Forget Me Not

Chapter 15

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

BERLYNN

When Aris walks in a couple of hours later, he looks crushed. His eyes are downcast and he’s rubbing his temples trying to ward off an approaching headache. Whereas a few minutes ago I was starting to feel drowsy from boredom, I find that I’m suddenly wide awake and ready to hurt whoever made his shoulders sag.

“What happened? Are you alright, Aris?” I know he can hear the concern laced in my voice because he lifts his head and attempts to shoot me a smile.

“I’m okay, Berlynn. Promise. I just hope I never have to have a meeting like that again. It doesn’t feel good to be the reason someone loses their income.”

Wanting to console him, I get up from my lounged position and stand. Gathering my courage, I walk up and place my hand on his shoulder. He’s so tense and tight that if he’s not careful and doesn’t let some of the tension go, he may snap.

“Sit,” I mandate, pointing at his rolling chair. As I begin rubbing the gnarled knots loose from his stiff shoulders, I ask him to tell me what he can about what went down behind closed doors so that I can help him work through it.

Throughout the retelling of what occurred, I hem and haw in the appropriate places but other than that, I don’t say a single word. He needs to release the emotional turmoil from his psyche and free himself from the burden he’s placed upon himself.

When he’s not as rigid as he was before I started kneading his swollen muscles, I drop my hands and lean down, placing my lips near his ear and whisper, “You have a soft heart, Aris. You try to hide it from anyone outside of your inner circle, but you have always cared about us underdogs.”

“You were never an underdog, Berlynn. Don’t say that shit about yourself,” he chides. “I can’t stand it when you do that.”

“It’s time for you to face the facts, Aris. I was not part of the ‘in’ crowd. Didn’t aspire to be either. I wanted to study, practice, and hang out with my three best friends. I didn’t put myself out there because I knew that I was different from everyone else in school. I was an easy target for our classmates because I simply didn’t care. Not about what they thought of me.” Again, I start ticking off my bulletin points with my fingers. “Not if they liked me. Not if I wore the right clothes, had the right hairstyle, and not if I made any of the popular teams. The only people whose opinions were worth a damn and mattered to me were yours, Addison’s, Berk’s, and your parents. It was easy pickings as far as the masses were concerned, but you never let them get away with treating me as lesser than. Did you?”

He adamantly shakes his head in denial. Hissing through his teeth, he refutes, “Never. Just because they couldn’t see the treasure before them didn’t give them the right to bully and harass you. They were fools, every last one of them. The actuality that they saw you as the weaker link was bullshit. They didn’t stop long enough to see the fire burning inside of you, or they would’ve known you had more strength in your pinky finger than they did in their entire being.”

“Do you have anything to do that can’t be put off until tomorrow?” I ask him.

“Nothing that’s substantially important,” he denies. “Why? Is there something else you’d like to do other than sit here and do some tireless research?”

“Let’s go someplace and do something to help us decompress. We’ve both been under a lot of stress lately,” I suggest. “Maybe some putt-putt or bowling?”

“You despise golfing, Berlynn,” he chuckles. “What if we go back home, change into some jeans, and go for a ride around the bluffs.”

“You still have that old motorcycle?” I ask, excitement strumming through me. Very seldom did we go out for long rides since I was always training and scared that we’d have an accident that would end up stealing all of my hopes and dreams at earning myself a gold medal. Now, it’s a moot point since those hopes and dreams have already been taken away from me, there’s nothing holding me back anymore.

“I do. I’ve even updated it,” he jokes. “It no longer resembles a tin can on wheels.”

“Oh, yeah? I can’t wait to see it,” I tell him, meaning every word.

Aris canceled our lunch order and then we hit the road. He went from being all gloom and doom to bouncing in his seat as he drove us back to his residence. We had an entourage with us, one of Kayson’s guys trailed us back and refused to leave us alone. And Aris tried to tell him we needed to spend some time on our own. As a matter of fact, he all but begged, but the guy put his foot down and asked him a question that had Aris reeling. Even now, I can’t get the question he asked out of my head.

“If you’re being followed, are you willing to shoot to kill?”

Aris of course stated that if it was my life or theirs he would. Afterward, he reluctantly admitted that he’s more of a hand-to-hand combat, brawler, kind of guy and isn’t overly experienced with a loaded weapon. So now, he’s added hitting up a gun range to today’s to-do list. He plans on signing us both up for classes and purchasing a pistol or two—for his sanity. What was meant to be a detoxing day, is turning out to be anything but.

“I’m not sure how comfortable I am with shooting a gun, Aris,” I tell him as we pull into his driveway. “I don’t know if I could shoot anyone, even if it meant saving my life.”

