R. Lilley - Lovely Trigger

I walked away.

She’d smiled at him, looked genuinely happy to have him touch her.

No one deserved happy more than Danika.

Certainly not me.

My recovery had felt solid at the time, all of my twelve steps right where they should have been, but that night I very nearly had a relapse.  With what felt like my last ditch effort, I called my sponsor, and he effectively talked me down.  It wasn’t the first time, or the last, that I knew I owed him my life.

It was a mercy when she moved to L.A., and still I hated it.

I fell back into old patterns.

I started sleeping around.  At first, it felt good.  Abstinence was a bitch, and I’d been damn near a monk for two years.

It took a few months to realize that this was triggering the addict in me.  I began to crave alcohol more than I had since my rehab days.

I went off sex cold turkey again, then tried something in between.

I was in denial at first, for months in fact, that it was a relationship, but those things had a way of sneaking up on you.  I broke up with the poor girl immediately, trying to be as gentle as I could about the whole thing.

It was difficult to sleep with only one woman and not give her the idea that it was something more than friendship, something more than comfort.

I started dating.   Not just sleeping around, but dinner, the whole deal.  It was a new experience for me, and spending a bit of time with a woman before fucking seemed to be a necessary component for me.  The other way, with one-night stands and one clear cut agenda, hadn’t worked.

I became good at it, at seeing a woman for two to three months, and then ending things in a friendly way.  No real emotions were involved in it, but I didn’t feel like I was using anyone, so it seemed to be the best solution for me, all things considered.

Sex with Danika had been mind-blowing for me.  Incredible.  Amazing.  The best.  It had been so good, my need to give her what she needed became so strong that I’d developed another level of kink from the experience.  Still, it was never the same.  Not even close.  Domination felt like a silly game when it wasn’t with Danika and the restraints were a cheap imitation.

What we’d had together; it was beautiful.  Nothing else had ever come close, and a day didn’t go by that I’d forgotten that.

But I couldn’t have that again.  I’d lost the privilege.

And life moved on.

TRISTAN

I’d barely gotten out of my car before a screaming Jack was jumping into my arms.  Grinning, I lifted him high, then threw him higher, catching him.  He was a fearless little guy, not a bit scared.

He giggled and clutched me around the neck.  “Unca Twistan, I missed you!”

“I missed you too, buddy.  It’s only been a few weeks though.  How did you grow so much in just a few weeks?”

“I ate my bwoccoli, just like you told me to.  I’ll be as tall as you soon.”

I patted his head, carrying him to the single level condo where his smiling mother waited for us in the doorway.

I hugged Dahlia, and she kissed my cheek.  I pulled back as soon as it was politely possible.

I was well aware of how she still felt about me, and I did my best not to encourage her.

She had cut her streaky blonde hair into a pixy cut.  It made her look like a sweet kid, which was how I’d always think of her.  I knew she’d celebrated her twenty-second birthday recently, but to me she looked about sixteen.  She’d been my sister-in-law at one point, my kid sister by extension, and she’d never fill a different role for me.  No matter how much she pressed me, that just wouldn’t change.

We watched Jack play on the slide, climbing over the top like a monkey, not an ounce of fear on his grinning face even when he’d reached the top.  It jarred a memory, of another perpetually smiling blond boy that feared nothing, the man who, now dead, had left behind the very image of himself as a child.

The holidays had always been tough for me.  I’d been the older, bastard boy in the house, and Jared’s dad had never let me forget it.

One Christmas, when I was ten, I’d run off to the neighborhood basketball court in a fit.  Jared’s asshole dad had been tearing into me again, calling me a punk, and worse, and I’d reached my limit.  Sometimes I thought the only thing that kept me in that house at all was Jared.

I was feeling particularly sorry for myself; the boy without a dad, and I’d even worked myself up into a rare bout of silent tears when I saw the skinny form of Dean running my way like someone was chasing him.

He grinned when he saw me, sprinting straight to me.  The entire left side of his face was red, one eye swollen closed.  It looked like someone had taken a bat to it.

I quickly wiped away my tears.  Dean was the smallest in our group of friends, but he was always the most relentless with the teasing.  If he’d noticed me crying, I doubted I’d ever hear the end of it.

He had noticed, but he shocked me by just patting my shoulder as he took a seat on the bench next to me.

“Jared’s dad is an asshole,” I explained.  Though to two ten year old boys, there was never a good excuse for crying, it was the best I could do.

“Yeah man, he’s a jerk, but at least he’s nice to Jared.”

That was true.

He elbowed me playfully until I looked at him.  He pointed to the battered side of his face.  His eye was swelled nearly closed.  “Don’t worry about never meeting your dad, man.  It could be worse.  He could show up every once in a while, beat the shit out of you, and do much worse things to your mother, right in front of you.  Trust me, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

I held up a fist.  It was a big fist.  I was oversized for my age.  I towered over our group of friends, and was bulky enough to take any and all of them on.  “Want to go kick his ass?  Is he big?  I bet the both of us can take him.”

Dean shook his head, but he patted my shoulder again.  It was a rare gesture of affection from him.  “Naw.  He’s already gone.  He ain’t that big, but he carries a gun, so we should steer clear of him anyway, yanno?”

I nodded solemnly.  “You know I’m here though, if you ever want to try.”

“I know you are, man.  That’s why you’re my best friend.”

