Round 51
ROUND FIFTY-ONE
ROSE
I’m not sure if I’ve come out tonight determined to learn more about myself…
or about the man seated across from me, but in as little as a few interactions, I’ve come to understand that Darcy Bisek likes expensive wine, places his phone on the table, screen-side down, sits with perfect posture always, and that he stares.
A lot.
Does he not need to blink? Ever?
“I’ve noticed I spout off did you knows like my mouth is a cannon and facts are confetti.” I settle back with bad posture, but not before selecting a breadstick from the basket in the center of our table. “Did I always do that?”
He swirls his glass of wine so the liquid glitters under candlelight.
“Yes. Always. It was a fun party trick you pulled out often, especially during social situations that involved our colleagues. We both work in male-dominated fields, and being so beautiful meant fools often made assumptions about your intellect.”
Surprised, I nibble on the end of my breadstick, my brow popping high on my forehead. “People assumed I was dumb?”
“Only once each.” He chuckles. “I always enjoyed when you’d let them droll on for a little while, puff their chests, and talk down at you.
They considered themselves quite superior and happily dug their own graves, so to speak.
” He takes a slow sip of his wine, as though contemplating the fruity flavor.
“And then you’d bring the hammer down and make them look stupid. ”
Competitive. We knew that about me already.
“In fact, I fell victim to your ruse early on. You were young and stunning, and I was…” He considers, then settles with a gentle snicker.
“A mere mortal. I was twenty-five years old, and most of my work week was spent with blue-collar men. Builders. Contractors. Civil works folks. I was one of three brothers, and my father, while a good man, required what my mother described as significant training.”
“Training? That’s an interesting word choice.”
“Family joke.” He grins. “Regardless, I’d crammed my foot firmly inside my mouth almost as soon as we met, and I was left scrambling, trying to fix things before you decided I wasn’t worth your time. Kinda like now.”
Does he feel like he’s scrambling? Am I making him scramble?
“Do I have any siblings?” I cross my legs beneath the table, brushing breadstick crumbs from my thighs. “Nieces or nephews on my side of the family?”
He shakes his head, almost sorrowful in his role as messenger. Then he nods, his eyes softening.
“Yes and no? I’m afraid you’re sending mixed signals.”
He chokes out a nervous laugh, wheezing and covering the sound with a sip of his wine.
“Honestly, I haven’t not felt like an asshole since I arrived in Plainview, because your life happened the way it happened, and all the bad things were spread out over many years.
That made it so we could face each event together.
At a much more reasonable, manageable pace.
But dropping it all on you in the space of an afternoon or two.
” He hooks a finger into the collar of his shirt, pulling it away from his throat. “You had a brother.”
My stomach tumbles, my brows crumbling with it. “Had?”
He sighs. “Seth. He was three years older than you, and from all you’ve told me, he was your best friend and your mortal enemy. Sibling bickering was a staple within your relationship.”
“From what I told you?” I’m a broken record, repeating his words back at him like I have nothing more intelligent to say.
But with every morsel of information I receive, I swim in a world stranger than the one I woke up in, with my memories wiped and no clue who I was.
Stranger than looking into a kind doctor’s eyes and realizing I didn’t know where I was.
Or why I was there. I didn’t even know which flavor of juice I preferred: orange or apple.
“M-my brother died?” My words come out on a rasping, aching croak. “But you didn’t know him?”
“He was a war hero. Army ranger.” His Adam’s apple bobs, fighting with his collar.
“He fell in combat a few weeks after we met. You stood me up on our third date. Or so I thought. We’d planned a nice evening where I was going to cook for you.
Prove to you I was worthy,” he jokes. He tries to, anyway.
“I’d prepared everything, nervous as hell, because I’d realized how special you were, and I knew, even then, I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life.
Does that feel weird?” His voice changes, from storytelling mode to something a little more animated.
He sits forward at the table and wrinkles his nose.
“I know this is probably overwhelming, because I’m speaking of you like I’ve known you forever—which, I feel like I have.
But in your mind, I imagine it feels like we met… well… yesterday.”
I nibble on the inside of my lip and lift my shoulder, shrugging. “It’s a little weird.”
“Do you want me to stop?” He sets his wine down and rests on his elbows. “I can tell you about your family without mentioning our relationship if you’d prefer. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“This is why we’re here, right?” I bounce-bounce-bounce my foot beneath the table, brutally aware of the phone crushed beneath my backside. “I want to know everything. So, my brother?”
“Right.” He shoves back again, jittery and nervous in his movements.
“So, you were only eighteen at the time. Seth was twenty-one. You weren’t sure exactly where he was, since they kept that information private.
I was expecting you at my home by seven, so when seven-thirty came and went, I tried to call.
By eight, I was worried. By nine, I figured you’d decided you were no longer interested, but didn’t quite know how to tell me. ”
“I was at home, dealing with my brother’s loss?”
He drops his chin, gently nodding. “You’d checked your phone at some point around ten and saw my calls and texts.
That’s when you replied, letting me know what had happened.
Your parents were distraught, and you were all alone, so I came over to your house and sat with you.
I’m not sure we’ve been apart since then.
” He tilts his head to the side. “Well, until this year, that is.”
“That’s…” Is it normal to grieve a brother I don’t remember?
A war hero I should know, in my soul, even if my memories have gone blank?
