Forbidden Games

Harmony and Cacophony

The weekend in Miami Beach ended sooner than expected. Our route was blocked in the Everglades and all five of us headed back to Key West the next morning. Drake and Tristan in their tank. Bonnie, Fergus and I in my SUV that was repaired by the mechanic. No one talked about the night at the Wild Motel. My best friend had a stupid smile plastered on her face for the whole ride home. Fergie kept his head out the open window to stop himself from getting sick, his hands gripping the emergency plastic bag. No one said a word. And I got three full hours of silence to blush, thinking over our crazy night, replaying the passionate scenes in my head. When I became someone else, and Tristan too. Where nothing was forbidden and we were just as wild as the name of that dingy motel.

When we woke up in room 12, I was totally groggy. And so was Tristan. We turned to face each other, without speaking. We smiled. No games, no blame or teasing, for once. He softly rearranged a lock of hair that had fallen over my face. A billion words ran across my tongue, but nothing came out. He must have seen my tormented expression, because he placed his thumb over my lips and murmured:

"We have to try again, Liv . . . to resist for good."

I silently agreed, knowing very well it's the only possible solution. The only acceptable solution, in any case. And I accept the fact that our wild break from reality has come to an end.

Since then we haven't said another word to each other. We barely even look at each other. Of course we see each other almost every day, but to comply with our agreement, neither of us plays with fire or makes the first move. I have no idea what he's thinking. What that night meant to him. But when Tristan doesn't piss me off for days, doesn't joke with me or call me a daddy's girl, doesn't tease me with those provocative eyes, I know something is happening in that head of his. I know the war his mind is waging against itself, against me.

The same war that's going on in my head.

The month of November stretches out slowly, the days get shorter and it rains less and less. The temperatures are still warm, though there's a light wind off the ocean. At this time of year, the island dwellers snap out of their damp, dreary sleep and local life wakes up. Key West is home to a high speed boat race, a Veteran's Day celebration, a fishing tournament, a sand sculpture contest and a film festival that fills up the island's bars and hotels again. I usually love the bohemian, arty atmosphere, but this year I don't have it in me to take part. I bury myself in my work and online classes, locking myself up in my room or at the office while Tristan seems to be doing the same thing at music school, practicing in his bandmates' garages or playing one of the concert venues they sell out each weekend.

And that I'm very careful to avoid!

But Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I've got no idea how we're going to get out of the family meal. Sienna holds the American tradition dear and has been planning it for weeks, so excited at the idea of having such a feast and pretending, for just one night, that we're some close-knit family unit. It makes me feel nauseated, just thinking about it.

Thanksgiving Thursday afternoon, I announce innocently that I'm going to have to miss dinner this year to serve a meal to homeless people at the shelter. I didn't officially sign up to volunteer, but I read the flier in the street and everyone is welcome, whether it's to eat or help. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to do a good deed. My dad congratulates me from the living room, looking up from his magazine. I see a glimmer of hope in his eyes at the thought that he too may find a way to escape the family gathering. Sienna sighs with disappointment from the kitchen, and he gives up on the idea. I hear Harry yelling in the distance. He must be playing with a ball or splashing in the pool behind the house, under the supervision of his brother, who is still avoiding me.

Someone rings the doorbell. My dad lifts an eyebrow in response. Sienna shows me her hands, covered in flour and pumpkin. I drag myself to the door. A girl about my age, dressed and made up very nicely, looks me over from head to toe before she even says hello. Her upper lip slides up to reveal her teeth as if she couldn't manage to hide the disgust she feels upon seeing my casual outfit.

"Is Tristan here?"

"I don't know," I reply automatically.

"Yes" would have been too nice. "No" would have been too rude.

"Uhh, could you go check?" she says, talking to me like I'm the annoying 8-year-old little sister.

"You can go check yourself," I grumble, shrugging my shoulders and leaving her there at the door.

"Who was it?" Sienna asks when I walk back into her field of vision.

"No idea. A groupie," I say, going to sit next to my dad.

"You didn't just leave her outside, did you?" my stepmom says, wiping her hands on a tea towel and rushing to the entry. "Tristan!" she screams as she goes, injuring my eardrums.

She comes back into the living room a few seconds later with the girl, who glares at me. She has dark chestnut hair, cut in a perfect bob style. Her little dress is well-behaved, but short enough to show off her tan legs. She's wearing ridiculous flower-printed ballet flats and a stupid gold pendant that she keeps sliding back and forth on the chain.

And a seriously indecent pair of boobs given the fact that she can't be more than 5 foot 2 and about 15 years old.

