Hated (Hearts of Stone #3) Read online

  “Are you trying to erase all proof of our past together?” My voice was thick as it came out, even though I tried to say it with some semblance of teasing.

  All trace of humor was gone from her face. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m just tired of everything falling apart.” She nodded toward the broken railing, but I knew she was talking about more than just an old porch and a few pieces of damaged wood. She meant us and the memories in this house.

  I held my hand out for the crowbar, and she handed it over without argument. When I reached out to grab it, I noticed a long bloody gash along the inside of her right arm. “Jesus,” I said, grabbing her wrist to get a closer look. “How did you do this?”

  She seemed almost surprised to see it. “I guess it happened when I fell?” Glancing over her shoulder, she looked around in confusion as if trying to find someone to blame.

  “You can’t leave it like this. Do you have anything inside to bandage it up or do we need to go over to my place?” I asked.

  Frankie shook her head. “I’ve got stuff inside. There’s a bunch of medical supplies in Nana’s bathroom. You know what she always said about having boys around—someone always needed patching up.”

  I didn’t argue that it was often Frankie that needed patching up when she was a kid.

  “Come on.” I grabbed her elbow and began to drag her up the steps. “I’ll help you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know,” I said dryly. She tensed but didn’t say anything.

  Once inside, I paused to let her walk ahead of me. She led the way even though I’d been in her house a million times and knew where Nana’s bathroom was. As we ascended the stairs, I tried but failed not to stare at the way the jean shorts hugged Frankie’s ass into two perfect swells above her tan and muscular legs. All I could think about was the drunken way I’d kissed her in the kitchen last night—like I was trying to devour her—and how right now all I wanted to do was bite her round, luscious ass that was swaying in front of me.

  I was confused as hell, still furious with her. Hurt. And yet I couldn’t stop the deep feeling of want that I felt every time I saw her. Frankie DiGorgio was like a disease I couldn’t find a cure for.

  “It looks like you’ve made a lot of progress,” I said, glancing around. The pictures had been taken down, and most of the decor was gone. The walls were painted a soft white, which I supposed was intended to make it look fresh and clean. Instead, it looked like someone had sucked the life out of the place I once considered home.

  “There’s still a lot to do.” Frankie sounded tired as she reached the top of the steps and turned left toward her grandmother’s old room.

  There was a small amount of relief at seeing that Nana’s room was still untouched. The pink rose wallpaper was faded, but still intact. Perfume bottles and a jewelry box were meticulously displayed on the dresser, an old afghan blanket was folded carefully and rested across the bottom of the bed. The room smelled like orange furniture polish. It seemed even though she hadn’t dismantled the room yet, Frankie had at least taken care to clean it. Maybe out of respect. I wasn’t sure.

  When we reached Nana’s bathroom, Frankie went to the sink to rinse the blood off her arm while I raided the linen closet, pulling out bandages and ointment. Turning off the water, she grabbed a towel and attempted to dry the wound, blood spotting the fabric with each dab.

  “Sit,” I said, pointing to the edge of the counter.

  “I can do this my—”

  I chuckled darkly. “So goddamned hardheaded,” I muttered. “Just sit your ass down and let me help you.”

  She grumbled but did as I demanded, which was a miracle since Frankie had never been one to take orders well. She probably realized that trying to patch herself up with her left hand would be more of a hassle than dealing with me.

  Soaking a cotton ball in peroxide, I lightly grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm until the gouge was facing up. She sucked in a breath and flinched a little when I began to clean the wound, but she didn’t make a sound or pull away as I carefully worked around the torn skin. She’d had enough skinned knees and elbows over the years from riding her dirt bike that this was little more than a scratch to her. The peroxide did its job, fizzing up in bubbles along the gash. When the cotton ball I was holding was dirty, I reached for another. I took my time, making sure there weren’t any splinters embedded inside. It looked nasty, but I didn’t think it needed stitches.

  After tossing the dirty cotton in the trash, I generously applied Neosporin to her arm.

