Rhett felt a bit stony reading the words. He was still full of a lot of pent-up anger, and not in the mood to forgive. It wasn’t possible that his love for Tula would slip away like a setting sun, though. He knew for sure that his girlfriend was probably an innocent bystander in this whole thing. She protected Max, however… Protected their secret, and never told Rhett a whiff of what was going on behind the scenes. She never spoke ill of him, though to be fair, she never spoke ill of anyone if she could help it.
I need to talk to my mom first,
he thought.
I need to cool down and get my head on straight. Then I’ll talk to Tula. The answers she gives me when we talk with determine if this relationship is salvageable or not.
He texted back,
I understand the position you’re in. Just give me some time. I meant it when I texted u yesterday that I love u no matter what. It was a big thing to go thru today. I’ll call u tomorrow, ok? And I won’t tell ur parents what happened. You have my promise.
He let out a hot breath and shifted his weight back into the cushions. Before he could mull much on the intricate details of their texts, he heard the front door clink open and then smack closed. His mother didn’t even notice that he was around until Rhett poked his head over the couch. She was setting her purse and file of papers on the table when they linked eyes.
“Hey, honey!” She said with a cheery smile. As soon as she realized how downtrodden he appeared, her facial expression settled. “What’s goin’ on, huh? Have the big talk?”
“It was a disaster,” he responded.
“Oh, dear.” She walked her way over the the couch, kicking her black stilettos off as she went. Taking the remote control, she turned the television off, scoffing at what she thought he had been watching. “Spill it, honey. What happened?”
“Well…” He settled back into the cushions of the couch, recounting everything. “I went to her place and she was in her bed. I didn’t know why at the time, but there she was. We talked a little bit, but she didn’t seem really into discussing anything. Then her piece-of-shit brother comes in and tells me that her and him have had a sexual relationship. I asked her if it was true, and she couldn’t respond to me. It was pretty evident that she had something to hide.”
“Oh, my. Poor boy.” She leaned over to give him a hug.
He shared back a solid snuggle. “Thanks, Mom. Anyway, she texted me saying that she was sorry. I said that I still love her, but that I had to think about everything that had happened.”
“You certainly have had to put up with a lot in the past few weeks. My darling, I’m sure that this Max person has been plotting this whole thing out for some time. First he tried to make it difficult for you to associate with your girlfriend because he was jealous. Then he tried to turn the parents against you. Then he went after Tula to win her back. Finally, he’s being openly hostile with you by ruining your car and telling you about the previous relationship he had with Tula. If you back off now, you’re essentially letting him win.”
Rhett absorbed every word, staring down at the hardwood floor as he thought it over. “You’re right. But what can I do? I told Tula to move in with me and you, but she told me it wasn’t possible. She said that I could leave, but that we’d have to see each other on the weekends. And then this happened. I can’t help but think that any interaction she has with her brother is going to ruin everything for us. I mean, you know—look at what he’s done so far.”
“This is true. Hmm.” He crossed her silky legs on the coffee table. “Is there any time that Max is gone, but Tula is in the house?”
“There’s a few hours that Max isn’t around because Tula comes home early from the bakery.”
“Maybe you should take some time off from work tomorrow and try to talk to her alone. Preferably in a semi-public place. She’s probably feeling very vulnerable right now. Did she mention what kind of relationship it was? How long it was going on? Why she was doing it? I’ve heard of cousin marriages, but nothing like this. A brother-sister relationship should not conventionally go beyond sibling feelings. Something is quite wrong here.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“But what do you think of it, Rhett? What if she tells you that she had gone along with it the entire time, and that she enjoyed being with her brother?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t necessarily think it was too wrong that it happened, and she definitely seemed broken up about it.” He sighed again. “I don’t know. The whole thing is super weird. I thought there was a possibility that he had wanted her because he was sick in the head, but I never expected this.”
“Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Can you forgive her for this?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I need to hear more of what she has to say. There’s so much that I don’t know.”
“Call her. Tell her that you’ve been thinking about her and want to talk.”
