“I found Ethan outside on the balcony smoking a few nights ago. I’d been upset earlier about…the Lance Oakley situation…and woke in the middle of the night to find the bed empty. I got up to use the bathroom, and then went looking for him. He’s been trying to quit smoking, and was doing well from what I knew, but a few nights ago…I could see that he’d fallen off the wagon.”
“Nicotine addiction is no less difficult to break than drugs or alcohol,” Dr. Roswell said in her non-judgmental way.
“I think it’s more than nicotine addiction in his case, though.”
“How so, Brynne?”
“Umm, he once told me about his time as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan.” I hedged with what to tell her because it felt like a betrayal to share Ethan’s story without his permission. I decided my need for information superseded his privacy. “He was held and tortured for twenty-two days. During his time in captivity, he suffered cravings for cigarettes to the point he nearly went mad. He told me that the cigarettes were a reminder that he survived. That he was alive after all that he endured—able to smoke another day. He has terrible nightmares and suffers through them, and when I try to help him he shuts down. He won’t tell me very much and I think he feels ashamed. It’s horrible…I worry so much about him.”
“I imagine it is very hard for Ethan. So many soldiers suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” I noted that she wrote it down in her book.
“So, what can I do for him?”
“What you have to understand about victims of trauma, and from what you’ve just told me, Ethan has suffered—and survived—trauma in the extreme, is that they will do almost anything to avoid having to be reminded of what traumatized them in the first place. It’s too painful.”
“So, when I press him to tell me, it’s just making it harder for him? Asking him to speak of what happened, hurts him even more?”
“Well, think of it in your terms, Brynne. You have suffered a trauma. It’s affected your life in every way. You just told me about how the coverage of Lance’s injury in the media this week has upset you terribly.” Dr. Roswell never was one to sugarcoat anything. “How hard do you work to avoid being reminded of what happened to you?”
Really fucking hard, Doctor.
LEN held the door for me as I left Dr. Roswell’s office. “Shall I take you home, Mrs. Blackstone?”
I sighed at my gentle giant of a driver. “Len, please. We’ve been through this over and over again. I want you to call me Brynne.”
“Yes, Mrs. Blackstone. Home then?”
I shot him a slow nod, and muttered, “I give up.” The man was as stoic as they come, and yet I always felt he was teasing me when we played this little game of ours. I settled into the seat and pondered what Dr. Roswell and I had discussed about PTSD. I had a lot to think about. For Ethan and for myself, but mostly, I just wanted to be a good wife and supportive of him. Letting him know I was there, and loved him no matter what he’d shouted out during a bad dream, or needed from me in order to feel better. If it took some pounding sex to help him relax after a bad dream, then I could do that. The sex was always superb, and right now my body was on hyper-drive with the hormones, so…
My phone chirped and I fished it out of my purse. From Benny. You okay, luv? It made me smile when I read it. Ben hadn’t stopped looking out for me just because I was married to Ethan now. We kept in touch religiously. He was a friend I loved with all my heart, and knew I could just be myself when we were together. Ben and I were different in a way that I couldn’t be with Gaby. Ben and Gaby were also very close, but she wasn’t without her own demons, either. We both teased Ben that he attracted women friends with mountains of emotional problems. He said it gave him “pussy points” knowing what made us females tick. That he may not be into pussy himself, but it did make the world go round, so it was worth understanding. Sadly, his jest was very true. Ben would have seen Lance’s story splashed all over the news. Hell, a person would have to live under a rock not to have heard it. So he was just letting me know that he was in my corner.
I shot back: I will be 🙂 I miss u tho. Take me shopping 4 pregger clothes sometime soon?
I grinned wide at his quickreply. Yes, sexy mum. xo He had the very best taste, in regards to all things fashion and design. Ben would do me right in the clothing department, I had no doubt.
London traffic dictated that the time spent getting me home would be taking much longer than it ought to, so I checked emails and responded to texts until my inbox was cleaned out. Len was not a chatterer, so I didn’t have to keep up conversation as he drove the Rover expertly through clogged streets and autumn drizzle.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that my mother never tried to call me back either. Not a surprise really. I’d said some pretty harsh things and hung up on her. It would be a while before we talked again. Our relationship was just so messed up. I hated believing that, but the truth was often ugly, and for my mother and me, the truth was a succubus with raging PMS.
My phone alerted me to an incoming text. I dug it out of my purse once again and read it.
It was a media message that included a screenshot of my Facebook profile. I looked closer, feeling my heart sink like a stone when I deciphered exactly what had been sent to me. A post I’d made on my profile, when I’d used the GPS on Facebook to lead Ethan to where Karl had me. I’d also tagged Karl Westman in Who are you with? soEthan would know who had taken me. Below the screenshot was a single sentence: Karl Westman has been missing since August 3rd and his last known contact was you.
HYSTERICAL, was the only way to describe her when she arrived at my office. Len ushered Brynne up to the forty-fourth floor and I met her out in reception. From there I took her straight into the en suite adjacent from where I worked.
