“Wait. Whatever happened to ‘Please, just let her hold you for a while. She needs this right now’?” I interrupted, repeating her words from just a few hours ago, “Why do you keep asking me to do shit for them? Why is fixing what they broke on me?”
“It’s not. It’s on us, and we know it. I just also know that you really want your family back. Why else did you try to make John understand what happened with us, when you drove to the office together, if not to give us a chance to fix it?”
It was true. That was the exact reason why I had tried to make John understand what was happening in this family. But not necessarily to fix their relationship with me, but rather so they can fix their shit before Maggie and Ava suffer from the long-term consequences.
“Did it work?” I asked her in a subdued voice.
“Yes.” she smiled, “He was ... quite shocked about what you told him, and was seriously concerned after mulling it over. So, I take it we do have a chance to get you back?”
“Did Claire tell you that we...?” I asked carefully, without actually saying what I was asking.
“Yes. Ava too, by the way. If what she told us was true, and the way she looked and walked suggests it was, I’m impressed, my dear Nephew.” she laughed.
“You know...” I paused, looking at my hands, feeling embarrassed about it but, at the same time, also feeling the need to make her understand. “The best part about the night with Claire was the way she held me afterwards. The way you all behaved after Thanksgiving also made me think we could work on this. But every time I get my hopes up, some shit happens, and I have a hard time believing you again.”
“Like what?” she asked, sounding confused. Which ticked me off again.
“Oh, well, let me think.” I half called out, while throwing my hands in the air. “How about Ava presenting me a birthday gift, and then it turns out to be a cruel joke. How about you and John realizing how bad our relationship had gotten, and then accepting it as the new normal. Granny and Gramps proclaiming how important it is we fix our relationship, right before they fuck off on another cruiseship for a year. Aaron protested how dangerous my plan was, but then readily agrees to everything I’d get thrown my way, as long as it keeps fucking Logan out of danger. Or how about me thinking that Claire and Ava coming onto me could mean that they finally accept me, just to now be told how utterly meaningless a gesture that is for you all. Which, by the way, is a real nut shot if you consider how you all excluded me from the family orgies for years, even though it’s apparently the same for you as brewing coffee! Should I fucking continue!?”
“Okay...” she conceded with an embarrassed look, but I was not even close to being done.
“And all of that happened after you all gave so little of a shit about me, you didn’t even notice that your underaged son, brother, and nephew was gone for a week! I got fucking trust issues here, Danielle, and now you’re asking me to just accept your word on how you all made a mental One-Eighty? Even if I could believe you ... After last week, I’m not even sure if I wanted to anymore.”
“Okay! You’re right. Everything you just said is true. We’ve got to prove ourselves. And we want to! Just tell me you’ll let us prove it to you.”
Sure, I wished I had a family. Ever since I saw them on Ava’s sixteenth birthday, the way they cared for her was all I wanted for myself as well. But did I still care about that now? After those past years, did I still care for them? And more importantly, even if this was their genuine attempt to fix it, and not just a guilt trip like I feared, would they still want to mend our relationship if they knew what I’ve done?
“You know I killed those men, right?” I said quietly, causing her to jerk away from me in shocked surprise.
“WHAT!?”
“You weren’t there when those three guys came for us in that parking lot.” I explained, my voice just as low as when my initial confession slipped out, and I was still unable to look at her. “Bill told me how they normally handled debtors who wouldn’t or couldn’t pay them. They tried to shoot me and managed to stab me. They were prepared to kill us, but they actually came to take you, Maggie, Claire and Ava back to Austin with them. To clear Logan’s debt, they would’ve tried to blackmail you all into making porn. And if that wouldn’t work, they would’ve drugged you, dragged you in front of a camera, and filmed as each of you got raped by the five of them, creating as much videomaterial as possible to sell.”
Her eyes had grown big, no longer just expressing shock as I talked, but also fright. I just continued.
“After Bill told me that, I looked for the videos they produced online and found a few. The first time I watched one, I was surprised the woman could even move when they were finally done with her. So, I looked into her, just to make sure. She did make it out of the building ... but after those videos were published, she apparently couldn’t deal with the humiliation. The people they worked with are even worse than them! Even if I hate you all for what you did, I couldn’t let that shit happen. So ... I stole from his partners, and pinned it on him and his last remaining goon. If it worked out ... and it seems it did ... there is no way they let them live.”
“Tim...” she started to say, but nothing else came as she just stared at me.
“Still want me around?”
This was something that bothered me a lot, ever since it happened. I didn’t know for sure whether the Bookie and his men were actually dead, of course, but I knew this was the most likely outcome for them, even before we drove to Austin. Bill had made sure I understood that part as soon as I told him about my plan. When he asked me whether I knew what they did to people who steal from them, he wasn’t just warning me about the consequences of getting caught stealing. He was warning me about the consequences of succeeding in framing others.
I didn’t tell Danielle to get sympathy points, or make her feel indebted, or anything like that. I just had to tell someone, and ever since the blowout on Thanksgiving, I had decided that we all needed to know exactly where our problems came from. If they wanted to work on our relationship, they first needed to know why we no longer had one. In return, they deserved to know what I did in Austin, so they could decide if rebuilding a relationship with me was something worth working for.
If this confession would lead to them letting me go, or them finally deciding they didn’t want someone like me close to them anymore, nothing would be lost either. I would simply continue living like I already had for years, just not in this house.
But instead of doing anything like that, she leaned over, wrapped her arms around my neck, and pulled my head into her breasts. She just held me like that for a long time, while her hands combed through my hair.
I won’t lie, I enjoyed it immensely. Being held like that was something I missed a lot. And then the old doubts came back. Any affection or concern they had shown me happened just after they realized that they needed me. I was used to expecting disappointment and looking for their hidden agenda. I simply had no way to know if this was genuine.
“Why are you holding me?” I said, trying to control myself. “This is ... not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Curse at me? Wake the others and tell them what I did? Tell me to get away from you?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she just held me tighter before finally speaking.
“Oh, Honey ... you were not the one who killed them, if that even happened.”
“But if it happened, I caused it!” I replied, noticing it got harder to control my voice.