When we stepped outside, I tossed Tori my keys and slid into the passenger seat. My phone started ringing from my pocket as we pulled away from the house.
I ignored it.
Only one person was most likely calling me right now. I’d been gone awhile and Brian would want to know why.
He could wait to find out. I didn’t owe him a damn thing.
Images of the man I thought I knew filled my head as we drove, ones of him touching and kissing and fucking girls who weren’t me. I put words into his mouth and heard him calling them Wild and Babe and moaning Baby Baby Baby when he was coming. It was torture.
I cried with my head against the window and Tori’s hand in mine.
“Wait here,” I told her after she pulled into the driveway and shifted into Park.
She unbuckled her seat belt, regarding me sadly and uncertainly.
“You sure?”
I nodded, gave her hand one last squeeze, and exited the car.
I’m not sure why I did the next thing I did. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel as if I belonged here anymore. Maybe it was because it was all a dream and I was finally awake. I never really lived here.
I climbed the porch and knocked instead of entering.
Sir barked a few times, then Brian opened the door and flinched at the sight of me.
“Babe, what are you doing?” He reached for me.
I took a step back.
“Can I please come inside?” I asked, wiping a tear away.
He stared at me, taking in my sadness and behavior.
“Wild, what the fuck?”
He made a move to step outside and I halted him with my hand raised.
“Brian,” I began in a warning tone, freezing him in the doorway. “I am asking you if I can come inside. I don’t want to do this out here.”
Something flashed in his eyes then, recollection of what he did or realization of what I knew, I wasn’t sure which, but he suddenly looked as empty as I felt and it took everything in me not to reach out and hold him.
Love is stupid like that.
He silently stepped aside and held the door open for me to enter.
I closed the door, ignoring Sir, who was jumping up at my feet for attention. He gave up after he wasn’t getting it and moved on, leaving me to watch Brian as he padded across the room, rubbing harshly at his face with both hands. He stopped behind the couch and gripped the back of it, keeping his head down and his eyes fixated on the cushions.
“You need to know why I did it,” he said quietly.
“I do, but it won’t change anything.”
His head snapped up at my words.
“Wild,” he whispered.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, fresh tears brimming my eyes as I took a step forward. “You don’t get to call me that. My boy calls me that and you are not him.”
His spine straightened.
“The fuck I’m not,” he growled.
I ignored his defiance and probed for the answers I needed.
“Why, Brian? Why were you doing that and why didn’t you tell me? How could you keep that from me?”
“I was trying to protect you,” he countered, his tone gentler now as he tried to explain. “I didn’t want you ever seeing that. I didn’t want you knowing about it. I knew it would hurt you.” He looked back to the cushions and murmured, “I didn’t think you would ever see it.”
“Well, I did,” I spat, gaining his attention again. “I did see it. I watched you with them. I watched the man I care about more than anything making love to those women.”
“That is not what I was doing.”
“Fine. Fucking,” I hissed. “I watched you fuck those fake, nasty porn stars. I watched it! Do you have any idea what that was like for me? Having my best friend show me something like that? Sitting there not knowing anything about the man I love because he was doing this behind my back for months! I saw you get off on them! I saw enough to make me sick!”
“You think I wasn’t sick going through with it?” he shouted, turning to face me now. “You think that’s the kind of man I am? Fucking for money because I wanted it?” He jammed a finger at his chest. “You think that’s me?”
“I know what I saw,” I replied curtly. “Your dick was hard, so explain to me how you didn’t want it.”
“I had to take a fuckin’ pill to go through with it, Syd,” he spat. “None of that was real. None of what you saw meant anything. I fuckin’ hated it. All of it. I was just doin’ what I had to do.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why were you doing it? I don’t understand …why would you need to do something like that?”
“Because I needed the money.”
“For what?” I yelled, moving even closer as I cried openly for him to see. “Why would you need money?”
“BECAUSE OF THAT FUCKING KID!” he bellowed, his face as red as the center of a flame.
I jerked back. My hand covered my mouth.
Oh, God.
Oh, my God.
No …
“Brian,” I whispered.
He lowered his head. Fists clenched at his sides, he heaved deep breaths in and out of his nose. He looked as sick as I’d felt watching those videos.
I stood there, crying silently, and waited. I needed to hear it.
He lifted his head.
“There were bills, all right? Thousands of dollars’ worth of hospital bills and that shit was gonna keep piling up for them and I couldn’t just let that happen! I couldn’t do nothing!” he roared. His voice was thunderous. “Not after what I did. I fucked up their lives. I put them there. Me! No one else. Fucking me, Syd! And I was gonna do anything I could to ease some of that burden. Anything. I WOULD’VE DONE ANYTHING!”