Chapter 1
Ryan
Present
I stay sitting in the car for over an hour, never taking my eyes off her street, with her two-floor house, just like she wanted.
It has a garden at the front, with flowers framing the property; the lawn in the centre is trimmed to perfection.
The white window frames, the red door. The room above the garage with its freshly-painted shutter.
A fence surrounds the house, also white.
Everything looks new, full of expectation, of the future. Full of life.
A life lived with somebody else.
It’s all just what she always wanted, just as she planned for years, as she had dreamed as a little girl.
Because I know. I was there. I was there every day.
Everything was how it should have been, except for one insignificant detail.
Me.
A minivan parks right in front of the house, and I instinctively shrink myself down into my seat, for fear of being noticed.
The driver door opens and a golden head of hair appears, tousled by the wind.
She opens the back door and leans inside, only to appear a few seconds later with a little girl in her arms.
She pulls up the hood of the girl’s jacket, smiles, and gives her a kiss on the nose.
She closes the back door and slowly makes her way towards the house.
She looks for her keys in her bag then puts the key in the lock.
She opens the door, and they both disappear inside, taking with them what remains of my heart.
I stay there, with my gaze fixed firmly on the door, not really knowing what I’m waiting for: maybe for someone to shake me, scream at me and wake me up, tell me that it was all just a bad dream.
Someone to reassure me, to take my hand. To wait for me to come home, hug me and tell me that they missed me.
Someone who decided not to do any of these things. Not with me.
But she’s doing them with someone else.
I shake my head, trying to piece together any remaining dignity I have left, but it seems to have disintegrated, along with everything else.
I start the engine and get into gear, but before I can pull away, another car parks in front of the house. I grip the steering wheel tight and try to resist: I was not ready for this.
But I stay and watch anyway.
I watch him approach the door, and I see her open it before he can even knock. Then, with that damn smile again, she turns to someone that is not me.
They kiss, on the lips. He puts his hands around her and pulls her towards him.
Those are not my hands. They belong to someone else.
I instinctively look down at my own hands, trying to remember the sensation of her skin under my fingers, but it’s been so long that my mind has deleted every trace of her memory.
I can’t do anything but ask myself how it must be for her, to feel someone else’s fingers graze her skin.
If she gets the same goosebumps, the same emotions.
If she still wants them to touch her again, forever.
Like she did with mine.
They exchange a few words, then they both go inside.
Together.
And I stay there, outside.
Alone.
I stayed there, shut outside as if I had been shut out from my own life: as if it had been taken from me, and I didn’t understand why.
Because I can’t bring myself to understand what I could have done wrong, what I could have said, or what could have made her decide that it shouldn’t have been me holding her in my arms when I came home.
I would have painted the door red for her.
I would have mowed the lawn every Monday morning, on my day off.
I would have built her that damn shutter with my own hands, while she watched me through the front window.
I would have planted her favourite flowers around the house: I would have asked my dad to help me, who understands gardening a hell of a lot more than I do.
I would have laughed, cried, breathed and sweated every moment with her.
I would have given her everything, just as I always did, and would have continued to do until the end of my days: just like I was ready to promise her. I would have given her my life and, in exchange, I would have asked her for only one thing: to let me stay with her.
It hurts. More than it did two years ago. More than a month ago. More than yesterday.
It hurts more and more every day, and there’s nothing that can ease the pain.
“Where the hell were you? I tried calling you at least five times.”
I go into Ian’s house and head straight for the kitchen. “I need something.”
I open the fridge, but inside I can only find vegetables, meat and energy drinks. “What the fuck have you done to this place?” I ask, slamming the fridge door shut.
“You want something to calm those nerves?”
I lean against the counter while Ian opens one of the lower fridge drawers. He produces a bottle, grabbing a glass.
“Here you go,” he says, pouring me some.
I down the whole thing in one swig, and push the glass towards him for another. Ian shakes his head disapprovingly, but obliges me anyway.
“You shouldn’t drink that stuff, you know. We have training tomorrow…”
“Don’t start.”
“Ryan…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, ending the conversation.
“Mmm…”
“I’ve just had a really bad day, okay?”
The front door opens, and Riley’s voice startles us from behind.
“Oh, there you are!” she goes up to Ian, who hugs her tenderly.
My stomach tightens.
“I was working late.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Dinner’s nearly ready.”
“I’m starving.”
“Thought you might be,” Ian smiles, caressing Riley’s stomach. It takes everything for me not to cry out in exasperation.
“Do you have to do that?”
“Oh, you’re here,” Riley turns to me, pretending to have only just noticed my presence.
I smirk at her and she returns the gesture, coming towards me and giving me a kiss on the cheek that I can’t seem to shake.
“I’m happy to see you,” she says.
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” I detach myself from her, pretending to be annoyed, but the truth is that Riley is the only woman whose presence I can tolerate – apart from my mother, obviously.
“I’m going to get rid of this dress, then I’ll be back down.”
She leaves us alone, heading upstairs, as Ian follows her with his gaze.
“Is that really necessary?”
“Mmm?”
“You’re so… Christ, Ian, have you seen yourself? What’ve you done with my brother? Or, should I say, what has she done?”
“Are you actually pissed off at me, or at yourself for sneaking around outside that house again?”
“What? What the fuck do you think of me? I don’t know what you’re talking about…” I stumble over my words.
“You have to stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Making it worse for yourself. It’s not helping anything. You have to just leave it now, Ryan, for you and for everyone.”
