If You Fall

Thirty

Bella walked around, checking stuff out. "This place is great! Look at this."

Reed and I shook our heads at each other and he put his arm around me again and squeezed. "I need a vacation, chérie."

"I bet she hates that chérie shit," Bella called from the bedroom. "So you guys are still gonna play platonic house, huh? I can't even understand it, but whatever works, I guess. None of my business."

I sighed, pulling my hair straight and rolling my eyes. They were going to get stuck up in my head at this point. "I need one, too," I told him sincerely. I was peopled out. And we'd just gotten there.

There was now food in the kitchen of the big house and by seven we were all sitting around the mismatched couches and chairs in the family room, eating tacos and burritos that Don had made. Arianna was right back in the middle of it all, ignoring Bella and for the most part, me, which suited us fine.

Joey immediately caught Bella's interest, especially after he learned what she was drinking and asked for some. She wasn't drinking much, or rather, enough to affect her speech, which was the only way I could tell.

Don announced that he, Joey and Arianna were going back to San Luis Obispo to get stuff for the house, and went over a bunch of things. We wouldn't have any kids there for at least a month, and we would indeed have training and everything. He or Malone would stay for the first several months, too, until we were comfortable.

He explained some basic things about being part of it, part of them; obviously the secrecy, for one. He was big on it. "Lives depend on it, including all of ours." Most of us had already seen that first hand.

Everyone also had to see someone for therapy. 

I bristled a little at this. "I did my time," I said, only half joking. Intensive therapy via Skype for four years was something I did consider time served.

He looked at me kindly, but without leeway. "For what we see in day to day dealings with these kids, it's a necessity and a requirement. Even if the time is used just to vent or go over ways to help them. And I think any of us with difficult pasts can use the extra therapy." He winked but his word was in stone and I knew it, so I managed to graciously relent.

He also addressed the alcohol consumption, as no one seemed to bother to hide it. "The drinking is fine while we're getting everything together, then I'm gonna ask that it be relegated to the cottages only. They will also be kid free zones for the most part. The one you're not living in, Addy, will be a place to take a night off for everyone at least once a week."

When he was done talking, he went off to do parental things, and Arianna went to the bathroom down the hall. I waited a minute and then got up and followed, ignoring Reed and Bella's questioning glances. 

When she opened the bathroom door, I pushed her firmly back into it and shut it behind us.

Her face was a mask of surprise, and I got right up in it. "Call me anything regarding my burns again, and I will fucking end you." My heart was pounding and adrenaline coursed through me, making me wish I could just be submissive and quiet but I was so pissed. This little bitch had the audacity to talk about me, to mock my weakness and pain, and no. No fucking way.

She saw it in my eyes, and lowered hers. "Sorry," she said stiffly. "My mouth gets away from me."

"Yeah, well, control it around me. I don't need that shit. You don't even know me." I was still too riled to be any kind of kind. "You can't say shit like that to people. I'm trying to be cool to you, and you're making it too hard."

"Okay," she said, not looking at me still.

"Okay," I said, somewhat mollified. I opened the door and went out to rejoin my friends, who had heard it all and both were trying not to smile.

The three of us left soon after, going back to my house. Bella immediately changed into pajamas and stretched out on the couch. "Sorry to send you pseudo lovebirds to bed, but bonne nuit."

Twist my arm. I changed too, and he just took off what he was wearing until he was in his blue sea shell boxers, at which point he got in bed with a groan of relief. ""Je suis si fatiguée."

"I'm a little Frenched out, if it's all the same to you," I said dryly. I hadn't meant to bring up overhearing them, but here we were.

He looked at me quizzically, but he got it. "Sorry. It bothers you that Ari speaks French."

I shrugged, getting in the covers to his left. "I don't know. We heard you guys talking when we got there, about Joey? Bella was translating. I just, yeah, pretty over the whole not speaking the language thing." I knew it was my own fault but it wasn't like I hadn't tried. My brain didn't retain languages well.

He put his arm over my head, waiting for me to move into it, which I did. All the tension drained out of me. He was like a tranquilizer. "Her mother was French, if it helps. She grew up bilingual. I know she's . . . I know she's difficult."

I knew he loved her. Not romantically, thank God, no, but still. She was some kind of family to him too. "You might as well tell me the basics, not that I like asking. But she's not going to anytime soon, and I think it'll help if I know where she's coming from. 'Cause yeah, she's definitely difficult."

He was nodding because he agreed. He got up again to open the window a few inches and lit a cigarette back in bed. "She grew up here, in America. Her dad was American. They went to France to visit when she was nine, got robbed by the taxi driver. He had friends. They killed her parents in front of her, kept her for a week, and then sold her. We found her fourteen months later."

His tone was deceptively mild, but I recognized it from when he talked about things that were extra horrific. "Damn," I said softly. Why.

He smoked, and the hand holding the cigarette shook a little. "Oui, quelle horror. Sorry, damn French just slips out."

"It's okay," I said, snuggling back up to him. "I don't mind. I was just being salty."

"I know," he said, squeezing me a little. 

"You shush," I admonished. "Mon Deiu."

He smiled faintly and smoked, blowing it out in a cloud. "There is no shortage of cruelty in the world, chérie. I recall when we were brought here, by my mother's boyfriend, and I saw that other children had toys." He waved his cigarette, took another drag. Held it while he pondered. "Los Angeles, and oiu, it was the slums, but there were real toys, however broken or used. I asked Tom . . . " He paused and glanced at me. "His name was Tom, I haven't thought of that in . . . I asked him if I could have a toy. And he laughed, and he said how silly, because I was a toy." His cigarette went to his lips and I saw the tremble had worsened.

"Reed," I said, my heart breaking for him and the fucking fact that I could do absolutely nothing to take away the hell that was his childhood. I took his hand, kissing the back of it because I had no words and even if I had they couldn't have gotten past the enormous lump in my throat.

He shook his head, but his hand tightened in mine. He shrugged a little and reached to put the filter in an empty Sprite can. "It was a long time ago." Like that changed it. "I know I don't need to give you examples, chérie."

"You can talk about anything," I said, almost fiercely. "Anything, anytime. I will listen. I can handle it."

He rolled over toward me, closing his eyes. He smelled like smoke and since it was his smell I breathed it in. "I know," he said again.

"I'm sorry," I said, a pathetic attempt at the apology the universe owed him.

"Non, it's okay now," he murmured, almost asleep already. The worst part about loving someone was not being able to slay their demons or undo their pasts. But I'd be damned if I would ever stop trying.