Page 72 of Forged By Shadows
Back in my room, Wyatt is placing a stack of pizza boxes onto the dresser with Garrett carrying plates and Axel balancing a tower of smaller containers. The two bedside tables have been moved to the foot of the bed and are covered in bottles of soda, plastic cups and dip pots. Axel moves onto the bed after flicking The Fresh Prince of Bel Air onto the mounted TV so I can lounge in the center. One may think the scene is spontaneous, but it’s an exact recreation of how we spent one summer when Dax broke his leg. He couldn’t play ball, so none of us did. Instead, we all suffered the consequences of Garrett’s terrible diet and needing to get back into shape afterwards.
Despite how Wyatt has been since we arrived here, he has always been the most thoughtful one out of us all. He relishes making others happy even though he will shrug off any praise if we try to give it to him. Opening the box lids, the smells of baked grease flood the room as Dax helps me step into some boxers. Smells like heaven to a man stuck on jello for two days.
After fixing the sling back around my neck and left arm, Dax then helps me to nudge across the bed. Garrett hands me a plate piled high while I’m squished into the Kingside bed by four masses of muscle-two at the headboard and two down by my feet. I glance around, unable to shake the sense that something is missing when I realize it’s not something, but someone.
“Where’s Avery?” I ask. Wyatt doesn’t take his focus off the TV, but his frame tenses and I roll my eyes. I thought we were over this shit.
“I suggested maybe we keep this as a boy’s night, and she agreed. It’s been ages since we all hung out together.” He answers tentatively. Probably because he knew it’s a surefire way to irritate me. None of the others attempt to argue or agree with him, just continuing to eat with their eyes focused straight ahead. And that seriously pisses me off.
“Okay, everyone out.” I say loudly, which does grab their attention, judging by the wide-eyed gaping expressions I receive. “Everyone can fuck right off.” I shove my plate into Axel’s hands and try to shove Garrett off the bed with my feet, but I only end up hurting myself. Pain slices through my tensed shoulder, causing me to groan and clench my teeth.
“Hey, hey. Take it easy,” Dax says, placing a hand on the back of my neck but I shake him off, despite the agony it continues to cause me.
“I may be the one who was shot, but Avery has been stalked by these fuckers for months. They sent a message for us to stay away, and we didn’t. As a result, she was hunted down by a gunman in the house she felt safest in. And instead of washing her hands of us then and there, she’s been at the hospital comforting me. I don’t need a boy’s night like the old days. That’s not how it is any more Wyatt. You need to get with the fucking program or get the fuck out.”
Hanging their heads, they all begin to edge out of the room which is actually the opposite to what I had expected. I’d expected Wyatt to hang up his vendetta for tonight, for me, and to fetch Avery with a murmured apology. Despite hugging his empty plate to his chest, Garrett stares longingly at the pizza, but I give him my angriest stare until he leaves too.
Now I’m alone. Swallowed by the darkness within, visualizing that void which I could easily lose myself in. I’ve never shouted at my brothers before, I don’t even know where it came from. But I suppose I’m not myself right now; I’m in pain, I’m fucking furious for no particular reason and all I want is Avery cuddling me again. Yet I don’t call for her. She shouldn’t see me like this. I’ve been so mellow in the hospital but now I’m back here, I feel apprehensive. What if Avery is in trouble right now? I couldn’t do shit.
A soft knock sounds against my bedroom door just as it opens, and I don’t need to look to see who it is. I smell her honey and vanilla shampoo before she kneels beside the bed, her big, beautiful eyes looking up at me with worry. “Axel said you might need some female company.” Not just any female, this one specifically but I don’t tell her that. I may be ready to confess the thoughts I’ve been having, but whether Avery is ready to hear them is another issue.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I sigh, leaning into her touch. “I kinda lost my shit.” I hang my head, annoyed at myself. She rounds the bed and strokes her fingers up and down my chest gently. I wanted all of us here. It feels right when we are all together but I’m too stubborn to say it out loud. I’m not going to beg Wyatt to put himself in a position I know he’d hate, even if it is for me.
“Trauma isn’t something we can control. At times, we may think it’s buried so deeply, it almost doesn’t exist. But when you least expect it, that damaged part of you will come to the surface and force you to face it.” A tear leaks from my eye so I look away from her, desperate for her not to think I’m weak. Her soft hand moves across my cheek and pulls me back to face her. “You never have to hide your pain from me.”
