Spectacularly Broken (24 page)

“Of course not. It still hurts, Lysander. Even after all this time, it still hurts to remember her.”

“You think it doesn’t hurt that I don’t have a clue who she was?”

It was his turn to stare. “What are you taking about? You have—”

“Yes, I have pictures, and I have movies, and I have her biography.” I couldn’t keep from raising my voice. “I know what she looked like, Dad.”

“So what exactly—”

“I want to know what she smelled like. I want to know how she took her coffee in the morning. Whether she liked pancakes. The things that made her laugh and whether she liked to dance or to swim and what she said the first time she met you. I don’t want to know Katherine Vega—don’t you get that? I want to know
my mom
.”

For what might have been the first time in his life, Joel Shepherd was completely speechless. He looked at me, then the floor, then me again, shook his head, gripped his forehead, lowered his hand, and looked back at the floor.

“I didn’t realize,” he said.

Understatement of the Year award goes to…

“One parent I don’t even know the first thing about, and another who’s never home. How the fuck was I supposed to handle that? What was I supposed to think? Mom died because of me, and then you spent years acting like you can’t even stand being in the same house as me. You barely talk to me; you don’t give a damn about anything in my life; you don’t even care enough to
punish
me. So tell me again how I’m supposed to think you don’t blame me. Tell me again how the guy who’s described as
loving
and
devoted
in that goddamn biography put so much effort into his marriage and then turned around and pushed his only child away like a pile of moldy leaves for
no fucking reason
. What am I supposed to think, Dad?
What
?”

By the end, I was screaming. I’d never put most of those feelings into words until that very moment, and it shocked me when they came volleying out of my mouth, harsh and abrupt, much like smashing a crystal decanter into the wall. It drained me.

It stunned him. He stared mutely, and I slumped back onto my chair and turned my head away because I was not ready to see his reaction. I was not ready for his denial and his excuses and his insistence that I had it so good.

They never came.

I sat there and waited. And waited.

Nothing.

People passed by outside the lounge, talking. A medical alert came through the loudspeaker. A door slammed, and then it was quiet again.

My father eventually broke the silence. “
Midsummer Night’s Dream
was her favorite play.”

I blinked. “Wha…oh. My name.”

“Yes. We went to see it on our first date. When you were born, we didn’t have any names picked out, because Kat insisted she wouldn’t know the right one until she saw your face. She said it would be terrible if we decided on, say, Phillip, and then we’d look at you and you wouldn’t look like a Phillip at all. But then she never got to—” His voice broke. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him burying his face in his hands. “And then I stood there looking at you, and she was dead, and I was a mess, and they asked for your name, and that was the best I could do. I just kept thinking about the things your mother loved. About the play and how her favorite part was the love story between Lysander and Hermia and the others. I still hope that she would have liked my choice.”

I let that sink in for a bit. Eventually, when I thought I might be able to talk without breaking down, I took a few deep breaths.

“You called her Kat? I thought she always insisted on…”

“I was the only one who was allowed to.” My dad sent a small, sad smile at the wall next to my head. “I was the only one she made an exception for. Everyone else kept to Katherine, but I had my Kat. I had…” He trailed off.

The lump in my throat was getting difficult to ignore. I swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry, Lysander,” he said, which was not what I had expected to hear from him. “I’m very sorry.”

“Me too,” I said, feeling suddenly lost.

“For what?”

“Everything. The drugs. Just…everything.”

He reached out and covered my hand with his. “I haven’t signed the contract for my next project yet. I was going to, but…I should take some time off, I think. If you still want that. And I’ll tell you about your mother.”

He lifted his arm. I nodded, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I leaned my head against my father’s shoulder and allowed him to hold me.

“What
is
your favorite color?”

I chuckled. “Black.”

“Oh. I thought you were fond of blue.”

“Blue’s not bad.”

