But the next morning, he behaved surprisingly normal. And the next morning after that, things were even more normal. It stunned me just how quickly my life with Ron shifted from the knife’s edge to a place of safety and happiness. I wore the locket at all times, and it tinkled against my chest like a reminder of what was possible—both the bad times and the good. I was afraid that anything could change at any moment, but Ron made a real effort to keep his temper in check.

  “I’ve always had a bad one, ever since I was a boy,” he explained to me. “Almost got myself kicked out of school on more than one occasion. Had to finish up my education at an alternative campus there at the end. I’ve never been good with dealing with anger. I don’t know why. Probably has something to do with my dad.”

  “Parents can wreak all sorts of havoc in their children’s lives,” I remarked darkly.

  As the marks on my arms faded, it became easier to forget what had happened that night. Ron was extra sweet, playing with the locket when we were sitting together, his arm around me. He said he even liquidated an asset so that he could help with some of the expenses.

  For a few blissful months more, I even imagined that things had changed, that Ron had seen and understood the errors of his way, and that everything would be back to normal. When things were good, they were really good. It was easy to take hold of that, to hold onto it for dear life, and to hope nothing else bad would happen.

  Yes, everything was just perfect until Marcus’ letter arrived in my mailbox one day unnoticed—unnoticed by me that was.

  I didn’t know that one of Ron’s favorite hobbies was to go through my mail, but when I got home from the club in the wee hours, he was sipping a beer on the couch and the sheets of paper covered in Marcus’ handwriting were scattered across the coffee table. Ron was resting his loafers on one of the sheets of paper, and I fought the urge to wince as he crossed his ankles. I didn’t want him to tear the paper—not before I got a chance to read what Marcus had written me.

  It was at that precarious moment that I realized that I didn’t love Ron anymore, and it was entirely possible that perhaps I never had. I’d only been filling the hole that had opened when I tried to shove Marcus out of my life, believing the true love we shared was wrong. I had this epiphany in a flash, seeing my boyfriend’s shoes marring the letter that Marcus had sent me. How long had it been since I’d sent him a letter? I scoured my memory, my shoulders sagging when I remembered that I’d written him sometime after my mother’s funeral. I wrote that he should give up on me, give up on us, because it was never going to happen. I was just wasting his time, if he was putting his life on hold for me. I would never be his.

  All of these thoughts, and not one of them on the danger I had to be in with Ron.

  For all of his apologizes and reparations and promises to be better, I understood intrinsically that I had to work quickly to defuse this situation or I would be the victim of yet another lash of my boyfriend’s terrible temper. I put my purse down and stepped out of my shoes.

  “What’ve you been doing?” I asked, walking over to the fridge. “Is there any beer left? Mind if I grab one?”

  “You probably need a drink,” Ron said, his voice even but strained. “You want to tell me just what kind of relationship you’ve been carrying on with this Marcus fellow?”

  I collected myself, as I popped the cap off the bottle with a hiss, taking a quick draught to clear my thoughts and give myself a drop of liquid courage. Beer wasn’t a “Parker” drink, and it had been a while since I’d tasted the hoppy suds.

  I cleared my throat and stood in front of Ron, who looked up at me, a little amused.

  “I have to confess something,” I said, watching his eyebrows rise slowly. “And I have to also admit that it’s something I’ve been hiding from you because I’m so embarrassed about it.”

  “Go on,” Ron said slowly. I could clearly see I piqued his curiosity and that emotion was currently winning out over blind rage.

  “That letter’s from my stepbrother, Marcus,” I said, pointing at the sheets of paper at Ron’s feet. I didn’t get into the particulars of the illegality of someone opening another person’s mail. That would distract from my goal of defusing Ron.

  “Your stepbrother?” he repeated, dubious but still interested.

  “This is…I’m really, really ashamed to have to even say this out loud.” I paused and pinched the bridge of my nose. “My stepbrother’s in love with me.”

