“Leave it alone, Bear,” Creed hisses at me. “You don’t want to do this now.”
“Then when! You’ve haven’t said a damn thing to me since you left!”
He glares at me. “Oh, and you’ve been so forthcoming? When did you pick up the goddamn phone and call me?”
He’s pissed, probably more pissed than I’ve ever seen him. The anger deflates out of me, and I know I won’t win this fight by yelling. “I just thought you needed time,” I say weakly. “I thought it was just strange for you or something. I figured you would call me when you were ready.”
“That’s what you always do,” he says. “You wait and you wait and you wait, all the while protected in this little bubble you’ve created for yourself and the Kid. You never fucking face things when they need to be dealt with.
You tell half truths. You conceal full truths. You let things get so much worse before you realize that maybe you were wrong, that maybe you can admit you made a mistake. Christ, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re the most selfish fucking person on the planet!”
“That’s enough,” Otter snarls at him. “You think it’s been easy for him and the Kid? You’ve had everything you’ve ever wanted handed to you on a silver platter and you have the nerve to sit here and bitch and moan that Bear’s done what he could to protect the things he loves the most? Don’t talk to him about selfish, you prick. If anyone here is selfish, it’s you.”
I can’t let him do this. I can’t let Otter fight this out for me, no matter how much he wants to,
no matter how much he thinks he needs to protect me. It sucks. It really sucks, because regardless of what Otter says, regardless of how he tries to spin it, I can’t shake the undeniable truth that Creed is right. I think I’ve told you before that I realized a while ago how many goddamn mistakes I’ve made, how wrong I’ve been in the handling of all this. I thought my reasons were justified (and maybe, on some level, I still think they are—not you, not Creed, not even Otter could convince me I wasn’t acting in the best way I thought possible for the Kid), but there needed to come a point where I just stopped my bullshit. It took everything crumbling around me and that damn ocean, that vast ocean, to be lapping at my feet, that cold breeze blowing through my hair, the only illumination from the lightning flashing overhead. But that ocean is gone (oh, please let it be gone) but there are still earthquakes, times when I think the ground will open me up and swallow me whole. I don’t know if I’ll ever be rid of them.
“Otter,” I say as quietly as I can, but even then knowing our family can hear every word I’m saying. He turns to look at me, and the anger on his face loosens, the gold-green starts peeking in again around the black, and I know he can see me, I know he can hear me. “I love you,” I tell him, ignoring the quiet gasp I hear from his mother. “But you’ve got to let me handle this.” He starts to interrupt, but I shake my head and he closes his mouth. “If I let you fight every battle for me, it won’t be any better than where I was. You’ve got to let me do this.”
He looks at me like I’ve just said the stupidest thing he’s ever heard, but something in him dissipates, and he sighs, latching himself around me again, his arm around my neck, my back against his chest. “Sometimes,” he whispers in my ear, his voice a growl, “I just want to bend you over my knee and spank the shit out of you.”
Oh, Jesus. So not cool. The big bastard would have to say something like that, knowing I can’t do a damn thing about it. He chuckles darkly as he feels me squirm in his arms, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking about.
Focus, McKenna. Focus.
Would I be bare-assed when he did it, or would I still have pants on?
Maybe just my underwear? He’s got big hands. Really big hands. I bet that would hurt. Like, a lot. Why am I so turned on by that?
Damn it, focus!
“What is it, then?” I ask Creed.
“I just told you,” he snaps at me.
“I heard what you said, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Do you remember what you said to me a few weeks ago? You sat right across from me and said ‘regardless of who you’re related to in this room, regardless of who you’ve fucked or who you’re fucking, I’m the most like you.’ Do you remember? I do.” He winces at my words, and his parents look horrified that their baby could ever even say such a thing. I can’t help but think that this is one of those dinners that everyone will remember but no one will ever want to admit they were at, like the time your Uncle Frank got drunk and started hitting on your cousins. Don’t give me that look. You know what I’m talking about. And at least you didn’t have cold tofeatloaf congealing right in front of you like a sad brown muskrat.
Well, at least now you don’t have to pretend to choke it down, it muses.
All you have to do next time is to just remember to get drunk and start having an emotional meltdown in front of everyone! Think of all the parties you’ll get invited to!
Shut up.
“That was different and you know it,” he tells me coldly. “You can’t compare that to now. Life doesn’t always bend and twist the way you want it to, Bear.”
He’s right, of course, and I tell him so. “So what is it, then? If nothing I’ve said is right, then what is it?”
He looks around helplessly, but everyone suddenly finds neat things to stare at on the ceiling or on their hands. He’s not going to get help from everyone, and suddenly, I don’t want him to open his mouth. I don’t want him to say what he’s going to say.
“You want to know so bad?” Creed whispers. “You push and you push, so you want to know so fucking bad?”
No, no, sir, I don’t, but I can’t seem to find a way to open my mouth (for once) to stop him.
“You were mine,” he says, his voice cracking ( oh, damn it all), “and I didn’t have to worry about sharing you with anyone because I knew you would always choose me. I know you had Anna, but Jesus, dude, she was your girl friend, and that was fucking different! You belonged to me, and I never thought I’d have to worry about another guy coming in to take my place. But then you told me about you and Otter, and whether you realize or not, whether or not you’ve been able to admit it to yourself or not, it goes back years. It wasn’t about this summer, or Otter coming home, or even three years ago when he left. You’ve always felt something for him, and it’s bullshit if you try to say otherwise!”
He knows me too well, can see the retort beginning to bubble at my lips, knowing it would sound false to both of us, no matter what I would try and say.
“Then you told us about you and Otter only when you had no other choice, but that was already after I’d heard it from him! You know how that felt, Bear? Knowing that my best friend couldn’t come to me with this? It was like you had no respect for me at all, like I was nothing to you. But that’s not what hurt the worst. What hurt the worst is Otter, my fucking brother, was the one taking you away from me. He was the one that would know you better than I ever could and do you know how much that hurt?