“I don’t…I would hate myself if…” I fail to find the words. Avery seems to find the exact ones I need to hear without hesitation.
“You can’t scare me away, Hux.” I close my eyes, focusing on breathing. On not cracking into a thousand pieces with her watching. The faintest touch of lips presses against mine. Salt invades the seam of my mouth, my own tears mixing with the lifeline Avery offers me. I reach out with my good arm, my hand encompassing the width of her nape. I hold her steady, keeping her with me, encouraging her to keep kissing me. Avery drowns in my tears as I drown in her comfort.
Peeling back, Avery beams at me with the brightest smile. One I don’t particularly feel deserving of after the show I made to my brothers.
“Stop being so proud. I literally owe you my life. Now, can we eat? I’m starving.” Her stomach growls on cue. I find myself copying her smile, nodding and sitting upright.
Avery hands me back my plate of food before bending forward to grab herself one. Her perfectly rounded ass, covered in pink frilly panties, peeks out from beneath the nightshirt, my mouth drying up at the sight. I’d do something stupid that I’m definitely not in any position to be doing, if it weren’t for the shadow pacing back and forth beneath my doorframe.
“Come in Garrett, the food’s going cold.” I shout, the action pulling on my throat uncomfortably.
The door bursts open with a loud bang and Gare rushes in with his empty plate like a lion pouncing on its prey. Between his grunts and lip-smacking around a slice of pizza he’s barely lifted from the box, he slurps a fizzy drink. I’m morbidly disturbed to say the least, but Avery finds it amusing. Her giggles distract him, like a deer in the headlights as he whips his eyes towards her.
“Shh,” I whisper. “If you spook him, he might eat us.” A wrong choice of wording, as Garrett’s stare grows even more intense. Avery makes a point of shimmying under the cover, barring her body from his view and fully enjoying his pout.
My chest eases, the chokehold of anguish finally loosening its grip and a full smile stretches across my face. I feel semi-normal again. Semi-me again. Avery coos and strokes a spot of the cover in slow circles. Garrett, taking full advantage of her attention, cocks his head back and forth before rounding the bed and curling up between her legs, pizza box in hand. She strokes her fingers through his hair as we eat and watch TV. Despite half of the guys missing, this feels better because if Avery is by my side, I don’t need to worry about her being in trouble. And call me selfish, I just want to have her around.
“Little Swan?” I ask after a few episodes, as my eyelids are starting to grow heavy. Avery hums in response. “Read me the rest of the damn minotaur book.”
Chapter Forty Nine
Daybreak blends into sunset beyond the closed curtains. Days and nights become irrelevant. There is only Huxley and his needs. Wash his wound, change his dressings, plump his cushions. We’ve watched so many seasons of multiple shows, they’ve all blended into each other. I can’t keep up with the characters, and I can forget the plot lines. But Huxley is distracted. That’s all that matters.
In the moments he drifts to sleep and I’m too restless, I turn to my mom’s diary. I’ve read it front to back, back to front and twice more for good measure. It wasn’t until I really looked, I realized why there’s a sudden change in her mood. A tiny crease along the spine’s edge, so close I missed it on first inspection. There are pages missing.
It was a guy she met by accident, an offered umbrella in the pouring rain. A meal at a diner when her car had broken down. Rich people don’t carry wallets, shouldn’t drive between shoots alone. But that was my mom, stubbornly independent. She wrote how she would manufacture pockets of time to herself, the car windows down as she belted songs and became lost from a demanding world.
He’d been so kind to her - this man who didn’t recognize her face. Who didn’t ask for a photo or autograph. She described how he looked at her, as if the world started and ended in her eyes. How Nixon hadn’t looked at her in years. He opened the door, offering his hand to aid her over a muddy puddle. She left with his coat, his phone number and a notion that the man who called the recovery van somehow saw something in her that everyone else missed.
She called him that night. They spoke for hours. Their affair didn’t start for months, in my mom’s opinion. I would question whether weekly luncheons and dinners in the back of dim restaurants would constitute the start of an affair. Darkened movie theater rendezvous’ turned to hotel rooms. The rush, the excitement. It was all so out of character for the woman I knew, but she was young. Everywhere my mom went, eyes were on her. Photos were taken, gossip was whispered. This was her escape. He was her escape.
I skim the upcoming descriptions of lustful nights. Mom wasn’t shy, she detailed every sordid, incriminating detail. So why did she feel the need to remove those pages? A familiar prickle filters up the back of my spine. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe someone else did.
