Christina (Daughters #1) Read online

  “Was that all you gave Olivia? After you almost got her killed? You apologized? It’s for shit, Derek. Being sorry means nothing. Absolutely nothing. At least, I didn’t do that. I never led Christina into my life with lies because that’s what I secretly wanted. I did what was best for her, despite what I wanted.”

  Derek lied to Olivia, his girlfriend, about being a drug dealer when they first met. His lies and the underworld he worked for almost got Olivia killed. They tried to take out their anger and revenge on Derek by kidnapping and overdosing Olivia. I want to bite my tongue. We weren’t even discussing Christina, why would I bring her up? Why would I bring any of that up? It’s ancient history. Why would I try to alienate the one person who is standing in my corner? Not like there are many who would.

  A hand touches my shoulder. I still lean against the door, facing it, holding the doorknob, as if frozen. I’m unable to move. I feel the hand, and flinch as I drop my shoulder. Derek quickly withdraws his hand. “What I did to you and Olivia were the worst things I’ve ever done in my life, far worse than the drugs I sold. I didn’t know better. It’s not an excuse, but I was doing my best. I’ve tried to make it up to both of you. And none of this is ancient history. All of this is what you’re really fighting each and every time you face off in that ring, or go off and find another fight. You’re fighting me. Them. What we all did to you, Max. You’re fighting now, and not falling prey to the silence and loneliness that held you prisoner for all those years. I know why you do this. I also know I’m not sixteen anymore and leaving you to fend for yourself. No more. I’m here now. It’s not enough, I know that, but it’s all I can do.”

  I don’t believe him. I turn from the door and shove him. The anger is percolating again in my stomach. Something aggressive and hot zings through my blood and spreads into all my limbs, even my injured ones.

  I want to hurt Derek.

  That knowledge shocks me and stops me dead. My brother is standing before me, apologizing, and his eyes are full of agony. I don’t have to tell him what he did to me, he knows. I can see his regret. But still, it’s not enough for me. It doesn’t equate to what he did to me. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to hurt him. I want him to bleed for what he did to me. I take him by surprise when I tackle him, and we land against the side of my bed before falling to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs. I lift my fist and knock it hard into his jaw. He grunts and pushes my shoulders, trying to get me off him. I gasp at the pain that sears through my torso. Fuck! It hurts. I don’t care. The high is overpowering and deep, making me stronger. The rage makes me a freaking super hero as I go after my brother. My brother who doesn’t lift a finger in his defense or to protect himself. Derek doesn’t fight. He doesn’t even know how. I can hurt him if I want to. I know that, but I don’t care.

  We thump and grunt as we roll and struggle around my room. A chair falls; then my lamp is knocked off the table. Still, I go after Derek.

  The door bursts open. I hear it. I don’t stop. Nothing can stop me. Nothing, that is, but Noah’s arms pulling me back. I struggle and fight him. Lindsey is in there next, her voice strained with tears as she screams my name over and over, “Max! Max! Stop! Please just stop…” Her voice sounds like a long, drawn-out sob of misery.

  Why won’t I just stop? Why won’t anything inside of me stop hurting so fucking much?

  But still, I struggle. Hot tears course over my cheeks. Still, I want to hurt my brother.

  I finally fall limply in Noah’s hold. He’s got my arms behind me like he’s about to handcuff me. He holds them and pushes up, until I calm down. I finally let my head hang and drop my shoulders, admitting defeat.

  I glance around my room and see the bruise starting on my brother’s face. He’s holding his right hand against his chest. I don’t remember hurting it. But his eyes are filled with care and concern for me. Not anger. He finally sags to the floor. I pull away and Noah lets go of me. I fall to my knees, my tears still damp on my face. Agony meets my torso. I moved too much and too fast.

  “Are you done now?” Noah asks after a thick, long silence with Lindsey’s intermittent sobs as the only sound. “Are you done punishing everyone? Derek, us, Christina, and most of all, yourself? Will you ever punish yourself enough?”

  I lean forward and almost face plant into the carpet. I let out a weird noise, like a dying animal.

