Next to You (Life) (2 page)

Chapter 2

A
s I step
outside the elevator and come close to my office, Betsy my efficient fifty some year old assistant with the pressed tailored suit and blond bob opens her eyes wide. She straightens her posture and I know her back stiffens right when I reach her desk, though she says nothing. The grimace on her face feels like a judgment and some part of me wants to apologize, though the rest of me wins and I choose to ignore her.

“Coffee Sir?” she asks as I take the messages from the tray on the left corner of her desk where she usually leaves them in the morning without answering. “Mr. Brightmore.” She clears her throat and finally stops typing. “Dr. Vadapalli called earlier and asked me to send you home if you came by. You need to rest.”

A grunt escapes me, home… there’s no fucking home. My new address is down the block in the Presidential suite of one of the hotels I own, but I refrain from giving her those specifics since she knows them well enough.

“Raj Vadapalli isn’t the one running this company,” I remind her while reading through my messages. “As I recall, I’m the one who signs your paycheck.”

Ty, Buddy, Raj and Ashley have left messages, all of them telling me to go home. Call them, they are here for me. It has been four days. Four fucking days since I came home to find the letter on top of her pillow with the pink diamond ring next to it, saying ‘goodbye, have a fucking nice life.’
Fucking bitch.

“Shh,” Betsy hisses while setting her index finger on top of her lips, like a school librarian chiding a child. “Mr. Brightmore, are you drunk again?”

“Nope,” I answer standing up as straight as I can. “Again would imply that I let the buzz go, and I won’t… Hold my calls.” I bang her desk a couple of times with the crystal paperweight that reads employee of the year. It was a present from Rebecca to her. “I’m in the mood to destroy a company or two.”

After that, I head into my office, but stop right in the threshold. “Did you cancel the wedding?” A question I had been meaning to ask yesterday… or whenever Raj sent me home. Unlike today, when he said I needed to be responsible. “Because she said no wedding.” I place a hand inside my pants pocket and fidget with the ring she returned. “How stupid is that? You know, I have women throwing themselves at my feet on a daily basis. Women who are more willing to do whatever shit I tell them to do. Anyone would do anything to be Mrs. Brightmore… and she dumped me.” Betsy doesn’t seem to assimilate it quiet yet. That makes me say it louder. “She dumped me.” There’s no response from her part and I walk back to her desk and grab the phone handle, then press the keys to access the company speaker and say it again. This time separating the words, so they sink in. “Rebecca. Trent. Dumped. Me.”

From: Corporate

To: Brightmore Limited

Subject: Today’s intercom testing

Despite the rumors spreading through the company, today’s intercom announcements were the result of a beta program. Our communications department would like to apologize for the prank message they used to test it. Please be advised that going forward we’ll keep using the one we have had for the past six months until our new product is ready for launching.

Thank you,

Corporate

From: Ty

To: Dan

Subject: Were you drunk?

Did you really announce through the company’s intercom that my sister dumped you? Betsy’s email won’t stop the rumor mill. Try to keep your indiscretions at a minimum and grow up.

Ty

P.S. Don’t expect me to fly to Boston to save your sorry ass. My family in California needs me for now.

From: Dan

To: Ty

Subject: Keep your ass out of my business!

Your little sister dumped my sorry ass. When I find out who helped her I’m going to crush them. Wait until the pain is gone.

D

To: Buddy, Raj

From: Ty

Subject: Please

Keep him in line, for the unforeseeable future I won’t be able to travel. Is this new, or did you guys deal with this before? I’ve known him for twelve years and I’ve never seen him, heard him or anything this drunk… don’t think I’ll visit him when he lands himself in jail or the hospital.

Ty

To: Ty, Raj

From: Joseph Gordon (Buddy)

Subject: Drunk

This is a new kind of drunk, and no, he’s never drank that much in his entire life. I’ll look out for him, Tyler, that’s why I am his brother and you’re only his friend.

Buddy

Becca is a dreamer, a foolish romantic, a person who can’t differentiate reality from illusion. I tell myself this as I park her Subaru in the middle of the one hundred acre lot I own outside of Boston, the one next to my stables. I open the trunk where five, twelve gallon orange portable tanks filled with gasoline appear in front of me. I grab the first and soak all the seats, clothes and stuff I brought from home that belong to her. As I dump the last drop, I place it back in the trunk. Then I take two others, placing one on the driver’s seat and the other on the front passenger one. The fourth takes a seat in the middle and I slam my forehead for forgetting there needed to be an extra one in the trunk. Well it will lose the desired effect, but in the end, it all will come to a crispy finale. I take the keys out of the ignition so the pink keychain I brought her from Paris a couple of years ago doesn’t burn, and then start dumping the last tank on the outside of the car. When I finish, I ignite my master piece with a zippo lighter I bought specially for the occasion and let the pyrotechnical show begin.

