Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Bryson
She’s the reason I know how to cook now. I can bake a cake like a boss these days, and it’s all thanks to her.
I’ve watched every single one of her cooking and baking tutorials on YouTube, and I’ve done my best to recreate all of them too. I’ve even subscribed to her newsletter.
I’ve come a long way.
Not as far as she has, though.
I can see the spark in her eye returning when she talks again now. She looks brighter and more full of life than she did the last time we spoke.
She probably doesn’t know it or see it, but she’s healing .
She looks like she’s moved on with her life.
Maybe now she’s in a place where we could really be something.
I haven’t stopped thinking about it, about her , since the day she left. I haven’t stopped worrying about whether or not I made the right decision. Not that it matters now, what’s done is done and it can’t be changed. That’s why I’ve never been one to dwell too much on the past, but when it comes to Sophia, I can’t help but think about the past, because she’s not here with me in the present. The past, and hope for the future, is all I have.
I tried to see what it would be like to move on, to meet someone else. I was so young when I met her, sometimes I wonder if maybe it was just teenage puppy love that I’ve built up to something more in my head.
I’ve tried dating. It didn’t go well. Six first dates in the last six months and I’ve never been able to bring myself to go for a second. There was nothing wrong with any of the girls, in fact some of them were sweet, and in a different situation, one of them could have been good for me. But my life isn’t another situation, it’s this situation, and I gave away my heart a long time ago.
I know I should have talked to her when I saw her in the courtroom that day. That was my moment. Josh was finally out of the picture – heard the sentence with my own ears – and more time had passed… but I couldn’t do it .
I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt like I was frozen and nothing would allow me to go over to her and ask her out. The look on her face when she saw me sitting there cut me deep. Whatever it was that I saw in her eyes made me feel like I couldn’t.
I don’t feel like that anymore.
She might not even be single anymore, but I don’t think life would be that cruel to me twice. I’ve always been a big believer in certain things happening for a reason, maybe it’s just me wanting to see something good in the bullshit, but I still believe the two of us are going to end up together in the long run, and when we finally do get our shit together and the time is right, that’ll be it. It’ll be a forever kind of thing.
I’ve been a good guy. I’ve been a good brother, a mediocre son, but a good human overall. That’s got to count for something.
I hit play on her latest video and sit back in my chair to watch her again. It’s a bit like torture, watching her talk and smile while she cooks but not being able to talk back to her. I know I’ve never been much of a talker, but that time I spent with her while she stayed with me was the most I’ve talked to anyone in years.
I wish I could talk back to her now.
I’m making notes on the cooking method for the cake she’s baking when my phone vibrates across the bench and startles me .
It’s my mother calling.
“Urgh,” I grunt.
She’s close to being the last person I want to talk to right now.
I love the woman, I really do, but I despise who she’s become. She’s so weak now. The fire she used to have inside her is long gone. She let him take it from her.
I want to make time for her still, I do, I just don’t want to do it when he’s around, and more so, when he’s gone, I don’t want to listen to my mum make excuses for him.
It makes me sick the way she worships him. I don’t know if it’s a self-preservation thing, or if she’s just that delusional, but either way, it makes me want to hurl.
The only person I share DNA with, who I actually want to speak to, is my sister.
I watch ‘Mum’ flash across the screen again and sigh before pausing the video and picking up the call.
“Hey, Mum.”
“Bryson, I was just about to have to try you again.”
Heaven forbid.
I roll my eyes. “Sorry, didn’t have my phone on me.”
A lie already. I wonder how many I’ll get through this time.
I’ll visit next week .
I hope Dad will be home to see you soon.
I miss you too.
Probably too many to count.
“We need to talk about your sister. She thinks she’s going to France next year with that boyfriend of hers.”
I stand corrected, this is a conversation I’m willing to be a part of. Mostly because I find it entertaining to think that my mother truly believes I’m going to be outraged and on her side with this one, but also because she has no clue it was all my idea.
Neither of my parents approve of Brent for Carley. They’ve spewed a bunch of bullshit reasons to her, but I know what it comes down to is that they don’t think he’s wealthy enough for her. He lives with his aunt in a small two bedroom house in town. It’s a perfectly nice home, but it’s no Decker mansion.
The most amusing part about it all is that they have no idea he’s sitting on a large inheritance from his parents. His father was a French politician. His parents were living in France when they passed away in some type of ‘accident’ when he was young. Carley thinks they were murdered, but the official ruling was a car crash. I doubt they’ll ever know for sure.
Brent was brought back to New Zealand with his aunt, his mother’s sister, who never touched a cent of the inheritance out of pure rage towards Brent’s father. She blamed him for her sister’s death, and no amount of time has changed that, so the money has remained in France, in investments, with the properties being cared for by employees until Brent turned eighteen. He’s probably worth a small fortune by now.
Carley and Brent are going to France to reconnect with his family and see his assets for themselves. I managed to convince them they should live there for at least a year. Brent owns his parents’ old house, and he has enough money that they can both focus on their studies and still live like royalty.
The only people who don’t like the idea is the two responsible for our DNA. They’re under the impression that Carley is going to be dragged through ‘rat-infested hostels’ and forced to eat nothing but ramen for a year.
Even if that was the case, I’d still tell her to go.
Carley is all for the idea of setting our parents straight, but Brent wants them to keep it to themselves. He’s a smart guy. I like him more as the years go by.
My parents are the type of people to suck the fun out of anything. They don’t need to get their hooks into Brent’s generational wealth. They’ve made their mind up about him already, and changing it now because of money would only prove how superficial they really are.
“She told me,” I reply to my mother.
“Well I hope you talked her out of it. Utterly absurd idea if I ever heard one. My baby girl, all the way in France, slumming it around with some boy who will never be good enough for her. Over my dead body.”
I really don’t know why she thinks she’s got a leg to stand on with this one. Carley isn’t a minor anymore. She’s an adult now, she’s finished school, and she’s free to make her own choices, and leave the country, as she sees fit. They can’t stop her, and given how headstrong Carley is, they won’t convince her otherwise. If anything, our mother thinking she can stop her, will only make Carley more determined to go.
Of course, my mother has her head far too far up her own ass to see that. Heaven forbid she be wrong about anything or anyone. You’d think she’d just be happy to see her daughter happy, but no, status is more important. I live for the day she finds out how wrong she’s been.
“I don’t think there’s any talking her out of this, Mum. And besides, it’ll be good for her. She’s young, she needs to go and experience things.”
“She can experience things here , preferably with someone more suited to her.”
This woman gives me the ick. She’s so fucking presumptuous. Money doesn’t make a person, but she wouldn’t know about that. Cashflow is about the only thing she truly cares about.
“Brent’s a good guy, and they’re going whether you like it or not. ”
“Bryson, so help me god, tell me that’s not what you said to her.”
I’ve run out of patience for this bullshit. I’ve got things to do, and being scolded by a woman who’s lost touch with how to parent isn’t one of them.
“I’ve got to go, Mum, I’ve got work soon.”
Look at that, squeezed in another lie.
“Bryson Decker, we need to talk about this.”
I hang up on her. It breaks me that this is what our relationship has come to, but I refuse to go out on a limb for someone who hasn’t had my back for a long, long time. She made her choices, I couldn’t give a flying fuck if she judges me when she doesn’t like mine.
I go back to the video and Sophia starts talking about how she goes to the local farmers markets whenever she can. She’s babbling about supporting small businesses and the fresh produce when it hits me.
I know exactly where we’re going to run into each other next.