Kim Karr - Mended

He practically fucks her with his eyes, and I squeeze my fists at my sides, resisting the urge to smash his face in. Ivy pulls her robe out of her bag and wraps it around herself. For some reason this helps ease my rage. Then suddenly he stands up and snatches hold of her elbow, pulling her out of the chair. I stand up as well. She snaps at him and steps back, but he grasps her shoulders. A smirk spreads across his face as he presses himself against her. The vulgarity of his actions hits me like a punch. She whispers something in his ear, and he drops his hold but doesn’t surrender. He touches his fingers to her cheek and tilts her head toward him. As if to make a point, he slides his hands down and unties her robe, his gaze lazily scanning her body before shifting over to me. I know what the asshole is doing—he’s demonstrating to me that she’s his. He obviously feels the need to antagonize me further by running his hands down her hips and slipping his fingers inside her bathing suit bottom. My stomach twists. She flinches, then gathers her things and walks away. But he quickly catches up to her.

At the sight of his seemingly aggressive behavior, I have to fight the urge to go over there and sock him, but my chance is lost when they both exit the pool area. My frustration and aggravation are surpassed only by my concern. I try to hold back my rage—how dare he touch her like that, look at her like that? With adrenaline coursing through my veins, I slip on my T-shirt.

Amy glances at me. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back. I’m going to run up and see why my brother isn’t down here yet.”

She giggles. “Have fun with that.” I just shake my head. I know why he’s not down here, and I’m not really going to his room. I promised myself that if he did this for me—made the decision to help us out—I’d cut him some slack.

I don’t know where I’m going, but my anger toward that arrogant asshole has already taken hold. She might not be mine, but that doesn’t mean anything right now. I follow their path through the grotto and try to talk myself down, because I know where this is leading. With my fists balling at my sides, I can hardly control myself. When I turn the corner at a rapid pace, her stormy blue eyes slam into mine. For the briefest of moments, I stop in my tracks. My stomach lurches at the sight of what he did. There she is—my angel—with blood dripping from her lip and tears streaming down her face.

I rush over to her. “Ivy—” I whisper, my voice catching on her name. I take her face in my hands. Pulling my T-shirt up, I wipe the blood from her lip and blot the tears from her cheeks. “Are you all right?” I ask finally, filling the silence of the last twelve years between us.

For a few moments she lets me take care of her—like she used to. Then she blinks as if remembering that this is not then. She presses her lips together, but her scrutiny doesn’t waver from me as she pushes me back. I reach to help her, but she shrugs my hand away. “I don’t need your help,” she says forcefully. Her voice getting higher with every word, she unleashes what I can only assume to be years of pent-up anger at me. “I can take care of myself.”

I don’t blink. “Did he hit you? Does he hit you?”

She shakes her head, sadness mingling with determination on her face. “That’s none of your business. Leave it alone, Xander. I mean it.”

I reach for her face, my fingers brushing her cheek. “Tell me the truth. Does he hit you?”

“No, he doesn’t. Do you think I’d be with someone who does? Men with loose fists and men who cheat—they’re grown from the same mold and they can both go fuck themselves.”

She stares at me for the longest time and without another word she storms away—cold, guarded, and angry. The girl I knew with the hard exterior, but so fragile and sensitive, appears to be gone. Now she’s all hard edges, and she’s pissed as hell—at that asshole, and at me.

Listening to the beat, I can feel the strum of each chord in my chest, and my ears ring and my heart pounds as the green, yellow, and red fluorescent lights illuminate the stage and the darkness cascades above us. A feeling of relief takes hold of me. They’re almost done—they did it. My throat might be dry, and I’m out of breath from yelling, but I don’t care. Tonight they did it old-school and they killed it. No opening act, no fire, no smoke, no extras—just the Wilde Ones onstage at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.

River’s certainly not planning on jumping back into doing another nine months in the studio, but my brother is in top form right now as he sings the last song of the night. In an “I’m in love croon,” with his six-string standing in for the synths and bludgeoning rhythms of the produced track, River gives “Once in a Lifetime” all he has. His raspy, soulful tone stands out as he sings the ballad acoustic style to his wife. The unplugged version is making the fans go crazy. Cheers and yells come from behind me and I feel like I’m part of the audience tonight.

I’m not backstage like I usually am. Instead I’m standing with Dahlia in the VIP section. She and River are staring straight at each other. Their connection seems to be pulling out all he has. And I have to say, her good mood has definitely rubbed off on me. Despite the events of the last two days, I’m having the best time I’ve had since the tour began. It’s just her and me and a select dozen or so other people in the roped-off orchestra section, and it’s been a blast. My cousin Jagger and his girl, Aerie, are here somewhere. Jagger arrived in town after I hit the road, so I never got to catch up with him. But I’ve talked to him on the phone a number of times and finally got to meet him before the show. So strange having a cousin you’ve never met, but when you live so many miles apart for most of your lives, I guess it happens. Jagger and Aerie together, though—that still makes me laugh. She’s so uptight and he, well, I don’t know him that well, but I’d say he’s anything but. He seems to be a lot like River. I invited them to join us up here, but Aerie was in full-on work mode and wanted to be out in the crowd, interviewing people. She said she’d catch up with us after the show. Unfortunately, my mother and stepfather, Jack, are in Paris, so they couldn’t be here. And my sister, Bell, had to work. She just recently started her own event-planning business in addition to keeping her day job, so catching up with her lately has been hard. But she seems to have found her place in this world. She’s happier and more put together.

Dahlia nudges me. “Hey, you watching? You seem someplace else.”

The show ends with crazed fans screaming at the top of their lungs for an encore. “More! We want more! Give us more!”

I give her a look as if to say, “Where else would I be?” but her attention is riveted on the stage again at the sound of my brother’s voice. River smiles at the crowd and catches us in his vision as he slips the microphone out of the stand. “More? You want more?”

Their response comes in unison. “Yes!”

He hits the edge of the stage and drags his fingertips along Dahlia’s outstretched hands. “I think we can do that.” He finds the microphone stand again and clips it in place.

Dahlia leans over to me. “I really have to use the restroom. I don’t think I can wait.”

I laugh and nod my head. “Come on. I’ll take you backstage now.” It’s my job to be her personal bodyguard tonight, and actually I don’t mind it. It obviously puts my brother at ease, and my sister-in-law and I get along really well now, after a bumpy start. Turns out she is exactly four months pregnant. She and River have decided not to find out the sex of the baby, but she showed me an ultrasound picture and the baby was sucking his thumb. I have to believe it’s a boy, for River’s sake, because another girl in his life to watch over just might push him over the edge. The thought makes me laugh, though.