Beautiful Outlaw by Emily Minton
Ten Years Later
Asking for Help
Laura
I fidget in my seat, questioning the decision to involve him in my problems once again, as my brother walks into the restaurant. Jeremy was once my best friend, the person I loved the most in the world. After nearly ten years of living with Marcus, my brother is a virtual stranger to me now, someone that I don’t even know. More importantly, he doesn’t know me at all. At least, he doesn’t know my secrets.
His eyes scan the dining room before finally landing on me. The coldness, near repulsion, I see in them sends a shiver down my spine. It’s hard to believe that I was once precious to him. He may not hate me, but I’m sure any love he once felt for me is long gone. I can’t blame him, but if he only knew the truth, he would understand. At least, I think he would.
He strides toward me, his cold eyes never leaving mine. As soon as he reaches the table, he slides into the chair across from mine. He looks me up and down, taking in my six-hundred dollar suit, overly made-up face, and the three carat diamond ring that my husband forces me to wear. Disgust replaces the hatred in his eyes as he leans back in his chair.
“What do you want, Laura?” His voice is harsh and distant, causing me to flinch. Just the way he says my name causes pain to shoot through my heart. It’s nothing like the voice of the brother I remember from my childhood.
“I…” I start, but my voice falters before I can get the words out. Fear of what will happen when I finally tell him the truth has my resolve crumbling. What if he doesn’t believe me? Or worse, what if I’ve waited too long and he doesn’t care anymore?
“Just say it,” he barks out, growing impatient.
I nervously bite into my bottom lip, trying to find the words I need to say. No matter how many times I’ve been through this conversation in my head, nothing sounds right. He’s going to think I’m a lunatic. He’s probably going to think what I am going to tell him is just a crazy story I’ve made up. Even though I’ve been living it for the last ten years of my life, I even think it’s crazy.
“Damn it, I don’t have time for this shit. You said you needed to talk, so I’m here. If you have nothing to say, I’m heading back to work.”
I look at the dark blue shirt stretched across his chest, with the shiny badge pinned proudly on it, and feel a wave a pride wash through me. I’m honored to call this man my brother, even if he doesn’t feel the same way.
I stare into his cold eyes and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “How’s work?”
I see anger flash across his face and drop my eyes to my lap. I regret asking the question as soon as it leaves my mouth. I’m not sure what would have been a good way to start this conversation with him, but that surely wasn’t it. After years of nothing more than a polite hello or goodbye, I doubt anything I said would have been right.
He shakes his head before placing his hand flat against the table top and leaning toward me. “You don’t give a shit about my life, so don’t pretend you do. Just tell me what you want, so I can get the hell out of here.”
He’s growing angrier by the minute, and I know I have to ask him now or I may never get the chance again. Throwing caution to the wind, I look into his eyes. “I need your help.”
“What?” he asks, sounding shocked. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You haven’t talked to me since God knows when, and you’re asking for my help?”
“Jeremy,” I whisper out, letting his name leave my lips for the first time in years. “Please, just listen to me.”
Marcus forbade me from speaking of my brother the day Jeremy told him to go to hell. It didn’t matter that my husband had just offended my father, calling him a charity case. The fact my dad has never missed a day of work in his life, other than for my mom’s sake, didn’t factor into Marcus’ opinion. It only mattered that my parents were losing their home, because of my mother’s extensive medical bills, and he was the one forced to bail them out or face the embarrassment of his in-law’s home being taken by the bank.
“You haven’t listened to me in years. Why should I listen to you now?”
“I need you,” I plead, hoping he can hear the sincerity in my voice.
“You never need anyone but your husband. I’m sure, whatever it is, Marcus can help you,” he says as he pushes up from his chair.
Before he can step away from the table, I reach for his hand. Knowing this is my last chance, I blurt out the truth. “I need your help to get away from Marcus.”
He stops mid-stride and turns to look down at me. “What did you say?”