While she gets to know Sienna – apparently thrilled that Tristan knows such a well-groomed, polite young woman – I find out her name is Piper, she just turned 19 and was at the same boarding school as him. She's going to university in Miami to study tourism management. My stepmom listens attentively, smiles wide with satisfaction and compliments the girl, interrupting her to scream at her son every 30 seconds or so. I roll my eyes and my dad laughs from behind his magazine.

Tristan finally walks in, no shirt, his hair wet. He's wearing navy blue swim trunks with a white elastic band around the waist.

Don't look there!

"Tee!" screams Piper in a high-pitched voice as she jumps into his arms as if this were some dramatic reunion.

And they were a well-established couple, of course.

He doesn't really hug her back, one hand holding Harry's and the other ruffling his hair as if he were embarrassed to be here.

"I'm wet, sorry," he says, pulling back. "Pip, what are you doing here?"

"Tristan, that's not how you welcome a young lady into your home, come on!" his mother says, tapping him playfully on the back of the head.

"I was passing through," she says with her simpering smile and that infuriating voice. "Since you weren't answering your phone, I was wondering if you were OK. I figured the best way to find out was to come check myself and make sure nothing had happened to you." She laughs nervously, hoping Sienna will back her up.

"You did the right thing," my stepmom congratulates her, "we never know where this one is or what he's up to!"

My God, they're both morons.

If he doesn't tell you where he is, maybe he doesn't want you to know . . .

Just when I thought I was doing a good job at hiding my annoyance, my dad gives me a look, hearing me sigh loudly. Then he turns to me and silently imitates the stupid voice and buck teeth of the girl, shaking his head up and down to make me laugh. I remember the doubt in his eyes when he surprised me and Tristan sitting in the upstairs hall in the middle of the night. I try to laugh so he doesn't notice my discomfort, pretending it's just my usual habit of hating everyone I meet.

That's when Tristan realizes I'm in the living room and lets go of his little brother's hand to massage his neck with both hands. A nervous tick. I'm not the only one who finds the air a little tight in here.

"Go sit down, kids, don't stand in the hall! I have to get back to my pumpkin pie!" Sienna says, still in a state of excitement.

Once my stepmom is out of sight, I see Piper play secretly with the draw string on Tristan's swim trunks. I look away to avoid witnessing her little seductive games, and in my imagination, the white string automatically wraps around her neck, God knows why. Without looking at them, I catch a few blurbs from their conversation: "never called me back . . . ," "sorry . . . ," "I thought we . . . ," "hahaha," "boyfriend," "too busy," "necklace you gave me," "hahaha," "never forgot . . ." and other stupid things that make me sick.

Harry comes to sit next to me on the couch. He looks exhausted from playing in the pool. He nuzzles his little bowl cut into my shoulder and starts sucking on Alfred's leg as he falls asleep. I wrap my arm around his little body, his baby-soft skin cool to the touch, while the other two enjoy another type of cuddle in the entry to the living room.

Tristan's blue eyes shoot over to me when "Pip" reaches up to whisper something in his ear. Since he doesn't reply, she takes his chin to force him to look at her and sticks her tongue out to show off the fluorescent piercing that she clamps between her teeth.

Not as well-behaved as she seems, the little boarding school girl . . .

"Piper, are you with your family here?" Sienna asks from the open kitchen, yelling as loud as if they were upstairs or across the street. "If they're not, you should stay and eat with us!"

"I don't want to intrude," says the high-pitched voice, pretending to be embarrassed.

"Oh come now, it's Thanksgiving! And my stepdaughter decided to skip out on us tonight – the table's already set for five! It would be a pleasure, wouldn't it, Craig? And if you want to sleep over, we have all kinds of guest rooms we never use. Tristan, help her with her things!" my stepmom says, already imagining the wedding.

He sighs and throws his head back, but doesn't argue. I see his Adam's apple bulge in his throat, his biceps swell when he crosses his arms over his chest to think. Then he smiles up at the ceiling as if there was something funny about all this. I notice the draw string of his trunks is untied. A wave of panic whips around my head. I have a horrific vision imagining the infamous Piper playing footsie with him under the table throughout the family dinner. Secretly untying some other string, some other barrier protecting his modesty, while pretending to be a good little girl to all the adults she meets. Then she'll join Tristan in his bed, in the middle of the night, curl up against him and attack his shorts, or even worse, his boxer briefs, do weird things with her tongue piercing or her overly large breasts.

I'm about to explode with jealousy.

I'm suffocating. I'm boiling inside and I can't let my dad see it. I especially can't let Tristan Quinn see it, the sought-after sex symbol who leaves broken-hearted girls in his wake, ready to do anything to get him back. Another one who lost her virginity to him or thought she could change him or that he was different with her. And he has the nerve to think it's funny.

