Masterpiece Theater

I wailed on the bag heavily. Zack stood behind it to hold it in place, and even he was getting knocked back a couple inches with each punch. He grunted from the force, but held steady. Sweat poured into my eyes and down my chest, but I kept going.

No one knew about Matt and I. No one knew about me and Jason. It was going to stay that way.

I didn’t feel better after telling Laurel. I didn’t feel better, but I didn’t feel worse. I woke up every morning, still with a raging hard-on that I now felt guilty for dealing with but couldn’t ignore, and with a knot in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. My chest hurt, like I couldn’t get a full breath anymore.

She wouldn’t look at me unless she had to. She didn’t speak to me unless it was absolutely necessary. At night, I sat at the top of the stairs and listened to her cry, usually in Jason’s lap.

Now that Jason and Ian had gotten back together, he wasn’t as attention starved. Instead, he sat up with Laurel all night long, offering the only comfort she would accept.

Part of me wondered how much of the co-dependency was an act, and how damaged his psyche actually was. The times that we hooked up, he seemed almost normal.

He never explained what he got out of it.

Maybe it was the satisfaction of knowing that I was just another asshole who was going to break his sister’s heart.

“Dude. Dude! Brian!” Zack had to shout. He released the bag and came up behind me, pulling at my shoulder to get me away from it. I whirled around and started on him but he caught my fist and shoved me backwards, knocking me against it.

“The hell is your problem, Gates?”

“Nothin’.” I spat, moving to walk away. He yanked me back.

“That’s bullshit. First, you go after Matt, and then me? What’s your deal?”

“Matt fucking deserved it. He’s the reason that son of a bitch found her.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t, but fucking shit, dude. You need to get your shit together.”

“Whatever man.”

I wasn’t in the mood to sit on the couch and share my feelings. I just walked away, pulling my gloves off and unwrapping my hands. He followed, clearly not done with trying to get me to talk.

We both stripped down in the shower stalls and turned on the water. I was hoping I could get through it without a conversation, but his voice echoed off the tiles.

“You need to let it go, man. She can't recover if you keep walking around ready to explode."

“I’m not.” I lied. His silence told me he didn't believe it either.

“The only thing you can do is let the cops do their job. They’ll find him. You need to just focus on Laurel.”

“How? She won’t talk to me. She doesn’t say a fucking word. If I brush past her, she freezes and looks at me like I’m gonna hurt her. How do I get past that?”

He didn’t say anything. He had less of an idea than I did. I finished scrubbing down and toweled off quickly. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the house. Even with Laurel there, it was empty and quiet. Jason said something about taking her along on his lunch date with Ian to get her out of the house, but I quit paying attention to him after I told Laurel what happened between us.

She didn’t blame him at all; just me, which was par for the course.

I reached my Jeep, cigarette pressed between my lips, and opened the hatch to throw my bag inside. I was still itching for a fight, but I couldn't wail on my friends and Finn hadn't shown his face, although Laurel was adamant that he would.

After Zack came out and added his bag to mine, I closed the hatch and leaned against it. He took my lighter from me and spoke around the filter of his cigarette. "What are you gonna do? You can't keep doing this."

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what I could do, but I couldn’t sit and do nothing anymore. Zack was right. Something had to change.

I hadn’t initiated the sex, but I didn’t turn it down. I went as far as she let me and then backed off when it got to be too much. I refused to push her. I wasn't that selfish.

So, I told her, because I couldn’t lie to her anymore. It wasn't fair to keep it from her after what she'd been through.

I think what surprised her more was my confession of love, more than my sleeping with her brother.

I had to fix it. Somehow, I had to try and make things better. Not between us, but better for her, even if that meant without me.

After dropping Zack off at his girlfriend’s, I stopped at a few different stores. First, a flower shop, to get a bouquet of wildflowers, and then the jewelry store. I didn’t want to get her anything extravagant, and nothing that she would read into, because it wasn’t about our relationship. So I picked out a sterling silver bracelet that resembled a tree branch, tiny diamond chips acting as the leaves. Elegant, classy.

Perfect for saying goodbye.

Before I headed home, I stopped at Basilico’s and put in a pick-up order. Over the years I learned that you could never go wrong with Italian, especially if you offered options, and that if you had the right bottle of wine, the food didn’t really matter.

It was barely afternoon. For all I knew, she’d already eaten lunch with her brother. Or at least sat and stared at a plate full of food. I knew she was barely eating, consuming more coffee than anything else.

And if I was home, I could hear her throwing it up after.

Still, I had to try, because if I fucked up one more thing, there would be no future for us. Even if that’s all I had to look forward to with her, I still wanted it.

I didn’t want our goodbye to be messy.

