Fragile Truths (31 page)

Mom sighed and turned to face the window, the ache on her face triggering a flicker of guilt to rumble through my chest at how I was judging them. “Look…”

I stopped short as Harry walked back into the room. He narrowed his eyes on us as he sensed the tension. “What the hell is going on?”

I noticed Maggie shaking her head at us from across the room; however, I wasn’t sure if it was in disbelief or disgust.

“There’s something you need to know.” Mom almost whispered.

I watched as Harry’s face paled and his eyes flicked to each one of us as though he knew what she was going to say.

He closed his eyes, and then nodded before another twist in the tale was revealed.

Tate

It was all gone.

Everything I had searched for, everything I had lived the last sixteen years for - snatched from under me in the cruellest way possible.

The field was empty now, the long grass shivering against the cold winter air; its bleakness matching my heart as we both mourned our loss.

It was all gone.

“It’s getting dark.” She whispered and I looked over at her when her voice trembled slightly.

“Don’t you like the dark?”

She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her as if protecting herself from the shadows now emerging around us. “No.”

“But without darkness, the stars can’t shine, Frankie.”

The memories floated around me as the stars called for me to break under them. I wouldn’t allow that, wouldn’t let them witness my tears. Tonight for the first time in my life, I didn’t want them to observe anything in my life. I wanted my sorrow to be private, my own and not shared.

“There were no stars where the darkness tormented me” she whispered cryptically.

My torment was shadowed by the stars. Frankie was in the darkness right now, and I wanted to share that torture with her. I wished for clouds to form, demanding the stars to retreat but they winked and flickered, refusing my command as they ruled the night without pity or comfort.

I dropped to the ground in the strip of moonlight that painted a stretch of brown grass white. Drawing my knees up, I hugged them and rested my forehead on them, “Why?” I whispered to no one. “Why are you doing this?”

What the hell did I tell Frankie? Would she be as broken as me? Of course she would, I had no misconceptions about how much she loved me, or the connection we had. Was it because we were blood related? Is that all our bond had been?

“Life is shit, Frankie. Stuff happens and we are the ones left to take the backlash of it.”

How fucking true that statement was. I’d had more insight to life at fifteen than I did at thirty one.

A sudden thought occurred to me. What if I was a match? If I was her brother, then maybe I would me a candidate for the transplant. Maybe I could give her something greater than love. I would give her both my kidneys if it meant her taking another breath; fuck, I’d give her every damn organ in my body. My life wasn’t worth living anymore anyway. Without Frankie by my side, there was nothing. Although she was my sister, I would never accept solely that linkage. I would never be able to look at her again without wanting to feel the softness of her lips on mine, the touch of her fingers in my hair, the feel of her soft skin next to mine, and that was now just… sick and immoral.

My parents had polluted every beat of my heart, sullied every beautiful moment I had been inside the woman I loved and dishonoured each perfect memory I shared with the one person who owned my heart and soul.

The moon shifted slightly and I shivered as the coldness crept into my bones. It must have been -3°c out but I didn’t feel it on my skin, only in my soul.

A comet shot across the sky above me and I scoffed, “Now? Now you give me luck?” I shook my head angrily, “Yeah, up yours arsehole.”

“You know, maybe you shouldn’t waste that.”

I jumped and twisted round as Jude came to sit beside me. “Waste what?” I frowned at him as he leant back on his hands and stared up at the moon.

“The little bit of luck the stars just bestowed on you.”

“Not now, Jude.” I sighed and mirrored his pose, leaning back but greeting the moon with a scowl.

He pulled a packet of smokes from his jeans and lit one before passing it me. His silence was irritating as he lit his own and took a heavy drag, blowing it out in a thick stream that swirled in the streak of light. “So how did you know where I was?”

He tipped his head and finally looked at me, “I’m not stupid, Tate. Sometimes I think you believe that I am.” I didn’t answer him but he didn’t expect me to as he carried on talking. “It must be three years since we’ve shared a smoke,” he declared.

