even when things got intense between us she kept your secret.  She loves you but she loves me too and I just didn’t know what to do with it so I got mad and I shut her out and as a result she got hurt and wouldn’t let me back in when that’s all I wanted.  It sucks, love sucks and I feel like if you were here none of this would have ever happened in the first place so you suck too.”

There was no answer, just the sound of my shallow breathing and the wind moving the trees.  I felt really alone for the first time in a long time and the loss of my twin was really pressing down heavily on me.  The last month and a half had been rough; everything with Shaw had left me strung up and stripped bare.  My normal response to that overwhelming flood of emotion would have been to drink my liver into submission and screw any and every girl that looked my way.  Neither of those things had been on my agenda, booze wasn’t enough to make my conscious stop screaming at me that I should have tried harder, should have handled my shock and anger better and the idea of taking anyone to bed that wasn’t Shaw made everything I had below the belt freeze up.  I was working a ton, trying to keep tabs on the situation with Gabe through Mark and Alex because I was determined to keep him away from her permanently even if she didn’t know I was doing it and I was spending a lot of time with the boys licking my wounds.  Even though she had been so upset with me for trying to change to be better for her, I think I had affected some major changes on my own despite myself and that wasn’t bad.  I was allowing myself to feel everything and while the feelings tied up in the failure of my relationship with Shaw burned at least I was processing them and not drowning them in bad habits.

I was getting ready to say goodbye when footsteps crunching on the thin layer of snow still covering the ground made me lift my head up.  I felt my eyes narrow involuntarily and the corners of my mouth pull down when I recognized the figure making her way towards me.  Every instinct I had was to get out there before she could ruin my day but I stayed put because she was looking right at me and for once there wasn’t contempt or hatred shining out of her eyes.

“Mom.”

“Happy birthday Rule.”

I cleared my throat because I had no clue what to say to her.  I knocked my knuckles on the hard headstone and gave my brother a silent goodbye.  “I’ll take off so you can have some time with him.  I’m sure today is hard for you.”

I nearly fell over when she reached out a hand and put it on my forearm.  My mom hadn’t touched me voluntarily in years and it was enough to stun me into silence.

“It’s hard for all of us but that’s not why I’m here.  I actually called your work to see if I could maybe take you to lunch for your birthday.  I figured you wouldn’t answer if I called your cell so I asked your roommate where I might find you and he pointed me here.  I guess if I hadn’t been so busy trying to shut you out all these years I might have figured that out on my own.”

I took a step away from her because I was pretty sure aliens had abducted my mom and that this creature before me wasn’t real.  The things coming out of her mouth were almost too much for me to take in.  “Where’s dad?”

“Home.  He’s working on getting through to your brother and after all that’s happened I needed to be the one to come to you.  Can I take you to lunch or maybe for coffee?”

I didn’t want to go.  I didn’t trust her or her motivations but it was my birthday and we were standing at my dead brother’s grave so turning her down just didn’t seem like a viable option or one I could live with later on.

“Coffee would be alright.”  She gave me a smile that was sad, I mean really, truly sad and I realized for the first time that my mom had a dark tunnel she disappeared into as well, that maybe it was a trait I learned from her.  We walked back to the parking lot in silence and I followed her back to Brookside even though all I wanted to do was keep in driving back to Denver.  We stopped at the Starbucks I always hit up and I let her buy me a coffee while I settled into a semi secluded corner and stretched out my legs.  I could tell she was nervous so I tried to relax and not be as guarded as I always was around her.

“I’ve been talking to a specialist.  Your dad found someone here in town that deals with grief and family issues.  I think it’s been really helpful.”

I blinked.  “That’s a change.”

She smiled ruefully and I caught a glimpse of the woman who had raised me before our relationship had been tainted with tragedy.

“After the way things went at dinner your dad had reached his breaking point.  It was go and get help or watch my husband of thirty-six years walk away from me.  Dale has always been the only constant in my life, I wouldn’t make it without him and it took realizing how alone I would be if he walked out the door to make me see what I’ve done to my family.”

I could only stare at her in shock.  I didn’t know what to say or do so I just kept sipping on my coffee and watching her.

“You asked me how I could love Remy knowing how different he was while I always had such a hard time with you and I want to try and explain things.  It’s not an excuse, our relationship has never been easy, we’ve never been as close as I was with your brother and it started when you were both born.  You guys were early which is pretty common with twins, only you came out strong and healthy bellowing your little head off, Remy wasn’t so lucky.  He had the cord around his neck and was breech, it took a lot of work and effort to get him here alive and well so from the start I think I focused more on him than on you which makes me a terrible mother but didn’t mean I didn’t love you both.  Remy breast fed, you wanted formula and when you were old enough to walk Remy held onto my fingers and tottered all over the house, you pulled yourself up using Rome as a lever and then just took off on your own.  Your brother always needed me, always wanted me and you, well you were like you are now; independent, fierce and determined to blaze your own way in the world and I just let you go.  Your dad and I both just let you slip away.”

I was having a hard time breathing but I was so focused on what she was saying that it didn’t seem to matter.  “When Remy brought Shaw home I was so excited.  He hadn’t ever shown any interest in any other girl meanwhile your dad caught at least a girl a week sneaking out of your window and we were starting to put the pieces together about him.  I was convinced he was just waiting for the right girl and Shaw had it all, she’s lovely, well educated, comes from money it never occurred to me that she was too delicate, too broken down by her own family to be with someone as gentle and sweet as Remy.  She needed someone strong, someone not afraid of all things that tormented her day in and day out so of course she picked you, she’s loved you forever.  I saw it, your dad saw it and even with that we let Remy use her and snow everyone into thinking they were an item because it was just easier than dealing with the truth.”

She stopped fidgeting with her cup and met my stunned gaze.  She had tears in her eyes which were nothing new, but these ones for once seemed generated by actual regret not overbearing anger and blame directed at me.

“The night of Remy’s accident he called me.  I knew he was on his way to pick you up and I told him not to go, that you were a grown man that could find his own way home.  He got really mad at me, told me I needed to get over whatever it was that kept me from embracing you, from loving you as openly and fully as I loved him.  I got angry back and told him he had no place to lecture me on how I interacted with you if he was going to keep living a lie.  We had a huge fight, it was ugly and I threatened him.  I told him I was going to let you and Rome know exactly who their brother was and he freaked out.  He hung up and left to get you and those were the last words I said to my baby.”

She was crying openly now and all I could do was sit there and let everything she said flow over me.  “I said it should have been you; put all my grief and responsibility on your shoulders because I was too weak to be accountable for my part in what happened to Remy.  Out of all of us you’re the strongest, you’re the one that handled it the best and it was easier to blame you than look at you and realize what I had done.  You never loved me the way Remy did and the farther away I pushed you the easier it was to feel less guilt.  I’m sorry I did it, you never deserved it.  I felt like you were already lost to me so the idea of losing you wasn’t as crippling as it was with Rome, but I realize now you were never lost I had just shoved you as far and as hard away as I could because of what may or may not happen and that’s not healthy or acceptable.”

We sat in silence while I tried to work through all of it.  I couldn’t just accept her apology, too much time and too many hurtful words and actions had been exchanged for that, but I could recognize that we were all human and prone to making careless mistakes with people that we cared about and try and work towards a resolution from there.