Healing Waters (Tides of Change #1)

Prologue

Eight years ago

“Mom, are you there?” I pull the phone away from my face and squint at it, just to make sure the call is still connected. “Mom?”

“B-Brooky, it’s your sister…” she finally replies, a choked-sounding thing—almost as if she’s recently been sobbing.

In spite of myself, I roll my eyes. Ryann is always in some sort of trouble, and it is almost certainly something that our mother will call me upset about.

And I’ll have to listen to it for hours, because that’s what a dutiful son like me does.

I try to remain unbiased, attempt to withhold judgement, and offer rational advice about how to best tackle Ryann’s latest downward spiral.

Only, when it comes to my big sister, my only sibling, I have a hard time refraining from containing my judgement.

The chokehold drugs and alcohol have on her have landed her in more legal trouble than I can shake a stick at, and typically this is why my mothers call—they need more money.

Doesn’t matter if it’s ‘for groceries’ or for bail.

I feel like I work my part-time job, all while being a full-time college student, to pay for her mistakes.

But I do it, because that’s all I can do, so I can keep moving on with my life without being swallowed whole by hers, like I used to.

Because despite being someone I don’t know at all anymore, I was her brother.

Am her brother. Our nearly decade-long estrangement makes it hard for me to think in the present tense. And it’s not even like I meant or wanted to cut her out of my life nine years ago, but she just—ugh, well, she just kept playing tug-of-war with my heartstrings.

I love her, the person. No question about it. I love what we were before her demons took over. Despite our two year age gap, we were as close as a brother and sister could be, before she went to high school without me. I miss that Ryann and Brooks, besties that we were, with my whole heart.

But, for my sanity, I had to set firm boundaries with her the day of our family intervention—the one where she chose to take off to God knows where, instead of accepting help from her family.

I had to sever ties with the unrecognizable person that Ryann became, unlike Ma and Mom.

They continue to call me and beg me to help them come up with a bailout, even though they too have not seen her in years.

Which is what I’m sure this call is about—her needing another hand out—if only Mom would just cut to the chase, instead of fidgeting with the phone. There are voices in the background I don’t recognize, but their presence lets me know the line hasn’t gone dead.

“Mom?” I ask again, annoyance mounting in me.

Why call, if you’re just going to have side conversations and leave me here dredging up my guilt and annoyance about our falling out?

It’s souring my mood for what should be a good day looking at properties to start seeing my post-graduate dream become a reality.

I sometimes wish I could just shake Ryann and wake her up.

To get her to see the damage she does to our family—to her own self even—but I know that’s not how addiction works.

She’s tried to reach out to me a few times, but every time, I’ve stood my ground.

It’s frustrating. I’m frustrated by being a bystander, wishing I could do more to help, but I know that boundaries are just that.

There comes a time when you need to protect yourself, too.

I adjust myself in the driver’s side of my vehicle, settling in for what I am sure will be a lengthy diatribe of what legal trouble Ryann has gotten herself into.

Only, this time I need to stand my ground and not dip into my half of what I’ve managed to scrape up to help get mine and Kai’s business plan up and running.

“What’s she done this time?” I sigh.

There’s more rustling on the phone, and then Ma’s voice comes over the line next, “Brooks, honey, there’s no easy way to put this…”

Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good…

I sit up in my seat, gripping the phone just a little tighter. “What’s going on?” I ask, the former petulance in my tone now forced out by the sinking feeling in my gut.

I hear Mom’s choked sob in the background of the call. “Ryann. She was found unresponsive this morning,” Ma replies, her voice cracking.

I freeze up entirely, every muscle in my body going tense. “Well, where is she? What hospital? Ma… is Ryann? She’s responsive now, isn’t she? I mean, they were able to revive her, right?” The questions spill out of me, like a bucket filled with water that’s just been kicked over.

“I’m afraid not, baby,” Ma replies stoically, though I know she’s probably falling apart just as much as Mom is right now. “Ry—she’s gone, sweetie…”

No… no, no, no. No, this can’t be real. No, this is just… wires got crossed somewhere. Ryann always tiptoes this line, but she always makes it out alive. I refuse to believe this.