  I steeled myself for a violent outburst, but Ron seemed to resist his most common denominator and continued to stare at me in rapt attention.

  “We were close growing up,” I embellished, “but things really got twisted when we were both seniors in high school. We lived in the same house, and I guess with all the raging hormones and everything, he got it in his head that our closeness was romance.”

  I chanced a glance at Ron, who was still listening, slack-jawed.

  “I always told him how wrong he was, how wrong the whole idea was, but he was too enamored.” I sighed. “Maybe I should’ve given him a blowjob just to make him go away.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. “You mean, you wanted him?” Ron demanded. “Do you still want him?”

  I held my hands up. “All I want is for him to leave me alone,” I said. “I don’t know why or how, but he is always figuring out where I am and sending me these stupid letters. I usually tear them up and throw them away without reading them.”

  Ron pointed at the paper beneath his shoes. “This letter here says you wrote him back.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I demanded, well aware that I was skating on thin ice. “He was raised as my brother. I want to have a normal relationship with him, but it’s apparently impossible for him to separate sexual and familial closeness. I told him in the last letter I wrote that he needs to stop writing letters to me, that I’m happy with you, and that he’s wasting his time. It makes me physically sick to think about being with him, Ron, and I’m sorry that you know about it, too. You probably think I’m wretched…that I’m wrong, and disgusting.”

  I hitched my shoulders a couple of times, gearing up for the waterworks if I needed the tears to make my half-truths more convincing. It pained me to throw my relationship with Marcus under the bus, especially when I had, just minutes before, rediscovered the fact that I loved him now more than ever. But I needed to do whatever I could to save my own skin from Ron’s wrath. My boyfriend was a jealous man. I was more than clear on that fact.

  “I’m not disgusted by you,” Ron said, holding his hand out to me. I disguised a sigh of relief by taking another quick sip of the beer before taking his hand and allowing him to lead me around the coffee table, around the pages that Marcus had written to me, and sit me down on the couch beside Ron.

  “I’m just really ashamed that you know, now,” I said. “I’m embarrassed that you read Marcus’ letter; I’m angry that he won’t stop writing them in the first place.”

  “Why haven’t you reported him to the police?” Ron asked. “This qualifies as stalker behavior. They can do something—compel him to stop.”

  I thought quickly. “I really don’t want to upset my parents—well, my mom and his dad. They both would be gutted if they realized how far my stepbrother had tried to take things, and I don’t think they’d ever forgive themselves. They never knew that he was the reason I moved here to Miami, all the way across the country from everyone. I don’t want anyone else to hurt because of my stepbrother’s stupidity.”

  “But you’re hurting, obviously,” Ron said, putting his arm around me.

  “If I’m the only one who has to suffer, I’d rather it be like this,” I said. “I can wait. I can deal with this. I don’t want to ruin the family name, you know, with incest. I’ll wait until my parents are dead and gone before I press charges or anything like that. I feel that I owe them that much.”

  I didn’t owe either of them shit, and it brought a bad taste to my mouth to parrot all the things they’d poisoned my mind with all these years. But if it would get me out of a possibly violent confrontation with Ron, I’d do anything.

  “He says some pretty sick fucking stuff in there, Parker,” Ron said, scuffing at the pages with the heel of his loafer. “About not ever stopping loving you, about being with you at some point. Tell you the truth—if I ever see that twisted motherfucker, I’ll kill him.”

  I swallowed hard. Some men, when tossing out threats in conversation, blustered. However, this was no empty threat. Ron was not capable of empty threats. No, my boyfriend meant it. If, by some joke of fate, my boyfriend ever ran into my stepbrother, there would be blood.

  I was just thankful that Marcus was nowhere near Miami.

  “Let me get these things out of here,” I said, setting my beer down on the coffee table before gathering up the pages of Marcus’ letter, yanking the one sheet from under Ron’s shoe. “I’m sick of looking at them.”

