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“We were going too fast and came to a bend in the road there was no way we could take at those speeds. We flew over the cliff and... while we were still in the air, we hit a tree,” I say, a tear falling at that brutal memory. “I immediately blacked out, but later they put all of the pieces together and figured out what happened.”
I take a few moments to compose myself before telling Byron something I haven’t told another living soul. How sad is my life that I have no one I can truly share things like this with? I have Jewell now, but Jewell has a husband and responsibilities. Hell. It doesn’t matter. I’m not normally the sharing type. I don’t understand why I’m telling all of this to Byron — a man who most certainly doesn’t care about me.
Then again, maybe I’m telling him this old, sad story because he doesn’t care and it will make him go away. Men never like psychodrama, do they? Unless they’re therapists. Money in the bank. But this is sort of like talking to a therapist. I decide to continue.
“Susie’s body protected mine. She flew forward and hit her head on the tree, but, in the process, she was there to cushion my impact. Her brain swelled. By the time help found us, I was awake, but couldn’t see, so I had no idea what condition Susie was in, let alone how to get out of this horrible mess. A family out riding bicycles found us. They called emergency services and sat with us until they arrived. Susie was in a coma. My mother...” I choke up again, feeling the sting of my mother’s words to the very depths of my soul.
“My mom was so distraught, she barred my father from coming near us again, and he was so consumed with guilt he let her get away with it. After she didn’t have our father to yell at anymore, she turned her anger on me. She told me she’d still have her daughter — her favorite daughter — if I hadn’t been so reckless, hadn’t been so much like our father... out to prove to the world how macho I was.”
“McKenzie, those were words spoken in grief,” he says. Counselors said the same thing to me, and it hadn’t helped.
“Except that she never apologized, and the longer Susie was in the care facility, the angrier Mom became. We lost everything — our house, possessions, everything — because she wouldn’t leave Susie’s side, and the medical expenses were outrageous. After a year, she went back to work, but every dime she had went into Susie’s care. My mother died when I was twenty, but not before telling me I’d better take care of Susie, especially since I was the one responsible for thevegetableshe’d become. My mother let out her dying breath while she was lying next to Susie in a cot, holding her hand. She never gave up praying my twin would one day wake.” Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I think back to that day... think back to those early years.
“What happened to your twin?” Byron asks. “How long was she in the coma?”
“Does that matter? Really? Love never ends. You don’t give up on the people you’re supposed to love,” I say, wishing now I hadn’t brought up this topic.
“McKenzie...”
“She died five months ago...” I barely manage to whisper. It’s why I had such a major life change, and finally took a risk on myself.
“I’m sorry,” Byron says.
“That’s what the doctors said, and the counselors too. Everyone is always sosorry.” I’m still bitter, more bitter than I realized.
“McKenzie, your sister was in a coma for thirteen years,” Byron says in a tone that ensures I’ll listen. “Would you want to wake up after all of that time and realize how many years had passed, that mentally you’re a fourteen-year-old girl but physically you’re twenty-seven? Besides, people who have been in comas for that long normally have serious brain damage, and they have to relearn everything again... walking, talking, eating . . . if they can relearn it. I’m not discounting your sister’s life. I’m simply telling you that, in my opinion, your sister’s much better off now.”
No one has ever said these words to me — not one single person. I never thought about what it would’ve been like for Susie to wake up and not know who she is, not know how to do basic things in life.
“I... I don’t know. That’s something I never considered,” I finally say.
“Your mother was wrong to keep Susie alive by machines after a certain point, and she was horribly wrong to blame you,” Byron tells me. “No matter who was driving — and you weren’t — that’s not the point. The point is, you were simply being kids, having fun, and youbothmade a mistake — a tragic mistake, but still a mistake.”
“But I should’ve told her to slow down. I should’ve tried to grab the brake. And it was my responsibility to take care of her,” I say, pulling away from him and wrapping my arms around my chest. I’ve been hot for hours, but now I’m unbearably cold.
“You did far more than anyone could’ve expected of you, McKenzie. I think it’s time for you to forgive yourselfandyour sister.”
He pulls off the main road and turns into a long driveway that’s flanked on either side with huge trees, creating a canopy, making me feel as if I’m in an Old Southern movie.
“Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree,” I say.
“Wewillrevisit this later. Right now, I want you to stop dwelling on the past and what went wrong, and look ahead instead. We’re here.”
When we turn a corner, a beautiful three-story building looks as if it’s rising out of the mountain. “Home, sweet home,” I say, trying to push the sorrow away.
“Home, sweet home,” he repeats.
Chapter Eighteen
McKenzie
I sit at the bar and leisurely sip my martini. It’s my second, and I still don’t know what I want to do. That’s not true. I knowexactlywhat I want to do. I want to let Byron take me to his cabin, peel my clothes away, and make me forget everything bad in my life. Maybe he’ll actually make me feel something good. I’ve never thought sex might be a good experience, but for some reason, I know it will be wonderful with Byron.
I take another sip and struggle to string together words that mean something, words that will tell Byron what I want. Nothing comes from my throat — for some bizarre reason, it feels parched — so I sip from my glass again. This isn’t about love, or even affection —far from it. But what’s so wrong with discovering my body, with being a little selfish for the first time in a long while?
Byron’s handsome, devastatingly handsome, and I have no doubt he’ll make me feel more sensations like the ones when he kissed me. This is about sex, about hooking up, and nothing more.
But this is so clandestine, so forbidden, so not my usual style. But, at the same time, I feel a certain amount of freedom in letting down my hair and my guard, in focusing on my needs. If I accept what he’s offering, what would be the big deal? The sexual revolution took place more than half a century before, so maybe I should get my own piece of it, try it on for size.
