Chapter 12
Twelve
Wes
I stood there way too long watching the ghost she left in her wake. Her words haunted me as much as the image of her saying them did.
Was she right? I swallowed hard, turning to lean against the cool, painted brick wall. She might be, and that’s the reason, the only reason, I wasn’t chasing her down, and forcing her to admit she was lying and face her innate submissive needs.
Since the day of my older brother’s accident, I’d been needed.
And since my parents and older siblings were too busy with their own lives to do anything to help him, I’d become his everything.
Before then, I was a menopause kid who’d spent most of his time with nannies.
But being needed by him, I’d felt seen. I’d felt wanted. I’d felt like someone.
Jesus. I slid down the wall, sitting my ass on the floor.
Did my whole personality stem from this? My sense of social justice, my moral compass, my values? Did it all stem from my hatred of a family who’d abandoned my disabled brother. Did my entire lifespan’s purpose boil down to this childhood tragedy?
I managed to stumble through my shift, thankfully not having to deal with anything harder than stitches, a family with food poisoning, a minor motor vehicle accident that resulted in a mild concussion and some small contusions, and a man having transient ischemic attacks.
I was still exhausted when I opened the door to the house though.
Quietly, I set my bag on the bench by the door.
I suddenly remembered Marni had asked me to help her with her school project when I saw Jesse and Marni hunched over a cardboard box together.
They were laughing and hadn’t even heard the door.
I stood there and just listened, both proud and a little crushed.
Their banter made me smile through my despair though.
They were supposed to be making a model of a cell out of Jell-O and produce for her science class, but instead they were tossing grapes into the air and attempting to catch them in their mouths.
They both burst out laughing when they accidentally ate the last grape, or rather the nucleus of the cell, from the bowl.
“Not going to have to worry about the mitochondria disappearing,” Jesse said.
Marni scrunched her nose at the thought of the celery stalk they were using to represent mitochondria celebrating its lack of demise. “Ew, celery. It needs to disappear!”
“Yeah, ew.”
“We better go back to the store,” Jesse said. “And we’re getting two bags of grapes.”
Marni laughed, until she turned and saw me. “Oh, Uncle Wes is home! Don’t worry, Jesse, you can go back to whatever it was you were doing. Uncle Wes can help me finish.”
The look on Jesse’s face tore me up. He was trying. Trying his damnedest and here I was fucking it all up. Dammit. Mira was right. It was time for me to take a step back. A giant one. And if that meant I couldn’t don the hero cape I seemed to need to wear, so be it.
“Actually, I forgot about it and made plans.”
Marni frowned, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly that most people might miss it. She was pissed.
“Yeah, fine okay,” she said and turned her back to me.
“Shall we go grab the grapes then?” Jesse asked, sounding as cheerful as he could manage after the blatant rejection.
“Can you go? I don’t feel like leaving the house.” She put her hands on her abdomen. “Cramps and all that.”
I almost stepped in. Almost. She was clearly being pouty and using an excuse neither of us men could touch with a ten-foot pole without sounding like total assholes. She walked away, heading to her room and Jesse looked at me.
I shrugged. And within seconds of Marni’s bedroom door shutting, a Taylor Swift song started blaring.
“I’m sorry, bro. I wished I’d been five minutes later.”
“Me too. For once I finally thought I’d made some headway.”
“Well, maybe you’ll do better if I’m gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean? Like tonight or…” He waved an arm toward Marni’s bedroom door which was firmly closed. “I can’t do this alone.”
“Actually, I think you’re both better off without me. Instead of me being a bridge for you two to come together, I think I’m a dam. Or to put it another way, I’m a floatation device that you’re both hanging on to and it’s stopping you from learning to swim.”
“Bro, I can’t.” He looked terrified.
“I’m leaving you for a few days. We can reevaluate after that. And this isn’t just some tough love bullshit, Jess, I need to figure some shit out.”
“Women troubles?”
I nodded.
He looked back at Marni’s door. “Maybe we were never meant to understand them.”
“Maybe not,” I replied, with a small grin.
“But that doesn’t stop us from loving them.”
“No, it sure doesn’t.”
I packed my stuff and then knocked on Marni’s door.
She opened it with a huff and rolled her eyes. “What?”
“Is that how you talk to me?” I asked, my tone firm and my lips flat.
She sighed. “No. Sorry,” she said, sounding sulky.
“Good. May I come in?”