I shrugged and inhaled sharply, the nicotine triggering a slight high in my blood, “Three years and two months since you walked out on us.”

He lifted his eyebrows as though my statement was incorrect; “Since I walked out on you?” He laughed and exhaled as heavy as he pulled in the smoke, “I think you meant to say, three years and two months since you fucked Harley and broke our relationship in one swift kick to my balls.”

For the first time in three years I accepted the guilt that pulled in my guts and stuttered my heart, “Yeah.” I answered simply. There was nothing more to say and both of us recognised it for the first time.

He sighed and stood up, holding out his hand to me, “Come on. I need you to hold my hand. I’m scared shitless of needles.”

I frowned at him as I took his hand and let him pull me up, “What?”

He shrugged as he turned and started towards the gap in the fence. “Needles, when they give me the fucking anaesthetic. I need you with me, what with you being my big brother and all that pussy shit.”

“Jude, you’re not making sense.”

He sighed heavily and flicked me a sideways glance before we both dipped through the fence. “There’s something you need to know about our parents, although it’s not something we
should
know.” His lip curled as he shivered, “Our parents and Frankie’s parents used to best friends, they shared everything…” He grimaced and shuddered again, “Even their bed.”

My body echoed his as a horrified tremor raced up my spine. “That’s something I didn’t need to know, thank you.”

He chuckled and elbowed me. I smiled with him, relishing the first smile we’d shared together in a long time. “But you see, you do need to know that to understand the tale. You should have hung back after Pop’s…
revelation
.”

I bit my tongue and growled, “Not really. I want to kill the bastard.”

“Mmm,” he agreed with a smirk. “Welcome to my world. Anyway, you missed the feature exposé.”

“Jude,” I grumbled when my anger started to climb free. “Just get the fuck on with the
story
.”

He opened his car door and gestured for me to climb in. As soon as he filled the seat beside me he pulled out another cigarette and offered me one. “Now, as they all enjoyed sharing their double bed…” I was really wishing he would shut the fuck up about our parent’s sex lives but I remained quiet, waiting for the end of his tale to be revealed. He continued with a slight smirk, “Mom and Harry were also sharing a single bed, if you get my meaning.”

“They were having an affair?” I scoffed.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded as he started the car and pulled out of the driveway. “But when they
partied
they’d always use protection. However, when mom and Harry…
mingled
, they got too into it to think about anything like condoms or pulling the fuck out.”

I stared at him as I swallowed heavily, “Jude, are you saying what the fuck I think you’re saying? Am I a result of their stupidity?”

He snorted and shook his head, “No,
you’re
not.”

Everything froze as my heart refused to beat. It was damn good job I was sat down because I’d have fell the fuck down, “You are!”

“Bingo!”

“Oh my fucking Christ. What the hell? Our parents lived in their own soap opera.” Jude’s laugh rumbled around the car with my statement but I hadn’t said it in wit, I was being bloody serious. “Everyone was fucking one another. They all need bloody castrating. Good God!” I shook my head and sighed, “Well, Frankie’s gone from being an only child to the younger sister of two brothers.”

“Nope,” Jude grinned. “That’s the part you missed out on.”

I swear a ray of fucking moonlight hit the car as bloody Angel’s sang in my ear, “Are you saying?”

“I’m saying you missed the part where Harry came back. Found out what had gone off and floored Pop. I was actually impressed with him,” he laughed. “Turns out Harry had done a paternity test when he’d fled. Where you thought your intervention the day you warned him about Don coming for Fran had made him flee, it was actually due to the fact that the day before, when we were in the car, the day you found Fran in the field, Pop had gone to tell Harry about Maria’s suspicion that Pop was Fran’s dad.” He frowned and glanced at me, “You still with me?”

I nodded, “I think so. Pop thought he was Frankie’s dad, and when Maria died he went to claim ownership of Frankie?”

“Yep. Harry hadn’t had a clue about it all but panicked when Pop told him he wasn’t letting it go. So he ran, frightened that he was going to lose his daughter as well as his wife.”

