Unconditional

“And what the fuck do you know about love, huh?” I snap. “You don’t know shit about it. It’s why you’re such a fucking dick to Grant. You think Dad loved us? You still think he’s coming back? Grow up, Henry. Dad didn’t love us. He didn’t love Mom!” I scream at him. “Grant has always cared, always put us first, and you hate him over some deep down resentment and twisted loyalty to our father who never gave a shit about you!”

His eyes widen and his mouth drops open, but I still don’t stop. “You think I don’t love Maddie? Then you haven’t been paying fucking attention. Because I’ve always fucking loved that girl. Do you understand me? Always. And yes, now it’s different, and some won’t understand it or support it, but I’ll be damned if they don’t respect it. I’ll be damned if you don’t respect it. I’m almost thirty-four years old. I know what the fuck love is and I love her. And if you can’t understand that, if you can’t see that, then it’s because you don’t know what love looks like. What it means to love someone…unconditionally.”

He takes a step forward and I go for the jugular. I speak the words that everyone says when he’s not around. The worry that coats Mom’s face whenever she spends time with them. The dreaded D word that Grant has asked if I believed they were headed towards. “You d

on’t love Aria. You married her because she was pregnant, and then she wasn’t and it sucks and I’m sorry but you should have gotten a divorce because you didn’t love her. You were scared and you were trying to please Mom, and be a good role model for me, or whatever the fuck, but you don’t fucking love her. So, don’t jump down my throat because I do fucking love someone and you’re jealous that I feel something other than complacency and some bullshit obligation from almost a decade ago.”

It was low, I know it. He knows it. Maddie, who very well may be sitting on the step, knows it. Hurt is written all over his face and I can tell he’s gritting his teeth. “JEALOUS? I’m not jealous of your delusional relationship with Maddie, Cal. Get a fucking grip.”

“It’s not delusional and I’m not working through some fantasy of tasting forbidden fruit. I’d die before I did anything to hurt Maddie. I would never use her to fulfill some sexual deviance. I love her.” I grit out. “You know that’s not what this is about.”

He shakes his head. “How can you not see that this is wrong? She’s so dependent and afraid of losing you that she’s trying to transition you out of guardian and into another role in her life. That’s not how this works. You can’t be both!”

I stand up straighter, puffing my chest out slightly because my aggression has kicked in after he calls my ability to protect her into question. “I am both. Maddie is mine. Ten years ago, she endured the most tragic experience of her life, and I was there. I held her tiny body against my heart as I walked her through hell and in those twenty or so steps from that closet to her front door, she latched onto me and hasn’t let go. I’ve never let her down before, I’m damn sure not going to start now.”

“What kind of life can you give her here?”

“I haven’t given it that much thought what with just figuring out that I wanted her…long term—about twenty minutes ago.”

“Aria is going to lose her shit. So is Mom. And Grant…since you care so Goddamn much about his feelings.”

“And I know I need to tell them. I’m just hoping you give me a chance to do that.”

He looks towards the steps and then sweeps his eyes along the room. “I was always so proud of you. My selfless little brother who put his life on hold to help a little girl who’d lost everything. Who was alone in the world. It was obvious from the start that she loved you so much and you made her feel safe. Can’t you see how difficult this will be for her if things end between you two?”

“They’re not going to end,” I tell him. My voice is firm and final and I don’t even feel a sliver of doubt in my words.

Maybe Henry is right. Maybe all along I’d been falling in love with her. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that made me love her mind and her soul and her heart. The way that made me believe in soulmates. That the second I lifted her tiny body into my arms all those years ago, all of the weight had lifted off of me. All of the hurt of watching my father walk out of my life without another thought to me or Henry, lessened slightly. But if that was the case, if I truly had been preparing myself for the day she turned eighteen so that I could love her body the same way I loved every other part of her, then I know now this is it.

That she is it.

“You don’t know that for sure, Cal.”

“Yes, I do.”

The sniffles coming from her bedroom gut me as I make my way up the stairs. I open her door, and I watch as she cries into her pillow, her shoulders shaking under the force of her sobs. “Baby,” I murmur and then I’m behind her, curling my body around her petite one in an attempt to shield her from all the outside pain. “I’m here. He’s gone.”

She turns in my arms, allowing me a look at her face that’s red and splotchy. Her eyes are glistening from her tears, turning them the brightest shade of blue, and her puffy lips look so soft and sweet. I lean forward and run my tongue across her bottom lip, tasting the salt from her tears. “The things he said…”

“Don’t mean shit to me.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And you’re everything.” I don’t want to say the words. That although we are fighting the previous conventional terms of our relationship, that I do feel something parental over her. And that trumps everything. “There’s no one in this world I’d take over you.”

She bites her bottom lip and squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s so unfair. Your relationship will never be the same. I know you love him. You look up to him. He’s your big brother.”

“He’ll come around. Or maybe he won’t. I don’t care.”

“It’s been years, and he still hasn’t come around to Grant.”

“And that should tell you something. It’s him…not us.” I cup her cheeks and rub my thumbs over the space beneath her eyes, wiping the tears.

She blinks her eyes a few times and I see the tears clear from her blue orbs. “It’s about your dad?”

I shrug because, to be honest, I’m not sure. I was six when my dad left, during a period when I knew something was wrong but couldn’t understand the ramifications it would have on me later in life. Henry was ten and he asked our mother when he’d be back for months and when my mother finally looked at him with tears in her eyes and a glass of Chardonnay filled to the brim and told him he wouldn’t, I watched my big brother break down and sob.

He didn’t stop for six long months.