  “When is Dallas coming home?” Frankie asked.

  The unexpected question bounced as harshly around in my chest as it did in the silence of the bathroom. A crushing sense of not being able to breathe took over my body, but I breathed slow and deep to calm myself. The shock of hearing his name dissipated as I exhaled.

  Dallas was still a fresh wound, but it surprised me that just his name could be so painful when uttered unexpectedly. While I tried to decide how I wanted to answer, I used a few butterfly bandages along the center of the cut just as a precaution.

  “He’s not.” I reached into the box of gauze pads and laid a few across the rest of the injury, pressing them gently into the medicine before reaching for the medical tape.

  “Why?” A small quiet word that peeled back the thin layers of my composure. “Are you guys arguing? I saw that the show was canceled. What happened?”

  I was quiet as I tore off pieces of tape and used them to secure the gauze to her arm. Frankie, even after all this time, knew me well enough that she didn’t press for more. I would either answer or I wouldn’t, but she was wise enough not to badger me. After I fastened the last piece of tape, I lifted my eyes to meet hers.

  “Dallas is dead. Passed away a few months ago.”

  Frankie’s expression crumpled with a grief so powerful that I looked back down at her arm so that I didn’t have to watch it. I didn’t want to experience it. I couldn’t shoulder her pain and mine at the same time. Not for this.

  “Wh-what?” she asked in a whisper.

  I took more time than necessary taping the rest of the gauze down. “You remember how Dallas had astrocytoma before Rising Stars?”

  It was a pointless question because I knew she remembered as well as I did all of the appointments he went to and the numerous hospital stays. Those were the times when I found solace at the DiGorgio house. When I found comfort in being around my best friend. A brain tumor wasn’t one of those things she would just easily forget about.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod. “But the surgery…they removed the tumor. I thought the cancer was gone,” she argued weakly. “They cured him.” Her voice was almost begging, like she refused to believe me. It was almost as if she thought she could will the past away if she just found the right argument.

  I shook my head. “It was in remission. Almost a year ago, the seizures started again. They did tests and found out that his cancer had not only come back, but it was grade four, fast growing and aggressive. They said it had progressed to a glioblastoma, and that there was no cure because it was so advanced.”

  I was still holding her wrist and unable to look her in the eye, I ran my thumb along the bandage. I could hear her sharp gulps of breath, and when she reached up and swiped at her face, I knew she was crying. Her hand shifted, her fingers tightening around mine. “Austin. I’m so sorry. I—”

  “You know how Dallas was,” I said, interrupting her. I didn’t want to hear her pain. Her apology. I’d been angry for so long that I didn’t know how to deal with either. I didn’t want to talk about her regrets. I wanted to talk about Dallas. I hadn’t talked about him to anyone in weeks.

  I loosened my hand from hers and gave a bitter laugh. “He never wanted to listen to the advice of doctors. When they suggested radiation, he did a lot of research on his own. He found out that the radiation wouldn’t cure his cancer, it would only make him sick. Even sicker than he already was. From the
research he did, he learned that the seizures would worsen and because he was otherwise healthy, he could develop morphine-resistant pain while losing cognitive and motor loss.”

  All those clinical words. They sounded so foreign, so removed from what the disease did to him. I could feel Frankie staring at me, confusion and questions warring within her. I understood how she felt because I had asked myself those same questions over and over again. How could something so small take so much away from the loud, vibrant Dallas we both loved? It didn’t seem possible.

  “Basically,” I said, “it was highly likely his cancer would have progressed to the point where Dallas would have suffered. His body might have held out and lingered, but he could have been in near constant pain…all while enduring the humiliation of losing control of his mind and body.” I took a deep breath, remembering Dallas’s choice…how brave and terrifying it was. “So he found a doctor in California who would honor a “death with dignity” for him if the symptoms became unbearable. He didn’t want to suffer,” I added. “But even more than that, he didn’t want us to watch him suffer. He just wanted to get the most out of the time he had left, and when the disease became too much to bear, he wanted to take his final bow on his terms.”