“What about Berkley? Would you shoot someone to save his life? Mine? Because I have to tell you, Berlynn, I’m not a fan of taking anybody’s life, but if it was to save you or Berk, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Twisting in my seat as soon as he turns the ignition, shutting the SUV down, I say, “My dad is nothing but death and destruction according to the reports I read in your office that Garrick dropped off to me while you were in your meeting. I don’t want to be like him. In any capacity.”

Aris leans his head back on the seat and closes his eyes. “You could never be anything like Marcus, Berlynn. I’d like to think I couldn’t be either, but when it comes to my family, I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you breathing. Even if that means I have to take a life. Just sign up for the classes with me, and we’ll both pray that we never have to point them at another human being. It’ll help me rest easier at night if I know we have a way to defend ourselves if someone is able to breach our security.”

“Second line of defense?” I ask, chewing on my bottom lip. Letting out a breath of air, I contemplate what he’s asked. It’s not a lot, how can I deny him this if it means we are at least knowledgeable in gun safety? It’s better than not having that education and shooting all willy-nilly if it came down to protecting one of us.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

“Might be fun,” I amend, then tack on, “could be a good stress reliever too.”

As if a lightbulb has been switched off in his head he snaps his fingers and looks over at me. “We could make a competition of sorts,” he suggests.

“What’d you have in mind, Aris?” Whenever I’ve been in doubt about doing something, he always turns it into a contest because he knows I have a hard time resisting one.

“The loser has to do the others’ laundry for a week,” he says around a blinding smile.

“You dry clean your suits and I’m picky about how my things are folded. Make it the loser cleans the others’ bathroom for a week and you’re on,” I revise.

“I have a cleaning company come in and do that. Why would I agree to do it when I could just have the crew that comes in do it instead, Berlynn?”

“Because it’d be a humbling experience for you, Aris.”

Snickering, he asks, “You’re pretty sure you’re going to win, aren’t you?”

“Don’t I always?” I part with that question by exiting the car. “Now, show me this bike! I wanna see what you’ve done.”

His boisterous laughter is heard even after I shut the door. It should’ve blocked out the noise, but he’s always been loud and uproarious when he gets excitable. My smile soon follows his as we stare at each other over the roof of the vehicle.

“Always so sure of yourself, Ber.”

“Nah. I just know how to fake it until I make it, Aris.”

“I’m gonna kill your parents,” he mumbles the threat, one I think he truly means, but his voice wasn’t low enough that I don’t hear and comprehend what he says.

“Let’s leave their fate to the district attorney, Aris. I just got you back, don’t take yourself away from me.”

“We’ll see,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the hood of his car before walking away. He turns back around and raises his eyebrows. “You coming? I thought you wanted to see the masterpiece I designed.”

“Absolutely!” That’s a dare I’m ready to face. He’s always been brilliant with designs and modifications so I can’t wait to find out what he’s done to his motorcycle.

He marches over to the corner of the garage and removes a blue tarp from over a large object. My eyes widen and a gasp escapes me once it’s been exposed.

“Aris! That can’t be the same bike you used to piddle with. It can’t be, it looks like a brand new bike, not a junkyard find.” It’s stunning, majestically so. The gas tank is dark blue with purple bolts of lightning embedded in the paint. The chrome is shiny, and the seat is matte black with purple and blue stitching to match the tank.

“This is her. My sweet Susanna. Isn’t she a beauty, Berl?”

“You named her Susanna?” I ask, laughing. The first time I took first place in a floor routine, it was to the acoustics of, “Oh, Susanna”, which is why I find this naming both mortifying and hilarious. I hated using that music for my piece! Not because the song sucked, it doesn’t, it’s a fun song to listen to but I didn’t care for it because the rhythm was hard to tumble to.

“Don’t you remember when I found her?” he asks, breaking me out of my reverie.

A memory resurfaces and I gasp. Aris was the one who took me to the competition and stayed in the stands, cheering me on and celebrating my win alongside me. “I do,” I whisper. “We found her on the side of the road with a for sale sign. You stopped right there and then and called the owner. I forgot about that! That’s why you named her after my song?”

He affectionately caresses the bike like it's his lover, running his palm up and down the gas tank as he confesses, “I knew your routine would be a winner even if you didn’t. You may have disliked the song chosen by your coach, but you nailed it every time. I knew with enough love and attention; she’d soar just like you did.”

“You always were my biggest fan, Aris.”

“You talk like that’s in the past tense, Ber. Not was, I am your biggest fan.”

“Jesus. Fuck,” I swear, wiping the tears from my cheeks. Turning my back on him, I take a second to compose myself. Once I have my emotions back on the shelf in my brain, I spin back around on my feet and take a running leap at him. His arms spread wide and he takes a step back with his left foot to cushion the blow of my weight once it hits him. And I do hit him, like a battering ram. My legs wrap around his waist and my arms swaddle his shoulders. I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too. Don’t ever leave me again, Berlynn. I don’t think I’d survive it.”