Tangled - Part Fifteen

*** Part 37 : Awakenings

For an eternity, Lee and I stood holding onto each-other and watched the waves roll up onto the beach. Then there seemed to be a disturbance; the sound of a voice. I didn’t want to listen to it but it kept penetrating into our idyllic world.
“David!”

I shook my head to try and rid myself of it but it was persistent.
“David, snap out of it!”
“Go away . . !” I mumbled.
“David, you’ve got to snap out of it!” Much louder this time.

“No . . Go away!” I tried again but the voice didn’t stop. and then I could feel hands on my shoulders. I looked down at them. The fingers dug into the tops of my arms painfully and then shook me violently.
“Jack, don’t!” Another voice said. “You’re hurting him.”
“I’m hurting him . . what the hell does he think he’s doing.” Jack’s voice said harshly. “To us . . to you. I can’t take it anymore.”

Suddenly, the beach was gone and so was Lee. I looked into Jack’s face, which jumped into sharp focus. His eyes were dark with anger and his features were gaunt.
“Jack.” I croaked. “Please . . leave me alone . . I want to go back to him.”
“David for God’s sake, it’s been three weeks.” He said, his voice a little calmer. “You’ve got to come out of it. You’re killing Danny . . you’re destroying us!”

“But he’s waiting for me.” I said, trying to make him understand. “He’s on the beach. I have to get back to him.”
“No!” He said, his voice loud. “Enough! Stop being so goddamned selfish. Look at him!”
He stepped aside and pointed at Danny, who was sitting in the armchair.

“You’re destroying him.” Jack said. “You’re draining him of every ounce of life he has. I don’t care how painful it is for you but I can’t stand by and watch you do this to him.”
“I can’t Jack.” I said softly. “I can’t come back if he’s not here. Don’t you understand, it was . . Lee; my love, my life.”
I stifled a sob as the pain of it slowly started to seep back into me.

“And he was my brother!” Jack said grimly. “You’re not the only one that’s hurting here.”
I stared at him and I suddenly knew that he was right. I was being entirely selfish. Danny, who loved me, had also been affected by the tragedy and Jack, who had lost a brother, was probably in as much pain as I was. And now they were concerned for me too, just another burden on top of all they were going through.

“Okay Jack.” I whispered.
“Thank God.” Danny breathed and started to cry.
“Danny, come here.” I called. He rose and came to me. I pulled him into my arms and held onto him and we both cried silently. It was cathartic, those tears that we shared on that memorable day.

I started to heal slowly. My body had healed itself weeks ago, but my mind was still raw. I learned how to control the pain and keep it suppressed in the back of my mind. There were still reminders every day but gradually, I found that I was able to handle them. And so I made progress. Jack and Danny, who visited me every day, were pleased and both looked forward to the day they could take me home.

It was during this time that I had another visitor. I was sitting up reading one afternoon when someone knocked on the door.
“Come in.” I called.

The door opened and a young dark-blond man of about thirty stepped inside. He closed the door and came up to my bedside. He had the Barker eyes and his hair was the same shade of blond as Lee’s but shorter and brushed into a different style. I felt a momentary pang of pain at his close resemblance to Lee but I pushed it away quickly.
"Hi!" He said. "You're David, right? I'm Kevin, Jack's brother."

"Hi!" I said and indicated for him to sit down. He made himself comfortable in the arm chair. I studied him carefully. His eyes were a slightly darker green than Lee’s but his nose, lips and jaw line were very similar. His build was almost identical to Lee's. From a distance, they could easily be mistaken for twins.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to come and see you. I should have been here from the start." He whispered. “How are you doing?”
"I’m okay!" I said. “As well as I could be under the circumstances.”
He stared at me for a few minutes.

"Jack didn't do you justice when he told me what you were like." He said with a small smile. "But of course, he's not terribly good at descriptions. You're way cuter than he described."
"Thank you, but you have me at a disadvantage. I know very little about you." I replied.
"Right!" He said. "So Lee told you nothing about me."
"Oh no!" I said. "He told me a little about you and his relationship with you."

"Aah!" He said and dropped his head. "So you know what happened then."
"Yeah!" I said. "I do. Although it was from his point of view, so I'm not in a position to make any calls on it."
"Okay!" He said. "It happened and I'm not going to make up any excuses. I'm beyond that. What I did was unforgivable and I could never have made it up to him. I guess it’s too late now."

