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I feel good, there’s an unknown calmness inside me, something I never experienced after a kill before. My Dark Passenger is sated and I feel a sense of justice. Travis Marshall is dead, my son is safe and no more people will die to fulfil prophecies of a mad man. I definitely feel good.
I’m humming on my way back to my apartment, expecting to find Jamie leaning over her books but there’s someone else when I step in.
Deb jumps to her feet when I enter. She looks scared, dishevelled and by the four empty beer bottles on my coffee table, drunk as well. Still dressed in her working clothes, her jacked carelessly thrown over an armchair she looks nothing like the composed lieutenant that barks orders to men twice her age. Right now, she looks like my little sister Debbie. I wonder what happened.
“Dex,” she says breathlessly. “I sent Jamie home, hope it’s okay?” She’s refusing to look me in the eye, like she did something she might regret. I know that look; she usually wore it after going through my things when we were teenagers. Mostly she was looking for my old essays then, I wonder what she found or didn’t find now.
“Sure,” I say. “Is Harrison sleeping?” I ask already moving toward his room.
She nods and follows me. I feel her uneasy steps and I turn briefly and smile at her reassuringly. I know I should ask what’s wrong but I’m not sure if I would know how to help her, maybe I can call someone. Deb was always coming to me for advice and left with something that in my opinion wasn’t very useful but it always made her smile after she called me “retarded” and left.
I lean into my son´s room and see him peacefully sleeping, happy and innocent in a way I don’t remember being. He’s holding his lion toy tightly to his chest. It’s a new one I bought him after his ordeal with Travis. Be strong, my son, I hope it says.
“Like a little angel,” Deb whispers behind me and only then I realize how close she is. I can smell alcohol on her breath and the heat of her body on my back. It makes me strangely uncomfortable and I motion to her that I’m closing the door. She then practically runs back to the living room where I find her pacing around the coffee table.
“So what do I owe this pleasure of your company?” I ask grinning, hoping to dissolve the tense atmosphere that rules this apartment since I returned from dumping DDK´s body to the ocean.
She stops pacing, manages to look calm for a brief moment before it shatters back. I think I might be worried at this point and I really think I should call someone.
“I thought we should celebrate, you being born for a second time,” she says and finally sits down. “It’s a shame it took you so damn long to get here.” She seems angry now, at me, at herself, at whole world. I have seen my sister shattered, sad, completely lost but I don’t know this Deb, scared and uncertain. It almost looks like she is afraid of me.
It makes my finally push the question from between my lips. “Deb, is something wrong?”
She flinches at my words and hides her face in her hands for a moment. I use that time to move closer to her, sitting on the couch and touching her shoulders. She immediately scoops away and I’m starting to feel scared as well. Did I make a mistake? Left something in the church? Did someone see me with Travis?
Deb takes a deep breath and turns to me holding onto her knees. “I am,” she says and I don’t know if it’s an answer or a beginning of something. Scared, shocked, disappointed, the list could go on. I try to prepare an answer for each possibility, lie my way back to her trust and loyalty. I can’t lose her, can’t live with Deb hating me, somehow it’s impossible and I didn’t know it till this moment.
I still don’t have a response so after another deep breath, Deb continues: “I already told you once. I am what’s wrong because I lived in a lie all my life. Believing I can overcome my father’s shadow, that I can be everything he wanted me to be, a good cop, lieutenant but I’m only a fuck-up, like he knew I would be. Travis Marshall escaped, Matthews is gone and I have La Guerta barking on back and that’s just a scrape of all the things that are wrong with me.”
I reach for her hand and I feel her freeze. So it isn’t me but her reaction says otherwise. Is there more?
Deb pulls her hand out of mine and stands, she’s back to pacing in front of me and I know I should say something but Harry taught me that at certain moments it’s better to stay silent. I think this might be one of them.
I lean my back on the couch and observe her. She’s pacing with her hand on her hips, biting into her lip. She is barefoot, her shoes lying near the couch. I want to reach and put them away but I know this isn’t the right moment. It seems I have learnt a thing or two over the years.
I’m still looking at her when she stops. She freezes me with her look full of something I can’t name. But I don’t see resentment or fear, I see Deb, my sister looking at me with words on her lips.
“I love you,” she says suddenly and I smile. I’m hearing this a lot these days. It pleases me to hear those words, maybe I can finally appreciate those words, maybe Deb did leave a mark on me.
“I love you too,” I say it too. Last time she was so delighted when I spoke these words and only then I realized how important they’re to her. I should have told her years ago. But only Harrison taught me how to love, how to say it and let the other person feel it. I want for my son to feel loved and I know I want to same for Deb.
But she’s shaking her head. I’m confused.
