Bree's Journey Pt. 03

As I was trying to figure out what they were discussing, I heard the faint ring of my cell phone. Cussing about leaving it in the dining room, I managed to pick it up just before it went to voice mail.

"Mom?"

~"Hi, honey. I'm sorry to bother you at work."

"It's okay. Is everything alright?"

~"Everything's fine, dear. I was hoping you could come by for dinner tonight."

"Tonight?"

~"I'm sorry for the last minute notice. Daniel is coming home from school and we thought it would be good to have the family together."

I'd forgotten that it was spring break for them. I didn't want to see Daniel, though. I would just picture him with Kieran the whole time and it would drive me insane.

~"Hello? Sabrina?"

"Yeah, Mom. I'm here. I, uh...tonight's not a good time for me. I-I lost my job today."

~"Oh, no..."

"They laid-off over half the staff. I'm okay. I mean, I knew it was going to happen. I'm just...a little stunned, I guess. I wouldn't be very good company tonight."

~"I understand, dear. I'm so sorry. Sunday it is, then."

That was our standing family dinner. There was no way to get out of that. I only had two more days to get my act together with Daniel, because he was surely going to be there. "Sunday."

~"Okay. I'll let you go. Let us know if you need anything."

"I will. Thanks, Mom. Bye."

My mother was never one to console or fuss. It made her uncomfortable as hell. I hadn't planned to tell her about losing my job until I had to use it as an excuse to get out of dinner. And I knew right after I told her, she'd hang up that phone as fast as she could to keep from having to comfort me.

It was just her way. With me, anyway. Mothers and daughters were different. My girlfriends' dysfunctional relationships with their mothers proved that. I didn't hold any of this against my mom. She'd been raised believing that the woman kept a stiff upper lip at all times, and that was the way she'd brought me up. Women are strong and capable. They don't bog their husbands down with needless weeping over minute details.

I hadn't always fundamentally agreed with her. When I was transitioning from puberty to adolescence, my hormones raging, and my mood swings erratic as hell, I resented her aloofness. I equated her attitude to a lack of caring about me. Father didn't help. When he wasn't traveling on business, he was tinkering around the yard or in the garage. He was never involved, didn't weigh-in on the numerous arguments, although I was certain he was aware of them. And Daniel...he butted out, completely.

Mom didn't treat Daniel the same way she treated me. She was always fawning over Daniel, making his favorite foods, gushing over his latest school project. It was apparent that she loved him. That she was proud of him.

I wondered if that's why it was so hard for him to tell my parents about he and Bryan. Did he think he'd lose his favored child standing? It wasn't going to happen. Because if he thought his news was going to be more of a disappointment than my not getting married, he was dead wrong. I cornered the market of disappointment with my parents. Daniel was going to have to live with being crowned the favorite for the rest of his life.

I suppose that every family has their slightly unique dynamic. I didn't think much about ours. There was nothing I could do to change it, short of adopting a whole new family. Or starting your own.

At some point over the past several days, I decided that I wanted to have children. It was ironic, really, since it was the thought of having Miles' child that sent me to Austin in the first place. Only to meet someone completely different who made me want to settle down and start a family with him. I think that might be the very definition of irony, actually.

Maybe I was ready to forgive myself for all my past mistakes and just move on. All but one. Kieran was going to be difficult to get over.

I tossed my phone onto the coffee table and stretched out on the sofa before pointing the remote control at the television to call up the guide. The top of the hour was approaching and I was hopeful that maybe I'd find an old rerun of some cheesy detective series, or something like that. Anything was better than hearing a panel of women blather on about birth control.

I finally settled on an old Quantum Leap episode. It held my attention for the next hour, at which time, I started channel surfing again. It was then that my doorbell rang.

It startled me. I wasn't expecting company, and only a handful of people knew I was home.

I crept toward the door, not wanting to alert my visitor to the fact that I was home. Not until I was sure it wasn't a Jehovah's Witness, or some pesky salesperson. Or some burglar, although I highly doubted thieves cased homes in the late afternoon.

When I got close to the door, I could see through the slats of the blinds that it was much worse than I'd thought. It was Daniel.

I froze, not sure what to do. Part of me wanted to answer the door and get the yelling and screaming over with. The other part of me wanted him to think I wasn't home so he would leave.

