21. The Fall-Out
THE FALL-OUT
Stella
There’s a centrifugal force in a ballroom, something about the way chandeliers force light into the crowd that makes everyone look blurred around the edges except the ones you’re programmed to see.
Me, I’m a statue at the perimeter, staked like a hunting decoy in black velvet, hands numb around the stalk of a glass I don’t remember picking up.
The champagne inside is warm. The rim leaves a cold sweat on my upper lip.
Across the room, Hunter signals with a look that is “are you okay?” and “one signal, and I’ll come.
” His jaw is set and the line of his shoulders telegraphs possession.
He stands slightly apart from the others, as if the air pressure around him is higher, as if he might break something by accident.
He doesn’t notice the passing donors or the scent of lilies and burned wax; he only sees me.
I don’t know how to communicate with him except in gritted teeth and body language.
There is no language for this, not in front of two hundred pairs of eyes and especially not in front of my own mother.
I’ve been fucking my uncle. Lachlan is my mom’s long-lost brother. How is this possible?
The champagne flute tilts, almost off balance. But I’m not off balance. I am perfectly, terribly balanced, yet the golden liquid almost slips to the floor.
Meanwhile, Lachlan stands next to Brenda, posture so neutral it hurts to look at him.
His lips are compressed, the shape of the clerical collar suddenly less adornment and more executioner’s rope.
He has one hand at the small of my mother’s back.
The touch is cousin to violence, not for what it does but for what it refrains from doing.
He’s tall, but Brenda is tall too, and their heads incline together, gold and gold.
They look related, but only in the way you might see echoes of the same storm in different parts of the sky.
Brenda beams, her smile bright and almost childish, oblivious to the knife she’s just jammed in my social spinal cord. She’s got this way of acting as if everything she says is a compliment, even when it’s the sort of thing that would get you punched in a different crowd.
I don’t breathe until she pulls me in, one hand on my bare arm, her diamond rings biting the skin.
“I know, right?” she stage-whispers. “Small world.” To her, this is a funny anecdote, a conversation starter for next year’s brunches.
She is not aware that she’s detonated a grenade under my life.
Or maybe she is, and she likes the sound.
I try to answer, but my throat is full of bees. “That’s—wow. Yeah.” My voice cracks on “yeah,” and Brenda laughs, mistaking it for dry wit.
“We need to celebrate this!” she says, and steers us away from the crowd, herding me and Lachlan toward a shadowed stretch of the hall.
She knows exactly where to go; it’s the same place she would have dragged me at age seven if she wanted to tell me a secret, or keep me from embarrassing myself in public.
A niche between two marble columns, so narrow that when you sit on the bench inside, your knees almost touch the far wall.
Here, the light is different. Candlelight rather than chandeliers, guttering in iron sconces.
The velvet bench has a line worn into it where hundreds of privileged asses have left their mark.
The air is cool, the stone sweating with old history.
There is a faint scent of beeswax and a sharper one, animal and mineral, maybe the ghosts of a thousand private conversations.
The string quartet outside is muffled by the stone, so that the only real sound is the clink of glass from the party and the wet click of my own tongue when I swallow.
Brenda doesn’t sit so much as lounge, knees crossed, velvet dress spilling around her like a pool of blood. She pats the space beside her, and I sit because that’s what you do when your mother tells you to.
Lachlan sits on her other side, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles are bleached. His gaze is fixed at a point on the opposite wall, the small muscles in his face working overtime to keep it smooth. He is, I think, only just breathing.
“So,” he manages.
“So,” I echo.
“So amazing!” Brenda trills. Of course, my mom has no idea that I’ve been having sex with her brother, so her voice is bright and alive with gossip.
“So, I suppose the cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it?
I’ve always said families are complicated, but this is a record even for us.
” She nudges Lachlan with her shoulder, and her laugh rings like silver.
“You know, it’s the damndest thing. When my mom married your dad, I was already off at college, so we never got to know one another.