“No, I don’t mean like that. I mean...,” it’s there, on the top of her tongue but I’m not seeing it and I was never a good mind-reader no matter how many times Rita expected me to be. I’m definitely more confused.
I stand, maybe when I´ll come closer I´ll see it. It doesn’t make sense but right now, nothing does. Deb looks surprised, like she thinks I’m going to tell her something she won’t like but that’s not it, I want her to tell me.
I’m reaching for her, trying to give her some comfort because words are escaping me. I catch her hand in mine, it’s sweaty and cold and I start to caress her palm with my finger. Rita liked to be calmed down like that, healing touch. “Just tell me,” I say insistently, I really want to help her and if pushing her toward it could do it, I’m willing to try.
Deb looks at our hands and then back at me. She’s reading me, but I doubt she finds anything. I never show an emotion, that’s something I wasn’t able to learn yet. But Deb finds something, something that makes her step forward and kiss me. On the lips.
Of all the possible scenarios, this is one I never ever thought about. I expected her to be sad because they lost Travis, I even expected resentment because she found out about me but instead, instead I got something I never ever expected from her.
I freeze, my mind blank. What’s a correct course of action in this case? What do you do when your sister kisses you like, well, not your sister? Since I have no idea what do or say, I simply kiss her back. It sends an impulse to her body, I feel her shaking and she intensifies her kiss, pushes herself to me and I accept her sneaking my hand down her back.
I’m still not sure what I’m doing, should I be stopping her? Telling her that this is wrong? But I can’t think about it, I decide I leave the decision to her and I’ll try to do as she says. Harry surely didn’t prepare me for this option. He told me never to tell her about me, never put her in danger and keep her safe. He obviously didn’t count on this either.
Deb is kissing me with hunger I never remember having and I’m starting to lose my chain of thoughts, I didn’t even know it’s possible, not to think and analyze. But I shouldn’t be surprised if anyone could teach me this particular thing, it would be Deb. And I feel myself losing myself, becoming bolder and maybe more hungry for her affection. It’s her who stops me, pushes lightly at my shoulder and steps out of my arms.
I suddenly feel very lonely.
Deb is smiling, it’s a small smile slightly curving the corners of her mouth. She looks happy, calm, the complete opposite of the woman I found waiting for me. “I love you, Dex,” she says and now I understand the meaning, the difference between the very same words. She looks up expectantly at me and I know I could say the same but I can’t, my throat is suddenly very dry and those words get stuck.
Actions speak louder, that’s a common truth I heard many, many times, applied it with Rita when I hadn’t heard the right words for our present situation. With that in mind I step forward again and capture her lips with mine once again, if she wants to stop me, I don’t give her a chance and after a while I feel her relax again, she surrenders to me and I start to move drawing her to me.
I bump into the couch and sit, pulling Deb into my lap. She says nothing and lets me manoeuvre her where I want her. It hits me then, I want her. I’m not quite sure what I want from her but I want her, Deb, my foul-mouthed little sister who isn’t little anymore, who’s stronger than anyone would ever predict, brilliant too and suddenly I want to scream on Harry and tell him how very wrong he was.
“Deb,” I whisper her name and something in my tone makes her look at me. I feel naked under her gaze, she’s dismembering me, looking inside my brain and however strong she looks, she oversees the darkness, instead she sees her geeky retarded brother and in that moment, I want to tell her.
I want to show her my true-self, I want to show her with whom she fell in love because right now the thought of hurting her is tearing me apart. It’s a scary feeling.
But she doesn’t see my inner turmoil, instead she smiles and reaches forward to undo the buttons on my shirt. It’s a delicate process and she’s doing it slowly. My hands, idly resting at my sides, are starting to itch and soon after my own hands are fighting against hers in the battle of button opening, we´re grinning at each other chasing each other’s mouths and I feel, I really feel.
“I won,” she grins triumphantly after she opens the last button and I obediently raise my arms so she can get it off me, her shirt follows shortly after.
“I’m scared shitless,” she admits after probably realizing where all this might, no, is leading. And for a second I’m scared as well, that she leaves and never comes back, that me participating meant destroying the longest relationship I was able to have.
“I’ll never hurt you,” I realize I mean it, every single word and I push away the dark thoughts along with Harry’s voice (“You can’t promise her that. It’s a lie.”) because Deb’s insecurities have dissolved like a mist and she leans to me, splaying her hands against my chest, kissing me. She moves and bites and touches and I can’t think, even my father’s voice completely disappears from my mind, there’s quiet, dead and I finally know how peace feels.
Later, she pushes me down on my bed and shows me exactly how different her love is, my mind is still clear but when the first morning lights starts to enter my bedroom my darkness awakens as well. And I know that by letting Deb closer, by having her like this, I put her in danger, in danger of knowing what I really am. The peace disappears and I dread the moment she opens her eyes.