I shake my head and turn away, heading towards the living room where the table has been set for four people.
I turn back towards him. “Fuck, no!”
“What’s going on?” Riley comes down the stairs, tying up her hair. She’s wearing a tracksuit, with one of my brother’s sweatshirts. Despite it being way too big for her, it’s impossible not to see her pregnancy bump; I instinctively close my eyes, trying to escape the painful image.
“Everything okay, Ryan?” she asks, kindly.
I nod and sit down on the arm of the sofa, just as someone knocks at the door.
“Did you really have to?” I turn to Ian.
“He invited himself.”
Riley opens the door: already his voice grates on me.
“Here’s my favourite girl” he exclaims loudly, Ian snorting derisively next to me. “How’s uncle’s little girl?”
Riley laughs and lets Nick hug her, while Ian starts to bristle next to me – I can see all the veins in his arm begin to pulse.
“Oh, she’s great. She sleeps all day and dances all night.”
“She’ll be a party queen.”
“Please, don’t say that out loud. Ian’s already a nervous wreck and she’s not even been born yet – I don’t even want to imagine how he’ll be after.”
My brother and Riley are having a baby girl. I can already predict about eighteen years-worth of total havoc.
“Aww, look, little Ryan’s here too,” Nick pisses me off right away. “How’s it going?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Wow, I’m suffocated by your affection.”
“I could suffocate you with my hands instead and finish what I started.”
“Boys, not in my house, okay?” Ian steps between us, playing the father. “Go and wash your hands, we’ll be eating soon.”
Christ, now he sounds like our mother too.
After a few minutes, we sit at the table. I’m sitting across from that dickhead – I’ll have to keep my gaze fixed firmly on my plate so that I don’t have to look at his smug face all evening.
I’ve been given a beer, though, which is a small consolation. Ian said that I’d already drunk too much for tonight and that I should stick to water, but Riley took pity and passed me a beer under the table. I guess, all things considered, she’s not so bad.
“So, Nick, how was Cape Town?”
“A dream, as always. You really should take Riley there, Ian.”
Nick’s just got back from one of his photo shoots.
“Oh, sure. I’ll take her everywhere, as soon as I can,” Ian says, and I can already feel the vomit making its way up my throat.
“Do you really have to be like that?” The words escape from my mouth.
All three of them look at me quizzically.
“In front of me… of us. Of everyone, for fuck’s sake! I used to prefer you, you know? When you were a cynical bastard.”
“Ryan…” Nick tries to shut me up, but I glare at him.
“You shouldn’t even be speaking to me!”
“Please, calm down…” he tries to reason with me.
“Mind your own fucking business.”
“Ryan!” Ian bolts up from his chair.
I do the same, my chair screeching across the floor. “What do you want, Ian? What do you all want from me? You all treat me like a little boy, like I’m stupid, like someone who…”
“We treat you as you deserve to be treated,” Nick interjects, Ian immediately holding back my arm before I can wring his neck with it. “When you start to act like a man, then maybe…”
“Don’t tell me that you, of all people, are about to give me a lesson about maturity? I won’t accept anything from you, Nick.”
“So are all our dinners going to end up like this?” says Ian, visibly upset.
“You should’ve thought of that before you invited him along.”
“You’re in our house, Ryan. If you want to continue to be invited, then behave like an adult and have some respect.”
“Oh, well, if that’s how it is then I’ll just get going. Then I can leave this nice family portrait that I don’t ever want to be a part of.” I walk away from the table and make my way quickly towards the front door, but I stop with my hand on the door handle.
I turn to them. “Sorry, Riley,” I say, through gritted teeth, and then I make my leave.
I go up to my car, the keys in my hand, but before I can open the door, someone stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
I turn, furious.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I shout in Nick’s face. “Can’t you just leave me in peace?”
“No, I can’t. You’re my brother.”
“Oh, really…? It didn’t seem like I was your brother when you decided to…”
“For God’s sake Ryan! I made a mistake, okay? I can’t turn back time, I can’t undo it. But I swear that I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that there’s not a day goes by where I don’t want to spit at my own reflection in the mirror.”
“Your apology isn’t enough. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“So tell me what I can do. I want my brother back.”
I laugh bitterly. “You’ve lost your brother.”
“I want him back” he says again, determined.
“What, Ian’s not enough for you?”
“Ryan…” Nick sighs. “I want us to be a family again. Mum and Dad need us – they don’t need to see us fighting all the time. Ian needs us: he’s about to have a baby and I don’t want her to be born into a family full of hate and revenge.”
I shake my head, exasperated. “Since when did any of this bother you? You’ve always thought only about yourself, screwed everything up for as long as I’ve known you. You’ve never cared about anything – what’s changed?”
“I’ve grown up, Ryan. And you should too.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Let’s give it a try, what do you say? Just let me try.”
“That doesn’t take back what you’ve done. I can’t forget.”
Nick nods. “I understand and it’s okay, a part of you will always resent me.”
“A part of me hates you and wants you dead.”
“But just a small part, right?”
I snort.
“Well, let’s work on the part that doesn’t want me dead.”
“That part is tiny.”
He shrugs. “It’s enough for me.”
“I don’t understand why you care so much. You don’t need me, you’re fine without me or my support.”
“Maybe that’s true. But, Ryan, you need me, and I just want to be there for you. We’re the O’Connors, and we’re always here for you, even when you think you don’t want us around. And don’t ever forget that.”