Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

I was awake long before Vaughn, stirring as the first rays of sunlight peeked around the cracks in my blinds. My body felt sore and battered but warm too, a body worn from a battlefield but finally content with what it had achieved. I remembered everything, I couldn’t forget, even in sleep I had known where Vaughn was and what I had given to him.

My virginity to me had never been of much importance. Before him I had been nonchalant about the whole thing, believing that I would lose it eventually to some guy at a party who I wouldn’t remember the next morning, because to give it away would have to involve some kind of affection. A kind of affection I had never known or seen, never believed was real at all.

But I had given it to Vaughn and I could only ever see myself now as I was, lying beside him on my smell bed, finding patterns in his sleeping face. That faceless boy at that imagined party wasn’t stealing anything from me that hadn’t already been taken, by Vaughn Hart no less. And settling myself carefully in the aftermath I noticed how not even the pain running deep beneath my skin could stop me smiling stupidly as the boy who hadn’t opened his eyes yet.

Slowly, tentatively, I brought a hand up on the mattress to rest lightly on his bare chest, our skin colours meshing together. In the starker light of morning, the effects of his illness were more apparent. I could see the beginnings of his ribcage where muscle used to be and I could trace the small bruises countless injections and probing and unfeeling medical hands had left behind. He felt cold under my hand so I pulled the cover further over us.

Just like they always were, his heart and his health were somewhere in my mind. I couldn’t go two minutes without checking him for some kind of pain, searching for some sign of Vaughn’s mask which he only ever used when it hurt. And it hurt him a lot more often than it used to, that I was almost certain of. I couldn’t even attempt to understand what it would be like to have a heart which seemed to be permanently failing, too far behind, trying desperately to catch up with the rest of the world. When it beat out of time and his whole body felt the effects of it. When it was harder for him to breathe or his muscles just stopped cooperating. When he felt faint or nauseas and angry at the world for causing all of this to happen to him. He was ashamed too because he was an eighteen year old boy whose chances of having a stroke were staggeringly high and whose heart could fail completely at any point.

I blinked hard to stop myself from getting emotional. This was his illness, not mine, and he coped with it in a way almost any other human would find impossible. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was and yet how cursed we were too. I was in love with the most amazing person I had ever known and he was fading away right before my eyes.

My hand moved softly up his chest to hover over where his heart was. My feather touches found the slow beating, and I closed my eyes to count out the rhythm in my mind. I found the first extra beat after two hundred and seventy three and with it my eyes flew open, the shock of it being overwhelming. It shouldn’t have surprised me – what else had I been expecting? But to feel it for myself was almost worse than hearing about it for the first time. I had to bite my lip to compose myself just in case Vaughn woke up to find his girlfriend nearing tears.

He shifted as I thought this, shuffling even closer to me and forcing me to steal back my hand quickly before it became wedged between us. I studied him to see if he was awake or not, scared for a split second that he knew what I had been doing, what I had been thinking. I was determined to get him better but I was also determined to give him the best of everything I could. I guess his mother and I were similar in that way – we would both do absolutely anything to make him happy, and if that meant pretending that our hearts weren’t breaking for him then that was fine.

As I was carefully getting ready to fall back asleep, I became aware that there were faint thuds coming from outside on the landing. I froze almost immediately. I did this every time, every morning; every movement I heard in my house sounded like it could be from someone I knew was lost. It was probably just Nick getting in from wherever he’d been. It most likely was but once the idea had been implanted in me it was impossible for me to remain with my assumptions. In this family, it was dangerous to ever assume anything. I had assumed once that my parents would never abandon me. I had assumed that we’d be a family even after the boys had become legal adults.

Picking myself from Vaughn’s arms, I moved cautiously down the bed until I was standing under the slants of sunshine. I pulled the closest pieces of clothing on –what happened to be his discarded shirt along with my strewn underwear – before I went for the door. It hardly made a sound against the soft carpet but I still cringed. Darting an anxious look back at my sleeping boyfriend, I stepped out and shut the door.

It was only Nick though, no Mom or Dad or even Ross. Just my youngest brother, frowning at me in a way which had me uncomfortably aware that I was only in Vaughn’s shirt.

“Before you say anything,” Nick said to me from across the landing “I don’t approve.”

I took him in, the way he was about to go downstairs, hand already trailing the banister. Judging by the dark circles around his eyes he hadn’t slept, and judging by his ruffled clothes from the day before he had just gotten home.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a boy in your room and you’re wearing his shirt, I’m guessing he didn’t pop in at five in the morning just to tell you some funny story,” his eyes levelled meaningfully into mine, his body half twisted around to watch me.

