Nemesis: A Love Story

HUGH/TESSA

She looks at him uncomfortable.
Unsure of what to say.
"Should I be apologizing for that?"
He grins at her then.
"No. Sure at the time I was an asshole but it's not every day I get sized up by a girl younger than me."
She rolls her eyes at him.
He is taken aback.
"I was not sizing you up."she explains.
"Oh yeah what was it then?"
"I don't know. You tried to challenge me. Intimidate me. I don't handle intimidation tactics well. They piss me off"
"I could tell." He laughs remembering. "I felt like you'd punched me in the face with those eyes of yours"
"My eyes?"
"Yep those exact ones. Judging eyes."
"Not judging. Observing" she corrects.
"Oh is that what they call it." He laughs again and this time he hears her join in.
It's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard.
"I wasn't wrong." She admits proudly.
"Oh really." He puts to her.
"Don't act like you don't know the power  all this has" she says easily pointing at him, her hand going up and down his person.
"All this???" He acts confused looking down at himself.
"You were angry because for the first time a female didn't swoon at your feet"
"Swoon???" He looks at her aghast.
He loves this.
Loves how much she is talking to him.
She's open.
Slightly carefree.
He's not sure how this is happening but he's going to enjoy it for as long as he can.
"Are you sassing me right now?" He adds.
She light mood darkens.
"Did I say something wrong?" He asks concerned.
She shakes her head.
Closing the lid on her salad and resting it on the log.
"No. Chris just used to say that to me."
Hugh sees the opportunity so he takes it.
"You were close?"
She nods.
Reflecting.
Deciding how much to share.
Accessing the situation but she knows he has told her things.
Things that weren't easily for him to share.
She takes a deep breath.
"You don't have to say anything."
He's giving her another out.
She knows this.
Sees the understanding in his eyes.
He looks at her.
He doesn't want to push her.
"No. It's just hard to talk about you know. Most people don't want to hear about him. They just want him to be locked up and the key thrown away. Forgotten. But he's my brother and he isn't some evil monster lurking in the dark shadows. He's your age now. In a mental hospital, since he was 16. Trying to cope with the knowledge of what he's done. I used to visit him. Sometimes he was himself. Other times he wasn't. I stopped going to see him a year ago after a bad episode. He came across the table at me, orderlies dragging him across the room, and then it was like a light came on inside him and he was Chris again and he realized what he'd done. He wouldn't see me anymore after that. I tried for awhile but eventually I gave up. No one really could understand why I forgave him. Why I didn't...don't blame him. He's my brother. He's sick. I love him."
Hugh looks at her as she speaks. Like she's lost somewhere between being here with him now and back in the past with her brother.
He wants to reach out to her but he doesn't. Instead he lets his hand sink into the sand close to hers.
"We were really close. We did a lot together. I wasn't that embarrassing little sister tagging along to him. I was his pal...his bug...my nickname." She smiles through the tears remembering.
Looking out over the water.
It's surface sparkling from the sun rays.
Chris would love it here, she thinks.
Hugh remains silent beside her.
His hands in the sand.
Close to hers.
She can feel his strength.
She finds the courage to continue.
Somehow.
From some unknown place inside her.
"It wasn't a whole bunch of terrible moments that led up to that morning. There wasn't any big signs. It was very slow, and quiet. It sneaked you up on all of us. Him included. He just started to spend more time in his room. His drawings, he draws, they got darker, he started to dress different and he became silent and inside himself. There was never any shouting or fights. Any kind of violence. I remember Mom and Dad taking him to see doctors. So looking back they must've known something was wrong. But to the outside world there was no signs. He just seemed to be a typical teenager going through a phase. An outsider looking in wouldn't know. I was closest to him and I didn't."
He speaks up then.
"You were just a kid, Tessa"
"I know. I know my parents protected me from whatever was happening. The only clue I had that something was wrong was that sometimes he thought he was being followed, that he had to protect us, me, mom and Dad from these monsters. I guess that morning to him we were the monsters."
She wipes her chin where the tears are dripping onto her lap.
"That morning, sometimes it feels so far away and other times it's all I can think about. I've gotten so used to blocking it all out that when it comes...like waves...I don't know how to handle it. I just panic. I freeze. I can't breathe. So I take pills, drugs whatever I can find just to make them go away. To forget. Forget my family. What kind of person does that? Tries to forget them???" She's getting emotional much to her dismay.
Hugh takes her hand in his, brings it into his lap, holds it between both of his.
"One who is just trying to survive. We do amazingly stupid things when we are trying to survive. Don't beat yourself up for it."
She looks into his eyes.
Those incredible blue eyes.
Filled with such safety and she wonders why she hadn't seen this side of him sooner.
She knew The Sun was in him.
She just hadn't realized that he too had ghosts that haunted him, and in truth he used other addictions to cope with his.
She couldn't fault him for that anymore.
He was just trying to survive.
Like her.
"I don't know how I became this person? This isn't what they'd want for me. I know that. They'd be so disappointed."
He takes her chin in one of his hands. Making her look at him.
"No. You can't think like that."he pleads with her.
They are very close.
"I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"Live. Without feeling guilty that I'm here and they aren't."she finally says it out loud. "I don't understand what made me so special that I survived and they didn't, Hugh."
He wipes the side of her face gently. She lets him.
"Yes you do." He assures her "you know exactly why. You're a fighter. That's why."
"How do you know this?" she says
"I know a fighter when I see one, and you Tessa Riggs are a fighter."
He pulls her into his side. Her head resting on his shoulder. She takes a deep shuddering breath. Partly because she's emotionally drained, the other because he's holding her tightly, protectively into him.
"Look at the water. Even fighters need a rest. I've got you."
For the first time she believes those words.
Her eyes drift closed.
He holds her to him.
He's drained from telling his own story and hearing hers.
He looks out over the rolling waves and feels it lulling him into a place of calm, like this place always does.
It's his place and now it's hers as well.
He knows the minute she's asleep.
Feels her even breathing now.
He kisses her forehead lightly.
She moves in closer to him.
An arm wrapping around his stomach.
He could stay like this forever.
Just like this.
And be happy.
Or as close as someone like him deserves.
He'll take her home soon.
Run her a bath.
Give her some time alone with her thoughts and then with Claire.
But not yet.
Not yet.