Fire in Her Eyes

Among Brothers

“Marshall!” Mrs. Miller chided.

“Mom, how can you be ok with this? She just got home from dealing with that psycho and he’s already putting the moves on her!” Marsh said angrily. “Val’s in no shape for this!”

“Son, you need to calm down.” Mr. Miller said. “At the end of the day, who she does or does not accept ‘moves’ from is your sister’s choice. Now, your mother and I certainly have our reservations, but Mark is right. He has been a good friend to you this past year and a half, and he isn’t trying to push her into anything. He’s taking a chance with being honest about his intentions and he deserves for you to at least hear him out.”

Marshall respected his father too much to say anything further, but it was clear from his expression that he had no desire to hear his friend out.

“Marsh… I’m not asking her to marry me today. I’m not even asking her to be my girlfriend, or for you to be ok with us someday being there. All I’m doing at this point is treating her like she deserves to be treated. Nothing more. I know you and Mr. Miller would kick my ass if I ever hurt her. Hell, some of the guys at the precinct would, too. I just wanted everything to be above board. Out in the open so you know what’s happening. Your sister deserves that and so do you. Lies and secrets and shadows are how she got hurt in the first place. I won’t let her go through that again.” He said adamantly.

Mr. And Mrs. Miller sat back, letting their son hash it out with his friend for now. Val wore a hopeful expression on her face. After everything that had happened, if Dad and Marshall didn’t think it was a good thing, she wouldn’t let things go anywhere with Mark. But if he could convince them… that had to count for something.

Marshall looked at his friend for a moment longer before his angry expression slowly melted away. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You’d better mean that. I absolutely will make you regret it if you hurt Val.”

Seeing his son’s reluctant acceptance, Mr. Miller stepped back into the conversation. “Mark, you’re a hard worker, and you have a good heart. I’ve never seen you be anything but kind. If you continue to be the man I believe you to be, then we won’t have any problems. But Marsh is right. You had better be very serious about this. My daughter comes with a lot of baggage. You know that. She comes with lots of trauma, and now a baby by an abusive ex. No one will think less of you if you choose not to take on that history. But if you do, you’ll need to be prepared for a hard road. My daughter deserves the world, but it will take the right man to give it to her.”

“I’ll be that man, Mr. Miller.” Mark said with a determined expression.

Mr. Miller turned his attention to Val. “Sweetheart, I see a happiness on your face that I thought would take a long time to return. I’m no fool. I can see how Mark makes you feel. Last time a man made you feel special, I warned you that he was just looking for someone he could use. This time… I can’t believe that. I believe that Mark means well. But you are fresh out of a very difficult relationship. You and Mark both deserve to not be in a rebound relationship. On top of that, the reality is that for the next several months, your hormones are going to be more concerned with sustaining a baby than with being stable. That’s no foundation for important decisions or for building something lasting. Mark’s a good kid. But now is not the time to go beyond friendship.” He advised, his tone firm.

Val nodded her understanding. “Ok…” She finally said. Not listening to her dad had gotten her in this mess in the first place, and the Miller’s marriage was envied far and wide. He certainly knew what he was talking about. “I trust you, Dad. We’ll be careful.”

Marshall barely said a word to Mark for the rest of breakfast. Once Val and Mrs. Miller had left for Val’s appointment and the men had gone to work on repairing the fence on the east side of the property, Mark asked his friend, “How long am I gonna get the cold shoulder for this?”

“As long as it takes.” Marshall answered, not taking his eyes off the post he was setting.

“As long as it takes for what?”

“For you to convince me you’re not gonna go running when you realize what you’re getting into.”

“You really think I’m gonna give up when it gets hard, don’t you?”

Marshall laughed humorlessly. “It’s Val. ‘Hard’ is gonna be an understatement. She’s gonna wreck your life and you’re gonna break her heart over it.”

“I thought you and Val got along?” Mark said, stopping to look at his friend more closely. He’d never heard Marsh be so… blunt about his sister before. He always talked about her like some misunderstood angel who just couldn’t catch a break. Mark could read between the lines. It was obvious that Val wasn’t the most healthy individual just from the fact she had landed herself in such an ill-advised relationship. But he hadn’t expected Marshall to acknowledge that so plainly, let alone to basically warn him about her.

“We do… it’s just… she can be a lot.” Marsh said hesitantly, a guilty look crossing his face. He glanced at where his dad was working a little ways up.

Mark looked that way, too, then back at his friend with a sympathetic expression. “You’ve spent most of your life trying to take care of her. That must have been a lot of pressure growing up.”

“She needed us.” He answered simply, not looking over at Mark. Mark heard the edge in his voice and knew it wasn’t as simple as Marshall was trying to make it out to be.

“Did she wreck your life?” He asked quietly.

“No! Of course not. I love Val. We all do.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Marshall sighed. “She was always getting in some kind of trouble, but I was always there to get her out. She… she was more confident before Ev, after she’d been here a while… but she wasn’t ok. Let’s just say that confidence mixed with hurt was not a good combination.”

“What did she do?”

Marshall laughed, but the sound was more sad and frustrated than amused. “‘What didn’t she do’ is a shorter list. She broke a kid’s nose by slamming his face into a tree for calling her names. She released the English teacher’s pet snake in the boys locker. Pretty sure she stole some kids’ lunch money a few times, she just never got caught. Tagged some lockers, stuff like that.”

“You’re kidding? You always talked like she was some saint that just got dealt a bad hand. I never would’ve guessed from what you’ve told me before that she was a bad kid growing up.” He said incredulously.

“She’s not!” Marshall quickly amended. “She’s a good kid. She’s just hurting… and she doesn’t know what to do with the hurt.”

Mark thought about what Marshall was saying. None of it changed his mind. He was determined to make Val his girl. But he was starting to understand a little of what he was biting off.

“You don’t have to keep defending her, you know. It’s ok to admit she has problems.”

“I know she does, it’s just…” Marshall stood back and looked over the posts they had put in. “She needs me. I have to be there for her.”

“Marsh, you can be there for her without completely losing yourself. I had assumed that you’d be happy about your sister coming home—”

“I am!” He protested.

“I know you are. But you’re also stressing more than I’ve seen you stress all year. And don’t try to say it’s because of what I said, because we both know that’s not the whole story.” Mark told him.

Marshall sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair. “What am I even supposed to say, man? That part of me hoped she wouldn’t come back? That it was easier to hope she had just… moved on without us than to have to deal with all her constant drama? That girl has enough baggage to fill every barn in the county. And we have to deal with all of it all over again. I know it’s not her fault. Her dad messed her up, and now her ex, too. But it’s always something with her.”

Both young men jumped when they heard Mr. Miller behind them “I didn’t realize you felt that way, Marsh.”

“Dad! I know that sounds bad, I can explain—”