Hard knocking ensued a moment later. "C'mon, Bree. I know you're in there. Just open the door."

I heaved a sigh as I reached for the door knob. Since he knew I was there, I might as well face the music.

His arm raised to start knocking again, but then he took a step backward when the door swung open. "Oh."

We stood there staring at one another for a few silent moments. He looked tired. A little beaten down. More humble than I'd ever seen him. It elevated my mood considerably.

I opened the door to allow him to enter the house, then gestured toward the living room. The guide was still up on the television. In the background, some other eighties drama had started. I couldn't tell what it was, but the background music dated the show. I lifted the remote to mute it.

"Do you have any alcohol?"

I shook my head. I hardly had a thing in the house because I hadn't gone shopping since I returned from my trip. "There's bottled water in the fridge." I wasn't about to offer to get it for him.

Daniel shook his head and tried to smile. I could tell he was struggling with how to start. "Sorry to hear about your job." I shrugged. "You called it, though. I remember you mentioning it last week."

"Yep." There wasn't much else to say. I didn't really feel like talking about my job. He wouldn't understand, and besides, it wasn't what he'd come to talk about.

"Bryan wanted me to tell you 'hi', and that he misses you."

"Where is Bryan?"

"He's at his folks' house by now, I guess."

"Did he drop you off?"

"Yeah."

"Risky. What if I wasn't home?"

Daniel shrugged dismissively. "I'm sorry about what happened. The message. I wasn't thinking straight."

I nodded thoughtfully. I was pretty sure it was the first time I'd ever heard Daniel apologize to anyone.

"I never meant to hurt you. I mean, not just this past week, but, before..."

Obviously, Kieran had talked to him.

"That whole thing in high school was...it wasn't your fault. I should've said something...I didn't want..."

Daniel shook his head, trying to get his thoughts in order.

"I was afraid of being outed. That someone would discover me and Bryan, and then I'd lose him. So I just tried to lay low and stay out of it."

"Why didn't you just tell me then about you guys? I would've understood."

"Would you have?"

I was offended that he even had to ask.

"You were pretty anti-gay after prom."

I thought back to my own behaviors. I was hurt and angry. I lashed out pretty viciously at Lance, but also at gays, in general. It wasn't my proudest moment. I could see how that might've been offensive to Daniel. How he would've been hurt by the way I acted.

"I know now that you didn't mean all those things you said. But at the time..."

"God, Daniel. I had no idea..."

"I know."

"What about Bryan?"

"He knows, too. He's always known that you didn't mean those things. I'm the one who has made us keep our secret all these years."

"That must be hard on him."

Daniel nodded. "I need to fix it. I'm going to fix it."

"When?"

"Soon. This week, sometime, I'm going to break the news to Mom and Dad."

"They'll take it just fine. I know they will." I could see that Daniel wasn't so sure. "I can be there, if you want. To soften the blow."

"I think Bryan would feel better if you were there. And I might need a place to stay. You know, if they kick me out. Bryan's parents are pretty hip, but I don't think they're ready for both of us to stay in Bryan's room."

"You can stay here. But it won't go that far. Mom would never kick you out, and Dad has no vote in what happens in the house."

"Yeah, I don't think they'll go that far. It just feels good to have a plan. Just in case."

"I take it Kieran talked to you."

Daniel nodded. "Please don't get mad at him for telling me."

"Oh, I won't. I think I hoped he'd say something to you when I was telling him about everything. I don't like that we've grown apart."

"Me, either. Though I can't seem to stop screwing up. This whole thing with Kieran...It's over, by the way. I mean, we're still friends, but that's it."

"It doesn't matter much now, anyway."

"He quit his job."

"What? Why?"

Daniel shrugged. "He did it before you left Austin. He said he didn't want your last night together to be spent at a gay club."

My thoughts wandered to our last sex. I'd spent it tied to Kieran's bed. Just the way that sounded in my head made me squirm.

"I think he quit so you wouldn't worry about him cheating on you."

"I probably would have. I told him I could handle him working that job, but I'm not so sure. We weren't secure enough in our relationship. I'm not even sure I can get to a point where I trust someone enough that temptations like that aren't a problem. I'll always be wondering if what happened with Lance will happen again. It sucks. For any guy I date, but for me, too."

