Page 4 of Collide

“I’m going to the house,” I state in case he wants to warn her. He doesn’t do much without her permission or his personal decision on what he considers best for her. He has always been like this with all of us. Protective of his family to the core.

He weakly smiles with a nod, and I turn for the door.

“Go gentle on her. She loves you.” My eyes close as I reach for the doorknob. Gentle. I hardly knew what the word meant. I kept things rough and unfeeling in order for gentle not to consume me. Love. She did love me—in her own way—and I loved her. Most people confused us for sisters—by our looks, by our laugh, by our closeness—but sometimes, I wanted a parent. Someone to love over me if that makes sense.

I step into the hallway, and my thoughts instantly recall what I did a half hour ago behind one of these closed doors.

Gage Everly.

Hot as sin with deep-set eyes and matching chocolate hair, wavy and long to his chin. Freckles dot his nose and cheeks, something I don’t think I’d know unless I was up close and personal. Heavy scruff graces his jaw, and while I wonder how it would feel between my thighs, I don’t trust myself.

Gentle.

He wasn’t rough with me. He was exactly what I needed. A quick in and out. Just the frenetic pace of two bodies causing friction and fulfilling fantasies. No feelings.

What would I want to feel? Love.

A brief bumbling in a closet can’t produce the emotion. In fact, it didn’t produce an orgasm either, and my body remains wired. I can still feel him between my thighs. My undies are damp from his release dripping out of me. My lips sting from the hairs on his neck and the pressure of his lips on mine. I’d never been kissed like that before. He was all-consuming, as if he wanted me to curl up against him so he could hold me tight for eternity. A silly notion. Men aren’t like that, Mother would say.

They can hold your body, but never give them your heart.

She’s wrong, but I haven’t been able to prove myself right.

I dismiss all the doors, not risking a glance at any of them. Instead, I exit a steel emergency one and inhale a deep smog-filled breath. I’m going to need to brace my heart in all matters in order to face my dying mother.

3

Two years later

IVY

We fought on that day just as I knew we would. She wanted me to return to college.

Don’t worry about me, she said, but she knew I’d worry, and I knew she wanted me to stay with her despite what she said. In the end, she won. I returned to college, calling daily to check on her until the end was near.

My mother died when I was only twenty.

The band collapsed. It was the end of an era.

Now, I was twenty-two and graduating in May with a degree in music therapy.

I brush away the leaking tears as I stare out at the rolling ocean, recalling my mother’s passing and considering a future without her. Hawaii at Christmas has become a tradition. This was her favorite place, and the only place I remember where she would relax and act like a mother instead of a rock goddess.

Burying my toes in the sand, I wiggle them through the grains and then allow the gritty pieces to sift through my toes. The move is a metaphor for my life. Things always sifting, drifting, changing.

Another change is coming.

How did this happen? Of course, I know the answer. On the pill. With a condom. But still this. And of all people, with a man in a band.

I was my mother’s daughter.

“How you doing, baby girl?” I briskly swipe at my cheeks when the Southern drawl of my uncle reaches my ears as he approaches me from behind. He must have known the beach was the place to find me. He squats next to me, his toned body creaking at the knees. He doesn’t touch me, knowing I’d brush him off if he did, even though I long for a comforting hug. I can’t remember the last time I felt the sensation. It’s my own fault for building the wall to keep people out by sealing myself in.

“I’m fine,” I lie, rubbing my hands up and down my bare thighs. It’s warm in Hawaii, yet a chill consumes me.

“I know it’s difficult, darlin’.” He lowers his tone as he speaks. Tommy is one of the few who understands losing my mother was one of the hardest things I’ve endured. What he doesn’t know yet is I’m having a baby without my mother to guide me. I can’t keep it hidden for too much longer. We’re in Hawaii, and I haven’t taken off my cover-up yet. The doctors estimate I’m four months along.

My eyes well with tears again. The comfort of Tommy’s hand resting on my shoulder overwhelms me, and I fall against his chest, almost knocking him over in his crouched position. He shifts to sit in the sand and envelops me in his arms, drawing me against him. I give in and sob, thinking of my mother and the baby. It’s all too much.