She stepped out of the way, and I walked in. “I like what you guys did on the project.”
She flopped onto her bed, and I sat on her gaming chair. “It was actually fun.”
“So why’d you pull that crap?”
She shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Are you punishing him?” I leaned back in the chair. “It looks like it.”
“Maybe.” She twirled a chunk of hair around her finger. “I’m just angry all the time. It’s not fair.”
“Who are you angry at?” I knew the answer, but it wasn’t something I could just tell her. She needed to figure it out on her own.
“Mom.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I’m angry at Mom.” Her eyes moved to the side. “But how can I be? She’s dead.”
“Your feelings are valid. She kept you from your dad and then in the most awful way, she dumped you on each other. I’m mad at her too.”
Marni sniffled. “Because she dumped me on you?”
“Nope. I love you. You’re one of the best things in my life. Your dad loves you too, though.”
Her eyes snapped to mine and then away as fast as they’d come.
“You both looked so happy when I walked in. But, Marn, you should have seen his face when you tried to ditch him. The poor guy.”
She slumped. “I know. I’m such an asshole.”
I didn’t call her on her cursing. That was something to worry about another day. Today’s worries were big enough.
“What are you going to do?”
Again her eyes flicked to mine. “Do?”
“Yeah, are you going to keep punishing him for your mom’s decisions because he’s here, or are you going to be the mature brainiac I know and love and show yourself and him some grace and work together to get through this?”
“It isn’t his fault.” She rubbed her hands on her jean-clad thighs.
“Nope. And you aren’t the only one she left without answers. He has a right to be angry too. He’ll never know why she kept you from him. That’s gotta sting.”
She nodded and looked at the door.
“And he missed out on watching you grow up to be this amazing young woman. And his own best friend knows more about his daughter than he does.” I took a deep breath and shook my head.
“You lost your mom, but you gained a dad. One who’s clueless but loves you so much.”
She sat a little taller. “He does?”
“So much. He lost your childhood. Your mom denied him that. So are you going to deny him the few years he has left of you as a kid, too?”
That did it. Tears burst from her eyes, and she started sobbing. I held my arms open, but she didn’t head for me. Instead, she headed for the door where her dad stood against the jamb, his eyes welling.
I considered going to a hotel, or motel, or even just staying at the hospital in an on-call room, but somehow, I ended back up at Rawhide. It was stupid—the commute alone made it moronic. But also, being so close to Mira and not being able to see her, was unnecessary torture.
A small part of me still had hope though. That maybe she’d stop being so stubborn and she’d come to me like Marni had gone to Jesse. But as days turned into weeks and I didn’t even see her, I began to think it was hopeless.
I worked out a schedule where I worked several days in a row and slept in the on-call room and then had several days off at Rawhide.
I used the pool and the gym and even went to the Dungeon, but I avoided the university and the grounds near it as it there were mines buried there.
I played with a few subs and watched lots of scenes, but none of it took away the hollow feeling I had without her.
“Hey,” Silas said, walking up to me one night as I watched a shibari scene.
“Hello, Silas. How’re you tonight?”
“I’m free. Want a scene partner?” he asked. “You look like you might need one and I saw you the other day. You can work a flogger.”
I gave him a half smile. “Is that so?”
He shrugged. “I watched, but I also heard about it.”
“Sure,” I replied.
“Unless you’re saving yourself for someone?”
I shot him a hard look. “You got something to say, kid?”
He held both hands up in surrender and shook his head.
“No? Okay then.” I pointed to the bar. “Let’s negotiate.”
Half an hour later, I had him handcuffed to a St. Andrew’s Cross, his skimpy underwear was shoved up between his ass cheeks and his pale skin was marked with crisscross stripes from the flogger. He was practically humming like a fine-tuned ’67 Chevy.
“You going to talk back again, little boy?” I asked Silas as I flicked the falls of the flogger on my hand making him visibly shiver.
“No, Sir,” he replied, and I rewarded him with a gentle flick of the tails across his bottom. He moaned.
“Good boy.” I uncuffed him and helped him down, offering him a bottle of water and guided him to the full-length mirror while I asked a service sub named Lisa to fetch us a robe, not one of the warm fluffy ones but a light silk one.
Silas still had sweat beading on his upper lip, and even though he’d cool down quickly, I’d given him a full-body flogging and silk would be lighter against his skin.
“You took that beautifully. And look at that glow—gorgeous.”