9. Reed
The house Amanda Greer has rented on our behalf is beautiful.
It has five huge bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and walk-in closet attached. The kitchen is a cream marble affair with an island, and out back is a swimming pool.
There’s more than enough room for Laney to be here as well.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t get my thoughts off of her. What’s she doing right now? Is she okay?
She’s eighteen years old, and I’m forty, but I can’t help myself.
I love her. She means everything to me. I know our situation is far from perfect, and that we have to be careful, but a part of me wants to be reckless.
I want to say ‘fuck it’ and let everyone know what kind of relationship we have now.
But I can’t, and it’s not only about protecting my own reputation.
They’ll hound Laney as well if they find out.
People will judge her, maybe even worse than they’ll judge me.
They’ll call her a slut, and every other name under the sun, and it’ll be my fault.
She’s too good for that to happen, too fragile.
She’s not fragile like glass; she’s fragile like a bomb.
But I’m worried that by exploding, she’ll destroy herself.
I’ve just got off a call from the director of the same concert hall where Darius played the night before the crash.
They heard we’re back in the city, and they want him to do a return performance.
They’ve cleared space for him, bumped some other performer to make way for him.
It’s not all altruistic. They know everyone will want a ticket and that they’ll sell for hundreds, if not thousands.
Is Darius ready, though? I’m not so sure.
When we arrived at the house, we found a new violin waiting for him as a gift.
It’s an exact replica of the one that was destroyed at the cabin, but I haven’t seen him play a note yet.
He’s held the instrument, placing it beneath his chin and raising the bow, but he hasn’t let the bow touch the strings.
“I’ll do it,” he says, when I mention the offer to him. “I need to get back out there.”
“You sure it’s not too soon? It’ll be the same set you played before the crash.”
“No, I’ll be fine. It’ll be good for me. Maybe the music will help take my mind off things.”
“By things, do you mean Laney?”
He shrugs. “Just everything.”
He’s withdrawn. Cade is angry—and that’s normal for him—but for Darius not to play isn’t normal at all.
Perhaps he’s right, and being on stage again will help him feel more like his old self.
I understand how they’re feeling—I’m torturing myself about what happened to Laney just as much as they are—but it’s not going to help her any if we all allow it to eat us up inside.
She’s the one who’s truly suffered, and we need to make sure we’re here for her to help her heal.
“As long as you’re sure.”
“It’s what I do. I play the violin. Who am I if I don’t do that?”
I feel like he wants a fight.
“A son. A brother,” I tell him.
He turns his chin, as though those things mean nothing. I want him to know that those are the most important things in his life, that without the people we love, the rest of it becomes immaterial. He’s more than just his talent.
He doesn’t reply.
“Fine, I’ll let them know you’re on board.”
“Good.”
He doesn’t need the money. None of us do.
We’ll all be getting a big enough payout from the airline that we’ll most likely never have to worry about working again.
I don’t care about the money too much, but I’m happy for Laney.
It’ll set her up for life. I’m worried about Cade, though.
He’s already proven he can’t be trusted with large amounts of cash.
What will he do with it all? Will he gamble it away? Drink it away?
It might be his downfall.
“Have you heard from Laney today?” Dax asks. “How’s she doing?”
“How do you think? She’s not good. She might act like she’s got it all together, but she’s hurting.”
Darius shakes his head. “I don’t know why she’s insisting on staying at that shithole of a trailer.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Don’t let her hear you saying that.
It was her home for most of her life. She lost her mom right before the crash.
She hadn’t had time to process that or come to terms with it.
Hell, she didn’t even get the chance to bury her mom and say a proper goodbye.
It might not be what we’d choose to do, but we need to support what she wants. It won’t be forever.”
His lips thin. “It had better not be. I hate her being someplace else.”
Is that all that’s wrong with Darius? He’s missing Laney. I get that. I miss her, too.
He lets out a sigh. “You ever think it would have been better if we’d all been able to stay in the cabin? If we’d just carried on living our lives that way—living off the land, swimming in the river, not having to worry about anyone else’s opinions?”
I shake my head. “That life isn’t possible, Dax. Winter was coming in, and we’d never have survived it. We were wasting away as it was. We had no access to medicines. We were lucky to have made it out alive.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just dreaming. Never thought it would be possible to be homesick for a place that was never actually our home.”
I give a rueful smile. “Believe it or not, I know exactly what you mean.”
“Sometimes I get this strange feeling like the past month wasn’t real. That it was a dream—or a nightmare, depending on your opinion.”
“It was real, Dax. Trust me, it was more than real. You’ve spoken to the cops, to the airline, to the lawyers. Do you think they’d be bothering with all of that if it wasn’t real?”
He gives his head a slight shake. “Yeah, I know you’re right. It’s just a sensation I can’t shift.”
I wonder if him not being able to see is adding to his sense of…what…disconnection?
“Maybe you should speak to a therapist about this?” I suggest.
He huffs air out through his nose. “I’m not speaking to a therapist. I’m fine. It’s hardly surprising that I’m feeling a bit disconcerted, is it?”
“No, I suppose not.”
I’m still worried about him, though. I’m worried about all of them.
Laney said she wants to learn to find her own way in the world.
I want to tell her she doesn’t need to, that we’ll be right here for her, for as long as she needs.
Forever, I hope. But I know there’s still tension between her and Cade, and I can’t see an end to that right now.
Maybe space is what she needs. It’s not what I want, though, and neither do my sons.
I wish I could tell the world how I feel about her.
I’d stand on the rooftop and yell it at anyone who passed.
I don’t even care that people know both my sons are in love with her, too.
People should know she’s ours, that we’ll do anything for her—kill for her, if we had to.
I want people to know that if they mess with her, then they’ll have the three of us to deal with.
What we have together is special. We love her, and she loves us.
Why does society feel the need to demean it and turn it into something sordid?
Because they will. The first hint that there’s anything between us and Laney that traverses what society sees as being improper, and we’ll all be skinned alive for it.
It won’t matter that she’s not our blood relation or that nothing happened until she turned eighteen.
They’ll twist things around to make us look like abusers, and still make Laney out to be a whore.
They won’t actually care about how she is—it’ll all be for the headlines and the click bait.