Chapter 10 #2
“Glowing endorsement of a person right there,” I say dryly, but it feels good to talk like this. About hair and friends, not about my whole life being one unending series of disasters.
Wizard starts walking again. Slow steps.
He makes it easy for me to keep pace. I thought he’d power walk for blocks, burning off his restless energy, but the second we got outside he breathed out and let it all go.
He set one foot in front of the other beside me, peaceful, hopeful, always such a solid anchor.
Part of me wants to beg him to stop being so wonderful because I can’t take it.
He steps right in front of me so that I can’t escape him.
“Will you come with me or is it too weird?” A new, tender light appears in his eyes that’s all him, fed by those deep streams inside.
“We put an addition on the cabin and there’s a big bedroom and a few small ones.
This definitely isn’t a creepy kind of thing where I take you out there and you’re trapped and we have to share a bed.
If you do want to do this, you’ll drive your car. You can follow me on my bike.”
I owe him the apology of a lifetime. All he has to do is ask, and I’ll go anywhere with him, I’m so desperate to give it. Even if it’s the worst idea. “Sure. I’ll go.”
“Really?”
I try to be casual about this, which is an epic fucking joke in itself. “We’re both going out of our skin. Jamesgate was bad enough, but this?” I suck in a deep breath. “Going somewhere neutral might help us clear our minds. Talk it out. Or not talk. But get through whatever this all is.”
“I…”
“And your parents. Maybe they’ll come around.” Probably not. I think we both know that.
“Likely not,” Wizard says, confirming my thoughts. “They’re not normal when it comes to James. They never have been.”
Wizard deserved the kind of parents who adored him every bit as much as they adored their athletic son.
Their house is still like a shrine to James and all his high school and college accomplishments.
Framed photos, jerseys, footballs, all the trophies and medals.
Wizard has one lone, framed photo on their wall.
His graduation photo, red cap skewed a little awkwardly, that smile that could make the whole world right, no matter what’s wrong, so prominently on display as he stares into the camera, his green eyes burning with a fire that we all seem to have read wrong.
“That’s partly why he is the way he is,” I say, scrambling to pick up the thread of conversation after pausing a beat too long.
“Never takes accountability, jealous, petty, cold. Calculating. A bully. He hasn’t moved on from his high school glory days.
It’s like they feed his ego delusions. Sorry.
That’s awful, and it wasn’t all bad.” I curl my toes into my shoes like I’m trying to anchor myself to the ground.
“I get it. He’s my brother.” Wizard’s voice holds more tenderness and love than James will ever deserve.
“I grew up with him. I saw it all. He could be fun too. Even great when he wanted to be. I don’t know why he didn’t want it more often.
It’s like he thought stamping out the good made him more hyper masculine. ”
That makes sense to me. I can talk about this with some certainty.
“He did like to be like that. His friends too. They were all that way. Incredibly obnoxious. They fed off each other’s energy.
They were a group that tried to outdo each other in caring only about themselves.
It was so gross. I think that there was a lot going on with James that I never saw. ”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I never would have thought he’d have any addictions let alone gambling. He was a health freak. He didn’t smoke or even drink except socially.”
“I don’t know if he ever knew what was going on inside of him.
Or if he did, it seems like maybe he was in a lot of pain and he didn’t know what to do with it, so he channeled it into sport when he was younger and then loud energy and being a man’s man.
Maybe I’m wrong. I’m not making excuses.
But people are complex and the whole good versus evil argument is pretty underdeveloped. ”
Wizard’s understanding, his wisdom, and kindness, are so lost on his family.
He stuffs his hands into his pockets. He starts to move off in the direction we came from, back to the club.
I recognize that burning energy in him, embers stoked with fresh wood.
He wants to go to this cabin, and that likely means taking care of a lot of work stuff before then. He’s already itching to get to it.
I follow and he slows his pace until we’re walking side by side.
I glance at him a few times. He’s not shut down, but he is guarded.
Not against me, but because now isn’t the time to pick all of this apart.
It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. I wish I could snatch time back, but I can’t.
There’s only now and tomorrow, and this cabin.
If I can just find the right thing to do and say for Wizard, offer him a fraction of what he deserves, then I’ll count my whole life worth living.
***
The clubhouse is still eerily quiet. Everyone either seems to be out or has already trickled back in and is sleeping.
Wizard walks me right to my door. He stands beside it like a sentinel after he punches in the code.
“Esme.” He waits until I force myself to look at him, even though I’m flayed raw and can’t hide a single damn thing I’m thinking.
“You know that you’re not some problem to be solved, right? ”
Fuck. It’s not just the world. He’s also willing to crawl inside of me and take on my own personal demons.
It’s so tempting to lean forward and let his massive arms encircle me. To rest my head against his shoulder and chest.
I mean to have a filter and not let words slip out unaccounted for, but tonight isn’t my night. “I wish I could be the woman you see when you look at me. She seems so fucking—awesome. I wish I could be who you needed me to be, but I can’t even figure out who I need me to be.”
Wizard’s hand grazes the air. For a few seconds, I think he’s going to cup my face, and my insides go wild, but it lands on my shoulder.
Strong. Warm. Comforting. Solid. He squeezes gently.
“You’re that woman already. You just need to look with different eyes.
As for the figuring, you have all the time in the world.
” The specters of a thousand things we still need to say hang between us, but Wizard’s eyes never lose their brightness and his kindness never fades.
“Have a good sleep. I’m hoping we can leave in the afternoon, but I’ll let you know. There’s no rush, if that’s too soon.”
“No,” I assure him, maybe a little too quickly. “No, that’s fine. Whenever you want to go, is fine.”
“Goodnight,” he says, even though it’s after four in the morning, he clearly has no plans to sleep, and it’s been anything but good.
I still respond in kind. “Goodnight.” My words hang like shooting stars and a wish before he leaves me alone.
The cabin might be away from Hart. It might be a different place, different scenery, but we’re still the same people.
I don’t have the right words. I don’t know how to make this better.
I do know that I’d pay whatever it was to find them and mean them, even if it was far more than James owed those men.
Of course it will be. The cost of a soul isn’t measured in money.