Christina (Daughters #1) (25 page)

But this time, without Max, I feel like I’m being dragged behind a car. I’m worn out, run over, and inconsolably sad. After the way he treated me, how can he just call me up now and try to tell me what to do?

I continue lying there, doing nothing, cradling a pillow against my stomach. Staring with hollow eyes and a hollow heart at the bland, beige paint on the walls and the pretty beach scene watercolor hanging opposite me, I finally fall asleep with the lights on.

A sharp knock on my motel room door wakes me abruptly. My heart nearly stops. I sit up, blinking, and push the pillow aside. Being more aware than ever that I’m hundreds of miles from anyone, and no one knows where I am, or what I’m doing, I also realize it’s the middle of the freaking night… Christ, who could be knocking on my door? I glance around. There is no way I can call for help.

“Christina? It’s me,” a voice calls through the door. I’m about to stand up when I stop short and simply freeze. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor.
Max.
Oh, dear Lord, it’s Max. I am stunned. He actually drove here? To San Francisco? How’d he get my room number? I guess after coming this far, that was probably the easiest part.

I pull myself up and walk across the small room. I am still dressed, but my hair is ratty and my eyes are heavy from lack of sleep and crying. I fling the door open and see him. We’re staring at each other over the small threshold of my hotel room. Tears instantly fill my eyes and slide down my cheeks. I start shaking my head in sad disbelief. Something in me that kept trying to be tough and grown up suddenly fades from exhaustion. I feel like my spine is bending under the pressure of what’s going on. I lean against the doorknob. I’m shaking my head through my tears, still afraid to trust what I see.

“You’re here?” I barely whisper.

Max’s mouth starts to lift into a half grin. “You’re here, where else could I be?”

I stare at him, not comprehending. As far as I know, me being here should mean he can’t be here. I start to back up. I can’t do that again. I can’t survive the hurt, knowing how much I want and need him; and the thing is: I
want
to want him and need him. I don’t see any shame in it. I love him. I know now as surely as I have brown hair. I stare into his dark eyes. They seem kind of tender as they run up and down the length of me.

He who broke my heart. I step back again. I keep my eyes glued to his, but my face is scrunched up with the pain and confusion I can’t hide from him. It’s all Max, it’s always been Max, since I was old enough to even feel those things. I always wondered why Max was so much more important to me than everyone else. His opinions, his presence, his everything weighed so much more with me than with anyone else.

Now, I finally can begin to understand my own reaction to him. I just didn’t know then, or perhaps, I couldn’t admit it. I don’t exactly know now. It just is for me now. My heart aches and more tears fall. He holds all the power in the world. He can hurt me, destroy me, ruin me… or save me.

I’m still compulsively shaking my head and backing up. I find it difficult to comprehend that he is here with me. Why? To bring me home? To reassure everyone I’m okay? To serve as the good big brother he so often tried to be to me?

I want nothing to do with any of it. None of that is okay with me, not anymore. I didn’t ask his permission to come here, and I don’t need it now. I need no one’s permission anymore. I wipe my tears and sniff, my breath slightly hitching. It’s somewhat empowering to finally admit that to myself. “You didn’t have to come here. I don’t need babysitting, protecting, or saving. I know what I want and I’m perfectly capable of deciding what to do. Even if it’s a mistake, I’m old enough, smart enough, and capable enough to make my own mistakes. I know how to handle them. So fine, you saw me! I’m alive and well in a motel room, paid for with money I earned from my job. You can go tell everyone back home. But I don’t need or want you or my dad coming here to save me.”

He eyes me, crossing his arms over his chest before dropping them to his side. “I get that. I get all of that. I didn’t come here for any of those reasons.”

“Then
why?
” I nearly wail at him. “Why did you come? Why do you keep doing this to me?”

“Doing what?”

“Breaking my heart,” I turn from him.

“I don’t want to break it, Christina, I want to own it.”

