Laughing, Evan turned away from the vampire and double-blinked at the empty space beside him. “Where’d he go?”
“Do you mean physically or mentally?”
Evan’s expression morphed into one of concern. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s shutting me out again, the bastard.” There was no venom in my voice because a part of me felt sorry for him. But apparently there was enough frustration that Evan decided to subtly lead me out of the room and into the ballroom adjacent to it.
The second the door was closed, he pressed, “What do you mean, shutting you out? Don’t tell me you guys are letting Magda get to you. I really thought you were both coping pretty well with that.”
“We are. Sort of. But that’s not what this is about anyway.”
“Then, what?”
“Answer me something. Is it a lot to ask him to talk to me about your mother, about why he wouldn’t go to the funeral? If it truly is, I’ll let this go. For now. But if it’s not, tell me so that I can kick him up the arse and make him tell me. This isn’t about my curiosity anymore. I heard his voice when he spoke of her, I heard him say he’s feeling bad. I want to help him. He won’t let me.”
Evan ran a hand through his hair, looking like he would rather be anywhere but there with me at that very moment. “You can’t understand what our mom was like, Sam.”
“Then help me understand. He won’t tell me anything, Evan. I just want to be there for him.”
There was a long pause before he finally spoke. “If this was any other subject, I’d tell you to go to Jared, I wouldn’t get involved. But this is a sore subject for him. I’m pretty sure he’d have told you eventually, but not now. And now is when he needs to talk about it, whether he likes it or not.”
He led me over to one of the large circular tables, taking the seat opposite me. He then took a long, preparatory breath before starting. “Our mother…She wasn’t a mom to Jared, Sam. To understand why, you have to understand what she was like. Ever met a narcissist before? I mean a true narcissist.”
“No.”
He smiled sadly. “That’s the thing, you probably have; you just hadn’t known it. Narcissists have two faces. They’re one person in public, but a completely different person behind closed doors. Of course, no one other than the people living behind those doors with them will have any inkling there is more than one side to them.
“Lorna Michaels was totally obsessed with herself, had a sense of entitlement, couldn’t empathise with another person, used and manipulated everyone around her. Her needs always came first. In some ways, she was like a spoilt child. And the vanity…she was so superficial; all about looks and appearances.”
When he hesitated to continue, I knew he was debating whether to send me to Jared. “Please, Evan. I need to know.”
Sighing, he nodded. “Because she was so nice to everyone else, they all thought she was amazing; a regular martyr who would do anything for anybody. Some kids even used to say that they wished they had my mom. They didn’t know about the outbursts, the emotional abuse, or the physical abuse. But we did. Or, more specifically, Jared did, because it was only really him who suffered from it. Occasionally I was the focus of an outburst, but that was only if I’d tried to defend Jared or disobey her. Lorna Michaels had to be obeyed, and that was that.”
Already I wished I’d been at the funeral just to do a celebratory dance around the headstone, singing ‘Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead’. “And your dad?”
“I don’t remember him being home all that much – he was either at work, or out drinking with his friends. He was a ‘woe is me’ person, too wrapped up in his own misery to give a shit about anybody else. I think that was why their marriage was so bad – they were both attention seekers, and neither liked it when the other was getting all the attention. It was almost like sibling rivalry. But my mother would never have given him a divorce. No, other people weren’t allowed to know that we were anything but the perfect little family. She let him have his work affairs as long as he was discreet about it. After all, she had secrets of her own, didn’t she?”
“Why did she hone in on Jared?”
“When she gave birth to us, I popped out easily enough. But he hadn’t turned, so she’d needed a C-section. And she was sure to tell him on a regular basis that she wished she’d never had him because she hated the scar. I think she would always have chosen just one of us to dote on. Apparently, it’s typical of narcissists to, on a subconscious level, pick a golden child and a scapegoat. The golden child can do no wrong; the scapegoat can do no right.”
Weird. “And she chose Jared to be the scapegoat because of the scar?”
“I don’t think so. I think it was because she couldn’t mould him into the person she wanted him to be. She tried to make us both extensions of her. Tried to control us – our every move, our every feeling, our every thought. With me, it worked in some ways. I wanted her attention, and the best way to get it was to agree with her, mirror her, do whatever she wanted. But Jared wouldn’t let her control him.”
And didn’t that make me proud as hell.
“No matter how much she punished him, she couldn’t break him. She couldn’t get into his head and take control. Personally, I think it was because of the hurtful comments she made. Instead of trying to seek her approval, he’d rejected her in his mind as some kind of defence mechanism. Because of that, she simply couldn’t get in. She actually made the job harder for herself, it was like a vicious cycle – the more she demeaned him to try to weaken him and take over, the more he rejected her and the tougher his defences against her became.”
“You said there’d been physical abuse.” A part of me didn’t want to hear it, but this was Jared, and I couldn’t help if I didn’t understand.
Evan swallowed hard. “It was more about control, wanting us to fear her enough that we’d be easier to control. Oh she was nice to me, but she still terrified me. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t help Jared in the beginning. It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to. Sometimes, I’d get an urge to pull her away from him, but then I’d feel guilty because she was my mom and she was always good to me.”
