Page 6

Chapter 6

The Unbearable Lightness Of Forgiveness

Bex

I f Luke told me to fuck off, I would totally understand.

My twin brother looks at me for a long moment. “So that’s why you stopped taking my calls and you ended up blocking me from all your social media.”

It isn’t a question.

“Yes.” I don’t want to cry. If he hates me, I deserve it. “Luke, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make it up to you. I know apologizing is not enough, and I understand if you don’t have it in you, to give me a second chance. I’m so sorry. For everything.”

Luke arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Everything?”

I nod. “For cutting you off, but also for not speaking out more when you came out, and he kicked you out. I hope you know that I don’t share his opinion about you or LGBTQ.”

There’s a moment of silence, and I brace myself for his reaction. If he’s angry, I really don’t blame him. I’m angry with myself.

“When he kicked me out, there was nothing you could do. You tried to make him see reason, but that was a lost cause. That was exactly why I never came out to him and he had to catch me in the act. I knew he would react the way he did.”

I interrupt him. “I know, but?—”

“We were seventeen when he kicked me out. I already said this, but having you with me then would have made everything twice as hard. If anything, I felt guilty about leaving you with him. And I was right.”

One stray tear falls down my face, burning a hot track all the way to my lips. “You were right?” I don’t get what he’s trying to say.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was mad at you,” Luke admits. “I’ve played this conversation in my head countless times since the last time we spoke. I’ve planned all the things I would say to you when we spoke again. But I should have known, Bex. I should have known you wouldn’t just cut me off without explaining. He left you no choice. He exploited you and all his other clients. He put you in the impossible position of following his rules or losing everything.”

There are a lot more tears from where the first one came from. “It still doesn’t excuse that I didn’t walk out. I never wanted to cut ties with you, Luke. I knew it was wrong, but I was too afraid.”

His eyes are shining with a kindness I don’t deserve. “You had nowhere to go, Bex. He held all the strings. Your dancing career, your education. I’m sure he’d blackball anyone who leaves him. He didn’t have that power when he kicked me out, but it sounds like he has a lot more influence now. And he’s still your father. Our father. I hate him, but a part of me will always miss him and feel guilty for disappointing him.”

I understand that. That’s one of the reasons why it took me so long to leave Pure Shine and its rules.

“Tell me the truth,” Luke coaxes me. “Things got worse once you accepted his orders to cut ties with anyone who didn’t live in his house. Am I right?”

I blink away the tears, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “Yeah. He started overseeing every aspect of our lives. Before, the chefs he employed followed a tailored nutrition plan approved by the athletic department’s nutrition team. He took his idea of cutting the fat to the extremes and he made a list of permitted foods. He dictated the quantities each of us was allowed to eat, and banned any foods that came from outside the house.”

Luke wipes a hand down his face. “Fuck. Is this why you haven’t eaten hash browns in a while? I think inmates have more freedom in prison.”

My brother doesn’t know how right he is.

“After the rule about our diets, he started looking at every relationship we had. Obviously, he pushed people to distance themselves from their families like he did with me. Romantic relationships with people outside the house were also actively discouraged.”

“Jeez,” Luke snorts. “What’s the next step? Arranged marriages?” His eyes widen when he sees the look on my face. “Shut the front door. Seriously?”

“It started with low key comments about how some auras matched others. How spending time with someone who had the right aura could improve our focus and, ultimately, our performance. But he controlled even those relationships. Once he started pairing people up, he created the no touch rule .”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do I even want to know?”

I sigh. “We weren’t allowed to touch one another, unless it was specifically required by a performance. For example, any guy who danced with me would be allowed to lift me, or touch my hand. But outside of practice and recorded performances, touch was seen as a sign of problematic behavior.”

“That’s some bullshit.” My brother snorts. “So your fiancé, the one you practically left at the altar. Was he someone he approved of?”

I squirm in my chair. “Yeah. Dad thought my social media following had grown stagnant. His plan was for me and Kurt to help each other’s careers. He turned the house into some sort of compound. He built some apartments behind the main house and he planned to move married couples there. Kurt and I were supposed to be the first couple to marry and move in for our senior year. Until Kurt had to report to Hartford for summer training with the Heroes.”

Luke’s jaw hits the floor. Some kind of understanding dawns in his eyes. “Hold on a second. Your fiancé is Kurt Priestly? The Bridgeport Tigers’ captain?”