How had that smiling, fearless boy turned into that stranger of a man that had deceived me so easily?  I’d never have the answer, but the question haunted me nonetheless.  If I hadn’t been so blind to what he’d become, so many horrible things could have been avoided.

I knew Dean had fathered Jack, no one could look at the boy and not see it, but we’d never talked about it directly.  Considering what I knew he’d done to Danika, though, I had my suspicions.

Finally, painfully, one day I had broached that dreaded subject with Dahlia.

“Did Dean…I mean, what I mean to ask is,” I stammered.  I couldn’t help it, the very question still horrified me, thought I’d had years to stew about it.  “Was whatever happened between you consensual?”

I couldn’t even look at her when I asked it.  What may have happened right under my drugged out nose made me ashamed.

I felt responsible enough for the boy already.  From the day Dahlia had called me and told me she was pregnant and that the baby had no father, I’d taken her and her child under my wing.  A sense of duty drove me in that.  She was, after all, my kid sister by law.  Divorce hadn’t changed that for me.  That divorce hadn’t changed any part of my heart, except to break parts of it.  As the baby had grown into a little blond boy that I couldn’t fail to recognize, my sense that this was my responsibility had only grown stronger.

“He drugged me.  I wasn’t sleeping with anyone when it happened, so you can imagine my shock when I found out I was pregnant.”

I flinched.  “I’m so sorry for that.  I wasn’t myself at the time, but I would have tried my best to prevent that, if I could have.”

“I know.  You did try.  Every time you saw him so much as talk to me, you took him to task.  I’m grateful that you tried to protect me.  No one besides Danika has ever done that for me before.”

“Well, I failed, and I’m sorry for that.”

“But you tried, with the best of intentions, and I needed that, needed someone to be protective of me.  It meant a lot.  Tristan, I—“

I stopped her, because I knew what was coming, and some things were better left unsaid.  “Dahlia—“

She ignored the warning in my voice, plunging ahead.  “I’m in love with you.  I’m sure you already knew that, but I needed to say it out loud.  And what you’ve done for Jack, how you’ve been there for him, helping us financially, how you come to visit without fail, it means so much to me.  To us.”

“Dahlia, I’m in love with your sister,” I said, my tone flat.  It was best to handle this once and for all, now that it was out in the open.  “I always will be.  I’m very sorry.  You will find someone, someone that can love you back, but it is not me.”

She threw her arms around me, held on tight, and kissed me, her skinny body rubbing against mine.

I held perfectly still, letting her carry on for a solid minute.  All the while, I felt nothing.  Not a stirring, not even the vaguest tendril of interest.  This is what it’s like to have your sister kiss you, I thought.

Finally, she pulled back, panting.  I could see by her hurt eyes that I’d made my point.  There’d been no clearer way to show her that I could not be interested in her, of all people.

“You’re a beautiful girl.  Sweet and kind.  You need to let go of this idea.  It will never be what you want it to.  It’s holding you back.  I’m here for you, as a brother, as a friend, and you know I’m here for Jack.  I love that boy like he’s my own blood.  But I can’t be more for you.  I hope you understand now.”

She nodded, her lips trembling.  “How can you still love her so much?  She won’t even talk to you.”

“Because that’s how love works.  It doesn’t die, even when you don’t feed it.  That’s just the way it is.  I wouldn’t change it, even if I could.  Loving her has become a part of who I am.”

“It’s so unfair,” she said sullenly, taking a big step away from me.

That it was.

I found myself calling Adair that night, though the thought never fully formed of what I was doing before it blurted out of my mouth.  “You know Dahlia’s kid, Jack?” I asked him without even a greeting.  I hadn’t talked to him in ages, and the band had been broken up for years.

“Dean’s kid,” he mused back, unfazed by the rude start.  “Nice to hear from you, Tristan.  I was just talking to Kenny the other day.  We talked about the four of us meeting up again, seeing if we still had it.”

That gave me pause, but I continued.  “I’ve had my suspicions, but I just found out that Dahlia wasn’t a willing participant in the conception.  Did you know anything about this?”

“God, no!” he answered quickly and with conviction.  I believed him instantly.  He was a good guy, though he suffered from addiction, as well.  He’d done his own stint in rehab about a year after I had.  As far as I knew, he’d stayed sober, too.  “That fucker.  I should have known, but I honestly thought he’d suckered her into hooking up with him.  I didn’t know he was a rapist, man.  I wouldn’t have worked with him if I’d had a fucking clue, you can be sure of that.  I always knew she was too fucking innocent for him.  Fuuuuck, that messes me up.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to take, that we were there and didn’t stop it.”

“Yeah, it is.  I can guarantee Cory and Kenny were clueless, too.  None of us would have let a thing like that slide.  You have to know that.”

I had.  I’d just needed to hear it out loud.  “Ignorance is no excuse.  We owe that poor girl, Adair, and that kid doesn’t have a father.  The least we can do—“

“I couldn’t agree more.  I’ll call her today.  I just, I don’t know, I thought there was something between the two of you.  I know she always had a thing for you, right from the start.  Didn’t want to step on your territory.”

“She’s like a kid sister to me.  I have no claim there.  Not my territory.”

“So you don’t mind if…?”

“You can ask her out.  But treat her right.  I would take it real personal if you put her through more pain that she’s already been through.  You understand?”

“Yes.  I’m not how I used to be, man.  I’ve grown up.  I’ll treat her right, if she’s interested, I swear.”