Page 7 of A Brother's Secret

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Amalia…

I jolted awake, the lighting in the room soft from the bedside lamps which were both on but it was the way that light fell on Kyle’s face that made my breath catch in my throat. There were these times, when we were kids, that we would lay under this huge oak tree in this field out by our neighborhood and the light would come through the leaves –

I quickly banished the thought. Those days were long gone; over with… and nothing about them would ever come back or be the same. Still, I didn’t wake him right away, I traced lines that hadn’t been there before with my gaze. Deep brackets to either side of his mouth, and I remembered that easy smile that always graced his lips. Light crow’s feet fanned out from the corners of his eyes, too, but you had to be close, like we were now, to seethem.

There was a decent expanse of empty bedspread between us. He kept himself a healthy and respectful distance away, but still, the warm weight of one of his hands rested familiarly against my side, just below where my ribs dipped, before the rise of myhip.

Reassurance that I wasn’t going anywhere or insurance that I wouldn’t without his waking? I couldn’t tell, I didn’t know, and it brought home just how much I didn’t know about him. Not now, not anymore… seventeen years was a long, long, time without so much as a whisper.

I did know one thing for sure: not once in a million years did I ever picture nerdy, intelligent, and honest Kyle Cochran joining a notorious motorcycle gang. I mean, what was that all about? That was way more along the lines of something I woulddo.

His thumb smoothed back and forth over the light material of his borrowed undershirt and I jumped slightly. He opened his eyes and the grave expression in them made my breath catch for an entirely different reason. His features turned, lessening to something akin to sadness and he said, “Come to Jesus… time totalk.”

I felt my heart sink in my chest and tried to stall because I didn’t feel like breaking his heart all over again. It was clear my disappearance had hurt, and this conversation was only going to open up old wounds that had never fully healed… for both ofus.

“Did you get food?” I asked, trying to deflect.

“You were out when I got back to the room, so no. I’ll order up some room service but then I need toknow.”

“Why I left without saying goodbye?”

“No, you explained that part well enough, more of why you never reached out, not once, in all these years.”

I swallowed hard, “That one’s easy. It wasn’t over, clearly, and I didn’t want to drag you into mymess.”

“Well I’m glad you finally called out to me, and I’m here now,” he said, and dragged his hand from my side to plant it firmly against the mattress so he could push himselfup.

That wasn’t why I had posted what I did, but how to tell him that? How to tell him I had given up and made peace years ago that I would never see him again? Which clearly, he was the better man than I was on that front. I was still a little bit shell-shocked that I was even here, looking at him, looking at me… likethat.

Heavy emotion played out in the air between us, thick and cloying, shimmering between us like something tangible, touchable, if only we would reach out and grasp it – own it, but I wasn’t ready to. I couldn’t. I was ridden by a deep sense of shame. I was my father’s daughter and I was supposed to be tougher than all of that. Amalia Rose Junix wasn’t supposed to be a woman who gave up or gave in but I had… I was tired. Tired of the game, of being alone, of living with what I’d done and with what I’d had to do since. Of stealing from good people, of grifting our way from one place to the next relying on people’s good will while they were none the wiser as to who and what my father and I hadbeen.

I swallowed hard and pushed my way up into a sitting position alongside Kyle, wondering at how he was here and at how the years may have changed him. How I may have changedhim.

“Here.” He handed me the room service menu and I didn’t even look at it, setting it aside.

“Just get me a burger,” I said and sniffed, not wanting to know or to look at how much this joint cost. The guilt of him footing the bill for a place like this was already starting to creep in. You see, Kyle had changed me, from the first day we’d met. He’d taught me honesty and core values that my father had clearly lacked, and I didn’t know whether to kiss him or curse him for it because now, I was a screwed up mess on the inside over all ofit.

“Burger it is,” he said softly and picked up the phone to order two, charging it to ourroom.

Silence hung between us as he moved around the space. None of the ungainliness he’d had as a boy, none of the awkwardness of being a teen remained. He’d gained muscle in the intervening years, bulked up a bit in a way I hadn’t expected. He was still slender but wasn’t skinny anymore and those arms… How I would love to put needle to his smooth skin and decorate him with art and poetry. He had the arms for it, holy god did he ever, not that I would say anything about it. I mean, the awkward going on now was already awkward enough.

“What did you save?” he asked and at least that was somewhat of a safe topic of conversation. Too much adrenaline, maybe my hormones were raging, I don’t know… but I’d never thought of Kyle as anything but my best friend and confidant before, certainly nothing especially romantic had crossed my radar from him. For him is another matter entirely… my rebellious brain whispered. I couldn’t even tell you if what I was feeling between us was any kind of romantic now, I mean, I was still reeling.

That, and it felt like there was a chasm between love and sex that most people didn’t realize existed and it was a tight-wire act to cross it. I didn’t know if Kyle felt the same way about it that I did, though, and I wasn’t about to friggin’ ask. Instead, I got up, and complained “I feel like I got raped by a couple of horses.” Which was both true and enough to put a damper on my jumbled thoughts and feelings for the moment. Bonus points, it made Kyle laugh and he shook hishead.

“Not used to riding?”

“Not used to riding for like hours and hours at a shot like that,” Isaid.

“I have something for that. After dinner, though.”

“Fair enough, make me suffer.”

Again with that laugh and it felt, for a moment, like there was really no time lost between us. I smiled some and hauled my messenger bag across the carpet, upending it onto thebed.

Mostly my art supplies fell out first. Black, hard bound sketch books, pencils both graphite drawing and Prisma colored, in their fancy hand sewn roll-up case that a fellow artist had made me. Two hard cases that looked like they should hold drill bits or a handgun or something, but really held my favorite tattoo guns, and a myriad of other sentimental crap that amounted to the most important parts ofme.

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