Chapter 18 #2
And from the look in her eyes, I feel like maybe I’ve said too much.
Did she think that this kind of connection that we’re sharing is always there, every time I have sex with someone?
She’s already told me it’s not like that for her, either.
So why is she looking at me like I just crossed some sort of boundary?
“I’m going to go take care of this,” I say, gesturing toward my hips as I pull out of her and turn toward her now-refinished bathroom. I can’t take another second of that look on her face—part skepticism and part confusion.
When I’m done cleaning myself up, I come back to the bed and find her already under the covers.
I’m about to ask if she wants me to stay when she pulls back the covers for me.
Thank fuck, because after sharing a bed with her the past two nights, I’m in no hurry to be alone in my own now. Who even are you? I ask myself.
“Not that I want to think about my sister right now,” I say when slide in beside her and she snuggles into my side, “but how much do you think she’d flip out if she knew I was in this bed with you?”
I feel Sierra stiffen beside me like I’ve said the wrong thing, again. “Let’s not think about that right now. This isn’t something Jackson can ever know about.”
I stare at the ceiling, absorbing that comment. So this is what it feels like to be someone’s dirty little secret. My stomach flips over at the thought of Sierra being ashamed to admit that there’s something happening here between us, because it could not be more opposite than my own feelings.
When I don’t respond, she continues, “Beau, can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure.” The word is thick as it slips past the lump in my throat.
This isn’t something Jackson can ever know about.
Her words run through my head on a loop.
It’s not that I thought this was something we were going to run and tell my family about.
It’s the way she used the word “ever.” She didn’t say that this is something we want to keep to ourselves right now, but rather, something we will not ever tell my family about.
Of course it’s not. You don’t tell your family about any of your other flings, I remind myself. But lumping what’s happening here with Sierra, together with the string of meaningless sex I’ve had over the past few years since I graduated from college, feels wrong on every level.
“Why do you and Jackson have such a bad relationship? I mean, you two got along great as kids.”
“Did we?” I ask. “I mean, I guess we did. It’s not actually Jackson I don’t get along with, it’s my dad. And since she’s just an extension of him . . .”
“An extension of him?” Sierra says, a hint of challenge in her voice.
“You know what I mean. She follows his lead on everything.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” I say.
“So, how would you explain their relationship after she found out he’s the reason Nate left? Or once she started dating Nate again?”
My body jerks almost violently as I pull away to look down at her. “What?” I have no idea what she’s talking about. I haven’t had a meaningful conversation with Jackson in probably seven or eight years. She was always with Dad, always disapproving of everything I did.
Sierra lifts an eyebrow as she looks up at me. “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think?”
Maybe Sierra’s right. “All I know is that my dad left me—literally left—at a pivotal time in my life, when I really needed him. And his justification was that Jackson needed him more. That her skiing took precedence over raising his son, over being there for me as I navigated what it meant to become a man.”
“Did he actually say that?” she asks. I expect skepticism because I know he was like a father to her growing up, but that’s not what I hear in her voice. Just curiosity and concern.
“No, but everything he did and didn’t do showed me that. And the one time I told him how I felt, how much I needed him, he essentially told me I was a disappointment and beyond help.”
Sierra sucks in a sharp breath. Okay, so maybe having that conversation with Dad after I’d just been caught in my car in the high school parking lot about to have sex with my English teacher’s daughter wasn’t the right time to bring up the fact that if he were around to be a role model, perhaps I wouldn’t be doing shit like that.
I’m old enough now to understand that it was a classic cry for help, that I was desperate for my father’s attention any way I could get it.
And getting in trouble was the only way I found that he paid attention.
Making the honor roll freshman and sophomore years barely registered a “good job,” but you better believe he was video calling me from Europe the minute I stepped out of line.
So it became a game to see just how far I could push the boundaries without actually falling off the cliff.
The question is, how did he not see that?
“Wow, I never saw it that way,” she says, snuggling in closer and wrapping her leg over mine.