We sat in silence for a few moments.
“I was a fool.” He whispered. “I should have called him years ago.”
"Kevin," I began. "I'm going to be perfectly frank with you. I don't condone what you did, but I'm not going to judge you on it either. I just know what he told me. Maybe you had your reasons and I'm not asking you to explain yourself. What I want you to know is that he wanted to forgive you, but I don't think he knew how to. He told me so himself. It's one of those awful situations where the longer you leave it, the worse it gets. I think he really needed to forgive you. He needed closure.”

"Thank you for that." He said. "Jack's right about you. You were perfect for him."
We talked on into the evening and it was therapeutic. Obviously, we talked mainly about Lee and our very different relationships with him. In that short time, I came to like Kevin very much.

"You know that he and I were going to run our own company together." He said at one point.
"Yes." I said. "He did tell me."
"But, of course, things went bad and it never happened." He said. "Although he did do what he'd planned to do. His own company, and I should have been a part of it."

We sat in silence for a moment and then he started talking again in a low voice.
"I did it because Carter was his and I always got what was his eventually and also because Carter was a piece of trash."
"Kevin," I said. "You don't have to tell me anything, you know."

"I know." He said. "But I want to. I'm not making excuses for what I did and I'm not asking you to understand it. I just want you to know my side of the story. I know that what I did was wrong and I knew it as I did it. Call it spite, call it what you want, but it happened for some perverse reason and I'll never forgive myself. I hurt him dreadfully and he was my closest friend and I need to talk to someone. I've never spoken about it to anyone, so maybe if I do, it might help a little."

"Alright Kevin." I said. "If you think it'll help."
"Okay, here goes." He began. "Lee had been at college a year when I joined him. We were doing the same courses and we ended up rooming together. Then he met Carter and he fell head over heels for the guy. He was so in love with him that he couldn't or wouldn't see Carter for what he really was. I saw through him immediately and tried to bring Lee to his senses but he refused to believe that Carter was scum. The other thing was that I was the third brother in line and close to Lee in age and throughout my childhood, I always got Lee's castoffs, as it were. His clothes when he grew out of them, his toys when he got tired of them and so on.

Not that I didn't mind because poor Jack always ended up with it all, being the youngest. My parents weren't that well off so it became a matter of course. From Malachi to Lee, then to me and finally to Jack. We were used to it and it became a bit of a family joke. For example, Malachi had this really cool lumberjack shirt, red checks, which he wore constantly. Then Lee inherited it and my father actually mistook him for Malachi a few times because he'd got so used to seeing him in that shirt. It often happened. Of course, once we were all teenagers, my mother just pooled all the clothes together and each of us just wore what was at the top of the drawer. That also became a bit of a joke because the first one of us to get up in the morning was always the best dressed." He grinned.

"Sounds fun." I said with a small smile. "I'm an only child, so I really can't imagine what it must have been like."
"Yeah!" He said. "But fun is not how I would describe it. Anyway, I digress. So, Lee was madly in love with Carter and I suppose I got envious, maybe even jealous because Lee was paying less attention to me. I don't know. Maybe it was just a case of taking what was his as I'd done most of my life, or maybe I just wanted to show Carter up for what he really was. The thing is, before I could make a move on Carter, he came on to me.

Something that Lee refused to believe. I just jumped at the opportunity to show Lee what he was really like. I'd heard that he'd been screwing around quite a lot while he was supposedly going out with Lee and I felt that maybe it was time for Lee to wake up. So I slept with Carter and Lee caught us, as I'd planned. But I didn't expect Lee's reaction, which was foolish of me, I know. How else would he react? End result, he moved out and never spoke to me again. I have regretted it every day since. That's it."

"Well," I said. "I can understand it all a little better now and I can see both points of view. Lee told me that the thing that upset him more than anything was that it was you with Carter and not some random guy."
"Yeah!" He said. "And it should never have happened. I was an idiot."
"With that, I have to agree!" I said.

He grinned. "You know something, I really like you and I think that no-one could have been more perfect for Lee. I’m glad that he at least had someone like you for a while."
"Thank you."
"It's true!" He smiled. "And the bonus is that you're terribly cute."
"Thank you, Kevin." I said with a laugh. "You’re not so bad yourself.”

We stared at each-other in silence. I knew that I had a new friend and ally in Kevin and I hoped that he felt the same.