“Are you going to go home?” Luke asked, as Johnny, Kevin, and Derrick walked up.
I nod slowly. “I will. I just need to talk to your uncles for a bit.”
“Alright. I love you dad. Go home to mom, soon.” Luke wrapped his arms around my waist and I had to close my eyes as another sob threatened to escape.
“Yeah, bud. Love you too.”
Kara gave me a reassuring smile as she wrapped an arm around Luke’s shoulders and led him away.
“Come on, man,” Johnny grunted, squeezing my shoulder. He steered me toward their garage and through the side door. Inside, besides the tools and bikes, was a designated man cave set up in the back corner with leather couches facing a big screen TV. They had fridge stocked full of beer and a bar full of liquor.
“Want a beer, or something stronger?” Derrick asked, as he walked over to the bar.
I eyed my sister’s Macallan for a second before I shook my head. “Just a beer. I need to go back soon.”
Once the beer was in my hand, and Derrick and Kevin left the garage, I sat down and sighed heavily. Resting my head in my hands, I ran my fingers through my short hair. It still felt weird to me, but Maya liked it, so I would do whatever I could to keep her happy.
“What happened?” Johnny asked, taking a seat on the other couch to my right.
I popped the tab on the can and took a long pull before I answered. “We sat down and dug into the past. What happened ten years ago…whatreallyhappened.”
“Learned some hard truths, then,” Johnny surmised.
I nodded and took another pull from the can. “Yeah.”
“Some things we can only learn from and move on. Try to be better.”
“What do you know about BDSM?” I asked.
Johnny barked out a laugh. “Oh brother, you really don’t want to ask me that question.”
I looked up confused, and he shot me a look that said Ireally didn’t want to know. “Alright, not talking about my sister, but then you get the principle.”
“Yeah.”
“Back then… we were in a twenty-four-seven relationship. It wasn’t negotiated, but it happened. In fact, during negotiations we had explicitly stated that we would never expect her to be in a twenty-four-seven dynamic, but like I said, living together for two years, we just kind of fell into that.” I paused to take a sip of my beer.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Things got out of hand. By the end, I think it was hard for Maya to speak up, to come to us. I think the three of us steamrolled over her sometimes. And we definitely didn’t take care of her the way we should have. Put her first more.” I shook my head. “Things with Buckley and the club were never easy and more times than not, she was left home alone to fend for herself.”
“What was the deciding factor, then?” Johnny asked, cutting right to the chase.
I took a deep breath and stared off at the black TV screen, unable to meet my brother’s gaze. “Our last scene…I took things too far. It was a punishment, but I should have cooled off more. I should have waited until I was level-headed and cooled down. Maya wasn’t in the right headspace either—hadn’t eaten all day, was way too anxious to do a scene and I…I took things too far. I strung her up, in the woods out back,” I motioned toward the back wall of the garage, indicating the woods we shared in our backyards. “She handled the scene well, but she ended up getting hypothermia.”
“Fuck.” Johnny grunted.
I looked down and nodded. “I didn’t realize how bad it was at the time…” I choked up but forced myself to continue. “She toldus how she almost died that night. The next morning, she had to give herself IV fluids because she was so dehydrated. And I left her alone after the scene. No aftercare. Short of warming up her body with ours…we left her alone the next morning.”
“Jesus Christ, dude,” Johnny growled.
A sob tore out of me, hearing his disappointment. I don’t know why I was looking at him as my moral compass, but something about the man—my younger brother—that just made me want to be a better person.
He didn’t comfort me while I cried, but he sat in silence while I got it out of my system. Johnny had a calm magnetism about him.
When I calmed down again, Johnny spoke. “Look man. You can’t change the past. Yeah, it was completely fucked up what you did—but you did it. All three of you did it, that doesn’t just land on you. Neither Jason nor Nico stayed back to take care of her that morning.”
“I didn’t give them the chance. I was VP then. I ordered them out of the house.”
