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“Yeah,” he said sadly. “I got you drunk, but I was even more wasted, and to the point that I passed out after I…finished. Those two had come home with me for the holiday weekend and they knew I was bent on teaching my girlfriend a lesson she wouldn’t forget. I told them what I was going to do with the sex video. Like an idiot. I was so arrogant I never imagined they would try to get in on it. You can clearly see on the video that after I fuck—after I’m done—I’m not there on screen again. There’s a cut in the filming, and then it’s just Fielding and Montrose…and you. Trust me, I watched it over and over, horrified by what they did.” I looked away from the window and studied his face. He met me head on without shielding himself. I saw regret and shame in him. “Brynne, I—I never meant—”
I knew Lance was telling me the truth.
“They watched us…and then when I passed out, they took over. I don’t even remember leaving you in that game room, Brynne. I woke up the next morning in the back of my car. The video had already been posted to a sharing site and it was too
late. It got passed around all weekend.” He hung his head and shook it slowly. “And that music they put on there…”
I tried to remember the sequence of imagery, but I’d been so traumatized by my one-time viewing of the video, I couldn’t really pull up much memory of Lance’s involvement at all. I knew he’d been very angry with me for dating Karl. Being an immature seventeen-year-old slut hadn’t left me with good judgment skills in where I went, what I did, or whom I did it with. Sadly, I’d learned my lesson in a very hard way, but it was still remarkable to hear this new information from Lance.
“So, you didn’t do it because you hated me?” I asked him the question I’d always wanted answered. It was the thing that never made any sense to me. We’d had our problems, but I had never felt hatred from Lance before that night. The video had felt like hate to me for all of the intervening seven years, and had been hard to bear because it was so confusing.
“No, Brynne. I never hated you. I believed I would marry you some day.” His dark eyes blinked at me, regret and sadness clearly readable in them.
I gasped, unable to respond to what he’d just told me. I had no voice, so I sat there silent and stared at him, unable to do anything else.
He slid his hand forward as if were going to reach for mine, but caught himself in time, leaving his fingertips about an inch away on the table. It was so awkward I picked up my mug of tea and held it in both of my hands so I could make them useful.
“I tried to call you and see you, but your father, and mine, shut that down. My dad informed me that I would die before he allowed me to destroy his political career. He had me withdrawn from Stanford and enlisted in the Army within two days. I was shipped off to Fort Benning for Basic Training, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t even talk to you to say I was sorry, or to find out how you were.” He held his palm up in question. “And now with my father’s political aspirations…I’m just caught up in all of it, carried along without a way out. And with him in the West Wing, I’m more trapped than ever…” he trailed off sadly.
Wow. Just wow. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this reality. I didn’t know what to say to him, or how to respond, so we just sat there in silence together for a minute. He didn’t even know about the other sordid history connected to the whole mess—the reason behind the deaths of Montrose and Fielding, Karl’s blackmail attempt, my father’s murder—were all because of that video. Lance wouldn’t hear it from me, either. The events had played themselves out, and it was time to put them into the ground for good. Nothing would ever change my greatest loss, by bringing my dad back to me.
I cradled my stomach protectively, needing reassurance from something pure and innocent. So much ugliness in my twenty-five years—surely I could find beauty and peace moving forward. And just like a message from above, I was rewarded with a little nudge right under my ribs as if to say, “I’m still here and I know you’re my mom.” Yes, my butterfly angel, I am.
“So, your life changed after that night…just like mine,” I said after a moment.
“Yes. The choices I made that night changed everything.”
WE said our goodbyes on the busy street with more of the media circus I’d experienced before, with security, and drivers, and photographers. I really needed to get back to the flat to start dinner for Ethan as this was our last night together for a week. He had to leave for Switzerland very early in the morning.
The whole meeting with Lance had been on the bizarre side of things, but I felt so much lighter with my guilt after hearing his revelation. Still ashamed of my behavior that brought me to be on that pool table seven years ago, but a great deal of the self-loathing was freed for me. I felt tremendous relief, and for the first time, felt like the feeling might actually remain with me.
“Thank you, Lance.”
He looked at me curiously. “Why, Brynne?”
“For telling me your story. For some reason, it helps me to let go…of it.” I rested a hand on the top of my belly, unable to explain such a private thought with any kind of clear understanding, but it made perfect sense to me. “I’ll be a mother soon, and I want my baby to have a mom who can hold her head up, and know she didn’t do anything wrong, that she’s a good person, who did a stupid thing in a long line of stupid things.”
“You are a good person, Brynne…and we all do stupid things, unfortunately. And sometimes bad things happen to us without any intervention from the stupid things we do.” He looked down at his prosthetic.
“What will you do now, Lance?”
“Go back home and figure out what I can do now that I’m done with the Army. Learn to live with one leg. Maybe go back to school and finally get my law degree.”
“You should do it then, if that’s what you want.” I smiled. “I bet the stuffy law professors at Stanford will just love all your ink.”
He laughed. “Yeah, about as much as the people in D.C., but it’s good to shake things up once in a while.” His driver opened the car door, signaling that it was time to go.
“I think you’re being summoned,” I said, gesturing toward the car.
“Yeah.” He looked like he had more to say as his eyes studied me. “Brynne?”
“Yes, Lance?”
“Telling you helped me, too. More than you can ever know. You deserved to hear it from me a long time ago. So thank you again, for seeing me.” He sucked in a deep breath as if he was gathering strength. “You’re more beautiful now than when you were seventeen, and I’m so glad I got to see you pregnant. You’re going to be a wonderful mother. And I want you to remember that you’re beautiful in spite of how we sometimes see ourselves. I’m going to remember you just like you are right now.” He finished with a smile, but I could see how all the confessing was starting to get to him. This meeting had been emotional for him, for me—and now it was time for us to say goodbye to each other.
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to his many compliments, but again, they were heartening to hear from him. “I wish you well, Lance.” I put out my hand. “I hope you get the chance to pursue your own dreams now.”
He took my offered hand and leaned into me for a half-hug, and even a press of his cheek to mine. Then he got into the back of the limousine, the window tint so dark he was made invisible to me the instant the door closed behind him.