“That’s a lot of loss for a young woman to experience.
” I bring my eyes up to his and try for a smile.
“Did you know relationships that start during, or shortly after, a traumatic event are far more likely to fail? They typically hinge on unhealthy attachments and a bond that is neither strong nor sustainable.”
He grins, nodding like he’s had this conversation a million times in the past. “I did know that.”
“Do you think our relationship was love, the way love is meant to be? Or a trauma bond and a young woman desperately searching for a buoy to cling to during life’s storms?”
“Uh, w-well—”
“At eighteen, I was still a child. Sheltered. Graduating from high school and finding my way in the real world. Perhaps I thought it exciting that an older man found me attractive, but before I had time to unpack those silly, schoolgirl feelings, I lost my brother. Then my grandfather. Then my parents.”
“It’s…” His expression turns forlorn. Sad, but with a hint of impatience, too. “I need to remind myself that you’ve lost the foundation of who we are. That I’m not talking to that Rose anymore.”
“Why? Would that Rose not have asked that question?”
He sighs. “If she thought it, she never voiced it. And I won’t lie, if she had, it would’ve broken my heart a little bit.”
“Will you humor me? For the sake of what we’re doing here.”
He flattens his lips, picking up his wine and swirling the liquid in the glass.
“I think you and I were more than a trauma bond. I’ve certainly always felt so.
You went through a lot over the years, but you approached every obstacle with grace and dignity and sensibility far exceeding your age.
” He folds his arm across his stomach, his shoulders drawing closer.
“Seth’s death rocked you, which was an entirely expected and reasonable emotional response.
As a result, you sought the help of a therapist, and together, you worked through the aftermath of loss. ”
My pulse jumps and stutters. My brows shoot high on my forehead. “Did I continue to see this therapist long-term? What’s their name? Requesting their notes would be extremely beneficial in rediscovering who I am, don’t you think?”
“Certainly. I could get her details over to you later, if you wish. Doctor Mara was a dear friend of my mother’s; she’ll have all that information tucked away.
You saw her for about a year after Seth passed.
Weekly at first, and then monthly toward the end.
You stopped because you felt better, but when your grandfather died, those old emotions resurfaced, so you returned. ”
“What about when my parents died?”
He shakes his head, staring down at his wine.
“Doctor Mara was already at the end of her career when she took you on at my mother’s request. By the time your parents passed, she’d officially retired and closed her practice, and you had no interest in finding someone else or rehashing the past with a new therapist. During that same period, Doctor Mara had received a devastating health diagnosis and shortly after, had succumbed—”
“Her, too? Geez.” I laugh. It’s ridiculous and humorless. Agitating and frustrating. “I shall refer to myself as the Angel of Death from now on. Sounds like knowing me is quite a risk to take.”
“It sounds so much worse when it’s all lumped together.
You’re receiving seven years of news all crushed into a single discussion, but each of these events took place over a significant amount of time.
Your brother wasn’t even stateside when he passed, but he was serving his country, bravely defending our freedom.
It’s what he wanted to do. Your grandfather died of a disease.
Your parents’ death was a tragic accident.
And although losing Doctor Mara was painful for you, just as the others were, she was an older woman who had lived a good, long life.
She was in her eighties by the time she retired.
None of that was your fault, Rose.” He leans across the table, trying—but failing—to take my hand.
His eyes shutter with pain as I shrink backwards. His lips firm into flat lines. Then he settles for patting the table instead. “You’ve always taken everyone else’s problems on as your own. You’re a fixer.” Pulling back, he glances to the right and makes room for the server to set our plates down.
His first, then mine.
“Your rigatoni, madam.”
“Thank you.” I glance up at the man in a crisp white shirt and a spotless black apron tied at his waist, and once he sets my plate down, I meet his bright eyes. “It smells amazing.”
He flashes a wide smile. “I hope you enjoy your meal.” He takes a step away, folding into an almost bow and sweeping his arm through the air. Then he turns on his heels and bustles back to the kitchen.
“You’ve always drawn attention.” Darcy picks up his fork, his eyes shifting across to the still-swinging kitchen door. “Too beautiful for your own good.”
I select my fork and poke the steaming pasta, inhaling the delightful scent all the way to the base of my lungs.
Scooping a small amount up, I bring it to my lips and hum because it tastes as good as it looks.
Covering my mouth, I focus back on Darcy.
“I’m not sure I understand your meaning.
Thanking a server for bringing my food is good manners, don’t you agree? ”
“Of course. But it’s been my experience over the last seven years that men cannot help falling in love with you.
It takes just a smile. A single muttered word.
Eye contact.” His eyes flicker between mine.
“I lost count a long time ago. But I assure you, Rose, they always wished it were them sitting across from you, and not me.”
“I don’t know about that. I think it would be a dark world if I assumed every single person who was ever nice to me was nice only because they wanted a romantic relationship.
Just as it would suck to think society assumed my manners were something they were not.
” I tuck loose hair behind my ear and scoop more rigatoni onto my fork. “Did we live together?”
“Yes. We did.” He blows on his dinner, carefully placing the piping hot pasta on his tongue.
Covering his mouth while he chews and swallows, his eyes dance with playfulness.
“You officially moved into my home three years ago, though for the three years before that, you stayed over most nights, anyway. By the time we made it official, there wasn’t much left to move. ”