I am having more and more trouble breathing. Or even looking at him. I hate him and want to throw a pumpkin pie right in his face. I want to shove the entire turkey into Piper's mouth to get her grating laugh to stop. And I want to give Sienna a good reason to scream as I rush over to her son and kiss him, hold him in my arms and feel his skin, sink my fingers into his wet hair, my nails into his muscular shoulders, and feel my heart beat against his instead of letting it whither alone. To show everyone he's mine.

MINE!

But I can't. I can't do any of that. So I get up very slowly, trying to hide my wobbly legs and shaky hands from my dad. I gently push Harry over to the side and he falls right back to sleep, sprawled out on the couch. I stutter a "later," grab my shoes in the hall and slip out of the house, and I don't even slam the door. It takes superhuman effort, but I manage.

"Where are you going?" Tristan's voice calls as I walk across the yard, my shoes still in my hand.

I keep walking straight ahead.

"Liv, stay!" he says when I reach the gate.

I open it.

"Don't run away Sawyer!" he says, pushing me.

I walk through the gate.

"Why don't you fight for me a little?"

This time I stop, my back to him, frozen with anger.

"If you don't say anything, at least throw a shoe at my head!" he says, his deep, voice teasing me.

"You think this is funny, Quinn?" I finally reply, quickly turning to him. "You think it's funny that that poor girl drove all this way for you and you can't even give her a simple yes or no answer? You think it's funny that your mom's the one who decides whether Piper stays or not?"

"Why are you defending her? Why aren't you defending yourself?" he says, squinting as he studies me in all seriousness.

"Because I'm not going to fight against all your exes when I'm not even on the list of possibilities. Because I don't even exist. I'm supposed to just watch your stupid little reunion without saying a word. Watch her flirt with you, touch you, and not be allowed to feel anything. Because you finally met a 'good' girl' and I should be happy for you. That's why!" I say, my voice low.

"I'm dying to kiss you right now, Liv Sawyer. But your dad is watching from the window," Tristan whispers without moving.

He's biting his lip. I almost lose my footing. Unable to think. Tristan is still shirtless, facing me. His blue eyes are lost in mine, which are filling with tears.

"Piper doesn't mean anything to me. I was perfectly clear when I left school. You know I don't play those games."

"Not with her, but with me you do," I stutter in a quiet, sad voice.

"I'm going to tell her to go. I never would have asked her to stay. Not to eat or to sleep over."

"I don't care," I lie, trying to pull it together.

"Do you hate me?" he asks, tilting his head.

"No, I don't care."

"I like it better when you hate me." He gives me a small smile, a hint of a dimple appearing in his cheek.

"Maybe, but you don't always get to decide. And you can't fix everything with that damn smirk of yours!"

I hit his arm with my shoe and then put them both on while he pretends I hurt him. I walk across the yard again, look at my dad in the window and mime a gun to my head as if I was going to die if I stayed in this loony bin for one more minute with my unbearable stepmom and brother. He replies by slipping an imaginary rope around his neck to hang himself, crossing his eyes and letting his tongue hang out the side of his mouth. I blow him a kiss to wish him luck and walk out of the gate. I shut myself in my car where I can finally breath. And scream with rage.

***

The day after Thanksgiving is also a day off, but my dad has hurried back to the real estate agency and Sienna is back at the hotel. I ask little Harry about dinner the night before as he drinks chocolate milk from a baby bottle. He tells me "Titan's friend" went home pouting. That his brother didn't want to eat with them and his mom yelled a lot and went to her room. That "Caig" said he couldn't stand all the yelling and went to smoke a "tiga-ette" outside. And that he didn't like the "pumpin pie" one bit and mommy cried a little.

I try to explain that none of it is his fault and ask if he wants to play outside. I bring my coffee and he takes his bottle and Alfred. I sit on the low wall surrounding the yard at the front of the house, trying to think up a game. Nothing too tiring or loud. But a bit of white paper catches my eye. It's sticking out of the mailbox near the gate. Sienna gets the mail every night. And the mailman doesn't come on holidays. A mysterious feeling of doom comes over me, like some tiny alarm going off in my brain. I stand up to go get it. It's actually an envelope. Harrison wants to grab it first when I pick him up in my arms. "Craig Sawyer" is written in all caps on the back of the envelope, but there's no stamp or address and the question mark becomes clearer in my foggy mind. Something is not right about this letter. I follow my instinct and decide to open the envelope. There's a sheet of paper folded in thirds inside, covered with sloppy capital letters in a shaky hand, as if the person had written it with their opposite hand.