“I’m on my way over right now,” I say, frantically fishing around for my discarded keys.

I find them under the specs I have printed on the parcel of land which I’m currently parked at, and slip them in the ignition.

I can’t even think about looking at this property with Kai right now; my family needs me.

“Ma, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay? ”

“Okay, but we’ll be a while. We’re all the way over on the coast. We’re just leaving the morgue now.

We had to identify her.” Ma’s last little bit of resolve cracks on that last statement, and the dam breaks.

She emits a bubbly-sounding sob. “There’s more news, but we’ll wait ‘til we can talk in person. We’ll see you in a few hours, baby. ”

I feel like I’ve just been slapped in the face for the millionth time in the past two weeks. While no physical hand has touched my face, it burns and stings as if I truly have been hit. I can’t take much more of this; I’m at my breaking point.

“Okay, and I get that, babe. All I am saying is that you could have at least mentioned it to me before you brought an eight-year-old in!” Kai flings his hands up in the air, exasperated.

“It doesn’t sound to me like you do get it,” I snip back in a hushed whisper.

It just took me over two hours to get my niece, Morgan, settled into bed, and I’m sure her little mind is reeling right now.

She doesn’t need to hear Kai and I bickering.

“She doesn’t have anyone else! Why do you think I’ve gone through everything lately to become licensed to care for her? ”

“I figured you were helping your mothers out, not having her come live here… with us! Christ, I haven’t even gotten all my shit moved in here yet! Hell of a surprise ‘welcome home’ gift… surprise, I brought us home a kid to raise.”

“My mothers just laid their only daughter to rest, Kai. I just had to bury my sister,” I say, choking back a sob—one I haven’t been allowed to release yet, during all her funeral preparations, because I’m the one expected to hold it all together.

“I’m not letting Morgan go into the foster care system; she’s my family, for crying out loud!

She’s the only thing I have left of Ryann; I’m not sending her to live with strangers. ”

“You’re a stranger! You didn’t even realize your own sister had a child! Hell, I know what all three of mine had for lunch today!”

Bitterness roils within me. I’m not an angry person by nature, but that comment just slapped me hard. I grind my molars, searching for a calmer response than the one I’d like to give him about how we aren’t all so lucky to have perfect sibling relationships where we all communicate daily.

Some of us have torturous, heartbreaking ones.

Ones fraught with addictions and their aftermath.

Ones where we’d go nearly a decade without seeing or speaking to one another.

Enough time for a whole tiny human to make her way into a tumultuous, chaotic world and for the rest of her family to know nothing about her.

Enough time to become an uncle, without having a clue.

I feel like such a complete and utter failure. I should have never stood my ground and cut Ryann out of my life. This is all my fault.

“Well, I don’t want to be a stranger to her, Kai. Her CPS caseworker says Morgan needs stability, since she has not had that ever. I can provide that for her.”

“So can your mothers,” he proffers.

“Don’t you see this is all my fault? Ryann kept her distance because every time she tried to come around she was met with my disappointment and hostility. I shut her out, Kai. Maybe… maybe if I hadn’t, we would have known about Morgan.”

“Good thing I haven’t given up the lease on my apartment, yet,” he hisses back. “Did it ever occur to you to ask me how I felt about it, Brooks?”

It did occur to me, yes, but I knew exactly what the answer was going to be. And I knew it would go about as well as it’s going right now. The thing is, while I love Kai, I wasn’t braced for the impact of having to choose between my niece and my boyfriend.

So, assuming care of Morgan is the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done, and it’s out of character for me, yes.

But I felt compelled to do it. Somewhere deep inside, this just feels right—like I can somehow make up for my absentee role as Ryann’s brother by doing this.

I’d just assumed that Kai would take one look at Morgan and see that she needed a home to live in, some stability and security.

I thought that perhaps we could give that to her together.

You know what they say about assuming, though.

“So, what, you’re not going to move in now?” I snap back incredulously.