“I don’t think it’s any of your business what my boyfriend is doing here Nick,” I quipped quickly, already blushing.

He shook his head like a disappointed parent before gesturing me to follow him. “I don’t really want to have this conversation with you while he’s right there,” he pointed accusingly at my door. “In fact, I don’t want to be having this conversation at all but, since I seem to be the oldest here, I think I have to. Just because it’s us two here alone and I don’t monitor you 24/7 doesn’t mean you can bring guys back to this house.”

I was already fuming as I followed him downstairs and into the kitchen. I was already a few seconds away from strangling him and a few short words away from telling him exactly where he could shove his eye-roll worthy speech. This was Nick Thornberry being the biggest hypocrite I had ever known. He was the one who’d lost his virginity at fifteen, had dropped out of college to pursue a music career, had first walked out on me four years ago.

“You’re not going to stand there and pretend to be Dad, Nick,” I told him plainly, “you don’t have that right.”

“I think I have the right to be pissed at my baby sister for having sex with a guy in our home. You’re still just a kid Alice, what the hell were you thinking?”

“So it’s our home now? And I’m just a kid? You sure didn’t think either of those things when you left this house to live your own life without even a backwards glance. If this place means so much to you, if I mean so much to you, then why the hell would you leave me with them?” I struggled not to raise my voice. I was aware that somewhere in this house Vaughn was still sleeping.

I watched Nick slump into one of the wooden chairs to put his head in his hands. He was probably hung over. He had probably just gotten kicked out of some girl’s house. I knew he wasn’t that stressed out about me and my virginity.

“If I hadn’t called you, Nick, I would have been here on my own. I could have slept with the whole fucking town and nobody would have cared,” I spat.

He just remained silent. I swallowed back the anger overflowing from my very pores but it wouldn’t stop. Once it had been released there was no way to stem it. It was four years of pain that I hadn’t had a chance to show Nick, that I had only ever let Ross and Vaughn glance at for a few brief moments. I could remember his reluctant phone call about coming home and I could remember crying in front of Mom’s door because Dad had left us.

“There’s this picture of you from when you’re about six,” his voice was gruff, his words garbled slightly as if he was having to push them out. “You’re wearing those dungarees that you always hated and it’s just after a football game with us boys in the park. Your hair’s messy and tied up but you’re smiling this smile that shows your dimples and the missing front tooth you had back then. You won the game that day when we were on the same team because Fraser had a bad ankle which we took advantage of. I don’t remember who took the photograph but I do remember how as soon as I saw it I put it in my wallet, it was such a typical Alice moment from when we were younger that I had to keep it somewhere safe.

I still have it in my wallet, and I had it for the four years when I was away from here. I would look at it and be reminded of you then, instead of the girl I left behind at thirteen who cried as I drove off to college. I was so ashamed Alice but I was also so desperate. I had to see things that nobody should ever have to see, which is no excuse, but it made me crazy to get out. I didn’t think of you until it was too late and I didn’t have the courage to face you when I realised. I knew you’d be mad. I knew you would hate me and you’d have every right to. I kept in contact with Ross a lot but I lost Fraser to business and Joseph to his frat parties. I had already lost you then, and I’m sorry that you had to be the adult for our parents and that you’ve had to grow up so quickly because of that.

I... I don’t want you to hate me anymore. You’re still my baby sister Alice even if you’re no baby anymore,” he trailed off.

When he looked up at me I saw the collection of tears in his blue eyes, so similar to my own. I didn’t remember the day or the photograph but I remembered the dungarees and I remembered playing with my older brothers in the park when Ross decided our parents were losing control.

I didn’t hate Nick. I didn’t hate Ross. I didn’t even hate my Mom and Dad. Sure, I had been mad at Nick for a long time but ever since he had come back that had just melted away. I was cold to him because he was cold to me. I was protecting myself for when he next decided to leave, I told myself, because nothing in my life seemed to be permanent, seemed to be for forever.

“Nick...” I sighed “you’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“Hm?”

“I never hated you and I certainly don’t now. All I want is to get back on track so we don’t have to keep tip-toeing around each other,” I told him plainly, realising as I said it that it was the truth.

Even though he was here and had been here for some time we had been avoiding each other. It was awkward. Nick didn’t talk about what had happened, I didn’t talk about what could have happened, and we both avoided the fact that our parents should have been there looking after their teenage daughter. It was nice not being alone but it was even nicer to know that we wouldn’t have to pretend that the last four years hadn’t happened at all.

