Until We Fly (The Beautifully Broken) (6 page)

She shakes her head and now she’s looking hesitant.  “No.  I didn’t think of that.”

The look on her face makes me smile.  She’s not used to not knowing how to do something, I can tell.  And apparently, she’s not used to taking care of herself. 

“So, you can’t cook, and I can’t cook.  And I can’t walk,” I make these observations with a smile.

She sniffs, turning up her nose before she walks away. “I also bought a cookbook.”

She hears me laughing because her spine turns ramrod straight as she disappears into the kitchen.   I’m still chuckling as I study my leg in the sun. 

My knee hurts like a bitch.  Obviously.  Apparently, it turned backward and practically inside out. 

My ankle throbs like a motherfucker too.  It’s swollen to the size of a football.

My pain medicine is in the kitchen, where Nora is putting away all of those groceries alone, and right now, it looks like a hundred miles from here to there. 

Suck it up, Buttercup.

With a groan, I grab the crutches next to me, and heft myself up, managing to not put weight on my leg. 

Fucking-A. 

It takes me five full minutes to make the trip.  When I round the corner, Nora is stretching up on her toes to put food in the cabinets.  Her shirt has pulled up, showing her flat stomach. 

“Hey,” she looks up, yanking her shirt down.  “You shouldn’t be up.”

“I’ve got an injured leg.  I’m not an invalid,” I tell her grumpily, because invalid or not, my leg is throbbing like hell.  I eye my pain pills, which are mocking me from above the sink, twenty painful steps away.  I start my slow hobble toward them.

“Did you need something?  I could’ve gotten it for you,” she tells me quickly, setting down a jar of spaghetti sauce, and heading for me. 

I’m already shaking my head.

“You’re not my servant,” I tell her. “I’m not sure why you wanted to be here so bad, but you’re not going to wait on me hand and foot.”  My words are sharper than I meant for them to be, but shit.  My fucking leg hurts.

Nora’s mouth snaps closed and she looks like I slapped her.  I feel guilty, because I know she only wants to help, but I don’t say anything.  I’m tired, I’m in pain, I’m pissed at the world.  It’s probably best that I just keep my mouth shut.

Without another word, I reach for the pills.  Unfortunately, I’m not used to my crutches yet, and the left one rolls out from under me. 

I lose my balance, and in my effort to not land on my leg, I slam into Nora, effectively pinning her to the counter. 

She looks up at me, her eyes wide. 

 She’s so small compared to me, as I tower above her.  Awkwardly, I shift my weight so I’m not smashing her, but I don’t move completely away. 

Because my pelvis likes being pushed into her pelvis. 

Her heat emanates into me, and she stares up into my eyes. 

“You don’t want me here?” she asks breathily, her fingers curled around the counter edge.  Her knuckles are white. 

“I didn’t say that,” I answer quietly, still not moving.  Because right now, with her soft curves pressed into me, I do want her here. 

And unfortunately, my dick chooses this moment to agree with me. 

It hardens against her and her eyes widen.

“I see,” she murmurs.  

I rotate away, straightening up and leaning on my crutches once again. 

“Sorry about that,” I tell her.  “I hope I didn’t crush you.”

With my hard-on.

Her mouth twitches.  “No worries.  Let’s get you back out to your chair and I’ll bring you your pills.”

I don’t argue, I simply turn and begin the slow hobble to my chair. 

Nora follows at my elbow, and as I’m twisting to drop into the chair, she gasps. 

“Holy shit, Brand,” she breathes.  “Your leg.”

I glance down and find a large spot of blood spreading on my inner thigh. 

Fuck.  I must’ve jostled the sutures in the kitchen.

Without another word, Nora bends over me, yanking the elastic band of my shorts down. I lift my hips to let the shorts slide down, and Nora’s cool fingertips find my inner thigh. 

I grit my teeth. 

Not because of pain, because there isn’t any.  But because Nora’s fingers are literally a couple of inches away from my dick.  

Cold fish.  Cold fish. Cold fish. 

Cold.

Fucking. 

Fish.

“You broke open your wound,” she says needlessly, her voice panicked.  She pulls at the blood-soaked bandage, examining the injury.   She covers it with the gauze again, pressing her fingers firmly to it for a long moment before looking at it again. 