"I think Kieran knows that about you."

"I know he does. He knows me better than ... anyone."

"He'd never cheat on you. It's not in his nature to do that to anyone."

"After all that effort you spent trying to ward me off of him, now you say these things?"

"You know why I didn't want you to date him. It had nothing to do with him being a good guy."

I nodded. I knew that. I just wanted to hear him admit out loud that he was a selfish prick.

"He loves you. You know that, right?"

It stung the corners of my eyes to hear those words. I sucked in my breath and held it for several seconds to gain my composure. "I feel the same."

"Then why won't you take his calls? Talk to him, so you guys can work this out."

I shook my head. "It's not going to work. We live too far apart."

"Well, fix it. Move in with me and Bryan until Kieran graduates."

"With..." I shook my head. "I can't just put everything on hold like that. I need to look for a job. Anyway, it's over with Kieran and I..."

My voice trailed off as I fought back the tears again. I hadn't said those words to myself, much less, out loud to someone else.

"You wouldn't understand. I've violated his trust. I panicked and left him without even trying to talk to him first. He'll never trust that I won't do that again."

"I didn't help you on that front, either. I kind of told him that you were going to run. But you can fix that, too."

I wondered if I could. I'd been searching for ways to take back what I'd done. But each passing day it felt like the act of leaving grew bigger. Too big to fix. I'd already been gone for almost as many days as our whole relationship. It was just easier to move on at this point.

"It's not too late."

I wanted to hang onto the hope in Daniel's words, but I knew that I shouldn't. Even if he did take me back, I certainly didn't deserve it. I was a fucked-up coward. Kieran deserved way better than me.

I shook my head and waved my hand. I didn't want to talk about it, anymore.

"So, you're headed to Mom and Dad's for dinner?"

"Yeah. You coming?"

"I wasn't planning on it."

"Bryan is going to be there. I know he wants to see you."

My heart swelled. I'd been thinking about Bryan a lot. Missing him more than I realized, judging from the ache in my chest. "I really love that guy."

"He loves you, too. Come to dinner with me."

My head was nodding before I could stop it. "Okay."

Daniel smiled triumphantly, then dug into his pocket for his cell phone. "I'll let him know and have him meet us there."

The car ride to my parents' house was surprisingly upbeat. Daniel and I joked and laughed pretty much the whole trip. It was a relief to have my brother back. I was looking forward to experiencing what life with a sibling was like. It already felt less lonely than it'd been since I left Austin.

Daniel gripped my hand in his before we walked through the front door. I assumed that it was for him. To give him strength to do what he needed to do...for Bryan...for them...but also to bring the entire family together. It could never happen without telling everyone about he and Bryan. That secret might as well have been the Grand Canyon in the middle of our family.

Voices in the kitchen confirmed that Bryan was already there. I glanced at the dining room table as Daniel dragged me past it. There were five places set, so Bryan must've alerted my mom that I was coming. When we came around the corner, though, nothing could prepare me for what I saw.

Kieran.

For a couple of seconds, no one noticed we were there. I held my breath, feeling invisible and wondering if I was actually dreaming. Bryan was sandwiched between Kieran and my mom at the sink. They had some sort of assembly line working, it appeared, and Bryan was giving Kieran hell about something he'd just done.

Daniel kissed me on the cheek, snapping me into reality. He had a devious grin on his face and I knew that he'd planned this, or maybe they all had.

"Are we interrupting some great masterpiece?"

All three faces turned toward us, but my stunned gaze was fixed on only one. He was more gorgeous than I remembered him, if that was even possible.

"Sabrina! You came."

My mother's voice broke our invisible connection. I shifted my gaze to meet hers. "Daniel made me."

It sounded like a pubescent excuse, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. It was partly the truth. Bryan was on me in a second, his arms wrapped tightly around me and lifting my feet off the ground. I noticed Daniel's palm covering Bryan's behind my back, out of Mom's view.

"I knew the extra potatoes wouldn't go to waste." Mom was already over the tearful reunion and onto the more practical things, like whether or not there was enough food for everyone. "Sabrina, you'll need to put out another place setting."