Nick chuckled as he stood “I could have sworn that I started this conversation with the idea that I was going to be lecturing you about boys.”

“I’m glad to be honest, that would have been an uncomfortable chat to say the least.”

“Come here,” he motioned before engulfing me in his large arms. I smiled into his chest, feeling a wave of something I had told myself was just a trick of the mind. This was the reunion I had wished for for so long and those were the words I had wished one of my brothers would say. Breathing in the smell of old cigarettes and stale alcohol, I smiled to myself. He was fresh from an old party but I didn’t care, he had broken whatever bond we had both put over the past.

“Alice, where are – oh,” Vaughn’s voice startled me out of my brother’s arms. We both looked at each other for a second, stunned, as if neither of us could believe that we were finally on good terms again, and then I sent him that same smile. Dimples and all. The one I now knew would be staring back at him whenever he opened his wallet.

“There you are,” Vaughn declared as if I had been missing in the first place.

“Morning Vaughn,” Nick cut across whatever sweet hello I would have uttered with a cold look. I noticed the tension was suddenly thick. I noticed how obvious Vaughn and I were being about our actions from last night. I noticed that I stood in only his shirt while there he was just in boxers, conveniently shirtless.

I turned to Vaughn for the first time and laughed, because he looked so adorably sleepy. There was a blush crawling up his normally pale cheeks no doubt from Nick’s insinuating eyes.

“Oh knock it off,” I told my brother, “I love this guy.”

“What?” he raised dark eyebrows at me, switching his gaze from me to Vaughn as if he didn’t quite know who to keep track of.

I knew Vaughn was smirking but I kept myself focused solely on Nick, not trusting myself with even a single glance in his direction. One look and I would do something stupid. Like laugh. Or kiss him. Or linger my hand over his chest once again, trying to find that heart of his. I couldn’t afford to do those things in front of my brother at this point in time, not when he was half posed to smash Vaughn’s face in for taking my virginity.

“You’re acting stupid right now; just try to be happy for me?”

“You love him?” Nick asked, obviously not believing a word of it.

“It’s crazy, I know,” I slipped up and stole a small peek at my boyfriend standing in the kitchen’s doorway. “This whole thing is just crazy.”

“Well...” the sound rolled off his tongue, obviously biding him some time for his brain to allow that bombshell to sink in. I knew my brother understood how I felt about love because he felt exactly the same way. We had the same childhood, we had the same parents, we had the same example of what made up a marriage. He just didn’t have anyone like Vaughn yet who had come along and changed everything.

“I think it’s best that we go get dressed before we try to start any awkward breakfast conversation,” I proposed quickly. The last thing I wanted was for us three to be stuck around our kitchen table, forcing words out just to fill in the stilted silences. I knew from the way Nick still stood that he was more than prepared to tackle Vaughn at any mention of what we had done last night. It was strange really, how protective he suddenly seemed. Maybe it was the lack of Dad, or rather the lack of Ross.

I pulled subconsciously on Vaughn’s shirt, covering as much of my bare legs as possible, before I moved out of the kitchen. Vaughn was already walking with me. I didn’t miss the sly look he sent back at my brother or the extra huff Nick let out. Rolling my eyes at their immaturity, I grabbed onto his hand and yanked him up the stairs, not wishing to linger for any longer within my brother’s line of sight.

As soon as we were safely in my bedroom I let go of his hand to point an accusing finger into the soft skin of his arm.

“You didn’t have to wind him up,” I groaned. I already knew this morning was going to be unbearable. “You know what my brothers are like.”

“I can’t help but be jealous though Alice, I woke up to find you weren’t here and, instead of being wrapped up in my arms,” he pulled me into them now, “I find you’re downstairs talking to your brother.”

“You’re impossible,” I laughed. My head nestled into his neck so I could breathe him in completely. “You’d be jealous if I was downstairs eating eggs!”

“Hey now, I always knew those eggs were trying to steal you away from me,” he squeezed his arms tighter so the lengths of our bodies were aligned. I felt his chuckle more than heard it, vibrating through me so deliciously.

“You have five minutes Alice,” Nick’s booming voice carried up the stairs and under the crack of my bedroom door. “To get changed or I’m coming up there to check that you’re both in your own clothes!”

Vaughn let out a dirty laugh, his hot lips suddenly at my ear.

“Don’t worry sweetheart, I can have us both more than ready in five minutes.”