Our Fault (Culpable Book 3)

I knew Noah hated shopping with other people. That was why I’d spent the morning with Maddie. We’d gone to the bookstore, the toy store, and the playground. She’d asked me to buy her a costume. Other girls her age liked tiaras and princess outfits, but my little sister wanted to look like a Ninja Turtle. That’s right: I was on my way to Beverly Grove with a miniature Ninja Turtle and bags full of stuff I hadn’t intended to buy.

My father had been right: like mother, like daughter.

“Where’s Noah?” Maddie kept asking ever since I said we’d be meeting her.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said, waiting outside the mall for Noah to come out. Traffic was wild; people were double-parked outside, so it was practically impossible to find a parking spot.

Right when I took my phone out to call her, I saw her emerge. She had tons of bags, her sweatshirt was now tied around her waist, and the sleeveless shirt she had on underneath it revealed a lot of her, even her belly button.

Mad took off toward Noah while I pushed my sunglasses up my forehead and gawked at her like an idiot.

“I love your costume, Mad!” she said with a smile. Her teeth were impeccable, as always. I hadn’t seen that smile in so long that it stung.

“They’ve got them in your size. We could find you one if you want,” my sister said, and Noah chuckled.

Noah in a Ninja Turtle outfit…that was just what I needed! The thought of it made the image of Noah dressed in other things pass through my mind, and I brought my sunglasses back down, trying to hide my lusty thoughts.

“Hey,” I said when we were close.

“Hey,” she said dryly.

“Let me help you,” I offered, grabbing bags out of her hands. She resisted at first but eventually gave in. She looked at my sister.

“How long have you guys been here?”

“A while,” I said, taking my phone out and looking back at our messages. “We should go.”

Five minutes later, we’d left all that madness behind.

I took them to a restaurant far away from all the shops, and we ate steak and potatoes. My little sister hogged the conversation. I was struggling to pay attention to what she was saying; I thought she was trying to play some kind of game with us. Either way, I had the sudden, overwhelming urge to be alone with Noah. She had barely said a word to me, and even if things were tense, or beyond tense, I still had high hopes for our truce.

When we walked out, I saw that the building across the street had a play space with slides and little trampolines and multicolored monkey bars and tons of kids playing and shouting.

“Mad, you want to go over there?” I asked, pointing to what must have been a paradise for any child under ten.

She jumped around like mad while Noah gave me a suspicious look. Fine, so my tactics weren’t as subtle as I thought. I gave Steve a ring; I’d asked him to stay in the neighborhood, in case Maddie and I were late getting into town; he was around the corner having a coffee and said he’d come watch Maddie if I needed. While we waited, we observed Maddie awkwardly and tried and failed to make small talk.

When we were able to leave, we turned onto a pedestrian-only street full of bars, shops, and ice cream parlors. “You seem quiet,” I said. “Are you tired?”

Looking straight ahead, Noah said, “Yeah, I guess… I got up really early.”

For a while, we didn’t say anything else. This was stupid. We’d never been together for that long and spoken so little. Especially Noah. She couldn’t keep quiet even if she was underwater; lots of times I’d had to kiss her or caress her so I could get a bit of silence. Now she seemed interested in nothing, me least of all.

“Look, that’s enough, okay. What the hell is going on with you?”

She looked at me with surprise. “Nothing…” she said, but she seemed hesitant. I waited, trying not to fly into a rage. “It’s just…this isn’t what I expected. I thought we were going to hang out with your sister. Why would you leave her at some random playground? You know how many diseases she could catch? Lice or whatever? We’re all probably going to get lice just because you had a change of plans… I thought the three of us would take a walk in the park before we went home. I had more shopping to do anyway… You didn’t ask me if I was done when you texted; you’re too used to giving orders: I’ll pick you up in 10…” She imitated my voice. “What if I wasn’t ready? Did you ever think about that? Don’t look at me like that. It’s weird… I’m uncomfortable.”

I almost wanted to laugh. So she had been hiding things from me…

“You’re uncomfortable with what?” I asked with feigned incredulity.

She stopped and looked at me.

“With this!” She pointed back and forth between us. “With you and me. You acted like we were still together!” I could tell she was struggling to get the words out. “I accepted the truce for Maddie’s sake, but I’m not going to lie to myself, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lie to me. Or do you not remember everything you said to me the last time I saw you?”

I took a deep breath. Deep down, I knew Noah was right. I’d told her I was in love with Sophia to try to turn the page, but it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“I’ve treated you like a friend. That’s it,” I said.

It took Noah a few seconds to respond. In the meanwhile, she glanced around, lost.

