Sig walks to the table and slides into the chair across from me. He reaches over to lay one of his hands on top of my balled fist. His touch is oddly welcome, a realization that hits me like a face full of fire. I jerk away from him, determined not to let him trick me into feeling anything other than disdain and betrayal.
He looks stung, but says nothing. Just drags his hand back and claps it with his other on the table in front of him. “I would never let that happen. And I hate that you think I would.”
“Never let that happen? How can you stop it? It’s over, Sig!” I rail. “The cat’s out of the bag and there’s nothing either of us can do to put it back in.”
I’m breathing hard, half-standing with my palms planted on the table. Sig just watches me, hurt playing over his features. “Do you really think I could do that to you? That I would just let that happen?”
My butt thumps as I fall back into my chair, deflated. “There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re a cop. Putting bad guys away is what you do. Besides, I’m sure this goes over your head. Lance is a big bust and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep me quiet and make me pay. No, at this point, there’s nothing anyone can do to save me.” I glance down at my fingers, the edge of one nail raw from where I’ve picked at it. The anger, the vital emotion that’s keeping me upright and functional at the moment, drains away, leaving me with nothing but sadness and hopelessness and a strange hollow feeling. “Some part of me always wondered if I could ever really get away with what I’ve done. I suppose after so long, I started to believe that I could. But life just doesn’t work out that way. Everybody has to pay the piper. And now it’s my turn.”
For a few seconds, when I look up at Sig, I see him as he was. I see the man who loved me with his hands and his mouth and his body and his eyes. I see the man who cared about me. The man I’ve fallen in love with.
But then, like the flip of a switch, I see him as he is now. I see him as someone who let me down when I needed him most and then left me all alone.
That’s when the tears start again. In earnest, sobs shaking my entire body like the tremors of an earthquake. “Promise me you’ll see that they go easy on Travis,” I bawl, my despair only worsening when I think of what’s to become of my brother. “He has only ever done what I’ve asked him to do. He can’t be held responsible for any of this. They all took advantage of him. We all took advantage of him. I knew he’d go along with my plan. I knew he’d do whatever I asked of him, as long as it would keep us safe and together. He’d have done anything not to go back to juvie. Not after what those boys did to him.”
I wail so hysterically that I start to gag, so I push away from the table and lay my chest flat against my thighs. Oh God, how could things have gone so wrong? How can we be here? Here, where nothing is within my control anymore? Here, where Travis is at the mercy of people who don’t understand him? Here where he stands only to get hurt? How?
“Please, please, please, Sig,” I plead, tears dripping off my nose in a steady stream that splatters onto the concrete squares of the floor. “Please look out for him. If you ever cared about me at all, please loo–”
My words are cut off when strong hands wrap around my upper arms and jerk me to my feet. I’m nose to nose with an angry, blurry Sig, my toes barely touching the ground.
“I won’t let anything happen to either of you! Don’t you dare give up! This isn’t over. I promised that you could trust me, and you can. You might not believe me, but it’s true.”
I blink away the tears, the fingers of hysteria slowly loosening their grip, and I focus on the handsome, determined face of my betrayer. I laugh, a bitter, arid sound that comes from a soul as dry as desert sand. “I did believe you. And look where it got me.”
Sig shakes me. Not too hard, but enough to rattle my teeth. “Stop it! Just because I didn’t plan it this way doesn’t mean that I’ll let it end here. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get you out of here and you’ll be with Travis.”
“Why?” I ask miserably. “Why would you risk a damn thing for us? For me?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because I think I’m falling in love with you, dammit! I won’t leave you in here to rot.”
Don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t listen! I caution myself, but the tiny, nearly-suffocated part of me that has always wanted so desperately to hear those words, to feel that love, clings to his claim as though it were a single drop of rain after a lifetime of draught.
“No.” I close my eyes against him, against weakness, shaking my head. “No. I don’t believe you.”
“Then I’ll make you see,” he hisses. “You won’t have any other choice than to believe me. Because it’s true, Tommi. Everything I’ve said to you about us is true. I don’t blame you for not believing me, but it doesn’t make it any less true. That’s why I’m going to prove it to you. I promise.”
The last is said with such sincerity, such heart-wrenching determination that I open my eyes. In so many ways, I want to see it, to feel it, to believe it. I want for him to prove it. More than I ever thought I could want something.
“You can’t be falling in love with me. Love is pretty, not ugly. And I’m ugly,” I tell him brokenly, the fight drained out of me, left lying on the floor with my puddle of tears.
“You’re wrong. Sometimes love is ugly. And not all things pretty are loveable. But you…you’re not just pretty. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Inside and out. You did all this for your brother. Since you were nothing more than a kid yourself, you’ve fought for him with whatever weapons you had. That makes you worthy of the best kind of love. The kind that’s unconditional. The kind that never leaves you, no matter how hard you push back. The kind that finds a way, against all odds. You deserve that. Actually, you deserve more than that. You deserve more than I can give you, better than me. But maybe one day, after all this is over, I can be worth your love.”