With a disbelieving look on his face, he continued, “See, I thought she was great, because she thought I was great, and she’d tell me how I was her best boy, and that we were so alike and special. But with Jared, she was cold, aloof, distant, and abusive…except when people came around. Then she’d talk about her ‘two best boys’ and put him on display. And he’d have to perform. The punishment was so severe when he didn’t that he learned it was easier to act the perfect family when people were around.”
“What kind of punishments?”
He inhaled deeply. “One of her favourites was to lock him in our tiny shed – this was after she’d beaten the shit out of him. Even when it was winter and ice cold, she’d lock him in there, not even bothering to give him a coat. Yeah, she did lots of cruel crap like that. Other times, it would be mind games. She’d ask him to imagine what it would be like if she let ‘The Bad Man’ take him away and keep him, to imagine what that man would do to him. Or she’d pretend that she couldn’t hear or see him, would act as if he wasn’t there, like he didn’t exist.”
It was hard speaking while there was a big, fat lump in my throat. Just imagining him as a little boy being huddled in the corner of a cold shed, or repeatedly talking to his mother only to be completely ignored and made to feel like a ghost…Twisted bitch. “Didn’t he ever tell anyone?” I couldn’t imagine Jared ever suffering anything in silence.
“He told our aunt, but she didn’t believe him. Why would she? Lorna was so nice to everyone, and she made him out to be ‘troubled’ and an ‘attention seeker’ with a ‘vivid imagination’. She was cunning like that.”
As he went on, Evan grinned; it was all pride. “He managed to get his revenge in subtle ways. He’d realised that she liked it when he flinched or cried, so he never did it for her. No matter what she did to him, he wouldn’t
cry, wouldn’t ask her to stop, wouldn’t even wince. Nothing. That got to her, because it was a reminder that she might be able to physically overpower him, but she still hadn’t got in here.” He tapped his temple, still grinning. “And denying that to someone who fed off misery and pain…it was probably the best form of revenge.”
His grin faded as he went on. “I should have spoken up with him, should have told my aunt that Lorna was lying. I should have got him help. I wanted to, I did. But, like I said, then I’d feel guilty, because I’d sort of felt indebted to her. That was how she made me feel.”
Hearing the shame and guilt in his voice, I patted his arm. “You were just a kid, Evan.”
His chuckle was humourless. “He always says the same thing. But I still should have helped him. He’s my twin.”
“You didn’t know any other way. To you, that was probably normal.”
“I was eleven when it finally clicked in my head that it wasn’t right. When I started spending time at my friends’ houses, I saw how other parents were, how the kids were treated equally. But the real turning point for me was the time when I went inside one of my friends’ homes with him and we found his dad beating up his brother. The first thing my friend did was jump on his dad’s back and try to help his brother.
“That was when I really started to defend Jared rather than just divert her attention from him. We started to spend lots of time together and we became really close, and maybe that was a lot to do with being the only two people who knew the real her – we were each the other’s validation that we weren’t crazy for thinking that this supposed martyr was truly, well, evil.”
“I’ll bet she didn’t like you two becoming close.”
“No, she didn’t. She turned on me big time, and she did some mean shit to me, too. But I was still the golden child, no matter what. Jared, on the other hand…She made it clear to him in as many ways as possible that he didn’t matter to her, that he wasn’t even a person. I’ll tell you one thing that I remember. It happened when we were in our teens. We got quite a bit of female attention at school. I’m not being boastful here, I’m just—”
I held up a hand, smiling. “No, it’s okay, I can fully imagine. I’ll bet Jared loved that.”
“Actually, he didn’t. He hated attention back then. Hated it. He didn’t trust anyone, he thought everyone was fake, he expected everyone to try to use him, or to fuck him over. He even hated his looks, because he looked so much like Lorna. He couldn’t bring himself to respect many of the girls who rallied around him because most were as superficial as the bitch that gave birth to us. But he wasn’t bitter or a total asshole, he was just very guarded and even quiet. He never really showed emotion…probably because at home, emotions had always got him in deep shit.”
It was at that moment that I realised that I had been asking a lot of Jared when I wanted him to talk to me. But how was I supposed to know that this was such a hot button for him? Still, I felt like crap for pushing him.
“Mom’s friends used to tell her she must be so proud to have such handsome sons. She’d say of course she was. One of those friends used to flirt a lot with Jared, who was freaked out by it and avoided her as far as possible. When she got a little too heavy, he went to Lorna and told her to keep the woman away from him. Wanna know what she said? She told him to give her friend the little fling that she wanted. She actually told him to fuck her friend, which he didn’t, and that got him punished.”
“Please tell me that you’re joking.” When he shook his head, I asked, “How old was he?”
“Fourteen.”
My jaw practically hit the floor.
“She didn’t see people as ‘people’, Sam; especially not him. Jared was just a thing for her to use and manipulate. When Magda turned out to be exactly the same, it did something to him. It changed him. Something in him just…went. Although he hadn’t cared about Magda, he’d thought he did at the time. What’s more, she’d told him that she loved him. That was something he’d never had before. But she just became another woman that hurt, used, and betrayed him.”