She looked around the studio flat in confusion, probably wondering why she’d never been in it, or heard me speak of it. Telling her this was the place where I would fuck all the women before she came along, didn’t seem appropriate at any time, but right now? Out of the motherfucking question.
So I held her in my arms instead. “Tell me you’re all right, baby.”
“Ethan, why are they doing this to me? Are they ever going to stop? Her questions broke my heart. As if a meat cleaver was put to my chest and given a hearty whack, shattering bone and obliterating flesh.
“Brynne, I need you to calm down and listen to me.” I took her face in my hands and lifted it up, forcing her to focus on me. “Senator Oakley rang me that night after the news hit the wires. He wants you to visit his…son in the hospital, and show the world what good friends you are.” It made me ill to have to even say the words to her, but I’d realized a few nights ago, there was no other way out of this mess.
“He called you? You spoke to him and didn’t tell me?” she shouted accusingly.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I made a judgment call—”
“—But why? I don’t ever want to see Lance Oakley again as long as I live. Don’t you dare ask me to go to him,” she spat. “You’re no better than my mother!”
With her eyes flaring wildly at me, I could tell she was ready to bolt, so I shut that idea right the fuck down. “Nope, not true,” I said, gripping both of her arms, forcing her to focus on me. “I told him no. I said I wouldn’t ask you to do something that would upset you, but they sent that Facebook screenshot today.” I lowered my voice and told her the brutal truth. “This shit won’t go away until you go on the record as a close family friend.”
“No…” she said pitifully.
“Brynne, baby…there are others who know about the video—you told me so yourself. This visit to see Oakley in the hospital will make it worthless. I can’t risk you any more than you already have been. Please just listen to why.”
The look she gave me? The tragic expression on her beautiful face, streaked with tears and devastation…really fucking hurt me.
After a moment she closed her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly.
I kissed her long and slow. Just to bring us close, and show her first and foremost how much I loved her. Then I sat her down and told her about my conversation with the Senator. About how important it was to keep any others who knew of the video’s existence, from trying to do what Karl Westman had attempted. Blackmailing degenerate motherfucker. And, also to neutralize any negative effect of the video by declaring friendship with Lance Oakley. Rapist dog with two dicks. How, if they were seen to still be friends, then a crime never could have occurred—just a youthful indiscretion between two kids, in the event the video ever surfaces to embarrass the future Vice President of the United States. Cocksucking immoral maggot.
Brynne took it all in, listening to me speak without interrupting or dragging everything down with more questioning. Her clear brown eyes held mine, quietly processing the situation. God, I admired her strength. Never a doubt about my girl’s bravery, or her intelligence.
But I was also hurting her right now. I knew about facing the things that scared you. For Brynne, being forced to visit Oakley’s bedside scared her.
It’s fucking killing me too.
She seemed to think about everything I’d told her, and got up and walked into the bathroom, stopping before the mirror. She stood there and stared into it, with seemingly little emotion, looking, in some ways, nothing like the passionate girl I’d met back in May.
Finally she turned to look at me. Lips trembling, eyes filling with tears that would taste salty if I licked them, she opened her mouth to speak. Her throat swallowing reflexively, her voice cracked, “I—I have to go and see Lance…don’t I?”
I cringed at her question, knowing there was only one answer I could give. Clusterfuck motherfucking load of steaming shit.
WHOEVER says the government moves slowly is not talking about the people that work for the future Vice President of the United States. Things moved at the speed of light as soon as I gave my agreement to visit Lance Oakley.
You have to do this. I stood in the hospital corridor waiting to go in, the smell of antiseptic and food permeating the sterile air making me want to retch. The bouquet of flowers I’d been given shook lightly in my hand as I tried to pull myself together. You don’t have a choice. Ethan’s hand at my back felt possessive, but I couldn’t deal with whatever emotions he was struggling with at the moment. You have to do it to protect your baby. I knew why Ethan was freaking. But there was nothing I could do for him right now.
The moment Ethan had sent my agreement to meet Lance via the text message on my phone, a very well-organized media show geared into motion. Limousines, police escorts, secret entrances, personal photographers, gifts for the patient, debriefings on what to do, how long to stay, what to say. Everything arranged down to the millisecond. You’re doing this. Ethan’s hand caressed my low back. He was being forced into being a part of this bedside circus too. My husband was about to meet my past. Everything I wanted to forget about. He’s just a soldier who’s been injured serving his country.
“Mr. Blackstone, you’ll stay on her left, until after your introduction to Lieutenant Oakley, then you’ll excuse yourself from the room to take a phone call. Your wife will finish the visit alone with Lieutenant Oakley.” The press secretary who addressed Ethan blanched at the look her gave her. Make that a wince. I couldn’t see him shooting her the fuck-off-you-pretentious-gash glare, as he was slightly out of my range of vision, but I could imagine what his face looked like right now. And no, Ethan wouldn’t take to her instructions well at all, now would he? Especially as she just told him to leave me in the hands of another man. Lance is not just any other man. Ethan might not even follow her instructions. I guess Miss Press Secretary was about to find out.
