Selfish

Chapter Three - Brunch

Ch 3

            It had been a week since I got here, and I knew I wasn’t going to get away with avoiding Keith and Katherine anymore. They’d been arranging for us all to sit down for dinner together, but so far, I’d been able to avoid it by going out with Jimmy and Drew. Keith had been agreeing to let me go with some heated looks from Katherine. It pained me to see Emily’s face fall whenever I left the house, but only until I was through the door.

            This time, though, I didn’t seem so lucky.

            “Honey, get up,” I felt someone shaking me from my dream. Frowning, but without opening my eyes. I tried to return to it.

            “Honey. It’s time to get up. You need to shower before we leave.”

            “Leave?” Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I frowned again at the sight before me.

            Keith.

            “We’re going to brunch.” Before I could even let out an audible groan, he continued, “Katherine bought you a nice outfit and I expect you to be on your best behavior.” He motioned to a box on the coffee table. I had still refused to sleep in Emily’s room with her.

            “Be ready in an hour.” He turned to walk to the kitchen.

            Opening the box delicately, I frowned again. I hope he didn’t expect me to wear that.

            I made my way to the bathroom and showered quickly, not bothering to even brush my hair once out. Pulling on the bright pink dress, I frowned again in the mirror. It was expensive, that much was obvious. I hated even more that I liked it. She’d even bought me a pair of white sandals and an open cardigan to match.

            Standing in front of the mirror, I debated changing into my own clothes, but an hour had already passed, which I knew from the loud knocking on the bathroom door.

            “Alright, alright! I’m coming!”

            Swinging the door open, I’d expected either Katherine or Keith on the other side. Instead, Jimmy stood before me, wearing an odd look on his face.

            “Uhm… they’re all waiting in the car,” he avoided looking me in the eyes.

            Now regretting having skipped my hair and makeup, I grabbed the tube of lip-gloss from the bathroom sink before brushing past him and running down the stairs.

            --xx—

            The drive was short, although it felt like a lifetime in our silence, and we soon found ourselves sat around a round table on the patio of what seemed to be a nice restaurant.

Thankfully, Katherine's attempts to start conversation had so far been interrupted by the server, who had already brought us our drinks and taken our menus after ordering. I could see no more interruptions saving me from the inevitable, so this time, I spoke first.

"So, Keith," I smirked at the furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips this elicited from Katherine, but frowned when I noticed the same expression on Jimmy.       Suddenly deciding not to press any further, I crossed my arms across my chest and sunk into my chair. "Never mind," I grumbled under my breath.

Katherine seemed pleased that I'd moved on from my challenge, but Keith had opened his mouth to urge me on. Katherine, though, was too quick:

"Elizabeth," she addressed me with my full name. "Your father tells me that you have quite the love of horses."

Horses? Where does she come up with this stuff?

She continued, "Emily, here, has been riding since before she could walk! She has even started joining me at the stables on the weekends. I've made arrangements for you to join us later today once we're home and have changed." I could tell she was beaming with pride that she had finally discovered a way to connect me with Emily.

Too bad she's wrong.

"Yeah, right," I started. Emily's hopeful eyes now looked down into her lap. I was determined not to look at her. "My father doesn't know jack-s**t about me. I've never even seen a horse, let alone wanted to ride one."

Her mouth fell open and she started to stammer, her face turning red with anger, but Keith placed a hand over hers in restraint.

"Honey," I glared at him again. He had no right to address me that way. "You used to go to the stables with me every week." Doubt it. "You were about to start riding lessons when--"

"When you decided to cheat on Mom," I finished for him.

Jimmy cleared his throat and gave me a warning glance. I had forgotten he and Emily were here.

Shifting in my seat, suddenly aware of all the eyes that had been fixed on me, I fell silent.

Keith cleared his throat before continuing. "I know you were young then, and your mother--"

"You don't get to talk about my mother," I cut him off again, this time noticing the wild anger that had started to build in his own eyes.

Before he could continue again, the server began placing our meals in front of our seats, and we all shifted uncomfortably with the embarrassment of our tension.

We continued in near silence, our cutlery scraping against our dishes noticeably without conversation. Emily seemed to be the only one eating.

"I never cheated on your mother," Keith finally blurted out, and I dropped my fork loudly into my plate in surprise. While I wanted to believe his statement, my eyes slowly traveled to Katherine and then Emily.

As if reading my thoughts, he continued. "I never cheated on your mother, but after she left, I found comfort in Katherine's company, and we found ourselves pregnant quite suddenly."

"I wonder how that happened," I spat back.

"Now hey," his tone challenged me, his voice suddenly deeper and harsher. "I loved your mother," he started again. "And you," he decided to acknowledge my existence with a haphazard wave of his hand. "But I knew you were never coming back," he hung his head and lowered his voice.

