Katherine's Fate

Chapter 5

Alex MacRurii is sitting in my living room, OH MY GOD!!!!!!! I would have cleaned up a little had I known my biggest fantasy was going to be hanging out with me. Granted my house is pretty clean so it’s not like much needed to be done, but still. We are asking questions and laughing, but now he seems confused. I can almost see the questions running past those smoky eyes of his. I look at him and say. “You want to know what happened to my brother, don’t you.” He looked down at his lap and nodded his head as he said, “If you don’t want to tell its ok, I completely understand. This is the first time you have talked to me outside of class.”

That comment got me some dirty looks from Heather as well as a nice smack on the kneecap, Alex just chuckled then tried to cover it with a cough as he caught the glare I shot at him. I said, “I know it is and I’m sorry about that, as you could see my ex was not exactly nice. He did this because I didn’t tell him I knew another language.” Alex lifted his brow at me and said, “Really, that’s why he was so pissed off?” I smiled and said, “Not completely, I talked to a guy from my past in this other language. That’s what really tripped his trigger. He said he couldn’t trust me anymore and that I was nothing but a w***e and that’s all I would ever be.” I saw his jaw tighten as I talked about Ian; I also saw the clouds roll into his eyes. I like seeing those clouds because something bad happened to me. I know that is really selfish and kind of bad of me but it made me feel special.

He said, “Ah now I see the full picture.” Heather said, “Oh yea, and what is your opinion of him even though you’ve never met him.” He looked her right in the eye and said, “You want my thoughts from just hearing about him in the last hour or so?” Both of us simply nodded our heads and waited. He cleared his throat and said, “In my opinion he is a chauvinistic egomaniac with extremely low self-esteem and someone who has no self-worth so he believes that no one has any worth and that everyone around him is there simply for his own amusement.” That seemed pretty accurate if you ask me.

Heather said, “Damn you got him nailed down without ever meeting him. You are good.” Alex laughed a little and said, “It’s not hard to figure cowards out once you know how they treat others, especially the women in their life.” He looked me right in the eyes as he said this. I could feel my cheeks heating up from that gaze.

I said, “So back to my brother. I had two brothers when I was growing up, Austin and Michael. Austin was 6 years older than me and Michael is 4 years older. Austin was in the military, he joined right out of high school. I didn’t see him very often for about 2 years. He surprised me by picking me up from football practice on my 16th birthday, I had already finished all my classes and had my diploma but the coach asked me to stay on to get everything ready for the next season.” He stopped me and said, “You were on the football team? You graduated high school at 16? You must have had some pretty lenient teachers.” Both me and Heather laughed as I said, “They weren’t lenient they all knew both my brothers so I got the entire years assignments within the first month, once I got the assignments I had all of 1st semester to have them all done. Then I went to the next years and got the same thing except I had the 2nd semester to have them done. And I wasn’t on the football team, I was the manager. I tried out for the team but I got hurt and couldn’t actually play so the coach let me be the manger.”

Heather was laughing as I finished talking. Alex said, “What is so funny?” I said, “She is thinking about what happened that got me hurt. I tried out my freshman year and my brother Michael was the captain at the time. He was against me being on the team so he and one of his friends tackled me in a way that dislocated my knee and hip at the joint.” He winced and said, “Ouch that must’ve hurt.” I looked at him and said, “It did, but I knew he did it on purpose. So I made him pop them both back into place then I kicked him right in the jaw and walked back inside. Once I got changed I started organizing the office and all the supplies. Coach came in and saw what I did and asked me to be the manager. The rest is history.” He nodded his head like he could see it happening in his head.

We need to get back on topic, as much as I want to avoid opening up old wounds and would love to put it off as long as possible. I want him to know because it had a very big impact on the person I am today. Before I could say anything he said, “So your brother Austin, what happened? You were at the part where he picked you up after practice.” I said, “I was just leaving the locker room when I heard the roar of his truck. I turned around and he was parked in the parking lot just waiting for me. He got out of the truck and leaned against the bumper on the passenger side. I ran over to him and jumped in his arms, and just like always he picked me up and swung me around in circles. As we got into the truck he told me that we were going out for my birthday. To this day I still remember what his truck smelled like and how happy I was to see him.” Alex had been watching me while I was talking and Heather always gets sad when I talk about Austin. She had the biggest crush on him when we were growing up.

I have always regretted that she couldn’t see if they could make it work. I said, “Anyways we went to dinner and went to play pool at one of my favorite places. This little hole in the wall place called Nicky’s pool place. We loved the way the place smelled of cigarette smoke and the music they played. We played until they closed for the night just like we always did. As we were leaving there were some gang bangers hanging around his truck. As we got close, he moved closer to me and lifted the back of his shirt to allow me access to his gun. He had two custom desert eagles. I’ll show them to you sometime, they are really pretty. But as he clicked the alarm on his keys to lock it again it caused the truck to chirp, and they looked up to see who was coming. They said something to him in Spanish and he spoke back, and then said in English that they needed to get away from his truck. They said that they were going to be taking his truck for themselves and that if we didn’t walk away they were going to kill him and take me for themselves as well.”

