24 - Brie
An Unveiling
~
Brie
We had scoured the pharmacy for anything that could help break Lexi’s fever.
I loaded our basket up with meds, more antiseptic spray, and everything Gunner thought we might one day need, just because it was in the children’s section.
Tobias spent a few minutes firing questions at the tired pharmacist, and then we left.
The drive home was uneventful. We all sat anxiously, hoping to return to the cabin without incident. Gunner drove faster. Now that he knew exactly what lay ahead, he navigated it with ease. Tobias leaned forward and was out of the car the second it stopped moving.
Back at the cabin, Gideon sat watching Lexi.
She was asleep, curled up on the couch with a little blanket over her.
Her fever had already come down a little.
She was going to be okay. He watched her intently.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been checking if she was breathing.
Gunner joined the watch, taking his post on the armchair without a word.
“We should move her. There’s a draft coming in from the window,” Gideon said softly.
I didn’t feel the draft. I doubted there was one, but he needed to feel like he was doing something, even though there really was nothing to do but wait.
I gave Lexi the medicine and followed the procession upstairs. Gideon carried her, with Gunner making sure she was properly covered. Tobias was hyper-alert, watching for a sign of anything.
My worry stemmed from guilt. I already knew Lexi would be okay. Her fever would break soon, and she would feel a little out of it the next day. But she would be back to her normal, energetic self in no time.
Gideon put her down on her bed, and for a few seconds, we all just stood around watching her fall back asleep.
“I’m not leaving,” Gunner declared, sitting down on the armchair near Lexi’s bed.
“Neither am I,” Gideon said, lying down on the floor. “In case she needs water or wakes up or something,” he added, as if he needed to justify staying or maybe mask his guilt and his fear.
“Fine, we’ll take shifts,” Tobias agreed. He leaned down and kissed Lexi on the forehead, then led me out of the bedroom.
We stood in the hallway for a moment, staring out into nothing.
We had a lot to talk about, but I didn’t want to go near any of it.
Not our complicated connection, not what happened to Lexi, and definitely not the possibility of my having to leave.
I was exhausted. The day had taken everything out of me, and even though I didn’t want to talk, I was terrified of what Tobias might say next. I wanted to be where I was.
“Can we talk?” he asked cautiously.
I sighed heavily, even though I didn’t mean to, and nodded.
“Don’t hold our last conversation against me,” Tobias laughed. “I promise I won’t ask any questions, and I’ll probably do most of the talking.”
I followed Tobias down to a side of the cabin I had never been in before.
The main bedroom was bigger than the other rooms I had been in, but the furnishings were the same.
Sparse, minimalistic. There were two wing chairs and a small table by the window.
I imagined that on some nights Tobias would sit at this table and look at the moon, or watch the sun come up in the morning.
But the room was like Tobias. It didn’t say much about who he was or what he liked.
The only picture framed on his bedside table was of Lexi.
I sat in one of the chairs and fiddled with my fingers. Tobias had laughed when he led me to his bedroom, but I couldn’t read him well enough to know what was coming next.
“I’m a guarded guy, I know. It’s hard to get to know me, and the truth is, it has been intentional,” he said.
Tobias was nervous. I had seen him angry, anxious, afraid, happy, and even a little excited before. I had never imagined I would ever see him nervous. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just nodded.
“I want you to know me,” he reached for my hand and held it lightly in his. “I don’t talk about my past much, because it hurts.”
Pain flickered across his face. It was still real, still heavy, whatever he had left behind to come live in the middle of nowhere had followed him somehow. It was in the room with us like a ghost, making the air feel most unwelcome.
I wanted to make it better for him and carry some of his load.
“You can talk to me,” I whispered.
Tobias bit his lip, wrestling with a thought, working out how he would begin to drop his mask and let me see him. I was already looking at him differently. He was unsure and vulnerable, and I was searching for words too. I wanted him to know that it was safe, but again, all I could do was nod.
“I came here to get away from my memories. You must think I’m pathetic,” he laughed sadly.
“No,” I smiled, putting my hand over his. “I came here to do the exact same thing.”
It was his turn to nod. I hadn’t explained why I had left my life behind, and he had never asked.
I had applied for a job, and he had liked my qualifications, which was the end of it.
I hadn’t really pried into why he was here either.