“I prefer it when you’re hostile,” she said. That cut me to the core. “I’m serious. I’d rather fight with you. I’m used to that. Whereas what you’re doing now…” She shook her head, her eyes focused on the ground. I wanted to lift her chin, make her look me in the eyes. “I know you’re doing this for your sister, but it hurts. It’s confusing to me. I don’t want to hang out. I don’t want to go for walks or go to lunch or have you ask me where I got my scar or why I was riding a motorcycle… That’s my life, and it shouldn’t matter to you anymore, and I know I’m the one who screwed things up, but you’ve made your decision, supposedly, so I’d just as soon you stick to it.”

I looked up into the trees behind her. I felt like shit. It was true that I’d done this for Maddie, but I also wanted to spend time with Noah. I missed her, dammit…

“Fine,” I growled. “Let’s go get my sister.”

I turned on my heel and walked down the street. Noah hurried up beside me, and that feeling…that feeling of having her close but at the same time miles away turned me into a statue of ice, the one that had started to melt the day before, even if I hadn’t realized it then.

We passed a couple of shops, and when we turned the corner by the playground, my mother—yes, my mother—ran right into us. I stopped when I saw her. I had still refused to see her, and the babysitter was the one who had handed Maddie off to me the day before. Seeing her again, which I hadn’t done since the night she’d decided to spill the family’s dirty secrets at the anniversary of Leister Enterprises, was the least pleasant surprise I could have imagined.

She was well-dressed, as always, in a cashmere dress and high heels, her hair pulled back; but she had bags under her eyes. With her lavish makeup and skin-care regime, she should have been able to cover them up a little better.

“Nicholas!” she exclaimed.

I bit down and ground my teeth before responding. “Yes, Mother, what an unpleasant coincidence, finding you here.”

She stiffened, trying to absorb the blow, I guessed. I didn’t care; our relationship was just as bad as ever… What am I saying? It still didn’t exist.

“Hello, Noah,” she said, and I could tell Noah was tense, too.

Given the circumstances, and what had happened with our parents, I could imagine my mother was on the list of Noah’s worst enemies. Probably at the top. Noah didn’t respond.

“We’re in a hurry. If you don’t mind…” I tried to keep walking, but my mother stepped back and grabbed my arm.

“I’d like to talk to you, Nicholas.”

“Yes, I figured that out after the thousand messages you left with my secretary, but I think her response was pretty clear: no interest.”

As a reflex, I grabbed Noah’s hand. I felt myself drowning, and I wanted to get out of there. The two of us stepped around her, obviously trying to escape.

“It’s about Maddie, Nicholas,” my mother called from behind me.

That made me stop. Reluctantly, I turned toward her.

“Anything that has to do with my sister can be communicated to my father. He’s more than happy to keep me informed.”

My mother crumpled, looking at me with pleading eyes, and finally, I couldn’t keep giving her the cold shoulder. My mother, begging? This was something I’d never seen.

“Just give me a few minutes, Nick, please.”

I looked over at Noah. She seemed as intrigued as I was. “Fine. What’s up?”

At once surprised and relieved, my mother led us over to a nearby café. Noah sat beside me; my mother sat in front of us. It was all so weird; I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

“Okay, shoot, we don’t have all day.”

Despite the weakness she’d shown when she’d asked me to give her a moment, she now turned stiff and, it seemed to me, a little nasty. That was the Anabel Grason I remembered.

“Fine, since you can’t even try to have the least bit of tact with me, I’ll skip the formalities and niceties. You want me to be brief, I’ll be brief.” She set down her cup. “I’m sick, Nicholas.”

For a moment, there was silence, interrupted by the clang of porcelain and glass.

“What do you mean, you’re sick?” I said. I was immediately angry. This had to be a trick. I wasn’t sure what her angle was, but it was pathetic.

“What do I mean?” she responded, and when she did, I could see her start to crumble. There was a fear and insecurity there that I’d never known her to have before. She took a deep breath and peered at me before uttering the next words. “I have leukemia.”

“What the hell are you saying?” I replied, hearing my voice lower two octaves.

She joined her hands in her lap and pushed her seat back a bit. “I was diagnosed a year and a half ago… I wanted to tell you, but not over the phone. Not that it mattered, since you never bothered to pick up. Your father found out months ago, but he promised not to tell you. I wanted to do it myself. I know you hate me, but you’re my son, and…”

Her voice trembled, and I felt myself falling, falling into a deep dark pit, wondering when I’d strike the bottom… The ground was approaching me, it was seconds away, and I didn’t know what would happen afterward, but I was sure it would be nothing good. Then I felt someone squeeze my hand, a warm small hand that had approached mine under the table, promising never to let me go.

I looked at Noah, who was next to me, staring at my mother with…pity? My fingers clung to her as if she were suddenly my only reference point. I heard my mother’s words. Surely they weren’t true?