“This is what I think about your letter and your dreams, Rebecca,” I yell to no one in particular since I’m alone. Of course I’m not a dumbass and by now I’m far enough away to see the car ignite and explode—but at a safe distance so I don’t get burned. “Stay in fucking hell, or wherever you decided to take that sorry ass of yours. I hate you.”

As the fire consumes her car, I sit down on the ground and watch as it becomes ashes, or whatever it will become after it’s over. Shit, I forgot to throw in the ring I retain inside my pocket and why did I save the keychain anyway? It’s not like either of those items mattered to her, or that I’ll ever give either one back. We’re through, no more
Mr. Nice Guy
.

“What did you do?” I look up to find Nick, one of my bodyguards and my partner in our new security company. The one I called earlier to meet me here so I could get a ride home. “I heard on my radio scanner that the cops and the fire department are on their way. Care to tell me what happened?”

“They say fire purifies everything,” I address his concern. “I’m moving on.”

“To jail,” he says right when the sound of sirens, blue and red lights, and a bunch of official vehicles surround us.

“Put your hands over your head.”

Fuck!

Chapter 3

Dear Dan:

I miss you.

This letter is to…

Don’t…

While sitting in front of the pinewood desk that comes with my new—temporary—room, I can’t find the right words to explain my behavior—why I left. The fact that we aren’t face to face, doesn’t take away the fist-crushing feeling in my stomach. I can only imagine your reaction after my sudden departure. My thoughts remain scattered, but not as much as they have been for the past five months—or two weeks ago, when I chose to vanish. Leaving in my wake a poorly written letter without any details and only with the little energy and clarity I had in me.

Today I’m sending you this letter, one that’ll take you on a trip back in time to a couple of days after Donna—my mother—died; before her funeral. Back when I couldn’t function properly—if at all. Call it an overview, a behind the scenes of what you don’t know, that might shed some light into why I had no other choice but to escape from my old life. It is a desperate attempt to save myself, from myself.

Connor Patrick told his parents how their precious son—Ian—not only used drugs and drank liquor as if it was water, but that he raped the girl next door—twice.

Funny, I was and looked like the girl next door. Brown hair, brown eyes and petite height—a little shy from five four. Nothing special, a “no one” as Mom had highlighted as often as possible. Mom, who as you remember, was a tall blond, blue eyed woman with gorgeous features. These days I wonder if I looked like my father, but I shouldn’t. That is one of the thousand things she never cared to share with me. Though, this nobody got to date the captain of the high school hockey team for three years—before things began to fall apart for him. She also, dated one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. Yet, I’ve no idea why you chose me.

See, my brain is still out of sync and things pop-out without being requested. Let’s go back to what happened after Mom’s death. Mrs. Patrick visited Greg and right after, she headed to our place—your place.

“Do you have a minute, Becky?” she asked, using one of the names I dislike the most. Right next to babe. Both are nicknames I can’t stand because Ian used them constantly since we began dating and while raping me. Honestly, it didn’t have to do much with the parade of floozies you constantly entertained in the past. Though, being compared to them or lumped next to them is unpleasant.

Back to Mrs. Patrick, of course I let her in. My flawless manners, as you call them, didn’t miss a step. We headed to the terrace after we requested some tea and cookies from Mary. There was zero preamble, no introduction to the subject. Blunt and without a safety net she said it.

“Connor told us about you and Ian. That you two slept together before he died and he wasn’t very nice about it.”

Automatically my hands covered my face wishing there was some kind of law that would allow me to dispose of the entire Patrick family. A few thoughts about asking Nick for his help burying their bodies after Nate shot them crossed my mind, though I abstained. Not only did Mrs. Patrick inform me she held the knowledge, the woman gave me the synopsis of what she knew and requested my confirmation—double rape, Lisa deciding my fate, Ian shooting her and then himself. My entire body remained numb while the narration continued.