Had I ever wanted to hurt Magda more than I did right at that second?
“When he was made Heir and the spotlight was on him…That was what he’d always wanted. Not necessarily the spotlight itself, but recognition, acceptance, and respect. And, yeah, he got a lot of female attention too. But, again, they didn’t want him. They wanted the Heir, they wanted to use him. It didn’t even bother him; he’d come to expect that from people, had convinced himself that women were users and manipulators. There’d never been anyone to make him think differently.”
The click in my head was so definitive that I was surprised it hadn’t been audible. “So, basically, all that prejudice...it wasn’t because he thought women were the inferior sex. It was because he was angry at women in general.”
Evan nodded. “But you…you didn’t care that he was the Heir. You didn’t jump into his bed. You were going to require some effort on his part, some respect, and he liked you enough to give you both. I don’t think either of us can appreciate how hard it must have been for him to take the chance of letting you in, knowing you could hurt him. I imagine it was a while before he even realised he’d let you in enough to care about you. He’d probably convinced himself it was all physical, that sex would make it go away.”
Thinking back to the way Jared had behaved in the beginning, how Fletcher and I had mused that he seemed to be sulking over my refusal to shag him, I thought that Evan might just be right about that.
“Now do you see why he’s being so protective, Sam? You’ve been the exception to every rule. You’re the total opposite of all those women who used him. You’re something he hadn’t imagined existed, something he needs and will be determined to keep. If you are at all worried about Magda, don’t be. He would never want her or anybody else. Nothing in this world could stop him from Binding with you. Nothing.”
And if Evan was right about that, I’d been worrying for absolutely no reason. Jared hadn’t shut down because he had doubts, he had shut down for reasons deeper than I would ever have imagined.
“I know the protectiveness is driving you crazy, Sam, but you won’t get him to tone it down. Not with how scarred he is, not with how determined he is to never lose you. If you really do love him, don’t ask him to change. Just…indulge him in this. Not all the time, but at least sometimes. Especially while your gifts don’t seem to be working.”
I nodded. “Okay, that’s fair.”
Evan looked at me beseechingly. “Now can you understand why he hasn’t wanted to talk about our mother?”
“Definitely.”
“Don’t think his confidence must therefore be all an act. It’s not. Jared fought hard to keep what she tried her level-best to take from him. And it must’ve been hard. To be told everyday – and by your own mother, the person who’s supposed to love you – that you’re nothing, you’ll never be anything, you’re bad through and through…it’s like brainwashing. But like I said, he’d formed defences against her, and those defences kept him going. He became emotionally independent at a very young age, and the only person other than me who he ever allowed himself to care about was Antonio.”
The man who’d saved him. “Ah, hero worship.”
Evan chuckled. “Antonio was kind of like the dad we’d never had. He was the positive influence that Jared had really needed at the time. Up until that point, I was the only person that Jared had ever let fully ‘in’ to his life. Actually, that’s not true. Antonio had barged his way in. When he sees potential in someone, he won’t let it be left untapped.”
Very true. I knew that from personal experience.
“Jared had resisted at first because, as I said, he’d become emotionally independent at a young age. Maybe that’s admirable, but it wasn’t good for him. I wanted so much for him to let another person into his life. The great thing about Jared is that once he does, once they’re ‘in’, he doesn’t hold back from them. He’ll gi
ve them whatever they want or need, he’ll kill or die for them. But no one ever really sees that part of him, because he doesn’t let them. But he let you. And that should speak volumes to you.”
It did, and now I was crying. I did not cry, but here I was crying.
“Please don’t cry. Teary women scare me. It’s—” Evan cut himself off when the door suddenly swung open, and in strode Jared.
Oh bugger.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
(Sam)
Jared halted at our expressions, but it was when he saw me scrubbing tears from my cheeks that understanding flashed on his face.
Evan got to his feet, hands raised in a placatory gesture. “I had to tell her, Jared. It was important that she understood.”
Jared did something I would never have seen coming. He simply nodded, giving Evan a half-smile. I almost felt Evan’s relief, who returned the smile and gave me a wave before heading for the door. Further surprising me, Jared patted his brother on the back as Evan past him and left the room. Leaving us alone.
Sighing, Jared shrugged. “Now you know.”
“Yeah, now I know.” In vampire speed, I was pressed up against him, wrapping my arms locked around him. Of course he did that man-thing and struggled. “This isn’t sympathy, you macho sod, this is me wanting to hug you because I love you.” He settled then, curling his arms around me. “I understand now why you didn’t want to talk about her, but it felt like you were pushing me away.”
He shook his head, sliding his hands into my hair. “No, baby, not that. Never that. Do you want to know what my two biggest fears are?”
“What?”
“That something bad will happen to you, or you’ll leave me. I’m not going to do anything that might make either of those things happen. Oh I’m not saying I’ll be a ray of fucking sunshine, or that I won’t screw up sometimes. But I would never do anything that would hurt or push you away. Understand?” He relaxed a little when I nodded. “I’m just not good at talking about stuff, at talking about feelings and whatever.”