“I have to get away from him. I have to leave.”
I’ll beg if I have to, anything to be free. I cannot survive one more day living with a mad man. I refuse to continue pretending to be someone else. If I have to smile once more while my husband calls me another woman’s name, I’m going to die.
He stands there for a moment more, just looking at me, before finally sitting down again. “I’ll give you five minutes to tell me what’s going on. Then, I’m out of here.”
Still holding his hand, I start to tell my story. “Marcus calls me Gwendolyn.”
The first time it happened was the day he told me I was going to be his wife. Right after he leaned down and kissed me, he whispered her name in my ear, told me how much he loved me, but he wasn’t talking to me. No, he was talking to the only woman he will ever love, a dead woman.
I can feel his body tense before he pulls his hand from mine. He leans back in his chair, staring at me in shock. “Gwendolyn? Isn’t that his first wife’s name?”
I slowly nod before reaching to the floor and grabbing my purse. Setting it on the table, I try to control the tremble in my hand as I pull out my proof- something no-one in my family has ever seen. I slide the picture across the table and watch as he looks down at it. “This is Gwendolyn.”
He doesn’t take it, just stares at me with anger in his eyes. “I don’t need to see her picture.”
“Please, just look at it.”
He finally takes it out of my hand. Staring down at it, he mumbles, “What the fuck?”
I don’t reply, just sit quietly as he looks his fill. What he is staring at is a replica of the woman sitting in front of him, the woman Marcus has forced me to become- a walking, talking, living doll.
“Can you explain this shit to me? Why do you look so much like her?” he finally asks, still not looking up from the photo.
I reach my hand up and run it over my now straight nose. “Do you remember the time I wrecked my bike, when we were camping?”
He nods, lifting his eyes to meet mine. “Of course, I do. You broke your nose and had to get stitches on your knee. I thought Mom was going to pass out when she saw all the blood.”
Laying my hand on the table, I look into his eyes. “That was the first thing he fixed. See, Gwendolyn didn’t have a bump on her nose.”
“Fixed?” The one word is a question, but one I can’t quite answer without telling him everything.
I lift my hand and motion toward my chest. “Next, I had my breasts reduced. She was smaller than me, and my larger size disgusted him.”
He sits there staring at me, shock clear on his face. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I suck in a deep breath, trying to gain courage for the task ahead. “I met Marcus at one of Dad’s company picnics when I was fifteen years old.”
He dips his chin to his chest and pulls in a deep breath. Confusion is clouding his eyes, letting me know that I have a lot to explain. “It was when you were in Iraq the first time.”
He nods before raising the picture enough to grab my attention. “Yeah, but what does that have to do with this?”
“His wife had just died the year before. He said that the minute he laid eyes on me, all he could see was her.”
He looks back down at the picture and shakes his head. “You didn’t look anything like this then.”
His words cause an ache to form deep in my chest, making me wonder if they are true. The only time I see the real me is in brief glimpses of pictures during the rare times I’m allowed to visit my parents. “I didn’t think so, but he saw something in me that reminded him of Gwendolyn. What wasn’t there, he knew he could change.”
Before my marriage, my blonde hair barely reached my shoulders. It was drastically different from the nearly waist length red it is today. My eyes were blue, nothing like the deep brown contacts I am forced to wear now. I always sported a tan from spending hours at the lake with my friends. Now, I never leave my home without sunscreen. Even my hands are coated in a layer of protection. The effect has left me looking like a ghost.
I was also a size eleven, weighing almost fifty pounds more than the size five frame I now carry. Now my figure resembles the models in Milan, sunken cheeks and ribs visible through my skin. I loved jeans, tee-shirts, comfy pajamas; I had never even considered wearing an outfit that cost more than my parents’ mortgage payment. Now, my underwear costs more than most outfits I had worn before.
“He started those changes as soon as we got married. First the hair, then the contacts. The surgeries started a few months later.”
