“She’s awake,” I say bluntly.
He jumps from his chair, hitting the table with his thigh and jostling the dishes. “What?” he shouts.
“Who’s awake?” Dad asks, sounding confused and coming to his feet slower than Theo.
“Keep your voice down,” I growl at Theo.
“She can’t be awake.” His voice is quieter, but no less astonished.
“Will someone tell me what in the hell is going on?”
Dad’s irritated tone has me looking at him. He’s tall, not skinny, but not bulky either. In his late fifties, half his body covered in tattoos, full beard and mustache, he can be intimidating. As kids, he was our hero, the smartest man we knew, and scary as hell when he was riled up. Not that he ever lifted a hand to us, but he was strict, demanding the respect that was due to him and our mom, and never putting up with any bullshit from us kids.
I respect the hell out of him, and he and Mom have a right to know they have a daughter-in-law they’ve missed for seven years.
I bring my eyes back to Theo. “Either you tell him, or I will.”
His eyes narrow into slits, and for a minute I think he’s going to push my hand. Theo may be the fun-loving, carefree one of the family, but he’s also a little shit at times and can be just as stubborn as Ella.
Indignation darkens his eyes before he turns to Dad. “I’m married.” Dad sucks in a sharp breath, but before he can say anything, Theo continues. “I met her years ago, we fell in love, got married, and were going to leave town because of our different backgrounds. Before we could, she was attacked. She’s been in a coma ever since.”
“Wait,” Dad barks. “Slow the hell down, Theo. How in the fuck do your mother and I not know this?”
Shame flickers on his face before his jaw tightens. “We were going to tell you all before we left. You know how things are around here, Dad. I didn’t want Jules part of that. I didn’t want that staining her life.”
“So, just fuck your family? What in the hell do you think that would have done to your mom?”
“I wouldn’t have been able to give her everything she deserved if we stayed here.” Theo says quietly. He turns to me, his eyes turning wary. “She’s really awake?”
I jerk my head in an affirmative.
“Did she… uh…,” he starts nervously, looking fearful all of a sudden. “Did she say anything?”
“Yes.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “What’d she say?”
“No.” He takes a step back, jumping when he hits the chair behind him. I take a step forward. “When she saw me, she screamed no over and over again. She was fucking scared out of her mind. Tell me, Theo.” I move closer to him and tilt my head as he moves back another step. “If she has no idea who I am, she had to have thought I was you. Why in the hell was she scared of a face that you and I share?”
He stops, and the scared look on his face morphs into something sinister. Lines appear beside his eyes as he glowers at me. His lips form a firm line and the pulse in his temple throbs. His anger stops me short, surprised at the sudden change.
“She does know you,” he says menacingly.
I rock back on my heel. “What?”
It’s now him who’s coming toward me. “It was you.” He spews the last word.
“Make fucking sense, Theo,” I grind out.
His lip curls with a sneer.
“You were the person that attacked her,” he growls, his eyes looking crazed.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” I throw back at him, my knuckles itching to land against the fucker’s face. I really don’t like what he’s insinuating.
“Motherfucker.” Muttering the word, he spins and scrubs his face with his hands before turning back. “You saw her one day a couple of weeks before we got married. You saw her, and you wanted her for yourself. You went so far as tracking her down to try and seduce her away from me. Your own fucking brother. It didn’t work. She came to me and told me what happened. I confronted you, and we fought. I have no clue what was going through your head, but the day we got married, you found out and it flipped some dark switch inside you. You went ballistic.”
I hold up my hand to stop him, because he’s still not making a damn bit of sense.
“I’ve never seen that girl a day in my life, except for some weird fucking dreams I’ve had for years and the few times I’ve visited her recently.”
“Wait,” he interrupts, frowning. “You’re still visiting her?”
“Later,” I snarl. “Now explain to me how I could try to take a girl from you when I’ve never even met her before. And I’ll add that there’s no fucking way I’d do that to you in the first place.”
His hands grab the top of his hair and he tugs at it as he looks to the ceiling, a guttural growl leaving his lips. He’s hiding something, and it’s putting my temper precariously close to the edge.
His eyes flicker to Dad before coming back to me.
“Remember the car accident you had seven years ago?” At my nod, he continues. “Jules was at home that day packing because we were leaving that night after we told the family about us. I was at work getting some shit together. You came by, and I told you we got married. You tore the office apart and stormed out, but I didn’t realize you had completely fucking lost it and went straight to Jules’s house. I got there an hour later and found Jules on the floor, blood seeping from her temple. I knew it was fucking you that did it. I took Jules to the hospital and went looking for you. A couple of hours later, Mom called and said you were in a car accident.”
“What in the fuck, Theo!” Dad booms. “Wait a—”
“You’ve lost your goddamn mind!” I lean toward him, raising my voice. “There’s no way that shit happened, because I would have remembered it!”
“You lost six weeks of your memory, remember? Incidentally, five weeks before was when I met Jules, and three weeks before, you met her. You were out for two days before you woke up. She still hasn’t yet. Or not until today.”
I stagger back a step, something sharp and hot lancing my chest. He’s lying. He has to be lying. There’s no way I did the things he said I did. I recall back to when I woke up in the hospital and the lapse in my memory. It’s been seven years, so it’s fuzzy, but I remember being disoriented from the memory loss. I remember the pain in my skull and a dull ache in my chest. I remember feeling like some part of me was missing and accounted it to losing six weeks’ worth of memories. I remember the worried look on my parents’ faces, and the rage in Theo’s eyes. Theo wasn’t around a lot those first few weeks, and when I did see him, he seemed angry. Eventually, he went back to his laid-back self.
I drop to a kitchen chair, my head falling into my hands to grip my hair. I hear Dad saying something to me, but I’m so focused on trying to remember Jules’s face that I can’t comprehend what he’s saying. I try to remember her from seven years ago, or anything that happened in those six weeks. I’ve tried before to pull up that short time frame, but never worked too hard at it. It was only six weeks, and I didn’t really see the point in exhausting myself over it. It’s a jumbled fucking mess, but all I can see are my dreams and the times I visited her in the hospital. Nothing from the past. Not even a fucking hint.
I lift my head, and I know my eyes must look wild or some shit. I feel like I’m going crazy.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I croak through a dry throat. Water. I need some goddamn water. Seeing dad’s beer bottle on the table, I snatch it and tip it to my lips until there’s nothing left to drink.