  I paused, swallowing back the memories, staring at the bandage on Frankie’s arm which reminded me of the many others Dallas had worn during his years of hospital visits.

  “So, when the show went on hiatus—” Frankie started.

  I nodded quickly, bitterly. “That’s when we moved to California. The seizures were too frequent for him to continue with life as it was. He didn’t want to risk having one during a show. He wanted to enjoy the time he had left while still having the ability to decide for himself when he’d had enough.”

  “When…did he… when did he have enough?” Frankie managed to ask.

  When? That day…I thought about it often.

  We were gathered next to the pool, Dallas reclined on a lounge chair, a portrait of ease and nonchalance. He’d had several seizures two days before. One seizure had left him unable to speak for the rest of the day. And I knew… I knew that it had scared him, because it had terrified me.

  “I knew who you were,” Dallas had said, the next morning in the hospital. “I knew you were my brother, my best friend. But I couldn’t remember your name. I couldn’t even speak.” His hands shook as he admitted that, his terror clear. “It stole that from me. I want to live, but I can’t live with the fear that this tumor can steal my voice. My will.”

  When he’d gotten home from the hospital, he’d demanded a cookout—a death-day party as he called it. Just our family. My mother had insisted that it wasn’t time, that he reconsider. But once Dallas had made up his mind, there was no changing it. He even asked our cousins to be there. Flights were made, schedules were rearranged, and everyone arrived by the afternoon. Dallas greeted them like he was hosting a back-yard BBQ.

  Mom suggested in a choked voice that when the time came, he might be more comfortable in his room. Dallas only laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

  “Not the bed,” he’d said. “I’m not spending my last moments in bed unless there’s a girl underneath me.”

  Mom couldn’t muster up enough outrage to be offended by the comment, which I knew rankled Dallas. He kept calling it a death-day party, kept taunting her with bawdy comments because he couldn’t bear her sorrow, her pity. If he was going, he was going out in style—laughing the entire way.

  And it was no surprise that Dallas got his way. He always did. That’s what was so amazing about him. He didn’t accept what life threw at him. He took the scraps of talent and sickness and love and opportunity. He wrapped them all together and made them what he wanted. And for his last day, he wanted a cookout by the pool, surrounded by the people he loved.

  The sun was shining, and a recording of one of our performances was playing loudly over the speakers of the stereo. My parents were seated on a nearby couch as if counting the minutes they had left with Dallas. I think he knew that they wouldn’t truly be able to give him the ending he’d wanted and that’s why he’d invited our cousins. Dallas didn’t want peace in death. He wanted his last moments to be full of life. He knew that no matter how much I’d sacrificed for him, even I wouldn’t be able to give that to him. But our cousins could. Trace and Huck manned the grill, joking with Dallas, finally making the rest of us laugh as they’d recited stories from our childhood. Pately and her family were playing croquet nearby, and my aunt and uncle were there to distract my parents.

  No one but me noticed when Dallas took the dose. He waited until everyone’s attention was elsewhere, drawn by the antics of Trace. He gave me a bittersweet smile and mouthed the words “thank you.” He drank the contents of the glass quickly and then set it down on the ground beside his chair. He rested his head against the pillows behind him and closed his eyes, a smile of contentment on his face, the sound of our music and the laughter of our family the last things he heard.

  Five minutes later, he was in a coma. Tears began to fall as everyone realized what he had done, but Trace continued with his stories, letting those words, those happy memories, be the last things that Dallas heard. Thirty minutes later, he stopped breathing.

  And I felt an emptiness so acute I could hardly draw a breath. Losing Frankie had broken me inside. Losing Dallas had gutted what was left.

  I’d sacrificed my dreams to give him his. And in the end, I was left with nothing.

  “March twenty-third,” I said, blinking away the memories of that day.

  I could tell by the broken look on Frankie’s face that she was trying to remember where she had been that day. What she had been doing. Despite how much she had fought with Dallas, she had loved him too.