I swallow around the lump that forms in my throat. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke’s tone has a cautious edge. “But Kurt isn’t exactly one of my favorite people.”

That makes two of us. But I don’t say that out loud. “Why?”

The answer doesn’t surprise me. “Because he’s an asshole. He’s a coward who will take cheap shots, rather than fighting like a man on the ice. I respect players who are physical. What I don’t respect is someone who will hit his opponents from behind. And that motherfucker always aims to injure. Sorry, but I’m glad you didn’t marry him.”

“I’m glad I didn’t marry him, too.” My voice breaks, and Luke leans closer, wiping my tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“Bexie-Boo, please don’t cry. Come here.” He moves a strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear.

The gesture, combined with the moisture from my tears, washes away some of the makeup I used earlier to hide the bruises on my neck.

I know Luke sees them when his eyes widen and his mouth drops open in shock. “Bex, what the fuck happened to you?”

The surprise in his voice turns to fury when he puts two and two together. “Did Kurt do this to you? Is that why you ran?”

New tears start falling, more copious than before. I hate crying. I hate feeling weak, but there’s no way I can stop.

“Bex,” Luke pulls me into his arms. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. But I would like to know if that piece of shit hit you.”

I bite my bottom lip. “Yeah.”

He holds me tighter. “Fuck, sis. I’m so fucking sorry.”

His sympathy makes me feel even worse, because I don’t deserve it. “I’m the one who should apologize to you, Luke.” I sob.

My brother pulls me back slightly to look into my eyes. “You already have, babe.”

“I know, but…” I feel like it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough for not supporting him like I should have and for cutting him out of my life.

But Luke has a huge heart. He stares at me for a long moment. “I love you, Bex. And I forgive you.”

I hadn’t realized until now how scared I was that I had fucked things up between us beyond forgiveness. But I harbored a small kernel of hope that Luke could find it in his heart to give me a second chance.

Hearing those words loosens the tight knot in the pit of my stomach, with the result of making me sob harder.

“Bex,” Luke pulls me against his chest again. “Stop crying, babe. I mean it. I forgive you. I love you.”

The feeling that expands in my chest is odd and exhilarating. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I feel lighter than I’ve felt since Luke was kicked out by our father. So light that I almost can’t bear it.

Bex

Once I calm down, I realize that I’m starving. Forgiveness makes me hungry and those hash browns look more tempting than ever.

“Bex,” Luke scrunches his nose, slightly disgusted when I pop two mini hash browns in my mouth. “Cold hash browns are gross. They get soggy. Let me pop them in the air fryer for you. They’ll get crispy again.”

I haven’t even swallowed, but I eat a third one. “I never want to go another day without hash browns.” I say, with my mouth half full.

Luke giggles. “Ok, eat the cold ones. I haven’t finished mine. I’ll warm those up for you. Since you’ve been deprived for so long, I think you deserve a little extra.”

He goes back into the house, coming back a few minutes later with the warmed up hash browns in a bowl.

“Do you think hash browns are bad for goldfish?” I ask, as I notice Lady Marmalade eyeing me from inside her glass pitcher.

“I have no clue. We need to get a better house for that fish, though. I doubt she’s gonna last much longer living in a glass pitcher.”

He’s right, but his words bring all the uncertainty of my situation back to the forefront of my mind. Lady Marmalade isn’t the only one who’s homeless. “Yeah. I don’t know where I’m going to find the money for that. Isn’t it crazy? I made multiple six figures with my dance videos in the last year. I shouldn’t be penniless.”

Luke looks furious on my behalf. “I wish I could say I can’t believe that our father would take advantage of you, but my pants would catch on fire if I told that big a lie.”

Anxiety floods my system, and I feel new tears welling in my eyes. When did I become such a whiny mess?

My twin brother knows me better than anyone, and he doesn’t miss the turmoil that makes it hard to breathe. “Bex, do you have a plan for the future? I’m assuming you’re not going back to Bridgeport.”

I shake my head. “I’d rather die than go back there.”

His green eyes are full of concern. “So, you have no money. Do you have anywhere to go? Any friends you could crash with?”

He isn’t saying it out loud, but the message is clear. I can’t stay with him. I knew it was a long shot, but I had been hoping against all odds that I could crash on Luke’s couch at least long enough to find a job and get my first paycheck.

My silence must say more than a thousand words.

“I’m sorry, that was a stupid question. He made sure you isolated yourself from anyone who wasn’t under his thumb, too. And I’m your only family.”

