“How could we do this to each other?” I asked. He knew exactly what I meant. All those years that had gone by. The nothingness that stretched inside of them.
“I don’t know.” He put me down carefully, his mouth on mine as he spoke. “But I’m not letting it happen again.”When we went back into the living room some time later, I saw what he’d been watching on the TV, the frame still frozen on a scene I recognized.
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?” I sucked in a breath, my heart jumping to my throat. Adam rubbed the back of my shoulder, picking up the remote.
“Paused it exactly where we left it ten years ago.”
He plopped onto the couch. It was true. The movie was set on the exact same scene I left it at. Down to the same second. Overcome with emotion, I struggled to make sense out of it.
“But when I came in…”
“The frame was already frozen.” He looked up at me.
“You remembered.”
“I don’t ever forget.” He patted the spot next to him. “This is no longer warmed up by Betsy, but my arms can do the trick.”
I sat next to Adam and finished the movie we started all those years ago.
It was a masterpiece.THREE DAYS OF a lot of sex, a lot of conversation, and a lot of pasta flew by. Adam had to go back to Mexico for another week of filming. He begged me to tag along, but work had piled up for me, too, during the time I’d taken off to channel all our energy to give each other orgasms.
Besides, I was growing strangely attached to Betsy and didn’t feel comfortable having some faceless assistant tend to her once a day. She needed company, a lot of cuddles, and honestly, to be brushed regularly.
I screened Chris’ calls the entire duration of that time. I just didn’t feel like giving him the forgiveness he wanted so much and unchaining him from the guilt. This wasn’t an error. A stumble in the dark. He had been cheating on me for four years with a man who was his lover before we’d even met. I was supposed to be the cure, the antidote, and I didn’t do the trick. I felt used, but surprisingly, realized I’d been trying to use Chris to fill a void, too. Maybe that was why I’d avoided him thus far. Because coming to terms with what we did to each other was so embarrassing.
Val, too, called me daily. I always picked up and humored him. He needed a slogan for the carpet shop, and I helped him with that, coming up with a dozen names and catchphrases.
“I hope you are not bumping uglies with Adam,” Val had half-joked, half-warned the last time we spoke.
“Adam is in Mexico.” I’d dodged the question lamely. It didn’t sit right with me, to lie to my brother. And yet, why did he even care?
“Nika, don’t beat around the bush.”
“Val, don’t say ‘beat’ and ‘bush’ when talking about sex and expect me not to make a juvenile joke.”
“You’re impossible. Answer me.”
“Why do you care so much?” I sighed, rubbing at my temple.
“Because he’s an asshole to women, and you are a woman. You also happen to be my sister. See what my problem is?”
“No,” I snapped. “Because he’s not an asshole to me. Never was.”
“That’s because he hasn’t slept with you yet.”
Oops.
My silence was all the admission he needed.
Val let out a feral, hissing sound. “Great. Really, Nika?”
“Val.” I laughed, trying to make light of it. “Chris cheated on me. In our bed. With his gay lover, by the way. You cannot protect my heart. You couldn’t when I was a kid, and you sure as hell can’t all the way from Massachusetts.”
“So, you are together.”
There was no point lying to him. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I guess we are.”
“Right. Even though I specifically asked you not to.”
“Why did you put us under the same roof if you cared so much about us not being together?” I cut him off. “Seems a bit counter-productive, even cruel. You knew Adam used to have a thing for me. He told me he asked you about dating me once. And you couldn’t have been so blind as to how much I wanted him when we were kids.”
“I wanted to know where both your loyalty lay,” Val said bitterly. “Now I do.”After Val hung up on me, guilt found its way to me. It gnawed in my gut, nibbling its way all over my mood. When Adam called for our daily chat, which always stretched into hours, he didn’t mention anything about my brother, and I figured, since he was coming home the next day, it was better to have this conversation in person.
The next day came in a storm. Adam threw the door open at six in the morning, charging straight to his bedroom, where I was half-asleep, all cuddled up with Betsy. I’d taken up residence in his room since that day in my shower.