  I know it’s Derek who kneels next to me. He doesn’t touch me. I am choked up with what I’ve done. It’s so much worse than what I did two nights ago. I know Lindsey is leaning down on the other side of me. I finally turn my face and open my eyes so I can see her. Tears are streaming down her face. I shake my head and bury it back into the carpet, muttering, “You should have never adopted me. You should have sent me back to Marsdale. You should have gone on and done great things as a senator. You should never have given that up for me. For this. For what I can’t ever be for you.”

  “What is it you think we want you to be, Max?”

  “A good son. A good brother. A decent person.”

  She lets out a weird sound, somewhere between a cough and cry. “Max. You already are the son I wanted. That I still want. I didn’t want kids until I met you. I chose you. We chose you. And we never regretted that for one day, not even now. Today. I will never regret bringing you into our family. Am I your mother, or mentor, or caregiver, or friend? I don’t know. I just know you are part of my family and I love you. I will always love you, no matter what. If you choose to fight every day for the rest of your life, I’ll still love you. I’ll still welcome you into my house. I will still be your family.”

  “I can’t even hug you. You deserve a kid who can love you back. Who can thank you for what you do for him. You deserve so much better than me. What you did? Adopting me? I don’t know anyone else who would have done such a thing, and yet, your pathetic reward is me?”

  “But you are our reward. You’re here, Max, and that’s enough. When will you see that? When will you accept that it’s enough to just have you here? And I don’t believe for a goddamn second you don’t love us—me. Tell me that, Max. Tell me, right to my face, that you don’t love me.”

  I shake my head.

  “Say it,” she insists.

  “I can’t. I can’t say that to you. I can’t say it,” I protest. Why can’t I? Why can’t I be normal? Why can’t I just say I love you to the woman who took me in and raised me and mothered me when no one else ever cared or bothered?

  “You said plenty. And that’s enough.” I glance up, finally. She smiles through her watery eyes. All three of them are there for me, staring at me, their eyes filled with sympathy, not regret, and their warm emotions are all directed at me. I can literally feel what they feel inside me. It’s pressure. So much of it is building in my chest. It’s almost like they’re touching me with their hands. But unlike when I was little, there is no aggression or anger in their touch. I know that. Even if my physical reaction to it still isn’t acceptance. I can’t accept their care. There is something so wrong in me, I can’t accept it.

  But for the first time, now, I think I want to. I want to figure out how to do that. I just don’t know.

  Derek holds out his hand for me to grab. I stare at his open palm and then into his dark eyes. They’re full of understanding and sorrow and love. I finally put my hand out, hating the contact of our fingers, but trying to ignore the strange revulsion that nearly overwhelms me. I let him pull me and get onto my feet. I drop his hand. He nods.

  “We get that. You’re not as hard to read as you think,” Noah says finally. “Is this what you want? Feeling like shit for no real reason? Look, you had a bad start in life, but you’ve also had a lot of good for the last five years. It’s in you too. So why not give some of the good a chance?”

  I stare at Noah. He’s the one that I hate seeing me like this. He’s the one I’m most embarrassed with for being such an epic failure. I finally nod. “Look what I did with your gym idea.”

  “I see what you did
. I know what you do. I see what it’s gotten you. It seems reasonable to try something different at this point. Unless you have a better argument for why you shouldn’t consider it. I’d love to hear it.”

  Shame. Noah’s good at finding the rational side of things despite all the bullshit and flares I send out. He uses calm, cool logic to explain why my behavior is so stupid and detrimental to me; why would any sane person want to be like me?

  “You want me gone?” I inquire, my tone sounding defensive.

  Noah holds my glare. He’s never one to back down from me. “I want you to not come home with the shit beaten out of you. I don’t want you out of here, I want you to find a way to live here without feeling the need for hurt—to yourself or others. You are going to get in serious trouble if you keep traveling down this path.”

  I know. I finally nod. “I guess it’s not a real promising future.”

  “No, and you need to figure that out. Not us. Not Derek. You. I think you have the ability to do that. Now it’s time to find your true calling.”