I drove slowly and smoked lazily, not wanting to hurry home when I knew what was waiting for me. I didn’t want to leave her, not when she needed me by her side, and I wasn’t, not really. I just couldn’t be with her. I didn’t know how to help her, but I knew that a relationship wasn’t it.

“Laurel?” I called when I pushed open the door. I brought the bags of Basilico's into the kitchen and set them on the counter. I brought the flowers with me down to the basement, but she wasn’t there either, so I set them next to the food. The bracelet I held onto.

“Laurel, are you home?” I asked, pushing open Jason’s bedroom door. His room was a mess, but there was no sign of his sister.

Laurel with you? I sent him a text as I went back to the kitchen. If she had been home, she would’ve made some indication of acknowledgement. An appearance or a grunt, at least.

I sat on a stool with a cigarette in my mouth, staring at my phone, waiting for a reply.

No. She bailed. Call Ali?

The one time I needed him glued to her side, and he wasn’t.

Still, I needed to stay calm. Flipping out on her would only make everything worse.

I called Ali and immediately got her voicemail. Her chirpy voice was annoying, too sweet and professional, but I knew she checked her messages religiously. She screened her calls.

“Ali, it’s Brian. I’m looking for Laurel. Jason said she was with you. Call me back.” Short, sweet, to the point. No need for panic.

By the time my cigarette was finished, she texted me back.

In a meeting. I haven’t heard from her since yesterday. You sure she’s not home?

She’s not answering. Not downstairs or Jason’s room.

After a few minutes of no response, I figured she’d probably gotten back to whatever it was she had been doing when I called. For someone whose job was undefined, she was always in meetings. I had no clue what she did or how she did it, but she made a lot of money doing it.

The only place I hadn’t checked was upstairs. My room, the other guest room that I mainly used for storage, and the bathroom. It was possible she hadn’t heard me come in, but she never went upstairs anymore. Not because she was still having trouble, but because she had no reason to.

I knew she still suffered from nightmares, but she had too much pride to ask me to rescue her again.

“Lor, are you up here?” I half-whispered, pushing open my bedroom door. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, but when I saw her laying on my bed, relief flooded me.

Tentatively, I stepped into the room. She watched as I walked, but I made sure to keep a safe distance, staying a few feet away from the bed, and her.

"Why aren't you with Jason?"

She snorted. "Funny. I was gonna ask you the same thing."

"Because he's with Ian. Because he doesn't matter. Because I know I fucked up. And because I really, really, miss you."

"I asked him, you know. Why you picked him, why he didn't tell you no." She didn't look at me, but she did sit up and swing her legs over the side. She kept her gaze on the floor but continued.

"He said that it was just something you needed to get out of your system. He said that it was just physical, static energy. He said that...that night...it wasn't about physical attraction to him. You were punishing yourself, that you asked him to break you, because you couldn't ask me."

"You wouldn't get any pleasure from hurting me, Laurel. Jason would. I didn't want to fight with you and I didn't want to push you into something you weren't ready for. Jason knew I needed a release. I just...if I had known…"

I wasn't sure what I was saying. It sounded like a bunch of babble. They were pretty poor excuses, because I still hadn't been able to figure out exactly why I let it happen, but it didn't seem to matter anymore.

She reached for my hand and I took it, sitting down next to her. "I don't know where we go from here." I admitted.

She leaned into me and combed her fingers through my hair. I tensed, closing my eyes. I wanted to remember the feeling, not marred by anger or sex, but just the simple gesture of comfort.

"I don't know either. I wasn't sure, before, and I was scared, and I should have told you about Finn. I just wasn't expecting…" she stopped, trying to form the words.

I pulled away. I lit a cigarette and put the ashtray between us, my heart sinking.

"I love you, Brian, but I have Jason and you have the band. I can't even sleep through the night without having a panic attack. I can't touch you without memories of what happened taking over. It just isn't a good idea. It probably never was."

She didn't close the space between us, but I felt her eyes on me. She took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. I sucked on mine and exhaled slowly, forcing myself to meet her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Laurel. I am so fucking sorry."

"Me too."

"Can I kiss you?"

She nodded. I leaned in and she met me in the middle. Our lips had barely met before a gunshot sounded and a round landed itself in the wall above my headboard.

I whirled around, shielding Laurel with my body. A man, with bleary, alcohol-laden eyes and blond hair was standing in my bedroom doorway, gun in hand, pointed directly at me.

I had no idea how to diffuse the situation. Everything I knew about assault and handling a drunk guy who was armed came from all the crime shows that ran rampant on TV. I also knew that no matter what, someone always got shot anyway.

He wasn't much in the mood for introductions or conversation. Instead, he fired again, and hit Laurel in the shoulder, because she jumped in front of me before I could stop her. She went down with a slew of cuss words, blood pouring all over the floor.