Seeing me near dying, suffocating, he lost it. It wasn’t easy watching him beat Brandon and nearly kill him. It took two weeks for Brandon to recover. He had many surgeries and reached out to me. Again.
Now, it was time to throw his ring back at him. I didn’t owe him anything, but I needed closure.
Being without him wasn’t heartache. It felt right. Madden was my future, even if the news made us out to be disgusting.
I was sure the tabloids had a heyday over the news. It had to be Donnie, who else would tell? Brandon was in the hospital and wanted to force himself back into my life.
Who else had that information?
“What are you going to do?” Les asked as she sipped her coffee, sitting across from me. We’d stopped at Lavendar’s on 25th, a little mom-and-daughter coffee shop in the middle of the town. It was decorated in purple tones, vases filled with fresh lavender. Their specialty drinks all had lemon and lavender.
It was a place the girls and I continued to go to. Lorietta and her daughter, Anita, always loved seeing us. We made sure to tip them beautifully and brought in new customers when we could.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Mari and Tays couldn’t come today and somehow, it seemed better that way. They weren’t judgmental, but they would also tell me to rush in and take Madden.
I couldn’t do that.
He needed space.
I needed to get my life together, and that meant confronting Brandon and then Donnie. Because they both needed to be put in their place.
“I think you should agree to testify against him,” she said, looking directly at me. She tapped her fingers along the table, one of her nervous gestures. The way she touched her cup and then stopped like her mind was too heavy to take a drink. “Men like Brandon will continue to do what they do if they aren’t stopped.”
“Is that coming from experience?” I prodded, thinking of Chris—her ex from our sorority days. She nodded, closing her eyes in thought. She reminded me so much of me. Unsure of where she wanted to go in life, wanting it all but not knowing where to start.
“Let’s make a deal,” I offered suddenly, an idea coming to mind.
She raised an eyebrow, finally taking another drink of her coffee. I waited for her to ask, taking a drink of my own, wanting to see that fire she had rise again.
“Okay, you got me. What?”
“Quit Frost & Sharp ”
She balked, her eyes seemingly about to pop out at the prospect of leaving her firm. That was the thing, it wasn’t her firm. She worked beneath the men who trampled all over women.
“And go where?”
“Start your own firm. With Tays and Mari.” She contemplated, tapping her cup again. I knew that look of uncertainty; it was one I felt all too often.
“I’ve got too many loans—” she started, her frazzled expression only worsening when I interrupted.
“I’ll loan you the money,” I started, nodding as the thought formed more. “I could easily give you and the girls the money with no rush on the return, then we could work out a plan later on.”
“We couldn’t...”
“Yes, you could. I have more money than I’ll ever need and it’s about time I use it for something other than booze.”
We both laughed at that, thinking of how much wine and vodka I consumed on the regular. She took another drink, setting it down. Somehow, that last tap seemed permanent, a changing note to the rhythm we’d learn together.
“I’ll call the girls and we’ll talk about it. Let’s do lunch soon? Maybe take a trip to Vegas.” I absently nodded, thinking of Madden and how that was his current stop. He’d be performing at the Hard Rock Hotel.
“I would love that,” I confirmed.
And maybe everything would work out. Madden and I were the CliffsNotes version of an entire book written for the soul. We just needed to find the full story and work it out.
“Do you think he’ll forgive me?” I asked Cars while on the phone. We’d been talking daily since everything with Madden went down. We talked a lot after Madden ran from us both, bonding over our loss. It was like having the little sibling I never had.
“I do,” he said, his voice filled with a hope I didn’t quite feel. “He might be hardheaded as hell, but he loves you.”
“He’s never said it,” I argued, not wanting to get my hopes up.
“He isn’t like other people, babe. He’s a deeper soul, someone who feels it but doesn’t know how to convey it other than with actions.”
“But—”
“You can’t tell me he didn’t show you. Between giving up sex for five years to having you on tour with him while he knew it could fuck him up. That’s love if I’ve ever seen it.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he was right. Madden told me he loved me in lyrics, how he pulled me on stage to sing Dox’s songs on tour. It was the way he threatened anyone who hurt me, and destroyed the lives of those catty girls in Glasgow who called me a fat Barbie.
He loved me without words.
He loved me without touching.
He loved me without remorse.
In his own fucked-up way, he loved me endlessly. It probably hurt him to be apart this long, without a single text. I texted him, sent him pictures of me at therapy. I showed him how much I was willing to change, to work for us.
He hid, but he’d been hurt so badly, there was no part of me that entirely blamed him. Donnie was the problem. Brandon was the problem. I was the problem.
“You’re right,” I let out, tears sprouting at the edges of my eyes, thinking of the way he kissed me as if he would die at any point. It was always fierce, rushed, with a painstaking sadness in each brush. He took my mouth as if he’d disappear and reality would separate us.
“Speaking of the devil, he’s calling me. Got to fly,” he said, hanging up before I could ask for further updates. I just wanted to see him, see if he was taking care of himself, giving himself time to deal with shit.
He didn’t need to be busy constantly, he should be able to exist without all the added drama.
I pulled up the information Brandon sent me about his room at the hotel his mom put him in. He’d lost the lease to his place when news hit of what he did to me. He lived at a prestigious condominium that didn’t allow violence. He was evicted immediately.
He wanted me still. Even after trying to rape me. Madden assured me he hadn’t but I blacked out long before knowing.
Driving to the address, I felt bile rise up my throat. I wouldn’t allow Brandon to ruin me any longer. I’d accepted my fate as Madden’s aunt, even if no blood passed through our veins. Whether it was wrong or not, he was mine and I was his.
End of story.
I parked, texting Royce my whereabouts. He’d felt super guilty after everything that happened, beating himself up over it. It wasn’t his fault Brandon didn’t know how to take no for an answer.
He’d know now. In my pocket was his ring, in my trunk was a box of his stuff, and while I couldn’t get my life back, and everything he traumatized me with, I could have my peace back.
Going up the elevator, my stomach clenched uncomfortably. He’d think me showing up here meant something more than it did, and that bothered me more than anything else. Being anything to him wasn’t acceptable. Knowing Madden wasn’t aware of this made it worse. But I wanted to see Madden when he wasn’t expecting me to choose him and show him, prove to him I changed my life for us.