He nodded to himself and pulled his phone out. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Good, because I’m hungrier than a horse right now. You want something to eat for dinner? I’m gonna get some Alfredo going.”
He tapped Tula’s number, pulling the phone to his ear as he walked towards the stairs. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
To Rhett’s surprise, Tula answered the phone relatively quickly. Her voice was cracked, as if it were dry and irritated. “Hello?”
“Hi, Tula. How are you holding up?”
“Okay,” she stated simply.
He could tell from her tone that she was back in her room, the lights out, huddled under her blankets again. It killed him a little inside to think that she was suffering so much. “Hey, I was wondering if we could talk tomorrow. There’s this spot overlooking a river that I thought we could go to really figure this whole thing out. I’ll take time off work and everything so that we can have a picnic or something.”
“A picnic?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about bringing anything—I’ll have everything all together by the time you get off work. Does that sound okay?”
She didn’t respond at first. “I thought that you hated me now. Why are you being so nice to me?”
Because you’re the love of my life.
“I just want to get the full story from you, Tula. I love you. I’m not going to give up on you so easily.
She made a happy noise into the phone. “Okay. You’ll pick me up from the bakery?”
It occurred to Rhett that Max might be listening in to the conversation at that moment. If he was, there wasn’t much Rhett could do about it at that point. “Yeah. You get off at one or two, right?”
“Around that time. It depends on how busy we are.”
“Okay. I hope you don’t mind driving in an old Japanese car with me. I know how embarrassing that might be in comparison to our old ride.”
To his surprise, she laughed a little. He felt himself breath a sigh of relief. “You know I’m not worried about stuff like that.”
“That’s why I love you,” he found himself saying.
Somehow, he could feel that she was smiling against her phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rhett. I love you.”
“I love you, too. See you tomorrow.”
He hung up, and felt this warm wind of contentedness fill him. Everything would be straightened out tomorrow, whether anyone in Tula’s family liked it or not. He just knew that there had to be some logical explanation for why she was in a sexual relationship with her brother… He had to be some kind of culprit. He had the maturity of someone much younger, so why wouldn’t he be responsible for this kind of perversion? Placing the phone back in his pocket and traveling downstairs, Rhett felt more assured than he had in weeks.
Chapter 9
Rhett was at Karma’s Bakery the next day at one o’clock, exactly when he said he would be around. She didn’t exit the building immediately on the hour—he hadn’t expected her to, anyway—so he turned the car off and flung the seat back. She’d seen him exit her house the day before, so he felt assured that Tula would probably be able to identify him in the parking lot when her shift was finally over. He sniffed at the wildflowers he had bought, knowing that the gesture of purchasing flowers for her might have been out of turn.
Why not?
He thought.
I know we’re on shaky ground right now, and she’s the one under questioning, but I couldn’t help but feel that it was the right thing to do.
Rhett didn’t have to wait too long for her. After about five minutes, he heard a tapping on the passenger window. Seeing her standing there, a bit of flour in her hair that she had once again neglected to sift out, was one of the nicest things he’d seen in days. The afternoon sun hit her hair and skin in a way that made her resemble a Rembrandt painting. He unlocked the door with the flick of his wrist, pulling on the handle to let her in. She saw the bouquet on the seat and sent him an expression of wonder and surprise.
“What’s this?” She asked, picking up the flowers to free up her seat.
“Just a little something for you,” he responded, starting up the car.
“For me?” She asked, lowering her nose to sniff them. “But why?”
He shrugged. “Just saw them and thought of you.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you. I brought two pastries in case we wanted a little dessert after the picnic. I hope it’s not too much food.”
“No, no,” he said with a wave of his hand, pulling out of the parking lot.
Tula clipped her seatbelt on, wearing a contemplative expression on her face. “Rhett, do you want to get the ball rolling on talking things over now? I’ve been going through this whole day with my nerves on end. I feel like I can’t go on holding it all in, especially since we’re going to be going on a bit of a walk soon, right?”
