Infinite Possibilities

Chapter Twenty-One

Liam and I spend the entire flight talking about pyramids and I find myself excited to talk about my family and the many amazing things I experienced with them. Honoring them, as Liam had once suggested.

By the time we walk into his home, my home, I am exhausted, but I am eager to gobble down a pizza in bed with him, and when he calls it our “habit”, it creates a sweet, warm spot in my chest. Not since I lived at home with my family have I had habits I shared with anyone. I fall asleep in Liam’s arms feeling safer than I have in a long time but as I drift off to sleep, I cannot help but think of Chad, and wonder where he is.

“Honey, grab the mail?” my mom asks as she stirs a pan on the stove. “I’m expecting something important.”

“Sure, Mom,” I say, pushing away from the table where I was working on my homework.

Humming the new song I just downloaded off of iTunes that I can’t get out of my head, I leave the kitchen and head toward the porch, thinking I’ll never get used to my mom baking cakes rather than digging in the dirt beside my dad.

“You’re fucking my mother? Are you insane?”

I stop walking at the sound of my brother’s angry outburst.

“You fucked me,”the other man says.“I just wanted to show you how easily I can fuck you and anyone near you. And she thinks she’s helping to convince me to let your father out of our deal.” A low laugh escapes him. “Good mommy.”

A rough growl escapes Chad’s lips and he shoves the man against the wall. “You touch my mother, or anyone in my family again, I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”

“You give me what is mine or you and your family will all be dead.”

“I don’t have it.”

“You’d better get it then.”

“I told you, I didn’t take it.”

“What’s going on?”

I jump at the sound of my mother’s voice behind me. She steps to the screen door and I hear a soft gasp escape her lips. She shoves open the door and repeats, “What’s going on?”

The stranger Chad was fighting with is walking down the stairs and I can’t see his face.

“You tell me, Mom,” Chad says, confronting her. “Get a little too lonely while we were away?”

I hug myself, fighting tears. This isn’t happening, but I saw her with the man in the black sedan. I saw her, and--

“I tried to clean up your and your father’s mess,” my mother proclaims, her voice shaking.

“You got used like a cheap washcloth.”

My mother gasps at Chad’s harsh words and bursts into tears, turning away from him, rushing through the door, and past me. Chad tries to follow her but I step in front of him, swiping at tears, anger surging through my body. “What did you do? What did you both do?”

“I told you, you can’t handle it.”

“What did you do, Chad?”

He looks at the ceiling, torment and self-hatred pouring off of him, before he grabs my arms, stares at me a moment, and kisses my forehead. “I’ll fix this. I promise you, Lara. I’ll fix it. Everything is going to be okay.”

I blink awake, instantly aware of Liam wrapped around me, holding me tight against his body, one leg wrapped around mine, and I realize why I hate the promise that everything is going to be okay. I hate it because of that day. And yet I am okay. I have Liam and I have survived. It’s my brother that’s in question.