That night, when the handle to my door turns, I’m awake. Half of me is anticipating that it’s going to be Brayson guessing it was me who sent the check and wanting to ask me about the money. I’ve been turning it over in my head and I still don’t know what I’ll say if he asks. I’m not a liar, at least, I don’t like to lie straight to someone’s face. White lies are different. Keeping the origin of the check a secret is for the good of everyone.
But it’s not Brayson, it’s Jefferson.
When his eyes meet mine in the darkness, I see him jump. He wasn’t expecting me to be awake. He wanted to find me asleep in the dark and work whatever he has boiling under his skin on my willing body. But he can’t do that now.
“Hey,” I say softly, half expecting him to turn around and leave. He doesn’t though. The door is locked and he seems to take a steadying breath before he turns to me.
There’s no reply, though. He stalks across the room like a panther with eyes on its prey. His mouth is on mine in a second, his hands scrambling to rid me of covers and then clothes. He’s frantic and rough and it’s what I need. The pain that surges through me when he bites my nipple wakes me and pulls me from my place of emptiness. He puts his hand over my mouth then shoves inside me so hard, I cry out against his palm.
“That’s what you need,” he hisses, his hips bucking into me punishingly. “I know just what you want.” He’s right. He’s so right that I want to cry.
I close my eyes because looking into his steel cold eyes is too much. Behind my lids I can focus on the physical thing between us, not get distracted by the thoughts of why Jefferson is the way he is or why I’m the way I am or why we’re like this together. Questions don’t have a place here. All we need is to fuck to take it all away.
I come so violently, my back arches and snaps back like a bow string, pussy clamping down so hard that Jefferson’s thrusts falter for a second, then he’s coming and coming, his body taut, abs rippling, face a mask of fury.
Even in the throes of an orgasm, Jefferson is angry.
But then he isn’t. I feel a drop of water on my skin and when I look up, I realize Jefferson is crying. His chest hitches and then he’s pulling out of me so fast I wince. I try to rest my hand on his shoulder but he turns his back, his emotions too raw and private for him to let me witness. He scrambles for his shorts, and tugs them on but I’m not going to let him leave like this. I can’t. He’s been suffering too long in silence and he needs someone to open up to for his own good.
“Hey.” I put my hand on his arm but he shrugs it off. I grab him again and this time I hold on tight. “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s okay.”
“No it fucking isn’t,” he hisses, pulling himself away again and looking at me like I’m an idiot. “You heard them down there. He needs an experimental treatment. No one who needs an experimental treatment is okay. He’s had everything the doctors are confident will work and now he’s on the drugs they don’t know enough about. Don’t you understand?”
“I understand, okay? But we have to stay positive.”
“What the fuck do you know about staying positive. You’ve known him for five minutes. What do you care about losing him? Maybe you’re just here to stake a claim on his money. I mean, you’re his daughter. You’ll be entitled to some of this when he dies.” Jefferson waves his arms wildly, his eyes just as out of control and I feel as though he kicked me in the gut.
“I don’t need his money,” I spit. “I’ve got plenty of my own.”
“Oh yeah. Rich mommy leave you a bucket-load in her will?”
Fuck. He’s really vicious and hurtful and hateful, and on the brink of crumbling. I can see it in the way his hands are trembling and his eyes are reddening.
“I grew up in a trailer, Jefferson. Without shoes that fit or clothes that were clean, so shut the fuck up talking like you know anything about me.” He scowls and shakes his head like he doesn’t believe me and I want to punch him in the mouth. “You think you’re the only person who’s ever had it hard. You think your pain is greater than mine when you know shit about my life?”
“And you know shit about mine!” he hisses, barely keeping his anger under control. I glance at the door, worried that we’re going to be discovered but how I can tell him to be quiet when he’s like this; a compressed spring on the precipice of releasing.
Anger against anger isn’t helping anything. Pain rubbing up against pain only hurts everyone even more. I don’t need to exacerbate all the negative feelings. I have to try to reach him before all of us are exposed. Finding Jefferson half-naked in my room isn’t going to make Steve feel better. It’ll make this family implode just when we need to pull together. “I’ll tell you what I do know,” I say softly. “I know what you taste like, what it feels like to have you inside me. I know what it feels like to lose myself in you and how it feels when you lose yourself in me. I also know how it feels to be hurt by someone who should have been there to protect me, just like you.”
“You know what it feels like to burn,” he says, his eyes raging like the heat he’s describing. “You know what this feels like?” He claws at his ruined skin and turns his back, his fists clenched so tightly that his shoulder bunch with tension.
“No,” I say softly. “I don’t know what that’s like. I haven’t walked all of your journey, but our paths aren’t totally different, Jefferson.”
He inhales a shaky breath. “He’s going to die,” he says, his voice totally flat and devoid of emotion.
“You don’t know that. The treatment might work, and if it doesn’t, there are other treatments to try.”
“Other treatments that cost money we don’t have.”
“Money isn’t a problem,” I say quickly before I realize that I was so worried about reassuring Jefferson that I’ve slipped up again.
“Not a problem?” He turns and shakes his head. “What are you going to do, win the lottery?”
I blink, frozen in place because I don’t want to tell him anything about that. I don’t want him knowing it was me who sent the money.
“You can’t think negatively. That isn’t going to help anyone.”
“Oh yeah.” Jefferson looks to the ceiling as though he’s trying to draw on strength and patience from above. “Says the girl who’s so scared of getting hurt that she throws herself into sex with four men, but can’t deal with the idea of a relationship with one.”
His words are like a knife to my heart. “This isn’t about me,” I say softly, tears burning in my throat. I can’t look at him now because I don’t want him to see that he’s right.
But when tears slide from my eyes, marking the carpet at my feet, he takes a step back.
I might be an emotional cripple but so is Jefferson.
My lungs hitch, making a strangled sound in my throat. My heart aches so badly for all the things that it’s missing. Real love; that unflinching bond with another human being. Validation; knowing that I’m known and loved for everything that I am and am not. Hope; that there can be more than what I’ve confined myself to have. I’m sad. Deep down sad that my dad, the one family member I have left, is sick. And I’m wrecked that Jefferson is suffering this way and I don’t know how to reach him.
But who am I kidding. I can’t fix myself, why do I think I could fix anyone else?
I don’t stop Jefferson when he walks away, closing the door softly behind himself.
That night, under the darkness of my covers, I cry for us all.