“Okay.  I think it’s fine.  It was just a little tear, and it stopped bleeding.”  She looks up at me, her face calmer now.  “But you’ve got to be more careful, especially these first few days.  If you need something, call me.  Don’t try to get it yourself.”

I nod curtly, but I’d probably agree with anything right about now.  Her fingers are pressed to my groin again and she’s kneeling in front of me.  My thoughts aren’t on my fucking injury.

In fact, my thoughts are
far
from my fucking injury, but thankfully, I’m saved by someone clearing their throat in the doorway.

Nora and I both turn at the same time.

My mother stands there, her face disapproving, her shoulders stiff.

“Am I interrupting?” she asks icily. 

I stare at her hard, because I haven’t seen her in nine years, because no one invited her here, and because she didn’t even bother to knock.

Bethany Killien is smaller, frailer and grayer than she was nine years ago.  

Her thin arms stay at her sides.  She doesn’t approach me, she doesn’t reach for me, she simply stands there, limp and quiet.  Her face is tired, her hair pulled into a bun at her neck. She looks like someone who has lived a thousand lives. 

“No, you’re not interrupting,” I tell her coolly, while Nora scrambles to get up. I don’t acknowledge the fact that Nora was on her knees in front of me, or that I’m in my underwear.   I know what it might look like. 

But it’s none of my mother’s business.

“Well, I see that you’re deep in grief,” she says curtly,  “so I won’t stay long.  I just brought your truck down for you.  The mayor brought it to my house after the explosion.  There’s some fire damage to one side of it, but it still runs.”

My mother stares pointedly at Nora, and Nora looks at me. 

“Should I give you a few minutes?” she asks quietly, staring only at me.  She acts like my mother doesn’t even exist. I could hug her for that.

I nod.  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

She regally walks past my mother without another word or glance. 

Again, I could fucking hug her for that. 

I stare at my mother, who hasn’t moved even an inch toward me.  I don’t bother asking how she knew I was here.  I just cut to the chase.

 “Well, are you going to come in and tell me why you need me?  I assume you need something or you wouldn’t have bothered calling me.”

I hate that I sound so bitter and hateful.  I hate that she’s done this to me.  I hate that I’ve
let
her do this to me. 

I try and swallow the hate. 

It won’t hurt anyone but me.

My mother walks into the room and sits at the chair across from me, holding her small body stiff.  There’s no maternal concern here.  She doesn’t bother to ask how I am.

It’s only now that I notice she’s carrying something.  She places a wooden box on her lap and stares at me.

“It’s your father’s will,” she says simply. “You’re the sole heir.”

Shock slams into me like a Mack truck, and I stare at her in confusion.  Her face is a steel mask, unyielding, expressionless.

“There’s no way, “ I manage to say.  “Why would he do that?”

She shrugs. 

“I’m as surprised as you are.  After everything you did, I don’t understand it either.”

Everything you did.

The words linger in the air between us and I swallow hard, trying to contain my hate.   I don’t bother to try and defend myself.  It doesn’t make any sense anymore.  My father is gone, so what difference does it make?  There’s no point.

But that doesn’t mean that I deserve her resentment.

“I don’t want anything of his,” I tell her icily.  “Not his shop, not his truck, not anything.”

She stares at me, her brown eyes hard.  “So you’re telling me that everything he left you… the shop, his truck, his bike, even the house… you don’t want any of it?”

I level my gaze at her.  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

I pause, thinking of his bike.  A glistening, aggressive 1964 Triumph.  It was my grandfather’s before it was my father’s, and my grandfather meant for it to come to me. 

“I want the bike,” I amend.  “I don’t want anything else.  You can have it. Or burn it.  I don’t care.”

My mother stares at me in satisfaction.  Obviously, that’s what she came to hear. 

She holds out the box. 

I stare at it.  It’s a cube made from ebony wood, with an ivory inlay in the wood.  My name is carved into the ivory.

“Your father made this for you out in his woodshop,” my mother says. “He left it with the estate attorney, along with the will.”

I don’t move to take it from her.  “I don’t want it,” I tell her firmly. 

