Page 41 of Tangling Hearts

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Brendan

Annie and I both say it at the exact same time only her voice sounds pained. “Corinne!” Thrown and confused, I glance to her. She’s pale, her mouth open as she looks from me to Corinne.

The trashy girl who almost broke my dick off all those years ago, exclaims, “Oh man! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes? Now I can finally let THAT piece of guilt go. How long have you guys been together?”

“Corinne, don’t! Umm…I…” Annie stops. She gulps and looks at me. “Oh, Brendan, I’m so sorry.”

Totally in the dark, I ask her, “What do you have to be sorry about?”

Corinne runs over and grabs my arm. “It’s me who needs to apologize.” She turns to Annie, “When you said you were moving to Italy, Annie, I thought to myself, she’ll be back. She’s just mad I slept with YOU!” Corinne drops my arm and points at me, grinning. “She’s not really going to throw college away.” She snaps her fingers, “Just like that! But you did it! You fucking did it, Annie!” Corinne hits the bar. Everything she’s saying is coming into focus but that loud THWACK jars my memory. A crashing sound of a Pellegrino bottle thrown against the door when I was twenty-five reverberates in my ears.

I look at Annie, puzzle pieces flying together so fast it’s making me sick. “That was you?”

She stares at me with a helpless look. “Brendan, I’m so sorry. Let me explain.”

“You were that girl who got mad at me for forgetting Corinne’s name.”

Corinne’s jaw drops. “You forgot my name?!!”

Annie yells at her, “Corinne! Shut up!”

I nearly fall off the barstool backing away from her. “You remembered me this whole time? You know who I was?”

Corinne starts to say something, and I spin to look at her. The words fall dead in her throat as she sees my eyes. She glances to Annie, realizing she’s caused trouble. Again.

“Brendan, I tried to tell you. I can explain. Hang on. I’m coming out.”

“Unfuckingbelievable.” I start for the door.

“Brendan!” Annie runs out from behind the bar. I pass by Taryn who’s wondering what’s going on as she’s walking out of the bathroom and sees our faces. Annie catches up to me since I can’t move that fast with this fucking gunshot wound, but she doesn’t touch me, just waits until we both get outside.

I stare at her, stunned. “You knew it was me this whole time! I asked you if we’d met before!” I rake both hands through my hair, the images of all the moments I felt she looked familiar, stabbing me one after the other. “I asked you that a lot! How could you lie to my face?!”

Her eyes are desperate, and her hands reach for me, but don’t touch. “I was going to tell you so many times, but I didn’t know how!”

“You just say it! When I ask you, have we met, you say YES!!! HOW HARD IS THAT?” I walk away from her.

“Please, Brendan,” she cries out, chasing me. “Please let me explain.”

I’m looking everywhere for something stable to clamp onto, hope drifting away from me, the hope of finding someone I could trust. A hope I didn’t even know I had until she came into my life. I stop and stare at her, pain twisting my face. “Did you do this to get back at me? For being an asshole? I remember us fighting, but... why would you do this to me?”

She searches my eyes. “You told me you wanted to stay far away from me! You looked at me back then like I was less than nothing!” She gulps down the hurt of those words, and her desperation to get through to me. “And then when you came into my bar, you were so nice, and part of me wanted to tell you right then, but you didn’t remember our fight. You didn’t remember! I remembered you, Brendan. How could you not remember me?”

“I did remember you! Over and over, on the tip of my consciousness – just out of reach. And I asked you to help me remember ---- but you didn’t”

“I didn’t need help to remember you,” she says, quietly angry.

“You don’t get to be angry, Annie. Because you’ve been lying to me – lying to my face!” I pace, taking this in. “You don’t get to steal a person’s choice. If you had told me it was you, I would have thought that was funny!” A bizarre laugh tears at my insides. “I would have said how great you looked. I would have asked you about moving to Italy! You know, I was impressed that you did that, back then. We could have talked about it!” I step back, pieces still coming together. “Christiano’s in Italy, isn’t he? That’s why you called that early – because of the fucking time difference.”

Annie crumbles. “Yes.”

“The layers of this unfolding for me - do you have any idea how badly that’s going to haunt me? I’m going home. Don’t follow me. Go close your bar.” I turn and walk home. She doesn’t follow me because there was nothing about the way I just looked at her that suggested this was open for discussion.

When I get inside the penthouse, Mark’s asleep. I almost wake him. I even walk to the bottom landing of the stairs and look up, about to call his name and ask for his help. But that would be new territory, like breaking through a forest that has never had a path. I don’t have the energy to try. So I go in my room and close the door.

On my nightstand are Annie’s things – a lip-gloss, a half-empty glass of water, and the floor-plan Mr. Donovan gave her for the patio. She’d started to take them with her, but I’d told her to leave them. She’d be back, so why not? Walking to them, I go to pick them up, but I can’t touch them. So I let them sit. I crawl into bed and stare at them. When dawn comes the next morning, I’m still awake, still lying here, trying to understand.

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