After an uncomfortably long silence, he continued.

"Katherine and Emily are the best things to have ever happened to me, and I do not appreciate the way you have been treating them. I have to live with the decisions I made, not having fought for your custody and letting your mother take you away from me. You have every right to hate me." I shifted uncomfortably again at the harsh word. I didn't want to hate him. "But they deserve better treatment than this."

I looked over to see Emily beaming up at my father. Her father, I had to remind myself.

As I was piecing this new information together, an unfamiliar man approached the table and shook Keith's hand firmly. He was laughing and carrying on about what a small world it is, when he motioned to the rest of us at the table.

"This must be your beautiful family," he smiled and locked eyes around the table. When his eyes locked with mine, I felt everyone else join him in facing me.

Keith cleared his throat and agreed. "Yes, this is Emily, Elizabeth, James, and my lovely wife, Katherine."

As they shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, I felt tears starting to well into my eyes. Not knowing where they were coming from, I started to turn away and pulled the cloth napkin from my lap to dry them.

I felt Jimmy's hand rest on my knee as he leaned in to whisper. "Are you okay?"

The strange man laughed awkwardly and began again, "It's a good thing you girls have a good older brother to take care of you--"

I snapped and slammed my hands on the table, pushing myself quickly up from my seat. The tears were flowing freely now, and I stared the stranger in his confused eyes.

"This is not my family."

I ran.

I had nearly made it to the restaurant's restroom before I felt him grab my wrist and turn me to face him. Jimmy had come after me. I was suddenly even more angry that it hadn't been Keith.

Trying to rip my wrist from his grasp to continue into the bathroom, I felt his grip tighten, and his other hand found my shoulder, turning me forcefully to face him.

"Let me go," I pleaded.

"They're trying," he defended. "Why don't you give them a chance."

"Whose side are you on?" My eyes scanned him up and down. I was searching for some sign of betrayal.

His eyes were softening, and he loosened his grip, but I stayed.

"I'm on your side." He was quiet now, and his eyes showed sincerity.

I waited for him to continue. When he didn't, I turned again to go into the bathroom, but he caught my wrist again.

Without turning back, I pulled my arm hard from his grip.

"This is not my family," I repeated, "and you're not my brother."

Pushing the swinging door into the bathroom I heard him quietly behind me.

"I know."

--xx—

I managed again to avoid Katherine and Emily. I hid in the bathroom and ignored when they knocked on the door to ask me to come to the stables. Wondering if I’d really ever wanted to ride horses, I strained to remember what my life was like here, coming back with almost nothing. All I could picture now was the look on Jimmy’s face when he’d said he was on my side. Had he meant it?

I woke up on the bathroom floor and washed myself before leaving. I must have cried myself to exhaustion. When I swung the door open to leave, I watched Jimmy scramble to his feet. He had been slumped against the opposite wall in the hallway, waiting for me?

I continued down the hall and I felt his familiar grasp on my wrist.

“Would you stop doing that?” I spun around to face him, feeling the anger seeping up into my face. My eyes still stung, the skin around them swollen and pink.

His lips parted, he dropped my wrist.

“Uhm…” he shifted his gaze to a blank spot on the wall and then to the floor, and then to me. I cursed myself for not having changed out of the pink dress when we’d gotten home. Taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh, he continued. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

I was surprised by his suggestion. What time is it anyway?

The house was quiet, but I could see through a window in one of the rooms that the sun was starting to set. I wondered if the others were home.

“They’re all still out. They never come home from the stables before dark,” he answered my thoughts.

I slowly nodded, “uh, yeah, I’ll come with you. Just let me change first.” I scrambled past him down the stairs and took some clothes from the case I had hidden behind the couch. I thought I heard him chuckle when I ran past him again and back into the bathroom.

I changed and brushed my hair, pulling gloss across my dehydrated lips and taking care in putting mascara on my upper lashes. I didn’t want to be too obvious.

He was waiting by the front door when I finally came downstairs. Leaving the dress discarded in a pile on my case downstairs, I grabbed his hand and led him outside forcefully.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and placed it between his lips, seemingly out of habit. Looking at me and thinking better of it, he went to put it back in the pack, unlit.

            I stopped him. I took the cigarette from his fingers and put it between my own glossed lips, and I struggled with his lighter, my hands shaking, and the light not taking.

            He chuckled again, taking the lighter from my hands and flicking it easily into a flame. I met his eyes and slowly bowed my head to meet the light.

            He lit his own cigarette next and took my hand again, leading me down the driveway and onto the paved street in silence.

            I deserved an award for how cool and collected I kept myself then. I didn’t cough when I inhaled the smoke, trying hard to let only a bit of it into my lungs, keeping the majority trapped in my mouth before letting it pass through my lips again. I liked the way it tasted on my tongue, and the way the smoke escaped our lips into the cool June air.