“Kat’s favorite color was turquoise.” His hand stroked over my hair. “You are so much like her, Lysander. The way you laugh and how you move your hands when you talk and the temper. She kept me in line, you know, went off on me sometimes when I was being particularly stupid. Like when I suggested moving the wedding date because of a movie premiere. Boy, did I get an earful.” He shook his head. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Dad?” I whispered.

“Yes?”

“I don’t hate you.”

He just kept holding me.

* * * *

It wasn’t until the early afternoon that a doctor checked Cai over one more time and brought him the dismissal paperwork. Then my father found a hotel, and Cai and I were taken home, where nobody was waiting except for Jarett and Marty, the police officer from the day before. He had sent all the other well-wishers away so as not to overwhelm Cai, an act for which I was very grateful. His hypothermia had been taken care of, but mentally, Cai certainly wasn’t ready for the rest of the world.

He ate and slept and ate some more, and by the time sunset closed in, he found me in the living room and reached for my hand. “Come with me?” he asked tentatively.

The way he sounded made me think this was important, so I didn’t ask where he was going. Cai grabbed a set of car keys from a corkboard in the hallway and led me into the garage, and a couple of minutes later, he was driving me through Riverton. I looked impassively at the houses we passed and tried my best to be patient. Neither of us said a single word.

Eventually we made it to a highway on the outskirts, lined on one side by residential properties and on the other by what to my untrained eye looked like farmland and neglected grassland. Cai parked by the side of the road. I followed him when he got out, walked straight into the deep grass, and started to collect flowers.

We made our way down the road like that, with him plucking and adding to the bundle in his hand as he went. He selected them carefully, cornflowers and two other kinds whose names I didn’t know, all red and blue and bright yellow.

When we reached the intersection, I saw the cross.

It was small, wooden, and unadorned, not a grave but a memorial. I took Cai’s hand in mine again and squeezed it for support as we approached the spot where his brother had died.

“Hey, Cass,” he said softly.

He crouched and laid his free hand on the cross while I waited, standing still in the warm breeze.

“It’s been a while. I’m sorry,” Cai continued. “I was away for a few weeks. Had to get my head sorted out and all that.” He turned then and smiled at me as he waved me closer. I went crouching next to him.

Cai swallowed hard. “I want you to meet someone. I think you’d like him. He’s a little nuts and a little spoiled, and I love him. He can’t fill that void you left, but he makes it better. He makes it easier to bear the guilt and everything else that weighs me down.”

He looked down then, laid the flowers at the base of the cross, and blinked rapidly.

“God, I miss you,” he whispered. “I miss you, Cass. So much. Always.”

It was his turn to cry. I held him as quiet tears rolled down his cheeks, and I made a silent promise to Cassiel that I would take care of his twin the best I could.

Epilogue

“Holy shit!” Cai’s voice resounded through the townhouse’s expansive foyer and struck me like a church bell. I hadn’t seen him in far too long. I allowed myself a moment to close my eyes and bask in the warmth and excitement that still flooded me every time we were reunited after a prolonged separation. Then I dropped the shirt I’d been trying to find a home for and raced down the stairs.

“Try not to break your neck,” Cai requested, laughing as I flung myself at him from the bottom step, wrapped my arms and legs around him, and climbed him like a tree.

Yeah, I’d missed him. Sue me.

His fingers burrowed into my hair as we kissed hello. I pressed my lips to his over and over again, inhaled his scent, and then gifted him with a big smile. “I don’t smell any smoke. You actually pulled it off, didn’t you?”

Cai nodded proudly. It had been one of the conditions of us all sharing a living space—everyone but he and I really hated the cigarette smell, and he had freely acknowledged that he never should have picked up the habit in the first place, so quitting had seemed a logical solution.

“Proud of you,” I muttered and kissed him again while I finally put my feet back on the floor. “Oh God, I missed you.”

“Same.” He placed kisses on my cheek and ear and then pushed me an arm’s length away. “You look delicious, Lys.”

“Why, thanks, that’s the house specialty,” I breathed flirtatiously.

