I brake to a stop about fifty yards away from the house, close to the sadly overgrown plot of what was once a fake cemetery in a dozen old west movies. On one side, the caretaker’s house squats behind the dark, silent brothel. On the other the white clapboard church stands sentinel. Last week when I ducked inside there I noticed weeds poking through the floorboards and thought it was possible no one had walked the floor in years. I suppose that for Spencer the old church is simply not a caretaking priority. It’ll probably just fall over one of these days. In the distance, the faded letters on the broad Mercantile are visible if I squint. I allow myself to have a few seconds to take in what I can see of the place in the dark because I’ve already made up my mind.
This will be the last time I ever see Atlantis Star. This will be the last time I see Ren.
She already has her hand on the door but she pauses without opening it. If she’s waiting for some poignant last words she’s not going to get them. Even though my heart is full of chaos, confusion, even sorrow, it has to be this way. If I ever had any doubts that we’re an unhealthy mix, that frenzied fuck fest in the desert just answered everything.
I never really did want to hurt her. Not years ago when she kicked me out of her life, not when I landed back in Atlantis amid all the surreal camera craziness and not even tonight when she opened her legs and begged me to.
She was, and is, the owner of my heart.
She whispers my name. “Oz.”
I have to pretend I just don’t hear it because I’m aching to pull her against my chest and stubbornly keep her no matter what it might do to my sanity.
I just turn my head and face the open window. It’s as definite a refusal as I can muster without saying the words. If I try to say anything right now I know I won’t end up leaving. And at this point I’m leaving as much for her sake as for mine. Thanks to this circus the world would sniff out a ‘cousin fucks cousin’ scandal without a care about whether there’s any actual biology involved. They would harass her to the end of time. Funny how after everything I still care about how she feels.
So I wait in silence until she gives up and slowly opens the door. She’s probably combing her brain to figure out how to bid a final farewell to a hated ex-lover. I guess she can’t come up with anything because after a moment I hear her footsteps heading in the opposite direction, toward the big house. Only then do I look at her, just to catch one final glimpse of the swing of her hair and the straight line of her back before she melts into the darkness.
There’s nothing to do now but start the engine and head for the road. In two minutes I’m outside of Atlantis and I don’t look back.
Now that I’m out of there can I start to think straight again.
Really, I lost my grudge against the Savages a long time ago. Maybe it never existed in the first place. I was angry and hurting for a long time so whatever reasons there were for my exile seemed unimportant.
I do know one thing. No matter what she says these days, that girl loved me once. She loved me as much as I loved her. But the world is filled with a million sad stories, stories of what’s been lost and who has suffered. Ren and I, we’re just another of those stories.
And now I can finally say that the story has ended. Not happily, but ended just the same.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
REN
Nothing seems real tonight. Not the ache between my legs or bruised sensation still on my lips or the fresh smell of the approaching rain. My steps are leaden as I leave Oscar and I don’t take a breath until I hear his truck roaring away into the night.
Spencer happens to be coming around the side of the house with a thick coil of rope around one shoulder when I reach the porch. I try to avoid being bathed in the yellow porch light, but it’s not enough to escape my brother’s scrutiny. He stops, staring. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Nothing. “ My voice sounds froggy so I clear it and try again. “I was just out for a walk.”
“You look pretty messed up for a walk.”
“Yeah, well. It got windy, okay?”
Spence glances in the direction where Oz’s truck disappeared. The sound of the engine lingers but the taillights are no longer visible. He must have already gone around the bend of the road that leads out of Atlantis. He’s gone. There will be no answer to the misery in my soul.
Could I have stopped him from leaving? No, there’s no use running after a man who finds you contemptible. Twice now I’ve watched him leave. At the moment I couldn’t say which occasion was more devastating. I’m not as raw as I was five years ago though.
Perhaps my transition is complete. I’m a ‘cold-hearted bitch’ who has finally turned to stone.
Spence shifts his weight around and seems like he wants to say something but Monty interrupts, flinging open the screen door like a cocksure king busting out of his castle. He steps onto the porch, still holding the same bottle as earlier, but in the glint of the moonlight I can see it’s not as full. Nonetheless, the look he gives me is sharp-eyed and suspicious, not dull and drunk. Montgomery could always hold his liquor. He crosses his arms and looks from side to side as if he’s searching for a hidden predator. He gives me a nod. “What’s going on, Ren?”
For a second I try to pat my wild hair down, then give up. I realize that the shoulder of my shirt is torn but there’s nothing I can do about that right now. I can’t make myself care much about appearances at the moment anyway. “Jesus, you guys,” I snap. “Nothing happened.”
“She went for a walk,” Spence pipes up with helpful sarcasm.
Monty leans against the knotty wood porch beam and looks me over. He evidently doesn’t like what he sees. “You fall down the side of a fucking mountain on your walk?”
God, I’m tired. I could sleep for a week. Perhaps when I wake up the dull pain will be gone. “I fell down something.”
“Did that something have a pickup truck and a shitty attitude?”
I lower my head. My hair falls across my vision like a dark veil. “So what if it did?”
Monty spits into the dirt. “Fuck him. I’m glad he’s gone.”
“Oz is gone?” asks Spence.
“He’d better be.”
Spence is looking at me. “I never really understood what he was doing here anyway. Doesn’t seem like the Hollywood type who would fit into all of this.”
Monty laughs. “What about you, fantasy cowboy? You’re not exactly the type either.”
“Shut up, you jailbird piece of shit.”
Monty lights another cigarette. He’s becoming a goddamn chain smoker. “Hey Ren, you let me know the minute that prick shows up here again and I’ll drop kick him to fucking Flagstaff.”
I raise my head and glare at him. “Really, Monty? I have my doubts that assault is encouraged during your parole.”
Monty grunts in response and takes a drag.
Spencer comes closer, really takes stock of my messy appearance and adopts an expression of supreme concern. For Spencer, that means his eyebrows are slightly furrowed. “Hey. He didn’t rough you up or nothing, did he?”
“Oz? Rough me up?” I throw my head back and laugh crazily. I’m laughing because the concept so far from the truth and yet so completely true. Yes, he roughed me up. He told me the truth about myself and treated me how I deserve to be treated.
While I keep cackling, my brothers assume identical macho glowers. They glower at me. The glower at each other. They glower at the darkness and the sky. I’m sick of both of them and their stupid fucking glowering maleness at this point. I stop laughing like a wild hyena.
“Whatever happened out there tonight is my business so let’s knock off the inquisition. Ninety nine percent of the time you don’t seem to give a damn about what I’m doing anyway. So let’s save the show of brotherly concern for the daylight hours when the production crew can get some useful footage out of it.”