            The sun was setting in the trees, and while it was still light out, I had trouble trying to remember the turns we took to familiarize myself with the surroundings. Suddenly, though, I was being pulled into the tree line, and I gave up trying to figure out where I was. I was now completely in his hands.

            When he’d finished his cigarette, I didn’t protest him taking mine from me. There was still some left unburned before the filter—I had been smoking much slower than he.

            He pushed the crushed filters into the dirt with his boot and continued to lead me deeper into the trees. I thought we would stop when we reached a large clearing, but we continued through and came to another street through the trees.

            “Where are you taking me,” I finally broke the silence.

            “Nowhere,” he answered mysteriously. He looked behind at me briefly, seeing the confusion which must have been apparent on my face. This time, he didn’t chuckle—he laughed.

            “What?” I felt the embarrassment creep through my cheeks.

            He reached and pulled a twig from my hair, a few leaves falling as he did. He reached for another and his fingers got stuck in what must now be a matted mess on the back of my head.

            Leaving his hand there, I saw his eyes travel to my lips, and he started to lean toward me.

            Just then, a car that had been passing stopped suddenly and reversed until it was just beside us. Oh, great.

            Untangling his hand from my hair, he stood up tall and we both turned to the familiar face in the driver’s seat.

            “’Sup, losers,” Drew started. “You two love birds coming or what?” He reached over and opened the passenger side door as I looked to Jimmy for guidance.

His eyes looked wildly at Drew, and he turned to me, shrugging. He motioned for me to take the seat in front, and he walked around the car to sit behind Drew. I felt his eyes on me as Drew adjusted his rear-view mirror and lurched forward into drive again.

There was loud music playing, and I started to feel a bit nervous when I felt the car pulling every turn. He drove too fast, and I saw a fox run in front of the car into the trees, narrowly escaping a collision. I twisted hard in my seat to see it, looking over its back at us as we kept driving. I suddenly wished we would have stopped in the clearing.

Leaning toward me, Drew reached his arm across, his eyes not leaving the road. I became nervous that he would try to touch my leg. I saw Jimmy shifting, too, out of the corner of my eye.

Instead, he snapped open the glove box and dropped a heavy case into my lap.

“Go ahead and pick the music,” he suggested.

I unzipped the case and found a large selection of CD’s. Flipping through the titles, I realized I hadn’t heard of any of these bands, and I felt nervous that I’d pick the wrong thing, so I handed the case back to Jimmy. His eyes were still wild, and I suddenly feared them both.

He took the case from me but didn’t look into it. He ordered Drew to pull over.

I expected Drew to protest, but he locked eyes with Jimmy in the mirror and thought better of it, pulling to the side of the road and slowing to a stop. He turned the key so the music stopped and the car’s power was cut.

“Dude, what the f**k?” Drew twisted in his seat to face him.

“Let’s talk outside,” Jimmy calmly answered. Although his voice was low and steady, I felt my fear build.

“What, you don’t want your girlfriend to hear?” He seemed oblivious to the danger I was sensing in Jimmy’s eyes. I chose not to correct him.

“This is between you and me.” Jimmy didn’t correct him either.

“No,” Drew combatted. I was reaching for the door handle myself when I heard someone’s fist make contact.

I turned and saw Drew’s eyes opened in shock. They each opened their doors and slammed them shut behind them. I didn’t look back as I, too, got out of the car. I didn’t bother to shut the door behind me as I ran back into the trees, my eyes stinging again with the threat of fresh tears.

--xx—

It didn’t take long for him to find me. I heard the snapping of twigs as he made his way to me through the trees. I didn’t have to look up to know it was Jimmy. He was much bigger than Drew, and I had no doubts that he would’ve gotten the best of him in a fight. I felt him crouch in front of me, but my head was now buried between my knees as I held them close with my arms.

“Hey,” he said softly and I pulled away at his touch.

“Don’t touch me!” I suddenly screamed. I hadn’t meant to be so loud, and I jumped as my voice cracked through the still air.

He backed away, and when I finally looked at him, I saw a bruise forming under his eye, his lip split and swollen, blood already drying from a split on the bridge of his nose.

Planting my feet and standing up straight, I looked up at him in what I hoped was convincing confidence.

“What the hell was that about?” He shifted his gaze from mine and I stayed as I was.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

He did.

“Can we just go home,” he asked quietly, reaching for my hand.

I instinctively took a step back and I saw something else in his face now, replacing the anger I’d seen before.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I hastily answered.

            He looked me in the eyes when he took a step forward. I kept my feet planted but sucked the air through my teeth as I anticipated what was next.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Okay, that’s not what I was expecting.

