“I’m here.” He brushed his thumb along my cheek, pulling back and looking directly in my eyes. “I needed to say I was sorry in person, to explain, to make amends. I never meant to hurt you, but I don’t want to interrupt your date. I didn’t think,” he said, waving toward the now closed door.
“What date?”
“You said you had a hot date. Your door was open, you were yelling to Brooks.”
“No, no date. Just Brooks and me. Pizza and a movie.”
“Oh, that’s good ... very good,” he said after letting out a long breath.
Horses were galloping across my chest. I brought my hand up to my heart, kneading and massaging it back to a regular rhythm.
Lane lifted his hand and placed it over mine. “I’m sorry I startled you. I probably should’ve called or texted, but I didn’t stop to think, I just acted. Came straight here,” he said, not letting go of my fingers.
The horses picked up their pace and I couldn’t breathe. “I have to sit,” I said, my voice raspy and throaty.
Lane guided me to the couch, and I sat. Brooks followed to curl up at my feet.
“I thought you were a dream,” I said, looking at the Lane I remembered, but with a beard.
He shook his head. “I’m here.” He paced back and forth for a moment before asking, “Can I sit?”
I nodded.
He took up the space next to me, and used his fingers to turn my face toward him.
“Bess, I’m here, here because I was wrong. Wrong to lie to you about being there with you at the gym, even though it was a long time ago. And even more wrong to have just abandoned you that night. And wrong to have sent you off without an explanation when you came to Florida to save me. I’ve spent the last six months working with someone ... a therapist,” he said, grabbing his temple, pinching his eyes shut.
He stood abruptly and my heart dropped, free-falling to the pit of my stomach.
Was he leaving?
“Christ, it makes me seem like such a pansy. A therapist,” he said, roaming the small space of my sitting area. He looked like a caged animal, waiting for someone to set him free.
Was that what this was about? Setting himself free ... from me?
“Don’t say that,” I whispered. He shouldn’t beat himself up, even if he was saying good-bye.
Didn’t we already do that?
“No, it is. I am. But I went for you. For us. Even though I didn’t really go about anything the right way, and I don’t even know if there will be an us. I had to try,” he said, kneeling on the floor at my feet, bracing his hands on my shaking knees.
My heart moved up to my throat, lodging itself in my vocal cords, making it impossible for me to speak.
“Bess,” he said, bowing his head, staring at the floor. “You don’t deserve anything I’m about to tell you.” He took a deep breath as if gathering himself, then looked into my eyes. “My brother, Jake, was responsible for our parents’ deaths.”
I felt a shudder run straight through his body into mine.
“He’s ... he’s not a murderer.It was an accident. He’d been playing with the car, pretending to change the tire like we’d seen our dad do. My dad used to tinker with that car all the time. Our parents carpooled to work and usually took my mom’s van, but the day after Jake played car mechanic, for some reason, they took my dad’s old one. He loved that car ... it was a ’79 Chevy Nova he bought when he was a student.” Lane barked out a laugh, his eyes pained.“It was so beat up, and when he drove it, he looked like such a hippie behind the wheel, with his wild hair blowing in the breeze as he jammed to the Beatles.”
He took a breath, still staring at the carpet. I brought my hand to his wild hair and realized it must be some type of tribute to his dad. Even with his fancy pressed suits and his perfectly tailored designer jeans, his hair was an ever-present memorial to his hippie father.
With my hand sifting through his locks, he went on.
“They never came home that day. The tire hit some leaves and rolled off when they braked ... at least, that’s what the Youngstown police believed. But I always knew the truth. Jake had loosened the bolts and hadn’t been strong enough to tighten them back up enough the day before. Our sitter wasn’t paying attention and I was busy playing Legos, but I was watching Jake in the driveway through the window. I was jealous of him, of his free spirit, of how he did whatever he wanted to do.”
His eyes met mine, the anguish in them painful to see. “You see, it’s my fault too because I watched and didn’t do anything. I saw our nanny go out in the driveway and grab Jake from under the car and bring him back to the house to clean up, but she never checked to see what he’d done. And I didn’t say anything.”
He took a deep shuddering breath before adding, “By the next afternoon, it was too late.”