“No one did. Everyone looked at it like one parent was just as good as the other when it came to raising me, even though Jackson got both parents for her whole childhood.” It’s hard to admit that part of my bitterness toward my sister is that she got the childhood I wanted, with two loving parents, and then stole my dad away when I needed him.
Have I been more of an asshole to her than necessary because of it?
Maybe. But she’s never tried to see my side of things either.
“My mom is a saint,” I continue, “and I love and adore her. But no one stopped to think that maybe the teen years aren’t the best time to separate a dad and his son.
There were things I needed my dad for—advice and as a role model—and he wasn’t there for that.
Not only was he not there, he didn’t even seem to care that he was missing out on my life. ”
“I think he was just so focused on Jackson,” Sierra says. “You were always closer to your mom, even as a kid. And he and Jackson were always closer.”
“Yeah, but my mom and Jackson are close too. Mom made sure of that. She sent Jackson care packages, they talked on the phone almost every day, Jackson still confided in her, and when she was home in between ski season and summer practices, my mom made sure they did things together. My dad did none of that. Even when he was home, he was focused on Jackson’s career or on Blackstone Mountain. I barely registered.”
She reaches up and strokes my face, pushing my hair off my forehead. “I’m sorry.”
Those two words—the acknowledgment of my experience—crack something open in me.
A hardened part of my heart splinters open at feeling heard and seen.
I’ve never really told anyone how much my dad’s indifference hurt me, because he and my mom did provide a good life for me and it would just sound like whining.
Instead, I stayed as far away as I could, as often as I could.
But the way Sierra sees the hurt and doesn’t try to explain it away or defend my dad’s actions—because of course he wasn’t going to let his twenty-year-old daughter go live and race in Europe without a parent—is exactly the understanding that I’ve always needed.
“Is that why you didn’t come home last year when your mom was going through chemo?” The fact that she even asks this question clues me into this being something Jackson must be upset about.
“No. My mom insisted that I not come home. She felt it was overkill that Jackson was moving back because of her, and she didn’t want to feel responsible for ruining both of our careers.”
“She didn’t ruin Jackson’s career,” Sierra insists.
“I know, but she felt like she did. She kept telling me that she’d never forgive herself or me if I gave up a whole season of snowboarding to sit around and watch her being sick.”
“I don’t think Jackson knows that,” she says quietly.
“She thinks I just ditched my family while my mom was going through chemo?”
I feel her shrug against me. “I think so.” The words are almost a whisper.
“Is that what you thought too?”
“I only knew what Jackson’s told me, Beau,” she murmurs as she squeezes her arms around me tighter. “Thanks for explaining all of this. I know it can’t be easy to talk about your past when you have a contentious relationship with your dad and sister.”
“I’d say that it’s okay, that I’m over it,” I say as I turn toward her, wrap my arms around her, and kiss the top of her head, “but obviously that’s not true.”
She slides her arm around my back and squeezes. “It’s okay to have scars, Beau. It just means you went through something tough and survived.”
I lie there even after she falls asleep in my arms, thinking about what she said. The two things in life that have cut me deepest—my dad and Helen—don’t exactly feel healed over. And it leaves me wondering if what I have are scars, or if they’re still open wounds?
“All right, I’ll keep an eye out for the package and start planning out the promotion.
Thanks again for the opportunity,” I say.
I’m anxious to get off this conference call, which has lasted well over the planned hour.
It’s another great opportunity for my photography business, but with the X Games coming up, I’m not even sure how I’ll fit in the administrative work needed to run this promotion.
Lance and Drew are pushing me to solidify our plans after Aspen, and for the first time in my life, I’m not feeling ready to move on to the next place.
Honestly, I don’t even really feel like going to Aspen because Sierra won’t be there.
There are few things in life I know with absolute certainty, but one I’m ready to add to the list is this: I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about Sierra. I need her, in the physical sense, but more than that, my soul craves hers.