I’m half out of it still but fully embarrassed.
I can’t believe she called my boss.
Or wait. I can believe it.
It’s Temple Karrington we’re talking about.
She brings the soda to my lips again and I take another sip through the straw. A moment later she sits back down, and I close my eyes, mind wandering to Madden. What little piece of him I carried with me is now gone in every sense of the word. Still, I wonder what he’d think if he knew about this.
I was going to tell him. I had every intention. I wanted to show up with a sonogram in hand and sit down with him and figure out what we were going to do.
But when they told me the pregnancy was nonviable, it seemed pointless.
I think about Madden one more time before the image of Veronica in his apartment comes to mind. I decide right here and now, in my medically induced post-surgical grogginess, that as soon as I get out of here, I’m moving forward and never looking back.
It was good while it lasted, but it’s over now.
Madden doesn’t want me.
He never did.
“Oh, your father just got here,” Mom says. “Charles, she did well. Everything went smoothly.”
“That’s what Dr. Robbins was just telling me,” he says. “I ran into her out in the hall.”
The strong scent of his aftershave fills my lungs, sending a small wave of nausea to my center, but it passes. Leaning down, he places his hand across my forehead before kissing the top of my head.
* * *
“Close your eyes and rest, Birdie. Everything will be back to normal soon enough. It’ll be like none of this ever happened ..."
I close my eyes and pretend to sleep, hoping my parents will quiet their non-helpful commentaries if they think I’m out.
I’ll never tell either of them, but I regret nothing.
I’m fine with moving on, but I never want to act like Madden never happened.
He happened. And it was amazing. And then it was painful. And then it was over.
End of story.
I’m not sure how much recovering I’m actually going to accomplish. It’s my second day of resting at home and my mother has already barged in here at least five times, and it’s not even noon yet.
I slip a bookmark between the pages of the A.J. Finn book in my hands and place it on my nightstand before grabbing my phone.
It turns out lying around all day doing nothing gives a person too much time to think, and lately I can’t stop thinking about Madden’s father being the Rodney Kramer whose name we were never allowed to so much as whisper growing up.
Pulling up an internet browser, I type in my grandparents’ names and brace myself for the results. In all the years that have passed since that tragic night, not once did I ever read a single article.
There was never any need.
Why read about something when you’ve already lived through it?
A string of results, mostly archived news articles, fill my screen half a second later, and I click on the first one.
* * *
HIDDEN HILLS CEO AND WIFE KILLED DURING BOTCHED BURGLARY
* * *
Archibald ‘Archie’ and Cleo Monson, owners and founders of international pharmaceutical giant Monarch Pharmaceuticals, were discovered dead in their home late Sunday morning from gunshot wounds. Police state that it appears to be a robbery gone wrong, however, they stress that it is still an active investigation.
One suspect is in custody, 42-year-old Rodney Marcus Kramer of Olwine. The other suspect, a sixteen-year-old male, was allegedly shot by one of the victims. He was rushed to the Hollandale Memorial Hospital in Hidden Oaks by the first suspect, however, he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
* * *
Sixteen-year-old male?
I do the math.
Madden would’ve been sixteen when this happened.
Did he … have a twin brother?
I open a new tab and type in the name DALLAS KRAMER, and then I click on the “images” section of the results.
The first image is a hauntingly familiar face, younger but undeniably identical.
Dallas was Madden’s twin brother.
And my grandfather shot and killed him.
Forty-Eight
Madden
* * *
“You sure you want to do this?” Pierce snaps a latex glove on his hand. It’s the only time he’s asked so far. I think he’s afraid I’m going to change my mind. Plus he knows better than to give me shit about this. Pierce is the only one who knows the real reason why I refused to get inked.
Until now.
“Yep.” I lie back on his client bed, staring at the stained tiles on the ceiling, one arm lifted behind my head.
The machine begins to buzz.
I close my eyes.
And Pierce gets started.
It’s been a month now since I last saw Brighton, and still when I think of her, this fullness floods my chest. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Sometimes it’s warm, other times it’s full. Always euphoric.
I don’t know shit about love, but I imagine that’s what it feels like.
For a while I kept thinking I’d miss her less with each passing day, that with a little time I’d be able to move on, but if anything, time and space and distance have only intensified the feelings that rose to the surface the night Brighton told me she loved me and walked out of my life for good.
I don’t know what she’s up to now, if she’s still working at Hershman or if her parents forced her to go to med school like she’d originally planned. I imagine she’s no longer pregnant. If Charles said she was “taking care of it that day” and she refused to return my call, I can only draw one conclusion.
I’m still working on putting together a case against that bastard. With a little more information from my father and the private investigator and forensic accountant I’ve hired, we’re making leeway.
I’m hopeful that someday soon Charles Karrington will be trading in his massive estate for an eight by ten cell.
“All right, man. All done,” Pierce says, quieting the tattoo machine when he’s done. I hop off the table and take a look in the full-length mirror. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re a damn good tracer,” I say with a smirk.
The tattoo is of a sketch I did—a butterfly net. And I had it placed on the side of my ribcage, in the exact same place I put Brighton’s piece.
If I ever see her again, I’m going to tell her how I feel. And if she doesn’t believe me, I’ll have this to back it up.
And if I never see her again … I’ll have this piece to remember that beautiful butterfly I caught one summer who refused to fly away and instead chose to fall in love with her captor instead.
I dab some Vaseline over the ink and cover it with a bandage.
Standing in front of the mirror, in a way it’s like looking at a different person. I suppose in some ways, I am a different person. I’m certainly not the man I was earlier this summer, when Brighton Taylor Karrington walked into my shop.
And I never want to be that guy again.
I tug my shirt over my head and fish my car keys from my pocket.