“We can start talking about it now if you want,” he responded. “The trail isn’t too far away, anyway. Why, scared I’ll take you somewhere remote and do away with you?”
She didn’t laugh right away, which made Rhett’s stomach lurch.
Oops, I guess that was a jab too hard for comfort.
“I’m not planning on doing anything shady,” he said in an effort to recover himself. Though he did wonder if it just made him appear more guilty. “I don’t hold anything against you.”
“No, I know you don’t. You’ve been as much of a gentleman as I could expect of anyone. My brother… Let’s just say that he’s not the easiest person to forgive.”
“That’s for sure. What’s wrong with him? My mom suspects that he’s been setting things up against me since I moved in with you guys. Did he know about me before I met your parents?”
“To be honest, no,” said Tula. “He’s kind of the possessive type. Once he found out that you and I were seriously dating, it was like a light switch flipped. He became more withdrawn, more snippy, and more manipulative. I don’t think he believed that it was possible that I could find someone else. I didn’t have the greatest self esteem before I met you. I never thought that I could become anything more than some girl that worked in a bakery. Max had even told me once that I should just keep working there and save so that we could buy a house together.”
Rhett found himself swerving slightly when she stated the last sentence. He also felt the urge to throw up, but decided to do his best to hold back that physical desire. “You two were going to move in together? Like a real couple? Wouldn’t people catch on to that and disapprove?”
“He didn’t want anyone knowing. He said that with an engineering degree, we could move anywhere in the world. He wanted to go to someplace like Sweden or England. Just somewhere really far away from our family. He had this whole plan set up where he’d tell our parents that we’d be striking it out together as siblings… That he’d send them fake pictures of potential spouses, tell them that we’d moved into separate apartments… You know, the whole thing.”
“Oh man.”
“Yeah, we were in it deep.”
“So what happened? What about when I came into the picture?”
“Well, the be honest, when we first met each other, Max and I were still…
You know.
”
“Oh. How did you guys keep this all from your parents? Wouldn’t there be a lot of sneaking around going on?”
“Well, we are brother and sister. My parents kind of thought nothing of it if we hung around together for long periods of time. We were also rather careful if anyone was home. Max is good about all that electronic stuff. He’d spy on every corner of the house whenever it took his fancy. He even put GPS signals on Mom and Dad’s cars when he got older. We found out in a pretty expansive way what our parents’ daily habits were. Apparently Mom picks up fast food before going home and Dad likes to feed the ducks at a pond not far away from his job. Anyway, it wasn’t hard for us to get away with it all.”
By that time, they had arrived at their destination. The parking lot to the recreation area was void of any cars besides a shiny red hatchback with a luggage rack on top. Rhett had the strong desire to ask a question close to his heart, but seeing Tula enjoy the trees and flowers sprouting up all along them, he decided to wait until they had trekked a bit before bringing it up. Grabbing the picnic basket and blanket, he joined her up the dirt path into the forested area.
“Beautiful day,” said Tula.
“Yes, I agree.”
It almost felt like everything was still normal between them. That no strife concerning Tula’s brother was on their minds, and that their future together was going to be as pleasant as their current surroundings. The world felt at peace and in its proper order around them. Hummingbirds buzzed next to them as they inserted their beaks into flowers, and the wind blew gently against the leaves, creating a wistful kind of music. Rhett felt himself reach for her hand, and it closed around him.
“Tula,” he began, looking down to her.
“Yes?”
“Did you have feelings for Max? Were you in love with him?”
A few seconds passed that felt more like minutes. “Yes, in the way that a fifteen-year-old can fall in love with a blood relative. We were close from the start. I felt that we truly understood each other in a way that normal couples couldn’t understand. It felt exciting and different. I felt special in a way, being with him like that. But in reality, he had been taking advantage of me from the beginning. It didn’t bother me at first, doing sexual things with him, because I was as curious about sex as he was. But as I grew older, I gradually began to realize that the only reason he had chosen me was because of his own insecurities. I think that he felt he couldn’t have anyone like me.”