  I turn my head and Derek and I stare at each other. We are both heaving. Our chests move up and down from the sudden exertion and strain of fighting with each other. We stare long and hard. I close my eyes as sharp stabs of regret fill me. “I’m sorry,” I finally whisper to Derek.

  “I know,” he answers.

  “I don’t want to be like this.”

  “I know you don’t. You don’t want to hurt me. You just want to keep hurting yourself. Just stop it now. Please, Max. For all of us. Just stop hurting yourself.”

  “How?”

  I glance around the room at the three people that I know love me. Unfortunately, to date, it can’t make up for the two people who gave me life, but never loved me. But it will surely destroy me if I don’t start to let that go.

  Derek shrugs and kind of lifts his mouth into a mock grin. “Try something else.”

  It sounds so simple. I have no idea if I can do that. I look up at Noah, “Will you help me? Because I don’t know what to do.”

  Noah nods back, and his gaze is solemn, but I notice the spark in his eye. I’ve never outright asked him for his help. “I will. I’ll always help you, Max.”

  That simply and gracefully, he lets me off the hook. I glance at Derek who nods too before a smile breaks out on his face. I’m shocked, but smile back.

  I still have no idea what the crap I’m going to do next week or tomorrow. But there is a strange lifting of my chest, like a burden has been suddenly removed. Maybe I won’t want to hurt my brother, or a stranger… or, most of all, myself any longer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ~Christina~

  MY HEART STILL FOLDS in half when I hear his name mentioned, even casually. No one but Mom knows we don’t talk anymore. I play it off that we’re both just too busy. No one knows he so callously broke my heart. I still can’t believe I’m starting my new life, away at college, and we won’t be talking. We won’t be friends. We won’t be anything. I try to foresee my new life, while making Max a far, distant star that grows dimmer and dimmer on my horizon.

  It’s such a depressing thought. I spend the next few days trying to stay maniacally busy while trying to forget the memory of Max in that locker room. I can’t stop obsessing over the image and the gut ache it creates inside me.

  I’m also appreciating my time here, and helping my mom with the chores. I think that’s because I have a new understanding of how freaking blessed I am to have a mother that I can help; and since I’m leaving soon, I feel lucky I can do this with her still. That afternoon, I decide to tackle my closet. I move a bunch of old school awards and sport trophies to make way for more current stuff, like my shoes. Dragging the old stuff into my parents’ room, I find my way into their closet. It’s big. Mom has a bunch of boxes stored on top of it, beyond everyone’s reach, holding old baby mementos and schoolwork from all three of us. I start hunting through the boxes, pulling them down, and looking for mine. I have nothing else pressing; and it’s kind of hard not to indulge in so much nostalgia, so I give in. I sit on the carpeted closet floor and dig through piles of old pictures, school projects and certificates.

  There’s even stuff from my dad’s Army service. There’re pictures of him that seem odd to me. He looks young and hot and badass. I spend quite a while going through his stuff. I think most of it was from before he saved my mom. There’re even pictures from his first marriage. So weird to see him kissing another woman. In another life. There is only a few of him when he was young. His mother was crazy, from most people’s accounts, and he pretty much raised himself. There’re a few school photos, his senior pictures, a straggling dance photo of him and Gretchen, who became wife number one. She later married his best friend, Tony. Gretchen and Tony are Olivia’s parents and Olivia is dating Derek. Such a weird roundabout making us all connected.

  In the pictures Dad’s all buff and decked out in camo and paint. He’s smiling at the camera and hanging on the side of an Army Jeep, also painted in camo with a gun turret mounted on top of it. I find another eight-by-ten of Dad in full dress uniform. He is staring solemnly at the camera with an American flag in the background. There’s another picture of him with a gun slung over his back. He’s glaring at whoever took the picture. There’s a picture of him and Tony, with their arms around each other. Wow, it’s so weird. He went through some dangerous things. He did stuff most twenty-something men can’t even fathom doing. He looks so young. That’s the biggest difference from now that I can’t get over. He looks so young and tough and kind of unfatherly.

