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Tyler isn’t that guy and I know from my own experience Jessica can be manipulative. She didn’t know about our family’s money. Didn’t know that we both have anything and everything we could ever need. She saw the money from his chosen career, the glamour of being a doctor’s wife, and she bailed the first chance she could.
I don’t make excuses, and I don’t blame the victim. But every bone in my body tells me that Jessica’s lying. Tyler may be a lot of things. But he’d never in his life raise his hand in violence to another person. Especially to the woman he fell so in love with that he sacrificed his relationship with me.
Even after all these years, I know him. Just like I know my refusal to see Tyler now that he’s back in town goes to a deeper place, one that festers with anger, but aside or in spite of that, my brother isn’t violent. He isn’t a man who lifts a hand to women, any more than I do.
My mother raised us right. And my father would have beat the living shit out of both of us if either boy showed an inkling of that.
Not only that, but in my line of work, I’ve dealt with my fair share of abuse victims. Jessica didn’t have that look they all have, no matter the money or lack there of; no matter the strength of the woman. It’s there, you learn to recognize it. The misplaced shame.
With that in my head, I drive home.
“Thank you.” Brandi smiles at me from the couch when I walk in the front door, flowers and food in hand.
“One day.” I hand her the bouquet. “One day, I’m going to figure out how to do this husband thing. I’ll be able to tell exactly what you need, when you need it, and how to give it to you.”
“I’m easy,” Brandi admits later, when we’re in bed together, her sweet scent filling my lungs as I press my lips to the top of her head. “I just want you. And the truth.”
Moments like this, I really think I might figure it out, and we might make it through all the bullshit. She falls asleep with my hand curled around her growing stomach, but I can’t sleep.
I’m lying in bed with my wife, and every single time I close my eyes, I see Jessica.
The sound of her voice that goes with the look in her eye.
She wants something, and if I’m not careful, she’s going to ruin my life. I’ll be lucky if she stops there.
Shit.
I am going to have to talk to my brother, I realize.
Pulling Brandi in tighter against me, I think about how I’m going to tell her all of this. Whether I want to or not. First, I need to talk to Tyler.
As I walk out onto the porch later the next day to call him, my plans disappear. There, at the end of the driveway looking like an expensively dressed mirror image of me, Tyler watches me with an unreadable expression. Neither of us say a word.
Not until I’m a few feet away, and he’s the first to break the silence. “I figured this was the best way to talk to you.”
I don’t understand how a voice I hear every day coming from myself can sound so foreign. “You couldn’t call?” I mean, that was my plan, after all.
“Would you have picked up?” Tyler says with a shrug. “Don’t answer that. Mom told you I was here and I get it, I do. But shit, man, it’s been a long time.”
“I know how long it’s been.”
Blood roars inside me and I hear another voice but I can’t focus, not when everything is on my brother. Not when I don’t know what to do.
I thought I would have.
Inside, all I yearn to do is see the man in front of me but now the reality is here and… it’s more complicated. And Brandi…
“Are you after forgiveness, Tyler?”
My brother laughs and shakes his head, his breath making a cloud of white in the early evening air. “I just thought we could talk.”
“Jessica—”
“She’s a real piece of work.” Everything about my brother changes with that. A cold, vibrant anger emanates from him and I frown.
“I saw her.”
“And I bet she tried to worm her way in, didn’t she? I swear I’m gonna—”
