Imagining Us

Ch. 59-Disturbing the Peace

                                                                                         

PORTE

Death followed Porte Danvers.

It may have sounded dramatic, but there was evidence.

His grandfather. His mother. His best friend.

Well...he was actually in Connecticut when they got the call from Denmark, so he wasn't there when it happened, but he was present for the last two.

He was there.

In the car.

Twice.

They were supposed to visit their grandparents in the summer. There were two weeks left in school, and Porte was looking forward to the trip. To hearing stories from his grandmother about growing up in Denmark. The history. The folklore. Seeing his second cousins and tending the horses with his Grandfather.

Porte had spoken to his grandfather that same morning. His dad had passed the phone to him to say goodbye, and he didn't know that would have been the last time he spoke to him.

He would never see him again—that giant of a man who would open his arms wide, pick them up and spin them around. The man whose death stole some laughter from his father, Mathias.

Laughter that would eventually disappear altogether.

Porte couldn't deny that he'd noticed the strain between his father and his grandfather. His grandmother had hinted how much his father was pushed to excel, and it had caused strain between the father and son.

He never anticipated a strain between him and his father, his brother and his father, or even him and his brother. A triangle of tension. But when his mother Nerissa died, it was as if there was nothing left to laugh about—to talk about. They were all alive, but barely living.

Porte knew that what he had done with Talia was wrong. He knew that she was taking advantage of him—guilting him–but he felt like he owed her that, at least.

He prided himself on control—on ruling things that he could control with an iron fist. The things that he couldn't control, he tried his hardest to bend to his will.

It was easy during school, during college. Even working at the firm.

Porte knew how to speak, how to look.

He knew that he looked good. He had heard it many times, and he weaponized it.

How he looked outside didn't match the darkness inside him. He felt like he was locked in a room with a single window—the shades drawn—and no matter how much he tried they wouldn't budge. No light would stream in.

He remembered praying for the light—pleading for it.

God works in His own timing as Delly would say.

Then he saw her. How she stood out amongst everything. How she showed emotion amongst the pretense. It was real. He remembered staring at her. At her hair.

It was an artist's dream. His fingers itched to draw. To paint. To capture. Something that was dormant had suddenly sprung to life.

He had to know her. To see if she was the opposite of him. To see if her inside matched her outside.

And they did.

She was everything he never understood, everything he wanted—needed to know. But, she had walls. He could sense them in the bookstore, and that was why he offered to be her friend.