Lila's Thunder: The Almeida Brothers, Book One (5 page)

“I don’t care about Harvard.”

“Start. Caring.”

“You’re the only thing t
hat matters to me.”  The honesty of his words seized him and he had to look away from her when his chin began to tremble.  He looked back, grief clouding his eyes.
  “
I can’t focus on anything knowing that you hate me.”

Her shoulders visibly collapsed as he transformed before her
, and all she could see was the thirteen year old boy in him all over again.  “I could never hate you. Ever.  But this can’t go on.  If Jack decides to go to the administration, I’ll lose my job.”

Chase’s breathing had become heavy.
  “You know Jack, Lila. You know how he is.”  He licked his lips, wondering if he should continue.  His mouth was speaking the words before he could think to stop them. “He’s jealous of us, he always has been, and the only reason he fired you was to separate us so he can have you for himself.”

Lila’s eyes widened. “Chase. You’re being dramatic.”

“No.”  He raised his voice.  His mind flashed back to the several times he’d caught Jack gazing longingly at Lila when he thought no one was looking.  The way he argued with her.  Lila didn’t know Jack well, but Chase did, and he knew that Jack would never waste a precious breath arguing with anyone if it wasn’t something that meant a lot to him.  Jack
looked
for reasons to argue with Lila, he couldn’t wait for her to do something wrong, because that was the only way he knew how to hold on to her.  Chase hadn’t missed any of these things, they’d been obvious to him since he was thirteen years old, and every day that passed he hated it a little more.  “I’m not,” he insisted.

“Nothing will ever happen with me and Jack.”

Chase was unconvinced. “He wants you, Lila.  He’s wanted you for years, and it kills him that he can’t have you so now he’s using me to hurt you.  How can you not see it?”

She didn’t know how to argue his point, so
instead she said what she knew to be true. “Your brother loves you.  He works hard to take care of you and keep a roof over your head.”  She wasn’t Jack’s biggest fan by a long shot, but she’d always wished he and Chase were closer for Chase’s sake.   “I think you’re a little too hard on him sometimes.”

“
Lila, please. He likes to play the card of hard working big brother but the truth is that he chooses to drown himself in his work so he doesn’t have to face up to the fact that our parents are dead and there’s nothing he can do about it, but I’ll be damned if he destroys the only thing I care about because he can’t handle the fucked up shit going on in his own mind.”

Lila lowered her head, s
taring at her shoes.

His breathing had eased now that he could see she was wavering. “You remember all those nights I was home alone in th
e mansion after my parents died, scared out of my mind?  I would call Jack and beg him, Lila, I would
beg
him to come home.  He never did.”

She looked up. “I know.”

“You were the one who was always there when I needed you. And now you’re abandoning me, too…”

“No.”
  She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.

Chase now had his hand over his heart, shaking his head.
  “Don’t do this.  This has nothing to do with us, Lila.  It’s all about him.”

She looked off, thinking about everything Chase was saying, and then took a deep breath.
  “Regardless of what Jack’s motives are, he’s still right. If you are going to attend Harvard you have to gain the tools to be independent and I’ve done nothing but stifle you.”

“You’ve given me the tools I need to move on from the worst time in my
life.” He said, encouragingly. “A few tools that my brother could stand to borrow.  I’ll never end up as unhappy as he is and you are the only person I have to thank for that.  You don’t give yourself enough credit for how much you’ve done for me--and all of the other kids, too.  Don’t say negative things about yourself in my presence.”

A lump formed in her throat as Lila thought about the weekly meetings she had with the grieving kids in school.
  She’d spent five years building a safe haven for them and they came in all ages, socioeconomic backgrounds and colors.  Every once in a while a new face would come into the group and tell their tragic story, but most of the time it was the same ten or fifteen kids just talking, laughing and bonding, knowing that if they needed to vent or express their emotions that they were in a safe place. Most of them weren’t friends outside of the club, they maintained their own cliques and circles, but when they came together it was perfect.  Organic. None of the students were forced or required to come, but they always did.

Many of the parents and faculty were against a “grieving club
,” but Lila made sure that it was hush-hush, most of the students at Dalton didn’t even know it existed, and always kept her superiors up to date on how the kids were progressing emotionally. They all had each other’s phone numbers and hers as well.  It was important for them to have someone around who understood what they were going through. They were a family.  Lila loved those kids, and it killed her that she may have been failing them by allowing them to get too close.

Chase was watching her, quietly, his eyes
wide with curiosity. “Hey,” he whispered, attempting to regain her attention.  When he finally caught her eye, he smiled tenderly before reaching out and taking her dove necklace between his fingers.  His eyes softened as she allowed him to play it between his fingers. “I know its Danni’s birthday today. Can I come visit her with you?”

“I don’t think so, Chase.”
Lila blinked, running a hand over her face and reclaiming her necklace.  “That’s so sweet of you, but… I really do think that this separation is for the best.  You have to learn what it’s like to be in a world without the comforts of home.  Cambridge is a long way away,” she said, shrugging. “I’m not going to be around and neither is Jack. Then what are you going to do?”

A long moment of silence passed with his
green eyes boring pleadingly into hers.  “You could come with me,” he whispered, so softly she barely heard it.  “Come with me, Lila.”

Hearing him say those words broke her heart, because it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that everyone around her had been right.
  Jack, Principal White, her friends and family who’d warned her about the thin ice she was treading on in taking Chase in so personally.  For so long she’d thought that they were all just cynical, confused and didn’t understand the situation like she did, but instead the joke was on her. She’d completely failed him.  Her eyes went to the closed door of the closet.

“I have to go,” s
he said, grabbing the door handle and looking over her shoulder.  “Don’t follow me,” she added, before disappearing into the empty hallway with tears on her face.

