“Brigs,” Jessica warns. “Be nice.”
“Nice is a four letter word,” Brigs says, and luckily everyone laughs. It’s nice to see him happy, and for a moment I realize it’s probably nice for everyone to see me happy too.
Soon we gather around the dining room table while Jessica goes about preparing the dinner, a succulent roast duck that Donald says he shot in the Highlands last weekend on a hunting expedition. The wine comes out. It takes a lot out of me, but I decline and have a glass of mineral water instead.
The conversation then moves on to normal topics. Donald discusses his work with the Lions Club, Kayla talks about housing in San Francisco, and I say a few things about rugby practice. Brigs is ever quiet, more so than me, until Jessica starts dishing out the sides and brings up the fact that he’s got a new job.
I don’t make too big of a deal about it because that’s just the way that Brigs is. He lost his job as a teacher after the accident, and has been looking for work ever since. I was never worried—he’s a shrewd guy and a hard worker, he was just going through a lot. But Jessica is bursting with pride. I can tell it makes him uncomfortable.
“Congratulations,” I tell him. “It’s about time. Here’s to that.”
And maybe I’ve said the wrong thing because his eyes narrow sharply and he raises his glass. “Here’s to me? No, no. Here’s to you, Lachlan.”
I frown and he continues, completely sincere. “I’m serious. Really, I’m serious. I don’t think we’ve ever really toasted to Lachlan and the person he’s become.”
There’s a worm of unease in my chest.
Brigs looks at his parents. “Really, I don’t think we have. I think we just opened our arms up to Lachlan and brought him back in, but I don’t think we’ve ever really told him how proud we were that he was able to beat his addiction.”
The globe stops spinning on its axis, just long enough to make me feel sick.
“Brigs,” Jessica warns, in barely above a whisper.
But Brigs isn’t picking up on how still I’ve gotten, on how my hands have curled into tight fists, on how Donald and Jessica are sending him warning looks, and Kayla is staring at me with open confusion. He doesn’t pick up on any of that because he’s looking into his glass of beer like it’s telling him what to say.
“We really thought you were gone, Brother. Meth, heroin. Not many can pull themselves off the streets, pull themselves off the drugs, and actually do something with their lives, but you. You. You’ve done everything you set out to do.” Finally he raises his head to look at me, completely earnest, not noticing my wide, wild eyes. “Here’s to you, Brother. I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad she’s here too.”
The most awkward silence imaginable blankets the room. Everyone eyes each other then slowly reaches for their glass. I can’t even bother reaching for mine. I’m utterly paralyzed. Not just from humiliation, because when you’ve lived for years on the street, you learn to have no shame. None at all. But it’s the fear that grips me, like a vise around my heart, because Kayla didn’t know any of that, and I wasn’t sure I could ever bring it up with her.
But there it is, out in the open, for her to reflect on, to judge, to fear.
I can’t even look at her. I quickly excuse myself from the table and walk through the kitchen to the bathroom, passing by the fridge where I swiftly grab a bottle of beer and head right on in, locking the door behind me. I lean against the sink, breathing in and out, willing the pain to stop, for the regret to subside, but it doesn’t. So I slam the top of the beer against the sink, the cap snapping off, and down it in five seconds.
I burp. I wait. Wanting it all to go away, for my pulse to stop fighting my veins.
The longer I stay in the bathroom though, the worse it will get. I put the beer in the rubbish bin then head back out to the dining room. I swear, this moment is scarier than any moment I’ve ever had on a rugby pitch.
Thankfully, luckily, they’re all talking about Obama, of all people, so my return to the table isn’t overly noticed.
Except by Kayla, of course, because she notices everything. And there is absolutely no way that I’ll be able to let this sleeping dog lie.
I decide to wrap the evening up early, just after dessert, telling everyone that I have to return home to the dogs, especially Emily who isn’t used to being left alone yet. We say goodbye to everyone, though I know we’ll see Donald and Jessica at the gala. When Brigs hugs me goodbye, he pulls me tight and whispers in my ear.
“If she still loves you, she’s a keeper.”
I want to smash his fucking face in for that and can only mutter an angry syllable in return.
The car ride back to Edinburgh is as choked with silence as one can imagine. I try to concentrate on the road, on the white lines slipping underneath the car, at the black highway rolling toward the headlights. There’s something so dreamy about the moment, that after-dinner, late night drive, but the gravity of the situation brings me back.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I clear my throat, keeping my eyes ahead, my grip stiff on the wheel. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, voice low and dripping with unease.
It takes her a moment. “About what exactly?”
I really don’t want to spell it out for her, but I will if I must. “About what Brigs said. His toast to me. About the person I used to be.”
She sighs noisily. “Right. The person you used to be. Tell me about him, then.”
“Do you really want to know?” I glance at her to see her nodding, her eyes focused out the window and into the darkness.
“Yes,” she says. “I want to know everything about you. Especially the events that made you who you are.”
“And who am I?” I ask softly, heart pleading. “Who am I to you?”
She turns her face to me, skin lit up by the pale dashboard lights. “You’re Lachlan McGregor. And you’re mine.”
Another gut punch, but sweeter this time, dipped in honey.
“Please don’t hold anything back from me,” she says. “You don’t owe me anything, but I…I want to understand. I want to be there for you, I want to know every inch, not just your body, but your mind and your heart and your soul. You can trust me, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”
But that’s a lie. In a few weeks you won’t be here at all. Then you’ll have my heart and all my secrets, too.
I swallow that down and nod.
“I’ll keep it short and not so sweet because…” I exhale, my hands sweaty on the wheel. “You need to understand that this isn’t easy for me to talk about. I haven’t talked about this with anyone, and I rarely even think about this myself. There are a lot of things that just need to stay in the past, and the person I was is one of those things. But I need you to know that it’s all over and done with. Everything that happened is over. You have to trust me on that. Do you trust me?”
“I trust you,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I say with a slow nod. “Okay. Well, uh…when I was first brought into Jessica and Donald’s home, well it all felt too good to be true. You’ve met them now, you’ve seen how they are. They are nice people. Good people. They took me in, a scrawny, damaged young boy with no potential for anything, and they worked around the clock to prove to me that the world wasn’t out to get me, and that not all people were bad. But…when it was all I had ever known, time and time again, it wasn’t an easy thing to believe.”
I blink hard, trying to compose my words. “They gave me everything I could ever want, including honest, real love. But I never felt worthy. I went through high school, I got my degree, and I tried to live a normal life. The problem was…people knew them, knew I wasn’t their son, and even though that was rarely an issue, unless some wanker made it one, it was something large and heavy in my own mind. I guess I never really trusted them or their intentions. I never even unpacked my bag—I kept it by the door, always, just in case, because too many times I’d either be thrown out of foster care or I’d have to escape. And those horrors, the horrible, sick things that lurk out there in the minds of some people, waiting to prey on you, they’re always out there. I wanted to trust Donald and Jessica, even Brigs, but I couldn’t. My last year of high school I started to backslide. It’s the same old story. I hung out with the wrong people. I stole cars and drank moonshine and shot guns into the sky. Then the drugs came into play, and I was spending weekends in Glasgow, scoring chicks, scoring drugs, being the person I knew how to be. Unworthy, you know? I didn’t deserve shit.”