“I didn’t want to tell you this so you’d feel bad for me. I just wanted to try to explain my behavior these past few months, everything I did: Maddie, Anabel, your father…”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, clearing my throat, trying to get my words past the knot that made it almost impossible to speak.

“I’m letting your father have full custody of Maddie.”

“What?” I asked, roused from my lethargy.

“I’m going to need to deal with some very difficult things in the upcoming years, Nicholas. These are things I don’t want a little girl to have to deal with. When I found out about this, I knew one thing for sure: I would not allow my daughter to stay in Anabel’s care. He’s selfish. He can’t see past his own nose. I’ve made mistakes, God knows I’ve made mistakes in my life, lots of them, and I know I don’t even deserve to have you here listening to me now, but Maddie does matter to me. She matters, Nick, and I want to know that if something happens to me, if things don’t turn out as I wish, that my daughter will be with a family that will love and protect her.”

“Wait, wait,” I interrupted her. “You’re saying my father knows about all this? And he’s agreed to take custody of her? What…?”

“Everything that happened with Anabel, the divorce, the genetic test… Look, I knew there was a possibility that Maddie was your father’s daughter. And I wasn’t wrong, just as I wasn’t wrong when I thought that if I told him, he would want Maddie to be a part of his life. And that’s what I want, too.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. All that chaos…was because my mother wanted my father to take care of Maddie in case…in case she died?

“What are you going to do?” I asked, feeling my anger spread. “You’re just going to dump Maddie at my dad’s house? Give up your parental rights and pretend your daughter doesn’t miss you? That’s crazy!”

“Nicholas…” Noah said.

“No!” I stood up. “That’s not how you do things, dammit! You want to do the same thing to her as you did to me?”

My mother took a deep breath and looked down. “Sit down, please,” she said, struggling to remain calm.

I did, and my legs shook, my whole body was tense, my whole fucking brain was a whirl of senseless thoughts trying to grasp a world where my mother’s actions might be justified.

“I’m not going to abandon her, Nicholas, I’m just giving your father custody while I try to get through this. I’m in contact with some of the best doctors in the country, and I’m starting chemo at MD Anderson in Houston. The doctors are optimistic, but this could be a long process. You don’t want me to take her to Houston with me, do you? Who will care for her while I’m in treatment? All I’m thinking about is what’s best for everyone.”

I just sat there for seconds or maybe minutes. I don’t know. This was fucked, absolutely, completely fucked.

Then I felt a hand grab mine, but it felt different. I opened my eyes and saw it was my mother’s. Had she always been so bony? Now I noticed the bags under her eyes again and how skinny she looked, much more than the last time I’d seen her. My fingers didn’t care about my ambivalence; they held her tight without asking my permission.

“I’m sorry about all this, Nick,” she said, then let me go and wiped away a tear. “Your father can explain it better than I can. Thank you for listening.”

She got up, and I felt a sudden emptiness in my mind, my heart.

“Wait,” I said, feeling more lost than I ever had. “I want to give you…I want to give you my personal number so you can call me and tell me when you’re going, or when…”

I stopped talking, because I didn’t know what it was I wanted. I opened my wallet, took out one of my business cards, and scrawled my number on the back. She took it gratefully.

“Thank you, Son,” she said, then looked at Noah. “And thank you, too.”

Ten minutes later, we gathered my little sister from the park. My life suddenly felt like it wasn’t mine anymore, as if I were playing a part that didn’t belong to me… I was so angry, so pissed at life for playing another trick on me, putting another obstacle in my path, that I could feel a burning beneath my skin, a tension in my muscles, an energy that I had no idea how to discharge.

Maddie came running toward me, and I crouched and opened my arms. I needed to hold her tight; I wished I could enclose her completely and save her from all the pain she was going to have to face at such an early age. Not just the disappearance of the man she’d thought was her father, who had no intention of ever seeing her again, but her mother’s illness, having to live with a father she didn’t even know.

I wanted to get her on a plane, take her to New York, take care of her, but…I wasn’t her father, however much I wished I were just then. I squeezed her and picked her up off the ground. She was pink from all the running and excitement and couldn’t stop talking. Noah must have realized how overwhelmed I was because she interrupted the few words I could get out, in my seriousness, to make Maddie feel normal.

Time…time was crucial now. The time lost, the time left to live. How long would my mother live? Would she make it through this? Would I ever see her again after she left for Houston? Would my sister?

We headed home, and when we got out and were walking toward the front door, I stopped, unable to take another step. Noah had been watching me, and she turned around and asked me something, but I didn’t hear her.

“I need…I need to be by myself right now. Could you…? Would you mind taking care of her…?”

She hesitated, as if wanting to say something but not daring to. Then she nodded. She looked confused. But I wasn’t in the mood to explain anything.