I glanced back to Kieran, who didn't appear to have moved since I first arrived. I wondered what they'd told Mom about us, but then got my question answered right away.

"Sabrina, this is Kieran. He's one of Daniel's school friends." Mom turned to Kieran. "Sabrina graduated with honors from UNT."

I was shocked by her introduction. It almost sounded as though she were proud of me.

Kieran wiped his hand on a dish towel and held it out to me in a polite handshake. "Nice to meet you...Sabrina?"

He winked at me as we shook, and I had to stifle a giggle. "Bree. Just call me Bree."

Kieran held my hand a little longer than what was considered customarily appropriate. I felt his body heat infuse into mine through our connected palms and it sent my cheeks to flame.

"Kieran graduates in a couple of months. He's considering moving to Dallas. Isn't that nice?"

It dawned on me that my mother was trying to play matchmaker, and that thought alone made me want to kiss Kieran on the lips, just for the shock factor of it. Well, maybe that wasn't the primary reason why I wanted to kiss him. I had a number of reasons, half a dozen of them completely inappropriate for my parents' kitchen.

I glanced around at Bryan and Daniel, who were wearing matching conspiratorial grins on their faces. This game they'd started was the perfect distraction from all the other taxing things. It gave me something to focus on other than my overbearing mother, my absent father, and the great big, stressful secret that Daniel may uncover at any moment.

And it quieted the inner dialogue that had plagued me since I left Austin: Where is Kieran; Who is he with; What is he doing; Is he thinking about me; Does he miss me; Has he moved on...? It had been an endless litany of worries over what I'd done to us. Over how I'd allowed my own insecurities to ruin a near-perfect thing.

"Once you get the table set, I could use your help in here, dear. It takes a village to make twice baked potatoes."

I glanced around the room one more time before heading to the cupboard where the plates were kept. Other than my mother barking orders, it felt so familiar for all of us to be in the kitchen together. Like we were all back at my brother's place in Austin again.

The guilt of leaving washed over me. What I did must've hurt Kieran pretty badly. Enough for my brother and Bryan to cook up this whole reunion. Or, maybe it wasn't intended to be a reunion. Maybe it was closure for Kieran, and that's why they kept it a secret that we'd met before.

Maybe Kieran was missing my friendship as much as I'd been missing his. It made perfect sense. He wanted to start over. As friends.

I squelched the disappointment I felt with that realization. Of course, I wanted more. But I'd take being friends over nothing at all. And I'd be happy with that. Right?

I didn't have much quiet time to think through everything with my mother around. She seemed hell-bent on presenting me as the homemaker that I most certainly wasn't. I could follow directions, though, so that's what I did. To please her. Or maybe to fake my way into at least appearing to be who she wanted me to be for a short period of time. If for no other reason than to steal an ounce of acceptance from her.

I didn't want to believe that I was that needy for her approval, but I think some habits are hard to break. I'd been suffering that particular anguish for too long to change, apparently.

I was exhausted by the time we sat down to eat, lamenting over not being at my usual restaurant. It might be a long time before I could afford to go back there again. The wise thing to do would be to start cutting back unnecessary expenses right away. I'd lived on ramen noodles before, I could do it again.

"Sabrina!"

I blinked myself back into awareness and smiled at my mother. "Yes?"

"I was trying to remember the name of that little stuffed toy you used to carry with you everywhere...Allie?"

I glanced at Kieran. He was doing the best he could to stifle a grin. The joke was on Mom. If she thought silly stories of my youth were going to embarrass me into joining the conversation, she was dead wrong. Kieran knew a lot worse about me. "Elfie, Mom. It was an elephant, so I creatively named him Elfie."

"That's right. She carried that pitiful stuffed animal with her everywhere."

"I was, like, four years old."

"Mine was a little gray sea lion. My parents bought it for me at Sea World. His name was Whiskers. I loved that thing."

Kieran had held my gaze throughout his childhood confession. He didn't have to say it to make me feel comfortable. There was nothing Mom could say that would make me feel uncomfortable around Kieran. Besides, she'd only done it to get me talking. I was well-aware of her tricks.

"How is the semester going for the two of you? Are you still on track to graduate in the fall, Bryan?"

It was the first thing I recalled hearing my father say.