  “I think you’re all set,” I told her, taking a deep breath and swallowing back the memories as I put the bandages and ointments back in the cabinet while she stared at her hands.

  “Austin,” Frankie said, pushing off the counter and reaching for me. She snagged my arm, and I paused. “Did he suffer?”

  I didn’t meet her eyes even though I could feel the intensity of her gaze roaming over me, looking for something she could do. Because that was Frankie. She never accepted that there was a problem she couldn’t fix.

  “It was peaceful,” I finally told her as I struggled to keep my voice even.

  Her hand slipped down my arm, and she grasped my hand. “I wish I had been there.” I could hear the apology in her voice, the truth in her sorrow.

  Inexplicably, my anger flared. Two and a half months ago I’d wanted her comfort, her apology, her presence. But now, it was too late. I’d come home broken and grieving only to find out that Nana Ruth had been hospitalized with a stroke and no one had told me. And not only that, but they’d put her in some unknown nursing home.

  I yanked my hand out of Frankie’s and turned to the door. “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I snapped.

  At my words, her breath rushed out of her in a strangled sob as if I’d punched her in the gut. Frankie didn’t say anything as I left the bathroom and headed down the stairs and out her front door.

  I knew the grief she was feeling. The helplessness. It was the same way I’d felt when I found out that Nana had a stroke and was admitted to a nursing home a few weeks after Dallas died. Even that hadn’t been enough for Frankie to reach out to me. Dealing with loss when you know it’s coming is hard. When it’s thrust upon you unexpectedly….

  It shatters something inside of you.

  After Frankie had disappeared, I’d kept in touch with Nana through letters and phone calls. She was like a grandmother to me, and even if Frankie was willing to walk away from me, I couldn’t let go of the DiGorgios as easily. No matter how much I begged, Nana would never tell me where Frankie had gone or give a reason for why she had left. Nana said that it was Frankie’s burden to bear and share. The only thing Nana had asked was that I would eventually come home.

 
; Maybe she had known Dallas was sick or that his dream was a fleeting one. Maybe she had asked the same request of Frankie, and that’s why we were here together trying to navigate our damaged hearts. I had no idea. All I knew was that it was a request I couldn’t ignore.

  So, a month ago, after I’d finally let go of Dallas and the letters from Nana had stopped coming, I did as Nana had asked me, even though I knew it might destroy me. I came home.

  Coming home without Dallas, without Frankie, I couldn’t imagine it would do me good. But I also couldn’t stay in California. So, I got in my car and drove all the way home to find Nana gone and the DiGorgio house empty.

  Just like me.

  — FRANKIE —

  10. I REGRET IT ALL

  FOUR PLUS YEARS AGO — NOVEMBER 2012

  My grip on the handle of the bag tightened in anticipation as I waited on the sidewalk at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

  The Las Vegas airport was busy, like an anthill with an army of ants—cars swerving to speed around traffic, vehicles slowing down to pick up passengers, people moving to and from with purpose. The whole airport had felt that way, like it never slept.

  It had been so hard not to stare open-mouthed as soon as I got off the plane. Slot machines were scattered throughout the terminal, and large flashing signs and banners advertising various shows were displayed on every available surface. It was an explosion of sound, color, and activity…and it was so different from my home town that I immediately loved it. I had a hard time imagining my quiet Austin living here, but I was sure Vegas suited his twin, Dallas, just fine.

  The air outside the doors of the baggage claim was unseasonably warm for December, but it lacked the heaviness of the heat back home where the humidity always felt like it might suffocate me if I stood still too long. This Las Vegas autumn weather? Sublime. I didn’t even have to wear my jacket.

  I shifted my weight back and forth as I craned my neck to peer down the road. I was so nervous that it was impossible to stand still. I hadn’t seen Austin for three months, but that wasn’t what made my heart skitter around in my chest like an excited puppy. Uncertainty, worry, and hope all battled for dominance, and my hand instinctively fell to my belly to cover the swell that was now starting to show through my shirt.