Page 46 of Under the Same Sky

No kids? That just won’t do. I want to grow my family, with Reese. Eli’s ours, but I want at least three more kids, maybe four. I can already imagine her belly round, our baby growing inside her. But, as she told me, I only saw a fraction of what her mom was doing to her. I don’t know the extent of the real damage.

It doesn’t stop me from asking, “Do you still speak to them? Your parents?” She hasn’t brought them up once since I came back to Horseshoe Bay, and after tonight, I’m more curious than ever. Do they feature in her life at all?

“I haven’t spoken to them in almost nine years.” She trails her hand over my forearm, and links her fingers through mine, resting our joined hands on the rim of the tub. “They visited me once when I was in hospital, after senior prom, and my mom was so ashamed of what I’d done, so worried about what her friends in town would say, she said she no longer wanted anything to do with me. Said she’d failed as a parent, or something like that.” I feel her inhale deeply, and guilt over asking her about two of the people who’ve hurt her the most in this world—me being the third—prickles at my skin.

“We don’t have to talk about them if you don’t want to.”

She cants her head so she can look at me. “It’s fine, I want you to know about my life, Thorin. All of it.” The tub doesn’t allow for us to be side-by-side, so she looks away, her free hand absently tracing patterns on my thigh. Her body goes lax, and I get the impression that she not only trusts me, but that she’s also okay talking about her parents. It wasn’t something I expected, but again, everything about Reese since I came home has been unexpected. The way she carries herself, her strong sense of self, her ability to forgive. And they way she loves Eli, so wholly and without permission. “You know I missed graduation, but I spent the summer before college in an out-patient therapy program. I still lived at home, though, even though my mom wanted nothing to do with me. Dad still cared, I guess, because he persuaded her to let me stay. I was actually going to spend the summer with your parents, and Ryan and Mel, after you left. That’s what I wanted.” She’s quiet for a moment, and I give her the chance to gather her thoughts. I’ll sit here until the water turns cold, if that’s what it takes for her to open up. I want to see all of her, every good and bad and ugly thing that’s made her who she is now. “Anyway, it was in one of my mandatory therapy sessions that I told my psychiatrist I wanted to leave, but also not be under my parent’s control. I wanted to be responsible for myself. That’s when she suggested emancipation, and after doing some of my own research, I decided to petition, with the help of my psychiatrist, to be legally separated from my parents.”

“Wouldn’t they have contested your ability to make such a decision?” I ask. “After what happened?”

“I prepared for that. My psychiatrist actually built a case of child abuse and neglect against my mother. Months of hypnotherapy revealed the extent of her emotional, mental and psychological abuse, and tapes of what I said while under hypnosis painted a very ugly picture of what my mom did. She’s a narcissist, and she was cruel. She not only sent me to those horrid camps for overweight kids, but she starved me because she hated how I looked. The irony though, is that I’m built like my dad, he was also overweight, but it was me who embarrassed my mom. She used to tell me I’d never amount to anything because I was fat, and that no one would ever love someone who looked like me. Said I’d be lucky if a man ever gave me the time of day because men don’t like fat girls. She’d find out about the teasing at school because the guidance counsellor, Mrs. Finch, would call her, and when I got home from school, she’d tell me I deserved it, that maybe if I lost the excess weight, I’d have more friends and people would like me more.” Jesus fucking Christ. “My therapy, on its most intense days, would reveal how I believed her, how I thought I was unlovable because I wasn’t skinny. The day I gave my parents the papers to sign, legally absolving them of all responsibility of me, I also gave her the evidence we’d present to a judge if she contested it. Needless to say, she signed willingly, and so did my dad.”

“God, Reese.” I wrap both my arms around her. “I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been.” I kiss her neck. “What did you do after that?”

“I actually stayed with your parents for a while, and then I went to Auburn University in ‘Bama. My dad transferred money to my account before I left, though. Four years tuition and housing paid up front, with a whole lot extra. I contemplated giving it back, because he wouldn’t buy my forgiveness, but I had to pay my first year’s tuition and boarding somehow. When I turned eighteen, I became a trust fund baby. My grandparents on my dad’s side had it set up when I was born, and no one could touch it, even though my mom tried. I never thanked my dad for his money, nor did I give any of it back when my trust fund became available. He knew where I was, but never sought me out, and eventually, I was able to let go of it all. I was referred to another psychiatrist in Auburn, saw her twice a week like clockwork until I graduated.”