Mrs. Patrick didn’t miss a step, she continued, as if she was talking about watering her plants every other day or the latest show she watched. Not what her son did, or how sick the situation had been. When I let my guard down and my hands uncovered my face, I realized there wasn’t any emotion showing in that tight face of hers.

“I’m regretful,” she said at some point, and I swore she came to apologize for what had happened, but no such luck.

“There had been a glimpse of hope, him saying he hated Lisa—a poor grain of faith. We thought the dealer beating him had scared him, now…well, Connor told us there was no dealer, it had been him the one that beat up Ian. But for a couple of days, the idea that we’d recover my son weighed more than the past two years of sorrow. The next thing I know, Donna runs to me and says you killed my son and her beautiful girl.”

“If only.” Her wishful breathing kept me wondering what she would say next. That screwed up head of hers calling what he did to me a romp in the hay, instead of what it was, had me tied in knots. At some point I swore she was about to ask me to apologize to her for what he did; or blame me for everything her son went through since Lisa appeared in our lives. “But we’ll never know if that was going to be his turning point or not. He’s dead, and his memory can’t be tarnished with what you claim. Dear, you need to forget all of this happened. I think it’s all in your head.” Yet again, here was another adult that couldn’t give me some… something. Even now, I have no idea what I want from them, or if I need anything from them to make the hurt go away. “They’re dead and nothing you say will bring him back to me, you should just keep it silent. Connor promised to do the same.”

It wasn’t an ‘I’m sorry’, but a ‘what they did won’t be fixed so keep it down’. My insides wanted to scream at her that that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past twenty some years. Keeping everything that happens to me sealed inside an old pressure cooker. All of this has been killing me slowly, especially the fear of being caught by the ones that care about me. Caught, you ask? Yes, that I’m not innocent and pure. He told me I was his little bitch. The mind of a traumatized seventeen year old could only think so far and it made me think people would know and hate me. Abuse and rape does that to you, as they take the sense of security away from you—the little I had left back then. They transform you into someone that can’t stand on their own.

The thought of putting a new lid on those memories while trying to fight what had happened, made me crash. For some reason, the accident in Aspen blew the original cover I placed when they died. The memories of Ian raping me regained such strength, that they became real every night. The pain, the words he said and everything that he took with him when he did it. You’re mine, no one else’s and being his little whore, were constant words that haunt me. Dan, it worried me because deep down I wanted to belong to someone special, someone like you. Each night the fear that you would realize I wasn’t worthy, kept me on the edge, because special wouldn’t want to have what I became after Ian touched me. Then, as if she had timed it perfectly, Mom came back in the picture. All those years of abuse repeated themselves without her having to say a word, with one look from her, she reduced me to nothing.

“Your boyfriend is too important to taint his name,” said Mrs. Patrick. “This should stay between, the family.”

By then I didn’t know if she pleaded for me to stay quiet, threatened me or… but my brain fumed at either scenario. How dare she? Simply, I kicked Mrs. Patrick out of the house, asked Nate not to let her in again and convinced him not to tell you about it either. You finding out would only send them a cranky Daniel at their door step ready to sue them for every penny they have and more.

After she left I locked myself in my office and cried like a baby. As if I needed to cry, as you recall, I had to borrow tears from a bank since I ran out of my life time supply. It had been five long months of dreadful pain, mixed with sobs and trying to catch my breath. At the end I got tangled with my past and the grasp about chocked me. Everything would be all right, I repeated to myself. Famous words I’ve heard thousands of times since last December or maybe before that, definitely when my leg broke and the doors of hell opened to let all the demons loose. I wanted to believe them—the words—but I lost faith. It became impossible to rely on them after so long, while those memories knocked me down every time I tried to get back on my feet. The nightmares had become a daily occurrence; several of them hit me nightly. Your desperate attempts to keep them away began to fail miserable and the hurt in your eyes broke my heart even more.

The next day I decided to take a breather by going to the pool. I had a lot going on inside my head. With little sleep and… my fiancé telling his best friend that there’s always divorce, I needed to think. When I finished, on my way up from the gym, Greg and I happened to be in the same elevator. Not wanting to have an altercation, I pulled my phone from my gym bag and dialed Nick’s phone number, surely he’d be in the security apartment you had set up for the team, but before I could say anything over the phone, Greg spoke.