He looks at me, taking in all the changes, things he had seen but purposely ignored. I watch as he sucks in a deep breath then asks, “Surgeries? How many?”
“Six so far, but he wants me to have another one. I just can’t do it, Jeremy. I can’t go through anymore.” As I talk, Marcus’ words from last night play in my head.
‘You will have a tubal ligation. You know I would never want you to ruin your perfect body with a child.’
A pregnancy scare had changed everything. Two days late and he was already planning an abortion. Luckily, my period came the next morning, but that only changed the procedure he wanted me to have from an abortion to a tubal ligation. Even though I don’t want a child with Marcus, one day I do want children. I want a child with a man I love.
Jeremy shakes his head again before finally placing the picture on the table. “Okay, he thought you looked like his dead wife; he’s a crazy bastard. That’s nothing new.”
He goes quiet for a moment then says in a harsh voice, “What I want to know is why the hell did you marry the asshole? More importantly, why would you stay married to him?”
I struggle to tell him everything, hating to relive it all. “Mom was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease a few days after my eighteenth birthday.”
His face goes hard again as he balls his hands into fists. “You don’t have to remind me of that. I know Mom is sick. Dad and I are the ones who take care of her, remember. You’re the one who thinks she’s too fuckin’ good to lend a hand.”
I close my eyes, blocking out the pain his words cause. “I take care of her. I’ve given up everything to take care of her.”
“Bullshit! You can’t even take the time to stop by and see her. She’s on dialysis, every damn day, and you don’t even stop by and check on her. Obviously, you don’t give a shit if she lives or dies.”
My eyes fly open as anger erases the pain. “Don’t ever tell me that I don’t care about Mom. I married a man twenty-seven years older than me. I am with someone I despise, just to take care of her.”
Tension flies off him in waves as he shifts in his seat. “What are you talking about?”
I motion toward the picture then back at myself. “I took her place, just so Mom would be taken care of. If I hadn’t married Marcus, he would have fired Dad.”
He shakes his head, completely confused. “Why would he do that?”
“Dad had been missing a lot of work, taking Mom back and forth to the doctors. I helped when I could, but you know Mom. She didn’t want me to be worried about her,” I explain to Jeremy.
He nods, knowing that even now Mom does her best to never complain. “What does that have to do with this conversation?”
“Marcus said that Dad’s attendance record was enough to fire him.”
Jeremy tilts his head, lost in thought for a second. “Why would he talk to you about Dad’s work? Mom said you didn’t even know the man before you were married.”
Other than a brief meeting at the picnic, one that I still can’t remember, I only saw my husband once more before we were married. It was the day before our wedding; it was the day I gave up my life for my mom’s.
“One day, Dad took off work to go with Mom to her doctor’s appointment. I was getting things packed to go to college, so I stayed home to finish packing. Marcus showed up at the door right after Mom and Dad left.”
Anger is evident on his face as he asks, “Why the hell was he there when Dad was gone?”
“Me, he was there for me,” I mumble out before going on. “He told me that I would marry him or Mom would lose her health benefits.”
My brother sits up, anger coursing through him. “He did what?”
I go on to explain how Marcus, a man that I didn’t know, had played God with my mother’s life. “He owns Easton Fabrication. He is Dad’s boss.”
“I know that,” he huffs out, clearly frustrated.
I run my finger over the rim of my glass, trying to focus my nervous energy on something safe. “If Dad got fired, he would lose his insurance. They wouldn’t have the money for Mom’s medical bills.”
“Fuck,” he mumbles, letting my words sink in. “But I still don’t know why in the hell he would tell you about that shit. He shouldn’t have said anything to you. Why not talk to Dad?”
“It wasn’t about Dad.” I reach across the table to grab his hand, needing to touch the brother that once loved me with all his heart. “Jeremy, he wanted a replacement for his dead wife. He used Mom’s illness to ensure he got one.”