Sadness consumed me when I knew all this could have been avoided but then again, it was this truth that had saved Frankie’s life and kept her safe for nine years. “So, eaten up with the uncertainty about Fran not being his daughter, he had her tested. Trouble is, he daren’t go back to Surrey after hearing about the Knight’s hunt for him and Fran so he never had a chance to prove to Pop that he was Fran’s father.”

“Bloody hell! And I gather by your need to have me there for the anaesthetic that you’re a match?”

He nodded and grinned, “Yes, I am. I can finally give her something for all the pain I’ve rained on her. I’d had a suspicion about mom’s affair for a while when I found some love letters in her bottom drawer after hunting for Christmas presents when I was around twelve.  And then I had discovered some photos of her and Harry dated about ten months before I was born. And then I had the weirdest moment one day as I looked in the mirror. I’m blonde, Tate.”

He scoffed loudly and shook his head in humour, “Pop’s Italian. His genes should overrule like they have with you. I mean look at you, you’re dark haired, tanned and I’m as pale as they come and fucking blonde.” He shrugged but laughed again, “It’s weird to explain, but something about her drew me in when Don brought her in, something inside her called out to me and I slowly fell in love with her; but it was strange, it wasn’t a sexual connection. I never imagined her like that; I was just in awe of her, like I desperately needed to have a friendship with her. You know like, when you start school and you really want to be best friends with a certain kid that you gravitate towards, well like that.”

He rolled his lips and smiled, more to himself than me as he indicated to pull into the hospital. “So I asked Mom a few days ago after you spoke to Frannie about the time you’d gone to visit her and told her dad to run. I had completely forgotten about it and something didn’t sit right after he’d reacted to us that way. He hadn’t believed a word we’d said, but then the very next day he’d gone and I remembered sat in the car when you’d gone to find Fran in the field. Pop and Harry were looking for her but Pop was beside himself with worry and they’d argued outside the house. Harry had raged at him to go, that Fran was of no concern to him but Pop kept insisting she was, and that he didn’t want to lose her now he’d just found her. It hadn’t made sense at the time, but when I heard you both talking, I knew that’s why Harry had ran, not because of the Knight’s.”

I blew out a breath as my soul danced with Frankie’s. I didn’t care about my parent’s infidelities and sordid sex games. I didn’t care about Jude now being just my half-brother, I didn’t care about Harry’s refusal to face up to facts and save my father years of heartache with the loss of someone he considered his daughter, all I cared about was that the woman I loved didn’t share my genes.

“Thank you.” I whispered into the silence of the car as we both sat contemplating years of bloody lies and secrets.

“What for?”

“This. Doing this for Frankie, coming to find me.”

“I didn’t do it for you. Don’t think we’re okay, Tate, we’ll never be that. I’m doing this for Frannie; I’d give her my life. She’s my sister, just like I would for Bella. And she loves you, although I can’t see the hell why, but I accept that and I know she needs you. So stop being a fucking pussy and get your ass in there and hold your woman’s hand through this. She needs you Tate; she gave up her life to save yours, now it’s your turn to be there for her.”

“I’ve always been there for her Jude, just as I’ll always be there for her in the future.”

He nodded and smiled, “Good. Come on, but you need to hold my hand first, then you’re all hers.”

19
^th
January 2014

Tate

Why wouldn’t she wake up? She’d been unconscious for three days. Tubes fed her body but they’d removed the one that fed oxygen to her lungs. At least she was breathing unaided. So why wouldn’t she wake up?

“Go get something to eat. I’ll sit with her.” Mom offered but I shook my head.

“No.”

She pulled the chair up beside me and sighed. “Tate, you’ve hardly slept for days, you haven’t touched a bite to eat. If I wasn’t forcing water into your stomach, I don’t think you’d even be breathing.”

The nurse smiled warmly at me, her eyes twinkling with life; life that Frankie needed right now. “We have your number Tate, if she so much as murmurs I’ll make sure to ring you.”