“Enjoy it while it lasts.” Floor seven, that’s where we were, I remembered because it was the slowest ride I’d ever taken. “Do you think you can compare to those models and beautiful women he dates?” Unprepared for what he said, I began to panic. They were stupid words, but they hit me, because you were getting tired of me. Not stopping he continued, “Sooner or later he’ll wake up and see who you really are. Look at you, your mother hated you. Not only for killing our beautiful girl, but because of who you are.”

He stood in front of me with crossed arms and his intense glare pointed at me. With a deliberate eye brow raise, he tilted his head and continued spitting venom, “Your own father wanted nothing to do with you.”

“Do—Donna wasn’t a good person,” I said. He slammed me against the elevator. I didn’t see it coming.

“Never say her name, you filthy bitch.” The grip of his hands on my throat began to tighten. “Do you think you matter to anyone? The pretend love is only sympathy, which will wear down soon and you’ll be alone for the rest of your life. Your mother was a fine woman, you poisoned her and she began to die slowly. You’ll pay for ruining her life. If not you, any children you have will pay, if you ever have any.” He gave me a disgusted snort. “No man would want to be with something like you.”

He didn’t finish speaking, Nick waited on the other side of the elevator and took him off me. Greg continued laughing and yelling things I no longer listened to. Nick and Bryan forced him to the apartment across the hall. The mix of sweaty hands, aching chest, head ache and suffocation took over my body. Not wanting to face the security team, I ran to our room and went to the bathroom looking for an aspirin which I couldn’t find anywhere. I checked in my old purses—since you disposed of every medicine in the house—and guess what I found?

The sleeping pills Dr. Mackenzie prescribed long ago when we began therapy; safe from you and your knowledgeable security team.

The last drops of energy I had in me had vanished that morning. Dan could do better than a reject like me, I thought. He’s already having trouble with me. Yes, that’s another part of the puzzle. Earlier that day I heard part of your conversation with Ty. How you would deal with me and how divorces happen to the best of us. My worst nightmare had taken form. Three arms, worm like hair, seven eyes—the perfect monster. By then, about two years of therapy had done nothing, in fact it made me a wimpy, whiney girl who needed reassurance to think, eat, sleep or take a breath.

Twenty some years of trying to take each and every physical and emotional punch and trying to make the best of it, wore me down and took all that I had left. If one day you decided I… the thought of losing you struck me at that moment. Life with you had been good enough so far. No, great, why not preserve the memories for eternity and escape before—like everyone else had—you learned to hate me. Opening the bottle containing ninety—a never touched, three month supply— sleeping pills… I couldn’t go wrong.

A hand snatched the bottle from me, for some strange reason, the locks in the house didn’t work when I needed them the most.

“You can’t do this to me, Becca,” Tyler’s voice came through. “You promised, baby girl. Dan will die if something happens to you.”

“I can’t,” I said as big fat tears dropped from my eyes. “I can’t be that person anymore. Dan wants happy… look at me, Ty. His plan will never work. You and I know he’s going to find a reason to leave me forever and—”

“Shh.” Ty prompted, sitting next to me, he hugged me. “Help, that’s what you need. Not pills.”

“What am I going to tell, Mattie and Angie, Becca?” Ashley’s voice rang in my ears as I hugged my legs and rested my head over my knees closing my eyes, wishing I had taken the pills and that soon everything would be over. But no, I was alive and had to endure hearing the people that pretended to love me say one more time that everything was alright. What was the point of living? It’s a lost cause for a person like me.

“You’re the only family Ty has left. Do you think he deserves to lose his little sister?”

Raj arrived right behind him with Drew. Nick had called everyone he could think of to come and check on me. Obviously, Raj’s first question was your whereabouts. It came to my attention that Drew had given you specific instructions to watch me. Something about being on an informal suicide watch. Tyler explained to him that you were needed at the office for an emergency meeting, and wouldn’t come home until later. I begged them not to call you.

“Did Greg hurt you?” Raj lifted my chin with his fingers and began to check my neck with the other. “Nick mentioned he was chocking you, but I don’t see any bruises.”

“Dan’s going to… just don’t call him, please,” I pleaded, because explaining to them that you’d leave me if you knew what just happened would’ve been a waste of time. They’d deliver a series of empty promises about my future and how great life is.

“I told him we need to send her to a specialized center,” Drew said.

Our strange family is either a curse or a blessing, but all of us are always on each other’s cases. I love them though, every one of them. And just so you know, now I understand that everything they said back then was because they love me.