I nod. The lightness of a few moments ago, now totally gone. “Yeah. The only other person I had stayed in touch with until Dad made me cut out everyone was Matthew, my old high school boyfriend. But he’s at Princeton and I looked him up yesterday. He’s just gotten engaged. I doubt his fiancée would be thrilled to have an old girlfriend show up.”

Luke sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve always liked Matthew. He treated you nicely. I obviously can’t say the same about Priestly.” His gaze hardens when it descends to the bruises on my neck. “I’m sorry, Bex. I know it’s none of my fucking business, but… what the fuck happened? Not that anyone would ever be justified hitting a woman, but I need to know. Tell me why I shouldn’t drive the three hours to Bridgeport and beat the crap out of your ex-fiancé.”

Just the idea of Luke confronting Kurt is terrifying. “Luke, please don’t. I—you have to promise me you won’t go there. Dad doesn’t know I’m here. Maybe he suspects it, but I don’t want him or Kurt to try to force me back into the house and under Dad’s control. Please, promise me you’ll stay away from them.”

It’s impossible to miss the hesitation in his eyes, but in the end he relents. “Fine, I won’t. There’s a small chance he’ll think you wouldn’t come here, or I wouldn’t want to talk to you thanks to his involvement in our relationship. But eventually we’ll have to play Bridgeport both at home and on their own turf. We’re in the same conference.”

I know that. “Yes, but…”

Luke rolls his eyes. “I said I promise. You know I’m a man of my word. If I ever beat the crap out of Priestly, it’ll be hockey related. That’s the best I can do. But I need to know what happened between you. Obviously, those bruises are the reason why you decided enough was enough after four years under Dad’s rules.”

He’s right.

I had been unhappy for a long time. I actually doubt I had ever been happy since Luke left. “I went along with Dad’s decision that Kurt and I were a perfect match for the same reason why I accepted all of his decisions in the past couple of years. Because I had no other choice. I wasn’t in love with Kurt, and I don’t think he was in love with me either. He was always polite whenever we were required to attend an event together, but between our busy schedules and the no touch rule in the house, our relationship was just a front. We hadn’t even kissed until two nights ago.”

Luke looks concerned, but he doesn’t interrupt me, waiting for the rest of my story.

“Two nights ago, the hockey team threw him a bachelor party. And Kurt came to see me when he got back.”

My brother looks perplexed. “I’m surprised Dad allowed that. Or does the entire Bridgeport hockey team live in the elite house?”

“They don’t,” I sigh. “Dad might be strict, but he isn’t a complete idiot. Like he allowed us to touch if a performance required it, he understood that Kurt and the other athletes involved in team sports needed to spend time fraternizing with their teammates.”

Luke agrees. “Yeah, cohesion with your team makes the difference. The Cove Knights are a family, and I would trust most of my teammates with my life. I hope things don’t change next year in New York, but I’m hopeful. My future team is known for being a close-knit unit, mostly thanks to their coach and their team captain. But enough about me. Your ex came to see you when he got back from his bachelor party. Was he drunk?”

I consider his question. “I don’t think so. I mean, he didn’t smell of booze, or anything. Anyway, I was surprised to see him standing outside my door. We had been in this arranged relationship for over a year, and I don’t recall him ever coming to my room.”

“What did he want?” Luke asks.

“He wanted to talk. He said that we were going to promise to spend our lives together in less than twenty-four hours and we were pretty much strangers. I invited him to come in. I was actually relieved that he felt the need to talk. It’s not like one conversation could change our stranger status, but it was important to start getting to know each other. And I was glad he took the first step.”

There’s a beat of silence. “So what happened?” Luke asks when I don’t continue. “Did he hit you the second he was alone with you?”

Recalling what happened is harder than I thought it would be. “No. He actually was nice. We sat down on my bed and he asked me about my childhood and told me about his. We have in common that we lost one parent to an illness relatively young. He lost his father and grew up with just his mom and younger brother. I thought things were going well. I liked that he was trying to connect with me. And when he took my hand in his, it felt…nice.”

I close my eyes, ashamed that I was so gullible. That I was so starved for human contact that I let Kurt get closer than I should have. But maybe that was a saving grace. Because if things had gone differently two nights ago, I would have married that monster.

“Bex, did he rape you? Please, for the love of God, tell me he didn’t.”

I exhale a shuddering breath. “No, he didn’t.”