“Brooks,” he sighs, “you have an old soul, and I get that. But I am not ready to settle down and play family the way you are. You know me; you know that’s not who I am! I don’t want kids! How can you possibly picture me raising a little girl?! ”

Truthfully, I can’t picture it. I couldn’t picture it. I forged ahead with the kinship foster license anyway. Guilt about how I treated Ryann the past few years gnawed away at me. Without a father present in Morgan’s life, because no one knows who that is, I stepped up, willing to fill that role.

Kai fists his hair and puffs out a pent-up breath. He spins away from me, places his hands on his hips, and surveys the space of my apartment around him. “I don’t know if I can make this work…” he mutters, almost so silently that I missed it.

Every ounce of me wants to wrap my arms around his waist, to pull myself close to him, and seek out comfort that I myself need.

Because, throughout all of this, I’ve been doling out the reassurances, but haven’t been getting many in return.

Instead, I dip my head and stare down at my stockinged feet, like there’s something fascinating about them.

“Is this it then? Are we over? Two years, and poof nothing?” I ask, my voice straining under the vulnerability.

“I love you, Brooks, but I just don’t know if I can do it…”

A tear manages to slip free and trails down my cheek.

After everything I’ve done for him—all the caving in I’ve done, to try to make us work—and it’s down to this.

My mothers were right, he and I are way too incompatible, but I’ve been trying to prove them wrong.

This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, I guess.

Every piece of me wants him to just turn around, to face me, and see that I need him now more than ever. He doesn’t, though. Instead, I watch as he dips his head and makes his way into the master bedroom. All I can do is listen as he packs his things.

When he comes out a few minutes later, I’m seated on the sofa, leaning forward on my elbows with my fingers steepled under my chin.

I let more tears flow freely, not making an effort to swipe them away, because I half expected the sight in front of me now: Kai standing there, speechless, with his duffel bag stuffed full of his belongings hung over his shoulder.

He shakes his head at me and silently pads over to the front door.

Once he gets his shoes on, he rests his hand on the door handle and spins around to regard me.

“We can still move forward with the business venture, but I think this is goodbye, Brooks,” he mutters.

“I love you, and I’d still like to be your friend, but this—this isn’t for me. ”

I can’t just be friends with him. Yeah, maybe I have an old-fashioned take on love and relationships; call me crazy for it. I can’t simply give my heart to someone and then just go back to being friends. That’s not who I am at all, doesn’t he get that?

I suck my lips in between my teeth and bite down hard, trying to fight back the onslaught of tears that are barely being kept at bay. I knew this was coming; still, I delayed the inevitable. My only response is a slow nod, and on that, Kai lets himself out.

Screw him. Screw the fact that I’ve been patient and there for him no matter what chaotic direction he chooses to go with his life.

Every changed major, every new hair-brained idea he has to waste his trust fund, every goddamned thing, and here I am, the first time he’s really ever seen me in shambles, and he packs a bag and leaves.

Screw Kai Hale and everything I thought we could have become together.

And screw everything I thought love was, because in one fell swoop, Kai just shattered that illusion.

He broke off a piece of me and added it to the trash heap that my life has been over the past two and a half weeks.

I’m sick of feeling so sure that I’m doing everything right, only to find out that I’ve been wrong all along.

Again.

Even those who are put on a pedestal, touted as being the ones who can put everything back together when everything crumbles, eventually fall themselves. It feels like an oppressive weight bearing down on my chest. It’s suffocating, keeping it all in for everyone.

I feel like I’ve lived my entire life being everyone’s caretaker.

But what happens when they crack? Then what? Who’s there to take care of the caretaker?

Once the door clicks shut, I curl up on the couch and give in to the emotions that rack me.

I cry, I quietly punch the couch cushions, I grit my teeth in emotional agony.

I go through several of the five stages of grief all in one epic meltdown.

All with the exception of acceptance, because this is a hard pill to swallow.

I want to pick things up and throw them across the room.

I want to scream up at the heavens and offer myself up—to take my sister’s place, my ashes floating away into oblivion.

The only thing that stops me is when I look up and see the little girl who is clutching my sister’s favorite childhood stuffy and looking at me like she’s terrified of the man she sees in front of her.

And honestly? I’m terrified of him too.