You were like a baby, practically.” She looks at me, eyes wide as a child’s.
“Of course, you weren’t a baby, but it always felt more like we were more friends than siblings, didn’t it, Lachy? ”
Lachlan’s mouth turns up at the edges, but it isn’t a smile. “Suppose it did,” he says. “Didn’t see much of you growing up. Or anyone, for that matter.”
“Oh, you were in that awful prep school, weren’t you?” Brenda says, as if it’s a game of Trivial Pursuit. She turns to me, her hand still warm on my arm. “He was always getting into trouble—weren’t you, sweetie? Just a terror. My mom used to say the boarding school saved your life.”
Lachlan’s jaw ticks. “Irma packed me off after my dad died. Your mother didn’t want me around.” His tone is light, but there’s glass under it.
Brenda tsks, dismissing the pain as if it’s just another embarrassing childhood photo. “Oh, darling, it was the best thing for you. Look at you now! Military, then seminary, now a pastor! Mom would be so proud if she’d lived to see it. Don’t you agree, Stella?”
I try to nod, but my head won’t move. “Um, I don’t really know what Grandma would think.”
Brenda leans in, conspiratorial. “Honestly, he’s the reason I even started going back to church.
I told your father about it—‘You’ve got to meet Lachlan, he’s just wonderful with young people.
He went through so much himself as a young person, so he’s incredibly mature.
’” She gives another laugh, not even a hint of bitterness.
“And your dad loves the idea of helping others. That’s why he’s so invested in these fundraisers, you know?
He thinks they keep the world from falling apart. ”
I gargle a little. It feels like the world is falling apart just fine on its own.
“So Dad knows about this.”
Brenda waves a hand in the air.
“Of course, Thomas knows. Thomas is the man who got you the assistant pastor job, Lachlan. I sent him a note around the time you were graduating from divinity school, and just sang your praises. So Thomas got the board to interview you, Lachlan, and now here you are.”
Lachlan stares at my mom.
“Your ex-husband got me my job.”
My mom beams happily.
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Thomas helped you get a foot in the door by forwarding your resume to the relevant members of the board, but you aced your interviews and earned this position on your own merit. You were amazing, from what I heard. They loved you.”
Lachlan stares at her.
“But you never said anything. Thomas either.”
“Of course not!” my mom says in a breezy tone.
“There’s so much backlash against nepo babies these days, and you’re not a nepo baby, Lachlan.
Let’s just say that me and Irma felt guilty about what happened to you after your father passed.
We didn’t want to send you off to boarding school, but my mom couldn’t handle you, and I was getting started as a young professional with my first job.
We couldn’t care for a grieving, teenage boy, so you were sent to Riverside Academy.
It was fine. But consider this our way of making it up to you.
Now, you’ve landed on your feet and Thomas tells me that the congregation loves you, Lachlan. Congratulations.”
The blonde man is red in the face now, and looks like he’s going to explode.
“Hold on. Let me clarify. My interview was never one of random chance. They didn’t pick me for my merits. They picked me for my connections.”
“Oh, you’re being so dramatic,” my mom says. “Let’s just say Thomas put your resume on the top of the stack. That’s all. He didn’t tell them that you were his ex-wife’s younger step-brother. It’s such a weak connection anyways, so there’s no need to disclose something like that.”
By now, the top of Lachlan’s head looks ready to blow off.
“Holy fuck,” he curses darkly. “Shit.”
“It’s fine,” Brenda soothes. “Everything worked out, and that’s what matters.”
Lachlan and I share a horrified glance because obviously, my mom doesn’t know that we’re in a steamy, intimate sexual relationship which also happens to include another man. And that other man is my stepbrother on my dad’s side, Hunter Roberts!
Holy shit!
What in the world is going on?
I’m frozen, my face drained of all color, my hands clenched in my lap as my mom burbles on about something or other. Has the world gone crazy? Is the Earth now flat, and tilting to one side as I slip off the edge and into insanity?