“And they’ve never tried to contact you again? Ever?”

“Not a word,” she sighs, “but it’s better that way. Before Ryan and Mel died, I loved my life.” She looks at me again. “Not that I don’t love it now, because I love Eli, but it’s—”

“Different,” I finish for her, needing no explanation. “I know. And Ryan and Mel would still want you to love your life now, you don’t have to feel guilty about that.”

“It comes and goes, you know? I have moments when I’m okay, and I’m happy, and other moments when I feel sad, and guilty for being happy. I would give anything to have them back here with us.” I wipe a tear from her cheek, my chest cracking in two because I know how she feels. I feel it too.

“So, how’d you end up here?”

“Ah, here’s the real kicker,” she laughs humorlessly. Still, there’s no pain in her voice, and it astounds me, how easily she can talk about her past without allowing it to consume her or define the decisions she makes now. “When I came back to Horseshoe Bay, my parents had sold their house and left without telling me. Not that I had a right to know, I just…” she shrugs.

“You deserved better, Reese.”

“I did, but I also had to realize they were never going to give that to me. I knew what I was asking for when I petitioned to be emancipated, but there was always a small part of me that hoped, I guess. Then I came back, and they were gone. And that’s kind of how I ended up living with Ryan and Mel. I showed up, unannounced, and your brother offered to have me stay on the ranch for as long as I wanted.”

“Sounds like him.” Ryan loved Reese like a little sister, always had, and I want to believe that she ended up staying here for a reason, that maybe we were meant to find each other again. Of course, I never imagined it would happen like it did.

“I knew after Ryan and Mel got married that they’d want to start a family, but when I suggested finding my own place in town, he suggested building a house for me on the ranch instead. My business had started taking off, and I could afford a small townhouse, but Ryan didn’t want me to leave, said this is my home too.”

“I’m glad you stayed, that you were here when I couldn’t be.”

Carefully, Reese turns around, and straddles me, but there’s nothing sexual about it. “I never asked Ryan about you,” she bites her lip, “but I want to know about your life. Is being a rockstar everything you thought it would be?” The glint in her eyes reveals an almost child-like curiosity. It’s honest, and real. She’s asking because she cares. Because she’s one of very few people who really know how much music has always meant to me.

“Yes, and no,” I admit. “The music part is so much more, I love writing the songs, and performing, but being in the spotlight took some getting used to.” She snatches the loofah from my grasp, and starts rubbing my chest, my stomach. “Being on tour was always exciting, but also exhausting. I didn’t always know which city we were in, and then there were the parties that just seemed to blend together, but also get wilder and wilder. We had no problem indulging in the beginning, we took full advantage of the money, and the fame, but two years into it, it started getting old, and the more time I spent on the road, or back in New York or London, the more I started missing home. I started hating that I missed my parents’ birthdays, and family holidays, and when Ryan told me they were expecting, I decided I was going to come home and stay a while, take a break from touring. I wanted to be with my family again, especially after Dad died. And now, I’m here.”

Reese leans forward, and presses her forehead against mine. “Would you be offended if I said I’m glad you came home?”

“Not at all.” I pull her closer to me, until I feel her chest moving up and down with every breath. I didn’t realize I was fractured until Reese tore me apart, and put the pieces back together again. Now, they make sense. “I was serious about being here permanently,” I add, searching her gaze for any kind of uncertainty, and finding none. “I want a life with you, and Eli. I want this life.”

“I want that too,” she whispers. “Do you think Ryan and Mel would be okay with that?”

“Yeah, babe.” I touch her cheek. “I think they would be.”

And I do. It might not be how I wanted a family, but it’s what life has given me. It’s my family now, mine to love and to cherish. Reese brushes her lips across mine, digs her fingertips into the column of my neck. “I used to imagine what it would be like to kiss you,” she whispers, her cheeks turning rosy from the admission.

“And? Does kissing me live up to your expectations?” My hands slide down her back until the round globes of her ass fill my hands.

“No,” she shakes her head. “It’s so much better.”

We end up making a wet mess in the bathroom, but I don’t care. Because it’s her, and it’s me, and it’s a perfect metaphor for what we’ve always been, I guess. A mess. But it’s ours, and it’s us, nothing else matters.