Riley Mackenzie - Beautifully Done

She leaned her head against the back of the couch and turned her head to face me. She looked vacant. Like she could see through me. Her voice was raspy and strained. “He said if I knew what was good for me and Tack, I would go back to California and change my name. Not just stay away, but disappear, as in off the grid, his grid. My father cursed him and threatened to make him pay. That monster didn’t even blink when my dad used the word statutory rape. Just stood there like he held all the cards … because he did. So much for empty threats. Jack rambled on about some investments they were involved with together and how the pyramid was about to crumble. He mocked my dad for how stupid he was not to realize his name was inked on every fraudulent document.”

“The Ponzi scheme.”

“Yep. Then he said the fate of my life, Tack’s life, our life together was in the palm of my father’s hand. We either disappear or he would let the whole thing fall. They’d both lose a fortune, but my dad would face prison time. Prison! I couldn’t let my father go to prison.”

“Son of a bitch. When it all finally came down, Chase bailed his sorry ass out from that pile and I helped keep HIM out of prison!” The irony of the sick situation twisted the knife already in my gut.

“My father was ready to take the fall, he didn’t care. He was willing to do that for me. He said I sacrificed enough and he was proud of the woman and mother I had become. I would’ve never let him do that. I couldn’t. And it wasn’t until the monster’s final words that my father finally agreed. We had to leave; there was no other option. He…” She tucked her knees to her chest and began to rock slightly. Her eyes welled yet again, but this time they were full of fury. “He had evidence.”

I didn’t think my insides could burn any hotter. My fists ached to meet contact with something, anything.

Balance, cock, torque, strike.

“What if it’s still floating around? I know he’s dead, but what if he didn’t destroy it, what if it’s still out there? Oh god, what if Tack ever saw it? Oh god.” Her fury turned to panic. She was losing it. I knew the feeling.

“Tal, stop. Please. Look at me.” Her wild eyes were frantic and searching. “Look at me, Teeps.” I cupped her cheeks just like she had done to me not just a few minutes ago. “Calm down and tell me.”

“He took pictures of me, that night, ahhh! I remember so clearly his beady grey eyes turning almost black as he spoke. His glare was so intense I felt it penetrating my bones. He threatened to expose them to the world if I didn’t go—we didn’t go.”

“That bastard not only violated you, he documented it, son of a bitch! And then he forced you to change your identity, taking you from us.”

Her spacey eyes caught mine before she collapsed like a lead weight against my chest, trembling. Her erratic heart beat in time with mine. Inhale. Exhale. We both struggled to regulate our breathing. I thought maybe she was done speaking, she seemed like she had nothing left. I wasn’t done. I was far from being done. I gently swept beneath her eyes to wipe away the sorrow, the anguish, the fear my Talia had lived with for so long. Too long. No more. I squeezed her tighter reminding myself she was here now. But I wasn’t sure I was going to get past the fact that he singlehandedly stole nineteen years away from us and from us knowing Tack.

She sat up a little, begging my fiery eyes to meet hers before she continued, “He gave us twelve hours. He actually set a time stamp ... he said if we were to ever walk on his sidewalk, let alone come within a hundred mile radius of the air he breathed, or if I betrayed him to stay for Kimi’s funeral, he would screw us over even harder. The scary thing was we had no idea what he was capable of. There was no way I could risk calling his bluff. Not when there was more than just me involved. Tack and I had to disappear. It was easier. It was the only choice. There was no way I would allow him to grow up anywhere near that monster. He deserved better, we both did.” Her voice was quieter now. She took my hand in hers and gently stroked across my tender knuckles. At this point I had nothing else to say, my mind was made up. I knew what I had to do.