He grinned. His gaze left my face to stray around the room and take in the high ceiling, the indoor balcony. “So is this what they call a loft apartment?”

“No, it’s a townhouse.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.” I shrugged.

He studied our surroundings some more. “How much is rent on this place?”

I made a face, causing him to give me an expectant look.

“Well?” he asked.

“Baby, this is waterfront property in Santa Monica. You
really
don’t want to know.”

He gulped audibly.

“Hey, I didn’t pick it out,” I told him. “That was all my dad.”

“Well, tell him, uh, thanks. Jesus.” Cai couldn’t stop looking around. Granted, it was a really nice place, all open spaces and airy curtains and panorama windows. “I knew something was up as soon as I saw that space elevator that got me up here.”

“Yeah, it looks a little
Star Trek
, doesn’t it?”

“But really cool.” Cai spun in a circle. “Is there an outside balcony we can go on?”

“A deck. It’s got a hot tub.”

“Of course it does,” Cai muttered, shaking his head.

I only grinned and pulled him up the stairs to show him the master bedroom and try out the bed.

* * * *

The others arrived a couple of hours after Cai. We were cuddling and talking when we heard the shouts of surprise and joy from the foyer, causing us to share a grin and throw on some clothes before we left the room and waved down at them from the indoor balcony.

“What is that?” Finn was studying a metal-and-glass box construction, looking befuddled.

“A fireplace,” I said.

His head snapped up, and he stared at me. “We’re in freaking Santa Monica,” he said, as though I didn’t know. “What the hell do we need a fireplace for?”

“For show, obviously.” I hopped down the stairs and gave him a long hug. Then I did the same to Lexa and Jarett. I hadn’t seen either of them in a couple of months. We talked at least once a week, all of us, usually after therapy sessions, but it just wasn’t the same. I liked being around them again. It made me feel calmer, more grounded. By now we had been through so much together, supported each other unconditionally through the low points each of us inevitably hit once in a while, celebrated every small triumph, that there was no longer a need for any of us to put up a front. We knew one another far too well to bother.

“Where do I sleep?” Jarett wanted to know, fingers twisting in the strap of his backpack. He looked completely overwhelmed.

“There’s three bedrooms. I think the east one is smallest, so you’ll get that to yourself,” I replied.

“You’ll have to share with Nicky when he comes to visit for Thanksgiving, though,” Cai added.

“Of course.” He stared at the skylight, openmouthed. “This is so not what I expected for my first year of college.”

“Chill, buttercup.” I patted his shoulder. “It’s still just us.”

“How much is rent?”

“You don’t want to know,” Cai and I chorused.

“Okay, how much am I supposed to pay, then?”

“You know, when I said I needed roommates for this place, I didn’t mean financial help—I meant friends.” I boxed his shoulder. “My dad’s treat. He’s still in shock that I’m actually doing this college thing. This is just his version of support and encouragement. Besides, I’m gonna need you guys around to stay sane anyway, I know that much already.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jarett took a deep breath. “Sorry, bit overwhelming.”

“It’s all good.” I smiled at him. “Why don’t we finish moving our stuff up here, and then I’ll show you the beach.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed.

I glanced at Lexa, who was standing in front of the panorama window, gazing outside while she held Finn’s hand. “You’ll be okay here?” I asked. I knew she hadn’t been 100 percent convinced that living in such a populous place was for her, but she had agreed to try anyway.

“I’ll be fine,” she decided.

We’d both be attending the Art Institute of California—Lexa for graphic design and I for fashion design—so we would be able to figure it out together. Finn, Cai, and Jarett were bound for UCLA. Our townhouse was no more than fifteen minutes from either campus—on a good day anyway—and since the beach was within walking distance too, I considered ours an ideal location.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Jarett wanted to know.

“You have an en suite. We all do. And there’s a half bathroom downstairs.” I pointed, and once more everyone else expressed their astonishment. I had realized by now that it was eye-opening, spending so much time with people who weren’t used to having money. All those little things I’d always taken for granted were suddenly new and awesome.