“Tell me what that was about,” I repeated, “and I’ll go home with you.” I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was, or even which direction I had run from to get here.

            “You don’t know the way back,” he pointed out. I was getting really tired of him reading my thoughts.

            “I’ll go back to the car and have Drew take me home,” I threatened. I didn’t let him know I was already lost and that wasn’t even an option.

            He seemed to think for a second before letting out a long sigh.

            “Okay,” he relented, but he remained quiet.

            “Well?”

            “Can we do this at home?”

            “No, you’re not weaseling your way out of this.” I knew that if I had agreed, we wouldn’t have an opportunity to talk. Katherine would probably gush over his injuries and take him away from me.

            “Fine.” He sat with his back against a tree and motioned for me to do the same. I sat beside him, not wanting to look him in the face anymore.

            I felt his body tense when my leg brushed his, but I shifted away so there was room between us.

            “Drew is my best friend,” he started. “He knows me better than anyone, and it’s always been easy.” He paused, as if to allow me to urge him on or stop him, but I just listened.

            “I don’t know what happened, but since you got here, he’s been…” he searched for his words, “…different.”

            He ran a hand through his brown hair and I noticed the blood drying on his knuckles. He turned to look at me with his lips parted and his eyes sad.

            I snapped my face forward again.

            “He wants to get close to you,” he continued. I wondered why that would be an issue for him.

            “So you just decided to beat him up?” My voice wasn’t accusing anymore. I really wanted to understand. Did Jimmy have feelings for me?

            “It’s not that,” he breathed. “I know what he’s like. I know how he is with girls—”

            “And so what? You were ‘protecting’ me?”

            “Well,” he shrugged, “yeah.”

            As he turned to me, I felt my anger returning from before.

            “I don’t need you to protect me,” my voice was sharp. “You’re not my brother—”

            “I know!” His voice cracked and I finally scrambled to my feet.

            “And you’re not my boyfriend either!” I balled my hands into fists as my side he followed suite.

            He wasn’t standing at full height, his shoulders slumped and his eyes cast down to the earth. Even then, because we were standing so close, I had to look up to meet his eyes.

“I know,” he repeated, quietly this time. I searched his eyes and his started to search mine.

When neither of us had anything left to say, I started to storm off in what I thought was the right direction. Soon, I was back to the road, and I saw Drew’s car, still parked where it had been before. It was a little ways off, but I had at least gone in the right direction.

As I made my way to the car, my head spinning with the possibilities of the state I’d find Drew in, I hugged my arms to my chest and continued forward.

As I stood at the passenger’s side door, I saw him. He was sitting in the driver’s seat with his head against the steering wheel, eyes closed, his arms hung limp toward the floor. Was he unconscious?

I cautiously tapped on the glass and he quickly looked up. He was awake, although I noticed he was bruising and bleeding as well. He rolled down the window and I held my arms closer.

“Will you take me home?”

His mouth stretched into a wide grin and he reached to open the door for me again.

“Get in.”

--xx—

It had been a short ride home, and Drew let me out of the car at the end of the driveway. It was dark now, and I didn’t want to walk into the house without Jimmy, but somehow, it seemed a better alternative than waiting for him. I made my way inside and collapsed onto the couch.

The only car in the drive was Jimmy’s, so I guessed the other three still weren’t home yet. The big clock on the wall showed it was only near eight o’clock. Jimmy had said they often don’t come home until nine.

Jimmy had made it through the door just as their headlights were shining through the window, and I thanked them in my head for saving me from another conversation with him. When they entered, I expected outrage or concern or crying. Emily looked at her cousin and yelped, but the two adults simply urged her upstairs and took Jimmy into the downstairs bathroom. I remembered when Keith had tended to my own bloody nose.

There’d been no yelling. I heard Jimmy’s low voice giving a tired explanation. And heard the name “Drew.” I started to panic when I thought he’d bring my name into the explanation, but I heard him clearly now. “…over a girl.”

Relieved, I turned back over onto my side and without brushing my teeth, quickly fell into a restful sleep.

--xx--

Dear Sam,

            You would not believe the day I had yesterday. I got into a huge fight with everyone at brunch and then I thought Jimmy was going to kiss me…

            Boy, was I wrong! He ended up getting into a huge fight with his friend Drew (the one who had the party) and they beat the s**t out of each other. Jimmy started the whole thing! I felt bad that it was kind of my fault, but Drew said I could make it up to him if I let him take me out, so I agreed. I don’t know if I really like him like that, but I’m only here for a summer, and at least he’s better company than Jimmy right now.

            I didn’t tell him this would be my first date. He said I’m more mature than the other girls around here, and I don’t want to prove him wrong.

            What’s going on back home? I miss you.

            Liz.