At this point Heather started getting more upset then before. Alex was simply listening to what I was saying. I looked over at Heather and said, “I’m sorry Heather, I know how you felt about him and hearing this is hard on you. You know you are one of my best friends and I love you but you and I both know that he needs to know this stuff. Why don’t you go on home, I’ll be alright I usually am; besides Alex will be here if he decides to come back.” Heather nodded her head and said her goodbyes. Once she had left I continued telling him what happened. “My brother didn’t like that idea one bit. He told them that there was no way in hell they were going to get me away from him. He put his arm around me and pushed me behind him as we walked towards the passenger side of his truck. They moved out of the way a little bit as we got close to it but then one of them grabbed a hold of my arm as I went past him. Austin turned his head and grabbed his arm to get it off of me. As soon as the guy let go of me Austin moved his hand up and gripped his throat tight enough to cut off his air supply and choke him.”

This is always the part where I have to stop and take a breath. Reliving what happened is never fun, especially when it’s something that changed me in some pretty unbelievable ways. Alex said, “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.” I looked at him and said, “No I’m ok, I want you to know. Before this night the only good things in my life were Michael and Austin. My parents were not very kind to me. They made my life a living hell, but my brothers always treated me like a princess that needed to be protected.” He thought about this then said, “Why didn’t they protect you from your parents then?” I figured that question was coming and I said, “They did what they could but Austin left when I was 14 so he wasn’t there to protect me. Michael was 18 and getting ready to go away to college so once he left I was going to be all alone with my parents. I was not looking forward to that, I didn’t have to see what it was like but I knew it was not going to be fun.”

He said, “Wait you didn’t stay with your parents? What do you mean by that? I’m so confused.” I laughed at him and said, “Calm down, I’ll explain it all to you. Back to what I was saying, Austin had one of the guys by the throat and the other arm around me. I realized that I was just being a burden to him, so I wrapped my hand around the hilt of the gun. As I was getting ready to pull it from the holster Austin shot me a look that told me not to just yet. We were always able to do that. We could communicate with just a look; it used to drive everyone crazy. I nodded with my eyes to let him know that I understood. He told them that if they didn’t leave right then they were all going to die. They looked scared for just a moment before they started laughing. I knew he wasn’t kidding but they thought he was.” I thought back to what it was like standing in that parking lot with my brother.

I continued after taking a deep breath, “We stood there and waited to see what they would do. The guy Austin had by the throat pulled a knife and stabbed him in the neck. The other guys that were there didn’t know what to do so they ran. Austin fell back onto me and I tried my best to stop the bleeding from his neck. It seemed it was a futile effort but I had to try. The one that stabbed him was still standing there coughing, trying to catch his breath. He looked at me and said now that he is not here I can do anything I like to you without any repercussions. I looked up at him with tears in my eyes and got the gun from Austin’s back holster and pointed it at him. He registered the gun and laughed at me as he said that the gun was too big for me and there was no way I could handle a gun that size. I looked at him and said watch me. I fired three times. He ended up with one in the neck and a double tap in the heart. I got out my cell and called 911 and did what I could to stop the bleeding but I couldn’t do anything. The guy got his jugular vein and he was losing blood to fast. By the time anyone got there he was gone and I was slumped over his chest crying.”

I looked up to see Alex’s eyes were a little misty. I said, “It hurt a lot to see my brother die in my arms, but I’ve come to terms with what happened. Unfortunately that was just the beginning of my suffering. It’s been almost 10 years since his death and everything that happened since and I have not celebrated a birthday since that day. And now in memory of him I get a bottle of his favorite liquor from some friends of his and get drunk on my birthday. Now see he was a whiskey drinker but I’m more of a scotch girl.” This earned me a funny look as he said, “What happened afterwards? And you drink scotch? I never would have guessed.” We both laughed as I said, “Yes I drink scotch. My friends own a distillery in Scotland. They send me cases as I need them. I just have to let them know when I’m low and I get a new shipment.” The look of shock and awe on his face was priceless. I asked him, “Would you like some?” He nodded and I went down into the basement to get a new bottle. Once I came upstairs I grabbed two glasses from the kitchen and went back to sit down in the living room. Alex’s face was unreadable. I wonder what he is thinking about.

As I poured the glasses I told him of what happened after my brother died. I showed him the scars on my legs and the ones on my back that you could see above the bandages that Heather put on. It was not easy to talk about it but I felt this overwhelming need to tell him, so that’s what I did. He took everything very well considering everything I told him. The bulk of the scars were under the bandages and you can’t really see them but there were still quite a few that you could. No one on this earth knows everything about me, yet for some reason I just told a complete stranger everything. Why would I do that? What has gotten into me lately?