“My dad arranged for us to go back to California the morning of the funeral, promising that he would fix everything, that he just needed a little time. I never got to say goodbye … she was my best friend. We may not have shared blood, but I considered her my sister, and I never said goodbye. That devastation was hard to get over, I’m not sure I really ever have. But I had the support of my parents, and even though they weren’t together, in their own way they were both instrumental in helping us. My mom was there for me emotionally. She was my rock when I was surrounded by nothing but piles of scattered pebbles. That’s how I felt a lot of the time, scattered and overwhelmed. I had so much on my plate. I never knew if I was coming or going. My mom grounded me. Honestly, if it weren’t for her I’d probably still be floundering. She forced me to pursue my goal. There were so many times I wanted to give up. I mean really—a single mom raising a toddler while in medical school was unheard of. Tack was my only true motivation. I wanted him to have what I had been lucky enough to have and more. I always felt I had to overcompensate because he never had a real male role model. I made a decision early on that I would keep my personal relationships away from him. He didn’t need men coming and going. I don’t know if that was the right decision or not, but I never wanted him to get attached to someone and then it not work out between us. As he got older he did meet a couple of my boyfriends, but at that point he was doing his own thing and didn’t pay as much attention to what I was doing. In the end, it seemed I did better single, or I guess I just never found the right person.”

Was I the right person?

“Fortunately, my dad was there for me financially. You know better than anyone, he wasn’t able to fix Colton’s mess—it was too far gone. It might have been the only decent thing he ever did, but Jack must have kept his word, because when it finally came out, my dad was dropped from the investigation almost immediately.”

She was right, I did know, but instead that pompous bastard tried to cover his own ass and Talia’s dad got lucky that most of the evidence had been shredded.

“He may have escaped an indictment, but he still lost everything, like every other investor. He knew it was inevitable. He insisted that Tack and I weren’t starting out in debt, so he not only paid my college tuition in full but set up a trust to cover medical school. God, the guilt and stress he carried on his shoulders his last few years.” She inhaled deeply. “It had to contribute to his heart disease.”

I kissed our joined hands.

“With Dad gone, I needed to provide for us and my mom, and I couldn’t bear missing out on any more of Tack’s childhood. Derm might not have been my first choice but it allowed me that flexibility. Tack was my life, still is. I would never change my decision to go. We did what we had to do at the time and never looked back. My life in New York just could no longer exist. Talia Prince no longer existed.”

We finally peeled our bodies from the couch and made it into the kitchen, downing two water bottles. Dehydration had set in, Tal from crying, me from losing half my body weight in sweat. It didn’t stop me from opening a bottle of wine. We needed that, too. Luckily the pizza joint around the corner delivered because neither one of us were in any frame of mind to go out.

“You need to tell him, Tal. I know it’s a given and it didn’t need to be said. But now he’s got a research internship at the same hospital. They could run into each other. It can’t wait. Chase needs to know he has a brother.” I tossed my water bottle in recycling and picked up my wine.

“They’re so similar, it’s scary.” She followed suit, sipping her wine. If she was referring to resemblance, they could have been triplets. “Tack’s the perfect combination of the two of them. He’s sweet and kind and wears his heart on his sleeve, just like Kimi, but then there are times, I swear that I’m speaking with Chase. He’s bossy and overprotective and can be intense as all hell."

I couldn’t help but laugh. Talia missed the worst of it, thank god. She doesn’t know Lil worked Chase over and did a damn good job at bringing out his soft side. The asshole actually used words like pure sweet and baby, like all the time.

“His smile and those eyes, they were a daily reminder of everything I left behind. I missed you all so much. You don’t know how many times I wanted to contact you. I even looked you up … you were easy to find. I saw you won Boston’s junior associate of the year.”

She smirked and something stirred within me. She looked me up, not Chase, not her son’s brother. Damn, I wished she’d made that call. I received that stupid award years ago, around the time I heard about her dad passing. Maybe we wouldn’t have lost all this time.

“But even with the threat to my dad gone, I couldn’t do it … I couldn’t risk Tack’s happiness. He was so well adjusted. I couldn’t risk that bastard screwing with his life. Besides so much time had passed I was sure you and Chase were settled. To be honest, a part of me was afraid you might not want me traipsing back into your lives.”

“You could have, I wish you would have-”

“Believe me when I tell you, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t somehow weave you all into our lives. I shared an infinite number of stories with Tack. Some funny ones, some serious. But all focused on the importance of hard work—nothing comes easy, finding a passion and pursuing it, and the significance of friendship and how valuable it is. He hasn’t really met you, but trust me he already knows you.” Moisture built behind her eyes. “You know how Kimi loved Chase so much, they had this pure and selfless love that only a brother and sister could have? It was beautiful; it was something that could never be broken. I think she would have loved Tack just as much. I miss her. I wish she were here to meet her brother.”