---

Lila’s leopard print ballet flats jumped out at her as she walked across the crisp green grass on a bright Friday afternoon, staring at her feet as she went.  It wasn’t necessary for her to look up as she made her way across the expansive field; she’d been there many times and could find her way around blindfolded if she had to.  As she approached the familiar large slab of rectangular granite she came to a complete stop, gripping the flowers in her hand before plopping onto the grass with a thud, her legs tucked underneath her.  She stared at the tombstone before her for a long while, pouting softly, before growling, “I’ve had the week from
hell
.”

After her outburst she felt almost completely refreshed, taking a deep breath and running her fingers over the sharp grass, smiling softly before looking up at the tombstone from under her eyelid
s.

“Happy Birthday,
boobear,” she whispered, playfully. Her smile grew wider as she fell onto her back, letting her arms fall out to her sides as she squinted up at the shining sun. “I got you carnations even though you always hated those. The floral isle at Piggly Wiggly can only take a girl so far.”  She turned her head in the grass and squinted at the calligraphy on the granite rock.

Danielle James

February 27, 1989 - February 27, 2005

Lila had chosen the calligraphy herself
, and after all these years it still read beautifully, even though the lines at the top of the ‘J’s’ were beginning to chip away.  She reminded herself to get it repaired.  The grass made small pricks against her cheek, but it wasn’t painful enough for her to move her head.  In fact, she rather enjoyed it.

“So he was right,” s
he said out loud, tracing the letters of Danni’s name with her eyes as she spoke. “I was too attached to Chase.  And he doesn’t need me, anymore.  Not really.”  Lila lowered her eyes before quickly looking back up, hopeful.  “Do you think I’m insane?” she asked.

With the inevitable silence as her only response, she turned her head away from the stone to glance back up at the sky.
  In all her life she couldn’t remember a day in New York City so beautiful. So beautiful that it almost brought Lila joy just knowing that Danni might have some small piece of something so breathtaking.  The fact that this gorgeous day was happening at the end of February made it all the more sensible to Lila that a higher power must have been at work.

The sound of a roaring car engine broke her from her peaceful reveri
e and she rolled her eyes.  Men and their stupid noisy cars, she thought to herself, turning her head to the parking lot about twenty feet away.  Her breath caught in her throat when she saw a black Lexus SUV pulling into the only handicap parking spot.

“Oh, Danni,” s
he spoke into the cool air. “The gods of fate can’t possibly hate me this much.”  When she saw Jack’s long body climb out of the truck, clad in his signature flawless suit and clutching a bouquet, Lila almost laughed.  “I guess they can. Okay, don’t panic, maybe he won’t--” Jack looked up, from twenty feet away, and locked eyes with her. “See us,” Lila finished.

The man was in a cemetery in the middle of the day, surrounded by death and sadness, and still she was the first thing he managed to see? One part of her wanted to get up and hurry away, another part of her hoped that if she lay still enough she might be able to sink right into the earth below her, never to be heard from, again.

She saw Jack hesitate, then begin to make his way towards her. There was something about the way he changed around her that made her feel like jello.  The tough talking lawyer who’d put many a criminal behind bars and saved even more innocent people from them, hesitated every time he saw her.  As she watched him make his way over to her she wondered what it was about her that scared him so much.

It had been almost a week since they’d gone head to head in his office and after the scene in the closet the day before
, she’d continued to do everything she could to avoid Chase at all costs.  She didn’t think she’d have to avoid Jack, too.

He strode up to her, squinting against the sunlight and coming to stop a few feet in front of her, taking another small step forward when she c
urled her body up into a seated position with her legs tucked under her bottom, craning her neck up to see him.  Shards of green grass sprang from her dark hair in every possible direction.

As Lila gazed up at Jack she tucked her fingernails in
to the soil below her.  “Hi,” she said, willing to be the bigger man and say hello.

“Hi.”
  Jack didn’t smile, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to move, either.  He couldn’t make sense of his ridiculous inability to stay angry at this woman.  Just a week ago they’d been at each other’s throats, and now he could barely remember what they’d been fighting about. All he could think about was how beautiful she looked.

A dozen perfect red roses were held tight in his hand, the other was in his pocket.
  An uncomfortable amount of time passed between the two of them with no words spoken, neither knowing what to say.

Lila wanted to ask how Chase was, but instead she pointed behind her. “I was just…” Before she could finish explaining why she was there she realized that she was a wom
an sitting in front of a grave. Pretty self-explanatory.

Jack eyed the stone behind her.

Lila turned to look, as well, taking it in.  “She was my sister,” she said turning back to him and pressing her lips together. “Um, it’s her birthday today, so…” She lowered her eyes.  Stop talking, Lila.

“Sixteen,”
Jack said, more to himself then her, as he did the math in his head.  In the five years he’d known her, Lila had never mentioned a sister, let alone one who’d passed away at such a young age.  The urge he felt to ask a million questions almost ate him alive, but he minded his manners, opting to stare at her openly, instead.

“Yeah.”
  Lila nodded, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, her eyes narrowing. “Um…”

“Well I should…” Jack motioned over his shoulder.

Lila jumped to her feet. “Yeah. I was just dropping off some flowers.  So…I should--”

“Yeah.”
  Jack nodded, his eyes falling to her skinny jeans as she swiped at them, attempting to get all of the grass off.  The green leaves tumbled down her long legs and flowered on the ground around her feet.  He took in her leopard print ballet flats and almost laughed, but instead he felt terrible.  It all made so much sense to him now, the attachment that she had to Chase, why it was so hard for her to let go and why she cared about those kids at school so much.  He had no idea that she’d lost someone so young.  He’d never bothered to ask.  As realization washed over him he looked up and sputtered, “I have your jacket.”