“We’re all ready?” she asked me, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Ethan.
No. “Yes.” He’s just a soldier who’s been injured serving his country. You knew him a long time ago…you can do this.
MY legs propelled me forward. I don’t know how.
I felt close to an out-of-body experience to be honest, but somehow I moved in slow steps that brought me into his private hospital room. I don’t know what I expected. I knew Lance had been horribly injured and that his leg had been amputated just below the right knee, but the person lying in that bed, was nearly unrecognizable to me.
The Lance Oakley I remembered was a prep-school, west coast society boy. Clean cut and ambitious. He’d been a student at Stanford headed for a law degree when we were together.
He didn’t look like Stanford Law now.
Tattoos covered his arms in sleeves down to the knuckles on his hands. His brown hair was cut short as it would be for a military officer, but blended with the unshaven beard, he looked raw and edgy. Big bodied, muscled and inked, dressed in a hospital gown and lying in bed, his gaze straight ahead on the wall. Not at me. He looked bereft, and not at all like the cold misogynist I’d carried in my head these long years.
I must have stopped short because Ethan’s hand at my back pressed more firmly.
I took another step, moving closer. He flipped his eyes up. Very dark brown as I remembered them. Gone was the cocky self-assuredness I also remembered.
Now, I saw something in him I’d never seen before. There was regret, and apology, and shame in the way he appeared before me, in his hospital bed, missing one of his legs. At some point in the past seven years—maybe just since his injury—Lance Oakley had found a conscience.
“BRYNNE.”
“Lance.”
His face softened. “Thank you for coming…here,” he said clearly, as if he had also been briefed by his father’s press secretary.
“Of course.” I came forward and placed the flowers on the side of the blanket and reached out my hand.
His tattooed fingers gripped my outstretched hand, and miraculously…nothing horrible happened. The world didn’t end, nor did the sun go dark. Lance brought my hand up to his cheek and held it there. “I’m so happy to see you again.”
The photographer shot the hell out of that moment, and I knew I would see the pictures in print, on TV, magazines, everywhere. I was in it now, and there was no going back. For any of us.
I could feel Ethan beside me, as tight as a bowstring about ready to snap. He was undoubtedly furious that Lance was touching me in an intimate way. Strangely, it didn’t affect me much at all. I felt numb more than anything. So I forced myself to continue on with the charade, to propel it forward so we could all end the torture.
Retrieving my hand from his grip, I said, “Lance, this is my husband, Ethan Blackstone. Ethan, Lance Oakley, an old…friend from San Francisco.”
Lance gave Ethan his full attention and held out his hand in greeting. “Pleasure to meet you, Ethan.”
There was a long pause where I wasn’t sure Ethan would return the handshake. Time stopped as everyone held their breath.
After what felt like an eon, Ethan brought his own hand forward and delivered a firm shake. “How do you do?” The greeting was conveyed smoothly, but I knew my man, and he was hating on every bloody second of being here. Of me having to be here. Of him having to pretend.
Then, as if a screen director were calling the shots, someone came up and tapped Ethan on the shoulder, apologizing for the interruption, but he had an important call that required his attention. And just like that, he excused himself. I watched Ethan walk out, the rigid gait showing me how hard it was for him to leave me there alone. You can do this.
“Will you sit down?”
“Yes, of course.” I followed the script, astounded that my brain was remembering what to say and do.
Once I was seated beside him, he reached out and took my hand again. I allowed it only because I could hear the camera clicking as it captured pictures of us chatting together as close friends would, when one of them was hurt in the hospital. You are doing a job and you’re almost done. Finish it, and walk out the door and never look back.
“You look so wonderful. You look happy, Brynne.”
“I am happy.” And as if I needed reminding, my little butterfly angel chose that moment to assure me of its presence. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to feel the fluttery brushes of my baby growing safe inside me. The beauty of that miracle sort of made all of the awkwardness in the current moment fade out of my focus, enabling me to bear it.
“Brynne…I am so sorry about this…that you had to come here. I’m sorry you had to, but I am so grateful to finally see you again.” His voice was so different now. The way he spoke was different. I sensed sincerity…
I opened my eyes and looked at him, having a very hard time coming up with a response. Eventually I did. “I hope—that you recover quickly, Lance. I—I have to get going.” Time for the coup de gras, the part which would be the hardest for me to get through. But I knew what I was expected to do. And so I would.
I stood up from my chair and bent down to him.
His face fell, his expression changing to one of displeasure that I was ending the visit. I took a deep breath and pressed my cheek to his in a simple embrace. I held myself suspended as the camera exploded in another round of furious clicking.
Lance brought his arms up around my back.
I closed my eyes again…and thought of Ethan and my butterfly angel to get me through the moment.
My mission was nearly complete, the checkered flag about to drop, when Lance whispered in my ear. The words were spoken in a rush, and audible only to me, but there was only one way to describe how he sounded. Desperate.
“Brynne, please come back to see me again. I have to tell you how sorry I am for what I did to you.”