I got in my car and vanished for a few hours.

It was close to midnight when I got back. I’d had time to think, and thinking when things are that fucked up can have consequences you may come to regret.

I walked up the stairs in the dark, not bothering to turn on the lights. Why would I? I passed Noah’s door and felt a needle jab me in the heart. The love of my life was in there…the same person who had hurt me the way everyone I’d ever let get close to me had.

Did I hate Noah?

I had hated her, and it was very likely I even hated her in that instant. Or maybe now was when I hated her most because now was when I needed her most, when her absence felt most acute, when my mind was screaming at me to go after her and my heart was yearning for someone to give me some kind of inner peace, some kind of relief from the pain.

I opened her door, not bothering to knock. She was in bed, awake, surrounded by books, same as before. My sister was sleeping next to her, splayed out on the mattress and sucking her thumb, just as she’d done since she was ten months old. Noah closed her book carefully, took off her glasses, and looked at me.

“Where have you been?” she asked calmly. “You’ve been gone for like five hours… Are you okay?”

I took the book from her hands and laid it on the nightstand.

“I want to talk to you,” I said. I glanced over at the door. She hesitated, and I felt suddenly frustrated. “You owe it to me,” I added through clenched teeth.

Minutes may have passed before she got up wordlessly and followed me to my room. Our eyes met, and I couldn’t stop myself. I put my hands on her cheeks and kissed her as hard as I could. Her back bumped against the door. I could breathe again. In the darkness, I barely noticed how tense she was, but after a few intense seconds, she turned away.

“Don’t do this to me, Nicholas,” she warned me in a hardly audible whisper.

I brushed away a lock of her hair and tucked it carefully behind her ear, trying to draw out our contact as long as possible. Her fragrance enveloped me, driving me crazy with desire, with love… That scent was so dense, so special, so hers. One whiff of it was enough to intoxicate me. And I needed that right now.

I stroked her cheek, and she closed her eyes, her breathing labored. Was she suffering as I was? Did the distance make her ache the way it did me?

“Why can’t I forget you?” I asked, pressing my forehead into hers. “Why are you the only thing that can help me in a moment like this?”

“Nicholas…” she said.

Our eyes met with an almost electric charge, too much for me to stand, and I buried my face in her neck. I had to.

I kissed the soft skin of her throat, first slowly, barely touching it. My nose traced a line from her hairline to her clavicle. Grabbing her waist, I pulled her into me. I needed more. Much more. Noah’s hands were on my chest, caressing me at first, but then, as I only noticed later in my trance, pushing me away.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” she said. “You don’t want to do this.”

Her nightgown barely covered her thighs, and I put my hands beneath it, sliding upward to her buttocks, where I stopped, wondering whether I was crazy, wondering whether I would regret this later.

I kissed her cheeks, the corner of her lips, her eyelids…then plunged into her throat. I wasn’t kissing her anymore… I was sucking, nibbling, drinking from her. I was lost in her, lost in a limbo where we as separate people no longer existed. Noah yelped, and that made me want to keep going. I lifted her, and her legs wrapped around my waist. She cupped my face, and now we were truly looking at each other, as if we’d met again after an eternity. There was no rancor in her eyes; there was nothing but love, the same love I felt for her, the love for me that I knew must still be alive in her heart. A love that needed to disappear, dammit, a love I kept trying to bury and that kept coming back to the surface at the worst moments, making me violate all my principles.

“I need you,” I confessed. Her breath mingled with mine, and I thought I’d faint from pleasure. Touching her—that was the only thing that could calm my pain.

I didn’t hesitate. I felt her lips responding against mine, and I put aside all doubts. I pounced on her, pressed her into the door, and her lips opened to receive me as if we were kissing for the first time. I had to have her, had to relieve my body’s torment.

“I’m going to make love to you, Noah,” I said, as if it were something inevitable, something that just had to happen. “Since we broke up, everything’s been shit. My life is falling apart, and it’s getting worse by the day. I hate needing you the way I do. I hate knowing that even now, you’re the only one who can make me forget, even if it’s just for a few minutes, that my mother is dying.” Tears welled in my eyes. I kissed her so she wouldn’t see them.

She shook her head, and in the moonlight, I could see her weeping, too.

“You know this will only make things worse,” she whispered. I could feel her heartbeat, almost at the same rhythm as mine.

“They can’t get worse… Things couldn’t be more fucked up than they are now,” I said.

“This will just hurt us,” she whispered again. “Tomorrow morning, things will be the same as before…”

I kissed her, felt a tear beneath my lips, licked it, savored it.

“That night in New York, you asked me to pretend I’d forgiven you. Now I need you to do that for me.”

She trembled against me, we kissed again, and I carried her off to my bed.