The statement is so soft and quiet, my nerve endings go on high alert because it sounds so much like Max,
my Max
of old. His way of wording things and his special tone of voice. Still I don’t trust his statement since I don’t know exactly what he means.

There is a shuffle before his hands
touch
my shoulders and flip me towards him. I stare into his face, shocked and kind of immobilized from the total surrealness of feeling his hands, so warm and strong, on my shoulders. He stares right into my eyes for a long, drawn-out moment. I neither smile, nor blush, nor blink. I don’t believe him. I feel like we’re in an emotional game of chicken and he will turn, or duck, or jump out of it at any moment. Like always. Instead, he keeps his hands tightly on my shoulders. With barely a smile, his mouth crashes onto mine. It’s not a sweet kiss. Or a friend-like kiss. It’s not a respectful kiss or companionable either. It’s a kiss that could steal my breath or my soul. It’s that kind of kiss. It is hard, deep, crushing, and alive. It is so real, I can’t breathe or think. I want to rip my mouth from his and demand an end to my confusion. I want to rip his clothes off and touch him everywhere. I want him to rip mine off and touch me everywhere. Everything collides in my head and heart all at once until I can’t think properly. All I can do is feel. I feel Max. I moan into his mouth, from disbelief, joy, desire and pain. I can’t believe he is here, kissing me. I grab onto the front of his jacket, gripping it between my fists, holding him against me so he can’t run away again, either figuratively or literally.

We stop kissing and he leans his forehead onto mine until we’re staring right into each other’s eyes as our breaths mingle. I am lost. I feel like drowning in his eyes, which are so full of emotion, but my own feelings are completely overwhelming me. I pull on his coat. “You’re going to hurt me. Leave me. Ignore me. I don’t want to do that again.”

He shakes his head, and our foreheads are still touching. “Not this time.” He leans forward and gently touches his lips to mine. His lips are full and wet and perfect. My eyes flutter shut at the gentleness, as well as the passion.

Burn me once, shame on him. Burn me twice, shame on me. I pull back. “What does that mean? This time? There is nothing between us but history.”

He lets me pull away. “You are my history. I want you to be my future.”

“That means nothing, Max. It means we were friends once. But now? Too much has happened. We have too many issues that we never worked on, so things are no different today than they were when we slept together. And look how well that didn’t go for me.”

He starts shaking his head. “No. No, everything is different.”

“How do you figure?”

“I’m touching you, aren’t I?” His tone is low and commanding. I glance at his hands, which now grip my forearms. “I have a lot of work to do. But the difference is: I
want
to try. I want to get the help I need. I was never willing to do that before. Not until you left me there in that locker room could I fully understand the impact you have on my life, and how much I want you to stay in it.”

I blush as I shake my head. “I should have never done that to you.”

“Yes, you should have. It made me realize how horrifying it was, and what I was destined to become. Your leaving me made me actually realize what I was doing and where I was headed. Nothing else could have done that, Christina. Nothing. I needed for you to leave me to make me see what I have to do.”

“And what would that be?”

“Everything. I need to do everything I can to get back to you.”

I don’t even understand what that means. He smiles with a tenderness I’ve never seen before. “I guess we should talk first.”

“First? What were you assuming? You’d return as my hero and we’d forego all the conversation just to have sex?”

Sitting down on the bed, he does a little up and down bounce and wags his eyebrows at me. “Well, a guy can always hope.” Is he trying to flirt with me? Or play cute? After showing up here in middle of the night, while I’m on a quest to find my long lost sister in a strange city, after everything, now he’s
flirting
? I could think seriously about hurting him right now. He catches my dirty look. I’m not ready for blasé comments or jokes. This is too serious. This is too heart-breaking. This is everything I distrust. He puts his hand out towards me, palm up. I stare at it as if it’s one of those pretend arms you start to shake before it falls off. I mean, this is Max Salazar, and he’s offering me his hand?