Lachlan finally turns to look at me. His eyes are the same blue as always, but there’s something else there, a haunted quality. “Did you know, Stella?” he asks, voice so quiet I can barely hear it over the heartbeat in my ears.
I shake my head, once, sharply. “No.” I look down at my knees, hands clenched so tightly the veins stand out. “Not until tonight.”
There’s a long silence, the kind that only families can generate.
Brenda doesn’t seem to notice; she just keeps going, a river in flood.
“It’s not even that weird, really. I mean, lots of family lose touch over the years, and besides, we’re not close family.
You and Lachlan aren’t actually related—no shared DNA.
So really, it’s not that odd. But isn’t it funny, Stella?
All these years and the two of you never met until now.
” She shakes her head, the movement making her hair shimmer. “The universe is wild.”
I want to say something, anything, but my brain is busy replaying every filthy, depraved act I’ve ever done with both men in the last three months.
I can see it all: the time Hunter made me kneel on the marble kitchen counter, his cock splitting me open while Lachlan watched from the other side, a glass of whiskey in hand.
The night Lachlan tied my wrists behind my back with a church stole and forced me to confess every sin in graphic detail while Hunter fucked me in the ass for my sins.
The mornings where both of them would wake me by pushing their fingers into me and making me moan, not even asking, just assuming I would want it because I always did.
I remember all of our alleged “counseling sessions.” The “Bible studies.” I remember the way Hunter’s semen tasted different from Lachlan’s, the way their bodies left different bruises on my hips and thighs.
I remember the way it felt to be filled, sometimes at both ends, sometimes in every hole, by two men whom I adored.
Now, the category changes. Now, the word step-uncle is stuck in my mouth like peanut butter, and I can’t swallow around it.
My hand shakes so badly that the champagne flute rattles against the stone bench.
Brenda finally notices, her expression shifting to concern. “Stella? Are you all right?”
I stand up. The skirt of my dress tangles around my ankles, but I keep my balance. I put the glass down on the bench, careful not to spill. “I need some air,” I say, and it sounds like a lie, but it’s the closest I can get to the truth.
Lachlan moves to follow, but I hold up a hand, not looking at him. “Please. Just—give me a minute.” I walk, not run, through the columns and past the startled faces at the edges of the party. The music is back, the string quartet playing something feverish and fast, the rhythm matching my pulse.
As I pass the main bar, I see my father talking to the bishop. He glances at me, eyes narrowing, but he doesn’t move. He trusts me to handle myself.
The doors to the terrace are heavy brass, and they swing open with a sound like a tomb being sealed.
Outside, the night is cold enough to make me gasp.
The wind bites through the thin dress, raising goosebumps along my bare arms and chest. I walk to the farthest edge of the terrace, past the pots of dormant greenery and the marble cherub spraying a trickle of water into the fountain.
I lean over the balustrade, looking down at the empty parking lot, the city lights smeared in the wet, black glass of the pavement.
I breathe, and each inhale is a knife, but it makes me feel alive.
There is a shuffle behind me, and I brace for the sound of heels, the clack of a second set of footsteps, but there is nothing. I am alone.
I press my palms to the stone, the surface rough under my skin. I think about my mother, still inside, laughing with her younger brother, completely oblivious to what we’ve done. I think about Lachlan, sitting there, locked behind his perfect pastor’s mask, and I wonder what he’s thinking.
Mostly, though, I think about myself. About the kind of girl who would do what I’ve done. Who would keep doing it, even now. Who loves fucking her step-uncles, and being fucked by them in return.
The air is so cold that my fingers burn, but I don’t let go of the railing.
I stay there, alone in the dark, until I can hear the quartet playing the final movement, and I know the night is almost over.
And then I let go, and I walk away from the building, from the light, from everything.
Not because I am ashamed, but because I want to see how far I can fall.