  There’s some stuff from my mom. Not much, just miscellaneous photos of Lindsey and her. There are several of her own mother, whom I am named after. She died in a helicopter crash when my mom was ten. It still kind of shocks me, the never ending tragedy that comprises my mom’s history. I realize how lucky I am since my own life has been the complete opposite. My parents provided me with everything my mom ever lacked or wanted.

  There is nothing to be said of my mom’s dad. I know so little of him other than not to talk about him. Bad subject, along with so much of my mom’s history.

  This box is full of my parents’ souvenirs, long before my sisters and I entered the picture, I find funny things, like ticket stubs for Disneyland. That was on their honeymoon, I think. I’m looking through them when I pull out a wedding photo. Weird. I glance at it, staring hard. Yes, it’s my parents… but I know it isn’t their wedding photo. They are so stiff and almost unsmiling. There is a formality to both their dress and facial expressions, and they are not even touching. Their real wedding photo hangs front and center in a huge frame over the fireplace mantel. Its Mom’s favorite picture, and she treasures it. It’s sealed in a large, white frame with gold edging. She wears a simple, but lovely dress. Most distinctly, however, it is not a wedding dress. They are smiling on the front steps of a church and the sunlight seems to explode around them. I have stared at their wedding photo for almost twenty years. Where the hell did this one come from?

  Setting it aside, I dig further into the box. And find more. Newspaper clippings. My stomach tightens as I realize the dates and what these scraps of paper are. The same things I’ve never looked up online. I’m shocked my mom or dad would keep them. Most likely, it was my dad. He keeps everything. He prefers to have more information than less.

  I read through them. The first announces their triumphant return from Mexico. There is a picture of my mom getting out of a truck. She’s trying to block her face. Dad looks pissed off. I almost crinkle the clipping in my fist. It looks like me getting out of the truck! It’s truly heart-stopping. We could be twins, but twenty-seven years apart in age.

  There is one of Mom all dressed up at a dinner, honoring something Dad accomplished. She looks so pretty, my heart twists. She looks younger than I feel right now. There is something so sad and hurt in her eyes as she stares at the camera focused on her.

  I move that newspaper to the next one, printed on the base’s own pap
er, The Fort Bragg Monitor. I read through it, and something strange happens in my brain. It starts humming all weird. My vision kind of blurs and I feel like I’m looking through a tunnel. What the hell?

  The article announces the surprising news that Jessie Hendricks is pregnant! My hand lets go of the paper as it slowly drifts to the carpet. I stare at it in horror. The date on the paper is nearly eight years before I was born. And also years before my parents’ wedding date. The date on their wedding photo that hangs over the fireplace mantel.

  They have another child.

  I feel every part of me go numb. I cannot believe that. They have another child? Why? Where is it? Did she miscarry? I start scrambling through the rest of the box, but don’t find anything until I come to the very bottom. There is a large manila folder, simply marked Jessie. I think I should stop now. My fingers are shaking and my stomach is all jittery. What more? What more can I possibly discover?

  But I ignore the inner voice warning me, no, begging me, if not commanding me to stop. I open the envelope and shake out what’s inside. A stack of old-fashioned handwritten letters plop onto the floor before me. A large rubber band holds them together.

  I carefully unwind the rubber band that seems way too casual for whatever I hold. I open the first letter and glance at the date. It’s from 2004. So long ago. Dad would have been serving in Afghanistan. They look like letters to him from Mom. I recognize her handwriting.

  Don’t look. I know that. I am breaking some kind of sacred code of honor by looking. It’s reading someone’s journal. A personal diary. And love letters.

  Only these are not love letters. As I start scanning them, I know that instantly. They are… oh, my God, they are everything that happened to my mom, and in her own words. I stare at them in absolute horror.

  No. No. Just no! It’s so bad. So much worse than hearing about it. I’m reading her words, her experience, recorded by her when she was my age. I am crying before I finish the first one. She is alone. And pregnant. And in so much pain. She’s telling my dad about it. But there is something very odd about the tone of letter. This is no love letter from a wife to husband. It’s like he’s her priest and she’s confessing her sins to him.