  I straightened the pages against the table before deciding that looked suspicious, so I instead tore them into pieces. It was like doing injury to my own body, but at least I was the one doing it—not Ron.

  “I usually just tear them up and flush them down the toilet,” I lied, plastering what I hoped was a sheepish grin on my face. “Sorry to be so secretive about it. I just wanted them out of the house before you saw them. I didn’t want you to judge me for something I can’t really control.”

  Ron guffawed, taking a gulp out of my discarded beer by mistake. “It’s lucky you haven’t clogged the pipes,” he said. “Go on. You don’t have to hide anything from me. No more flushing paper, okay? Flood the whole damn place.”

  I giggled dutifully and tossed the destroyed letter into the trash. I had lots of things I needed to hide from Ron now, apparently, that my feelings had resurfaced for Marcus. Marcus would never make me feel like this—caged, endangered, at risk of losing everything with just a single wrong move.

  No. Being with Marcus would set me free. Why had it taken me this long to figure it out? I’d wasted so much time denying what was there that it made me feel physically sick.

  It wasn’t until Ron was safely out of the apartment the next day that I dove into the trash, retrieving all of the pieces of letter I could find. Some of them were sopping and stained from dumped coffee grounds, but I spread them across the floor, piecing the tears back together, going for the roll of tape I kept in the junk drawer to make the words legible again. I had to know what Marcus had written to me—now more than ever. His correspondence came often and regularly. I was frankly surprised that Ron hadn’t discovered Marcus’ letters before last night.

  But most of the time, I tended to ignore them. I might read one, just to see how he was doing, but the parts where he talked about still being in love with me—those were the parts that I didn’t like to read. I would usually skip over those parts. They were torturous to read, especially when I often tried to convince him of the opposite. No, he didn’t love me. No, I wasn’t the only one for him; he was holding out hope for something that just wasn’t possible anymore, not since we’d been in the same house together, part of the same family. He could be happy with someone else, if he just gave someone else a chance, if he forgot that he was saving himself for me.

  Listening carefully for the telltale roar of Ron’s motorcycle returning, I pored over the reconstructed letter, made very nearly intact with tape and desperation.

  My Parker, it began. It always began like that. It used to anger me because it felt possessive, but now all I could discern was affection.

  I won’t write to you anymore, if that’s what you really want, it continued. I’ll respect your wishes. I wish I could change the way I felt about you, but I can’t. I’ll be honest with you. I have been with other women.

  I had to stop reading at that. It didn’t matter that I had been with Ron, or that I’d been the one who had encouraged Marcus, at one point, to give other women a chance. It still stung to realize that the man I had been in love with this whole time—whether I consciously realized it or not—had turned to other women for comfort when I had denied him.

  I couldn’t blame him, of course, or be angry about it. That would be selfish. But I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of hopelessness. If he could be with other women when he professed to love me so much, then there was a chance that he could, one day, move on completely from me. I would be forgotten, a scared woman locked in a relationship she couldn’t find a way out of, alone in Miami for the rest of my life.

  The other women enabled me to reach some sort of physical release, if you must know, but there won’t be a spiritual release until you and I are together, the letter continued. I hope you understand. I have to have something to fill my days with, some kind of sweetness to distract me from the parts of me that never stop aching for you.

  These were the kinds of paragraphs I would glaze over in the past. He made me uncomfortable with how flowery his language was when he was describing his feelings for me. Writing was never something I’d mastered in school, and he seemed to have taken to it swimmingly in the military school and academy where he’d been educated. Now, however, I gave these words my rapt attention. I’d tried to turn him away, but here he was telling me he was still interested.

  The next paragraph, however, shattered that illusion.