She looks away in disgust.  “Your father must’ve worked hours on that.  I don’t know why. But he meant for you to have it, and you’re going to have it.”  She sets it on the floor at her feet before looking back up at me.  “I don’t know why he chose to forgive you, Branden. But I never will.”

I taste bile and red bleeds into my vision as the hatred swells through my chest and pumps through my veins. 

“You don’t know what you think you know,” I manage to say thickly, every word like ice.  “Now get out.”

She steps over the box and walks stiffly toward the door.  Once there, she turns. 

“I’ll send the papers over for you to sign once they’re ready.”

I turn away and look out the windows. 

I hear the door close. 

I taste the bitterness in my mouth.  I feel my heart beat, pushing the hatefulness through my limbs before it returns to my heart, poisoning it.

But I don’t feel anything else.  I’m numb.

“Are you okay?” Nora asks softly from the door.  “I couldn’t hear what was going on, but you don’t look okay.”

She walks over to me, and picks up the box. 

“This is beautiful,” she observes gently.  “What’s in it?”

I shrug as if I don’t care.  “I don’t know.” 

She starts to take the lid off, but I stop her. 

“Don’t, please.”

My words are soft but firm.  Nora stops in surprise, her fingers poised on the lid.

“Okay.”  She sets it on a table by the sofa, across the room from me.  It seems to mock me and I look away. 

I don’t want to know yet what my father had to say. I don’t know if I ever will. 

“Thanks,” I tell her.  She looks down at me and her eyes are filled with understanding.  I don’t know how, but she seems to get it. 

Although she can’t possibly.  No one can. 

“No problem,” she says gently.  “Now, on to more urgent matters.  What should I try to make for dinner?”

I chuckle at the look of utter fear on her face.  “Have you never had to cook for yourself?”

She shakes her head.  “At my parent’s house, we have a housekeeper. When I was away at college, I ate in the dorms, and then when I moved to an apartment in grad school, I had takeout.”

“I’m doomed, then, is what you’re telling me?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.  She laughs. 

“I’m going to try something easy.  Meat loaf.  After it’s in the oven, I’m going to take a quick dip in the lake to cool off.  Do you need anything beforehand?”

I shake my head.  “Nah, I’m good.  Unless you could get me a book?”

She grabs one from the shelves on the far wall, and hands it to me before she disappears into the kitchen.  I concentrate on reading, rather than focusing on the pain throbbing in my leg, or the fucking wooden box mocking me from across the room. 

Nora emerges thirty minutes later, looking a bit frazzled, but otherwise, no worse for the wear. 

“Okay,” she announces triumphantly.  “We have a loaf made from meat baking.  I don’t know if it’ll be edible, but it’s baking.  I’m headed out to the lake.  Hopefully the water will wash out the hamburger under my fingernails. Otherwise, it might be there permanently.”

I smile.  “Enjoy yourself.”

She glances at me before she heads to her bedroom to change.  “After your thigh heals, maybe we could get you out there?  It might be a good way for you to exercise since you don’t have to bear weight.”

Alarm floods me, quick and white-hot and I immediately shake my head. 

“I don’t swim.”

Nora stares at me in surprise.  “You can’t, or don’t?”

“I don’t.”

She’s clearly puzzled, but she doesn’t pry.  “Ok.  It was just an idea.”

“I know,” I tell her, my pulse still bounding wildly in my throat.  “Thank you.”

She nods and leaves and I stare out the window again, calming down. 

Stop being a pussy.
 

But God, it’s hard.  The
one thing
I can’t get past.  I was able to get past the bullets and explosions of Afghanistan, for God’s sake. 

But not this. 

At the mere thought of it, my heart pounds in my chest, threatening to break free from my ribcage. 

With a deep breath, I watch the water, rippling peacefully against the shore, in a fluid age-old motion, a harmless, serene motion. 

It’s harmless, you fucking pussy. 

But I know that it isn’t always. 

As I stare at the familiar landscape, I’m filled with trepidation.   

I don’t like being home.  Being here brings back memories, and uncomfortable feelings…. things I would just as soon keep buried.

Home. 
Most people take comfort in being back home.  Home is a place they always feel safe, secure and loved. 

Too bad I’m not most people. 

I felt safer in the battlefields of Afghanistan than I did here.