Echo(27)

This was the Brayden special. He could say something like that in the moment, and without even meaning to put a guilt trip on me.

“I’ll try to keep in better contact with her,” I promised.

Brayden nodded, and the guard stepped forward.

“Time’s up.” He glanced at his watch. “The nurse will be in soon.”

Brayden gave me a weak smile and remained strong while I leaned over and hugged him. The guard cleared his throat, and I shot him a dirty look before stepping backwards.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I promised. “First thing.”

“Okay, Brighton. Take care of yourself.”

“It’s not goodbye,” I emphasized. “It’s see you later.”

“Alright then,” he agreed. “See you later.”



***



When I walked back out of the hospital, Norma-Jean was waiting for me, ready to pounce. She paced back and forth in her cheap white heels, a cigarette hanging from her mouth as smoke billowed in the air around her. She had been pretty once, but looking at her now it was hard to tell. Her eyes had dulled to a stale shade of green while her skin had leathered and her hair turned to straw.

 She cocked her head to the side and gave me a condescending smile as her eyes roamed over my clothing. I was wearing a pair of jeans and a pink cashmere sweater Ryland bought me, and suddenly, I wished I wasn’t.

 “What’s with the clothes?”

“It was all I had on short notice,” I supplied.

“They look expensive,” she retorted, sniffing the air as though she could smell money rolling off of me. Norma-Jean had always turned up her nose at anything that looked expensive.

“Look, ma, do you want to know how Brayden’s doing or not?”

She narrowed her eyes at the term she hated, but I didn’t care. I was too tired for her antics.

“I already know,” she snapped. “Just cause’ you come in here looking all fancy and they tell you, you think that makes you special? Well, guess what, I know my rights, and they have to tell me too. I’m his mother in case you forgot. You can change your clothes and the way you walk like you’re some big shot, but remember the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’ll come back here someday. Mark my words. And you’ll be as humble as all the rest of us little folks once you see how the world really works.”

I’d learned a long time ago it was better to pick my battles with Norma. And usually, I wouldn’t have blinked twice at her tone or her snide remarks. But today, it was the final straw. I was sick of her pushing me around. I was sick of everyone pushing me around. And so I opened my mouth and let all the vile hatred that I’d been storing up for two decades spew out.

“I’ll never be like you,” I snarled. “You’re a goddamned drunk and a drug addict, Norma. When are you going to get your shit together? It’s only been forty-six years. Isn’t that enough time to figure it out?”

I knew it was coming. I’d felt the weight of it plenty of times in my younger days. It still shocked me when her palm collided against the side of my cheek. But I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I didn’t have to put up with this. To hell with what I’d promised Brayden, and to hell with her.

When I looked back up at the regret in her wrinkled face, I did feel sympathy for her. That was the way of an addict. They would lash out at the only people who could ever possibly love them, then feed their self-hatred with more of their chosen vice. It was a vicious cycle, one I doubted Norma-Jean would ever be able to break.

I didn’t need to punish her any more than she was already punishing herself. I simply needed to walk away. So that’s what I did.

But when I turned, I saw Ryland striding towards me. And by the set of his jaw, I was guessing he’d seen the whole interaction. His neck was corded and his eyes flared with hatred as he stalked towards my mother.

I had to admit, it scared me a little. I’d never seen him so unhinged. So filled with rage. And I had to stop him before he did whatever that rage was telling him to.

I stepped into his path and pushed against his chest, feeling the weight of the muscle heaving with each ragged breath. He didn’t take his eyes off Norma-Jean, and I could sense the volatility growing with each passing moment.

“Ryland?” I grabbed his face and tilted it down towards mine, so he could see me. “Hey, I’m okay. We’re okay. Let’s just get out of here.”

“What the hell are you doing with him, Brighton?” My mother’s voice accused from behind me.

How she even knew who Ryland Bennett was I couldn’t say. She’d probably seen him in a magazine and locked him up tight in her mental category of rich bastards she’d hate until the day she died.

“Leave, Norma,” I grated. “Please. You’ve done enough here today. Just go home.”

There was a beat of silence in which I made sure to hold Ryland’s gaze. There was still a storm raging in his eyes, but whatever I was doing appeared to be helping, at least a little. Norma-Jean was still grumbling behind me but stopped the moment he spoke.

“If you ever touch her again, I will kill you myself.”

Everything around me went quiet, and I tried to see his menacing words for what they were. An empty threat. Norma didn’t respond well to threats, and I braced myself for her to come back with something equally nasty.

But instead, all I heard was the receding of her heels as they carried her away. I was officially dumbfounded.

Ryland pulled me into his arms and closed his eyes as he kissed my stinging cheek.

“Nobody hurts you like that,” he murmured. “Ever.”

“You do sometimes,” I reminded him in an effort to ease the tension.

“That’s different.” He grunted.

“Why?”

“Because you like it.”

I smiled and shook my head, and Ryland even smiled a little too.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered against him. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to be here,” he said. “For you. But then I saw what she did...”

His rage was returning, so I tried to calm him.

 “I can imagine how it must have looked to you,” I said. “But she’s an addict. And she is still my mother.”

He looked like he wanted to argue but thought better of it. Instead, he kissed me on the forehead and took me by the hand as he led me through the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Home,” he stated firmly. “As far away from this place as we can get.”





Chapter Twenty

The overwhelming exhaustion from my emotions had allowed me to sleep on the plane, but once we were back in Ryland’s house on Belvedere Island, I was wide awake.

He’d gone downstairs to order something for dinner while I paced back and forth across his bedroom. The idea of Brayden going back to prison was gnawing at me. I still had a little over three months of our agreement before Ryland would keep up his end of the bargain. But I couldn’t accept that. I needed to find a way to make him agree to speeding up the process.

My brain worked overtime as I tried to come up with a solution. I could lay down the gauntlet and threaten Ryland with an ultimatum. Either he did this, or I walked away. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to walk away from him anymore, and that was the problem.

“I know what you’re thinking.” His voice carried from the doorway.

I walked up to him in three short steps and clung to his jacket as if it were my salvation.

“Please, Ryland,” I begged through bleary eyes. “There has to be a way. I’ll do anything, anything you want. You name it. I’ll finish out the six months, I swear I will… please. If you care about me at all…”

“I don’t care about you.”

He looked horrified by the idea, and I felt equally so by his reply.

My hands fell from his shirt and I stumbled backwards as I stared up at the unfamiliar coldness in his eyes. I hadn’t seen it before. I hadn’t been able to see it. But this was it, this man standing before me. This was the emotionless monster who’d kept my brother in prison for all these years. The man who had taken my virginity and been inside of me more times than I could count, and who now proclaimed to feel nothing for me. This was who I’d been dealing with all along.

My legs trembled as I made a beeline for the door. He didn’t try to stop me.

Tears tracked down my face as I bolted into the street and looked around at this place I didn’t recognize. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and called the only person I could think of.



***



When Matt pulled up in his truck, I stared at him in confusion as I climbed inside.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nicole called me,” he said. “She doesn’t like to come out here.”

 “Oh.” I gave him a weak smile. “Well, thanks for coming to get me.”

“No trouble at all,” he replied, pulling back onto the highway. “So I take it things with Mr. Bennett aren’t going too well, huh?”

I couldn’t even muster the energy it took to deny his accusation, so I stared out the window instead.

“Is it that obvious?”

“No,” he admitted. “But Ryland and I go back a ways. He wouldn’t want you to know that, though, so don’t say anything.”