“Sit down, Tiny.”

I keep my eyes on him, wary of his kind tone of voice, and what I just witnessed. I glance down at the open-palmed hand. Am I supposed to touch it? I finally stretch my hand out to his. With only the very tips of my middle and index fingers I touch his hand. He doesn’t recoil. He just stares at our barely tangent flesh. Then, he leans forward and engulfs my hand in his. I close my eyes at the wonderful sensation. It’s so exciting. A flood of emotions begin flowing through my blood stream and weighing down my limbs.

“I don’t understand. How…?” I stare at our joined hands. He pulls me forward. I finally sit near him and he takes in a sharp breath.

“It’s far, no it’s miles from perfect. But I started seeing a therapist. I’ve only gone three times, so this is just the start.”

“But… but you’re touching my hand! After only three sessions?” I’m skeptical. It doesn’t ring true for me.

He nods and lets out a deep breath as if feeling profoundly satisfied, “Yes, I’m holding your hand.”

I simply keep staring at our linked hands. “How?”

“I’m trying to face my fears. I’m trying to analyze why I have such negative reactions to it. There’s not much progress yet…”

“I’m holding your hand. You held my shoulders. You touched me. Willingly. That’s not just a little, that’s a lot.”

His smile is cockeyed. “You seem easily satisfied.”

I stare up at him. My eyes are filled with tears that I’m starting to weep again. There is so much we need to figure out, discuss, change… but for now, he’s here, and holding my hand! I have to applaud that profound miracle. I bite my lip and nod, “I never needed much. I just wanted you. I was always okay with just you, however I could have you.”

“You deserve—”

“I deserve what I choose.” I cut him off, knowing the I-deserve-better-argument was an endless and fruitless vicious cycle. “I can choose and make my own decisions. I’m not running low on self-esteem or self-respect. You can trust me. You should have trusted my acceptance and trust of you just exactly how you are.”

“Not even giving you the tiniest demonstration of affection?”

“Yes. You are giving me you.”

He closes his eyes. “I didn’t want to get help before now. But I don’t know what else to do. Derek went and still goes to a therapist. I met with this lady he used to see. She saw me three times over the last week. I obviously have anger issues. A lot of anger. Well, apparently, I have to acknowledge those feelings, or they’ll come out some other way. Fighting is my outlet. Fighting is my way.  I do it whenever I feel that uncontrollable rage. I guess it’s actually anger I feel, and not the urge to fight. Somehow, during my childhood, I learned to equate touch with negative consequences. It was evil for me. I don’t know exactly where it came from, but I guess it probably started there.”

“You sound like you just might have had a pretty big revelation.”

He shrugs. “I—” He hesitates.

“You what?”

“The morning Derek got here? After the fight? I attacked him.”

I stare at him, since I don’t know what to say. “You attacked Derek?”

Max shifts around on the edge of the bed and gives me an apologetic glance. “I did. I went after him. I just, I kind of lost it. He became my target for revenge. I realized then I had to get some help. I had to do something. So we called a counselor.”

“What was the real reason you went after Derek?” I ask. I know Max. I can tell by his fingers tightening into a fist how upset he is for taking it out on his brother, but there is still plenty of anger in his body, which is now tensing up.

“He left me.”

“In Ellensburg?”

“No, all those years ago in Marsdale. He left me with Mom. I know he had his own reasons and they made sense to him, but it never made any sense to me. I had no one. Just him. He always protected me; and then, he was gone. When he was there, my life was better. I wasn’t alone. We lived and survived our hardship together. I had someone who I thought loved me. But he walked out on me! And I guess I kind of inverted that all on myself. It—” He flounders and can’t find the right words.

“It hurt you, Max. It made you sad, scared, angry, upset, take your pick; but it caused you a lot of pain. Pain you’ve never really dealt with.”

He sighs. “I know. Everyone came to the same conclusion about the fighting and—”