"BROTHERS AND SISTERS LIVE UNDER THE SAME ROOF.
THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO SHARE THE SAME BED.
SHAME ON YOUR FAMILY.
KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR DAUGHTER OR THE WHOLE TOWN WILL KNOW."

I let the letter fall to the ground as if it were burning my fingers. Or like someone had just caught me stealing, red-handed. I pick it up again, look around and run out to the gate to see if anyone is in the street. But the letter may have been here for hours. I can't think straight. How did it get here? Who wrote it? Why? Who knows what?

"Who's it for?" Harry asks, noticing I'm upset and looking at me with confusion.

"Where's your brother?" I panic, unable to answer. "Come on! Go inside! I need Tristan!"

I push him into the house and slam the door behind me, as if it could protect me from the outside world. I walk upstairs with Harry in my arms and take him to his room. I explain I need him to stay there until I come back. He asks why, but I can't talk to him right now. I go knock on Tristan's door. I go in without waiting for an invitation and see him sitting on the floor against his bed, his guitar in his hands and a bunch of music and sheets scribbled with lyrics all around him.

"I'm busy, Sawyer," he mutters, playing a false chord.

"Read this!" I demand, tossing the anonymous letter at him. I sit down on his bed.

"What the . . . ?" he asks, starting to understand. "How did this get here?"

His blue eyes look up and glare at me.

"It was in the mailbox. Addressed to my dad," I say, showing him the envelope.

He grabs it out of my hands, crumples it up and throws it against the wall as hard as he can. He stands up and runs his hands through his hair a hundred times, letting out a deep, disturbing groan.

"There have been other things, before . . ." I murmur, pulling my hair back into a pony tail without a hair band to tie it up.

He sighs, squints and waits for me to explain, as disarming as he is disarmed. I tell him everything, the words spilling out of me, the anonymous call a while back. The other call to my grandma when I was there. The metallic, male voice, though deformed by some gadget. My grandma's theory: an idiot who's bored, trying to scare me and pretending he knows everything.

"Except . . . he does know everything, Liv!" Tristan yells, furrowing his brow.

"No, he might be bluffing! It's impossible. No one has seen us, not at the concert, not at the hotel. We were careful. We were always alone," I say, thinking aloud.

"Wait, did you tell someone?" I say, doubting him for a second.

"No! Did you?"

"Of course not!"

"Why didn't you say something sooner, damn it?"

He comes and sits next to me on the bed, his head bent down to his knees.

"Because . . ." I hesitate. "Because it's not like we know how to talk to each other."

"Yes, we talk!" he says, contradicting me and sitting up.

"We talk to piss each other off. Or say things . . . we shouldn't say. That's all we know how to do!"

"Think about it!" He gets up and starts pacing around the room. "Who was there? On the beach when we kissed. At the concert when we . . ." he says, not finishing the sentence.

"The only people at the Wild Motel were our best friends . . ."

"Drake would never do this!"

"Neither would Bonnie. They were too busy, anyway. And Fergie was sick all night."

"And at the bar?" he says, continuing the list.

"Just half the town. And all the people I know here," I sigh, hopeless.

"Shit!" he swears, clenching his jaw.

"I already thought about all this . . ."

I rub my face, as if I could untie the knots in my brain.

"I don't see who would want to hurt me so badly . . . And Betty Sue thinks it must be someone you know."

"Why did you have to talk to your nutty grandmother about it?"

"Because I was going insane, Tristan. And she may be right. It could be a desperate girl, someone whose heart you broke and who wants you back. Or a guy who's jealous of how popular you are."

"We're talking about incest here! Not some high school jealousy!" he barks angrily.

"Don't say that word, please," I murmur softly. "Do you really think that's what this is?"

A pool of tears wells up in my eyes before I have time to analyze his expression.

Suddenly, his strong body drops to kneel in front of me. He takes my face in his hands and murmurs ever so softly:

"No. That's not what it is, Liv. I don't know what it is, but it's not that . . . We're going to find this asshole. I promise you."

I let my forehead lean down against his. I don't know if I can believe him, but his words are reassuring. And the feeling of his warm hands on my tear-streamed cheeks calms me down. His breathing near my lips helps me start breathing again. And his mouth on mine makes me forget it all. For just a second, pleasure rushes through my veins and erases all the anxiety.

Why does the whole world melt away when this guy kisses me?

"Titan?!" whispers Harrison's little voice as he watches us from the doorway.

He drops his alligator and stares, his big blue eyes look lost and worried. Almost shocked. Then his little lip begins to tremble.

"Mommy says that's bad. Not awowed. You awowed?"