Holding her close, he walked her into his apartment’s front room. As soon as she sat on his sofa, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Feeling completely helpless, Brandon sat down next to her and held her. She continued to sob against his shirt. He racked his brain, wondering what could have her so upset as he smoothed her hair and kissed her head. A couple things came to him: the strange look he’d seen Janecia give Clay that calmed him immediately and Regina and Janecia’s strained good-bye.
“Did . . .” He stopped to kiss her head again as she struggled to catch her breath between sobs. “Did something happen between you and Janecia? You two argue?”
To his enormous relief, she nodded against his chest but clenched her hands on his shirt a little tighter. Whatever they argued about was obviously upsetting, but at least she wasn’t sick.
He pulled away from her, gently wiping a few of her tears as they continued to flow without slowing. He kissed her wet cheek then got up. “I’ll be right back.”
Rushing into his bedroom, he grabbed the box of tissues and brought it out to her, taking a seat next to her again and wrapping his arm around her. He couldn’t imagine what she could be so upset about. Whatever it was, it wasn’t something she’d be getting over anytime soon. Kissing the top of her head as he continued to run his hand up and down her back, he whispered, “You wanna talk about it?”
“She promised me!” Regina said, startling him as she pulled away to look at him. “She promised me she’d never get on Clay’s motorcycle, and now she’s gonna do a run to Puerto Nuevo with him.” She sobbed. “A whole weekend to and from Puerto Nuevo on that death trap!”
Brandon stared at her, not sure how to respond to this. He knew Regina’s late husband had been killed on a motorcycle, but they’d yet to discuss the details.
“Babe,” he said cautiously as he rubbed her thigh gently. “Not everyone who gets on a bike gets hurt.”
She stood suddenly. “Yes, they do!” It took him a moment to recover from her sudden jump, but he was up with her now too. “When I was in grade school, my friend’s dad was killed on one. In middle school, my little league softball coach was killed on the way to one of my games. Then in high school, two different boys I knew were in accidents on them. One was killed instantly. The other one was a vegetable for years before he died. Everyone I’ve ever known who’d come in contact with one of those things has died or has been very seriously injured.” She looked around desperately. “I have to call her!”
She grabbed her purse and started rummaging through it. Brandon took her by her hands and realized she was trembling. “Calm down, Regina,” he urged as she fought with him to grab her phone.
“Let go of me! I have to call her and beg her not to.” She was beyond crying now. She was hysterical, but most alarming was how her eyes bugged out and her hands flayed and trembled uncontrollably.
Brandon had no choice but the bear hug her and bring her down to the sofa over him, risking a knee to the groin if she didn’t calm down. “Regina,” he said loudly and firmly as she squirmed to get loose. “Stop this and look at me, baby.”
Breathing very heavily, she stopped for a second to look at him then collapsed against him, crying again. “I can’t let her go, Brandon. She’s gonna die. I know she is.”
“Sweetheart,” he said a lot gentler this time. “When you hurt your ankle, you told the guy at the ER you were on anxiety pills before but didn’t take them anymore.”
Regina pulled away from him and looked at him wide-eyed. Like all the other times he’d sprung something on her, she’d obviously expected him to have forgotten, and he’d stunned her again. “I don’t need them anymore.”
Brandon remembered the other time he’d seen her hand tremble out of controclass="underline" the day she’d been upset and confronted him about the girl she’d seen him with at Gaslamp. He’d let it go then without mentioning it, but there was no way he was letting it go this time. “I think you do.”
She continued to shake her head. “No.”
“Yes, baby.” Sitting up, they both straightened out, and he took her trembling hand in his, showing her how it shook. “Look at you.”
Pulling her hand away, she continued to disagree. “That’s not why I was on them.”
“Then why were you?”
She still sniffled, but at least she wasn’t hysterical anymore. His bringing up her anxiety pills seemed to have done the trick. He’d stunned her into calming.
“It was for something much worse,” she whispered then looked up at him with those big beautiful but worried eyes. “But I’m better now. I don’t need to be on those pills anymore.”
“Okay,” he said simply with a reassuring smile. “Maybe not the pills you were on but,” he touched her still trembling hands, “maybe a lower dose?”
She stared at her hand for a moment without saying anything, and he hoped to God she wasn’t going to get upset again. Then she took a very deep breath. “I’m a fraud, Brandon.”
“What?”
She nodded, continuing to stare at her hand. “My family all thinks I’m the headstrong, independent, always happy one of all of us. My parents and siblings are in awe of my strength,” she said sarcastically. “But look at me. I’m a mess. None of them know the real truth. They don’t even know I had to be on medication.” She looked up at him a bit hesitantly then continued. “Chris, my friend from New York? She’s actually my ex-therapist. Nobody except Janecia knows I was even in therapy or that I needed to be on anxiety pills for as long as I was.”
“That doesn’t make you a fraud.”
“Yes, it does. I lost it.” She stopped and seemed to think over what she was going to say next. “I held it together after Ryan’s death. My family came out to the services, and my mom even stayed with me for a week. I assured them I was fine but then weeks later I completely lost it.”
Brandon had no idea what she meant by lost it, but if it was much worse than tonight, he was almost afraid to ask. So he offered something else. “You lost your husband suddenly and very tragically. Maybe it took some time to sink in, but it’s normal to grieve and feel inconsolable over something like that.” She shook her head. “It is, babe, and if—”
“I bought a gun, Brandon. At first, I was just really lonely and depressed and missed him terribly. Then I found out I was pregnant.”
The pregnancy she mentioned in the ER was another thing he hadn’t forgotten, but he’d had no intention of asking her about it. It was just another thing he wasn’t sure he could stomach hearing about.
“The baby gave me hope that at least I’d have a part of Ryan with me for the rest of my life. It was bittersweet, but I was happy, and then I miscarried. I hadn’t even had a chance to tell my family about it. I was waiting for the perfect moment.” Brandon wrapped his arms around her as the tears began to slide down her face again. He was determined to not let her lose it again. “As sad as I was, I was also angry. I hated him for having gotten on that motorcycle when he’d promised me he never would. He did it behind my back. He used to ride back home before moving out to New York, and he’d told me about it when we first started dating, but I told him I didn’t date guys who rode motorcycles, so he assured me he never would.” She stopped suddenly and looked at Brandon wide-eyed. “You don’t ever ride motorcycles, do you?”
Brandon had, but he’d never had any desire to own one. At this point, if he planned on keeping Regina in his life, and he had every intention to, he certainly wasn’t going to ride one now. “No,” he said, wiping away a tear from her cheek. “I don’t. And I won’t ever. I promise.”
Her eyes searched his trying to find any trace of dishonesty. Brandon felt for her since obviously both Ryan and Janecia had made the same promise and broken it. He kissed her on the forehead. “I’m into Jeeps and off-roading. I’ve never even been into dirt bikes. I swear to you I’ll never ride a motorcycle.”