  This is my last letter to you, he’d written, the handwriting growing halting, smudged, as if he’d stopped writing and started up again multiple times. I’ve pushed you too hard, and I can see that. I’m sorry that you could never get past what society expects out of a wonderful and loving relationship. I’m sorry that you couldn’t look past what our parents thought was right, to embrace what we knew was right. I wish I could be like you, Parker. I wish that I could try to deny the thing I want the most, but I’m just not strong enough. I’ll try to be strong for you now, though. I’ll try to leave you alone. I’ll try to move forward in life even if I don’t have a destination in mind anymore. The destination I had in mind was always with you, you know. It was always with you.

  I’ll try to stop loving you, Parker. I just don’t know if it’s going to be possible.

  Tears obscured my vision and fell on the page already mussed by the garbage can, from tearing and tape, smearing the words until they were incomprehensible. Just when I’d been ready to accept the fact that Marcus was the man I was meant to be with, just when I was willing to try to forget that there were so many rules that stood in our way…Marcus was ready to try and forget me.

  It was all my fault. I deserved this. I’d been pushing him away for so long that he’d finally gone away for good. I didn’t deserve to be happy. I’d ignored the love that was right in front of me—even if it was across the country—for all this time. Of course I didn’t deserve to have it the second I wanted it. I deserved all of the horrible things that had happened up until this point.

  “I thought so.”

  I gasped and pushed myself away from the letter, its pages still spread across the floor, panicking like some sort of prey animal as I heard Ron’s voice.

  He was standing in the open door. I’d been crying too hard, bemoaning my fate, to hear him enter the apartment. It was strange; I hadn’t heard his motorcycle approach either. Was I that deeply mired in despair?

  “I parked the motorcycle three blocks away,” he said, seeming to read my mind. “I had a weird feeling about that letter from last night, and your explanation seemed too tidy.”

  “This…this isn’t what it looks like,” I said desperately, drying my eyes and somehow gaining my feet. “I just wanted to know what the letter said.”

  “I told you what it said.” Ron’s voice was cool, his posture deceptively relaxed. I knew that he was neither of those things.

  “It’s just that…he’s basically my brother, Ron,” I said, wringing my hands, looking for an escape. I could try to shut myself in the bathroom, but then it would only be a matter of time—and probably a worse punishment—that he broke the thin wood down. “I’m always concerned about him. He’s family. I try to see how he’s doing, and now I feel pretty good, you know?”

  “Oh, yeah?” Ron asked, polite. “Pretty good? How so?”

  “Well, you read the letter,” I said, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “He said that he was going to stop writing. I’m glad I know that, because I can finally get on with my life, too, without being afraid that someone was going to find out about his attraction to me.”

  “If you’re feeling pretty good, baby, then why are you crying?”

  I rubbed my face as well as I could. “I don’t know,” I said, forcing myself to laugh. “I think it’s kind of a relief, you know? A relief that it’s all over. All these years, and I haven’t really cried about it. I never wanted to be upset. I just wanted to deal with the problem.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to read the letter?” he asked, taking one step forward. I struggled not to take a step back, struggled to stand my ground. I could still convince him there was nothing here. I could put up a good front and show him his suspicions were untrue. It didn’t matter that it was the deepest truth I knew. That was over now. I needed to get through this situation, right now, or there might not be a chance to tell Marcus how I felt.

  “I didn’t want you to think it was weird,” I said, shrugging and trying to look sheepish. “I knew how disgusted you were by everything, and I just wanted to know how my brother was doing. The letters are the only way I can keep track of him. He’s my…my only sibling, and we were very close.”

  “A little too close, I think,” Ron said. “This doesn’t look good for you, Parker. You picking through the garbage the second I leave home. Sneaking around. Involved in an incestuous love affair. Do I look like a fool to you?”

  “There’s no affair!” I exclaimed, backing helplessly away as Ron strode forward. I couldn’t plant my feet, couldn’t keep myself strong now. It was over, trying to convince Ron that I wasn’t at fault. Now I just had to try and do damage control. “I just wanted to read the letter! I’m sorry!”

 

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