I wondered why a man and his child would live out in the woods with a bodyguard and a mountain man, but the right time to ask had never come until it didn’t matter anymore.
Or at least I thought it didn’t matter anymore.
“I really thought I could protect Lexi out here. I thought she would be safe, life would be simple, but then…” He sighed, straightened his back, and ran a hand through his hair.
“When Lexi’s mother died, I thought we had everything. We worked hard, made more money than I could ever spend. I thought we were secure. We had Lexi. It was perfect.”
Except, the shadow that had just crept into his eyes told me it wasn’t. That this perfect story had a not-so-perfect ending. I didn’t have the heart to break the silence he used to muster the will to speak again. Just waited patiently, with my hand in his.
“We went skiing.” His tone was impossibly soft. “We had done that dozens of times. That last time, we were happy to get away from work and let our hair down. Have some fun. She was brilliant. A real ripper. Better at it than I was.”
The sad smile that curled on his lips almost broke my heart. I dropped my gaze into my lap to avoid having to stare at it for too long.
“She went down a black diamond slope as a dare,” he went on. “I stood there watching, like I usually did. I wasn’t even worried about her. I mean, not even a little.”
He closed his eyes, and I knew in his mind he was right there, watching it happen all over again.
“Some idiot came hurtling down the slopes. He was going too fast, didn’t know what he was doing,” he explained, the pain of it dulling the edges of his words.
“I just stood there like a chump with his hands and legs cut off. Couldn’t make it down until after he had hit her.
She fell. God, there were so many trees.
I didn’t remember there being so many trees. ”
I clasped his hand tightly. “Tobias—”
“I’m okay.” A choked-up laugh rippled out of him. Sad and dead. “You need to hear this. I want you to hear this.”
His eyes had become glossy, but he didn’t cry. He simply refused to, so I did it for him. A tear slid down my cheek. I imagined him skiing down frantically, watching his wife, the mother of his child, go toward her death. He was helpless. There was nothing he could do.
“She hit a tree on her way down, but the final blow was from the rock she landed on.” Tobias turned away from me, his chest rising and falling quickly. “There was nothing I could do, no doctor I could pay to save her. She left me. She left Lexi to grow up without her.”
I sat frozen in my chair, holding my breath. I was caught in his grief and overwhelmed by it in a way that made me finally understand his need for control. If he could predict what would happen, he could stave off the threat of another heartbreak.
“I couldn’t get over that in the house we had built together. Living with all her things in there to remind me of her. I couldn’t raise Lexi in a world full of danger and idiots who don’t know what they’re doing. So I had to walk away.”
“I can’t imagine how you feel,” I said, dabbing my eyes.
He gave me a bitter smile. “That’s probably a good thing. It’s the worst feeling. I just want you to know me, to understand. When you climbed up on the roof that day…”
“You saw her falling again,” I said, finishing his sentence.
Tobias shook his head. “No. I saw you falling.”
I blinked. I thought I understood what he was going to say, but I was wrong.
“Within days, I already knew how happy Lexi was around you. There was something about you that made me want to protect you. It almost drove me mad,” he laughed.
“Almost?” I asked. “You were livid! I swear you were foaming at the mouth.”
“Okay, okay,” he raised his hands in surrender.
“So now you understand how I feel about you. I didn’t think it was possible to see another woman that way, but you changed that.
I love you, Brie. And even though I don’t think I can explain it as clearly as I wish I could, I want you to understand just how much. ”
The intimacy we had built started to fray. Tobias opened up to me. He was vulnerable, and even though he knew how I felt, he was setting me up to break his heart.
“And I love you too,” I said, already anticipating the blowout that would come not only for me, but for Gunner and Gideon too.
We had barely recovered from Tobias’s mood this morning, but more than anything, I didn’t want to mess up the relationship we had, even if it wasn’t a conventional one.
“I know you don’t want to settle down into the drag of monogamy. Everything you want goes against everything I have ever known about love and myself.” Tobias’s voice was rising, passion taking him over.
He stared at me earnestly. My heart pounded in my throat as I waited for the other shoe to drop. I stared back at him, wanting to commit this to my memory before I had to ruin it all. Another rejection would be the end.
“I know you won’t change your mind. What I didn’t expect was to love you anyway. I still want you. If I can’t have you on my terms, I’ll have you on yours,” Tobias confessed.