A Berry Good Knight

Forget Me Knight (FOUR)

"Really?" My tone was relaxed yet I was quaking with fear on the inside. With only a few minutes in her presence, old feelings that I deemed long ago buried had resurfaced. Despite Brooke's treatment of me when we started our senior year, it might kill me too if she jumped from that roof. Damn. A decade without seeing her, training myself to barely think of her, and she still had a hold on me. Hm, that one Smokey Robinson song would be appropriate for us. "Why would you do something so extreme?"

"Because if my life were a book that I was reading, I would shut the cover without finishing it, and promptly toss it in the trash. I detest what my life has become."

"So make it better."

"That is so much easier said than accomplished. I don't know where to start...how to start."

"Seek help from someone." I pointed toward myself. "I'm here. You can talk to me. Leaping from a roof...that's the worst option you could choose. The only thing that will change if you exit this roof the incorrect way is that you'll be dead leaving loved ones to mourn. Is that what you want?"

When she began studying me, I wished that I could read her thoughts. "Wouldn't you rather push me than help me, Cooper?"

"No, I wouldn't fair well in prison, as I look about as threatening as Elmo." I realized that making her laugh wasn't such a good idea when she started swaying back and forth. Moving closer to her, I reached up and wrapped my hands around her waist in an effort to keep her steady. Once Brooke seemed to have her balance back, I released her. "What led up to this?" I indicated her position on the ledge.

She sighed. "You really want to know?" It occurred to me that her words weren't slurred although there was very little Christian Brothers brandy left in the bottle.

"If you don't mind."

She shook her head. "No." Her expression thoughtful, I figured that she was gathering her words. "My life?I've never actually lived it for myself. Meaning, I've been living the life that my parents wanted me to. They wanted to me to go to law school and become a defense attorney like them. Although being a lawyer was never my dream, I kept my mouth shut and went along with their plans. I hate my job. I hate most of my clients, because I know that ninety percent of them have been guilty, but I had to defend them to the best of my ability even though it made me sick to my stomach knowing that I was helping to put those bastards back on the street." Brooke chuckled without any humor. "And unfortunately, I was damn good at it too.

"Then not only did my parents want me to be a lawyer, they wanted me to marry another lawyer or a doctor. You know that before you and I had our night together, I slept with three other girls in high school, but when we...things ended between us, I lunged into the closet, locked it from the inside, and swallowed the key. I went to the prom with Kyle Dupree, one of the most sought after guys in our class. During college I met a man a few years older than I who was an intern at a prestigious hospital. We courted and married a year later. I loved him about as much as I could love any man. There weren't any romantic feelings on my part yet I pretended there were. During sex I would fantasize about other women and I felt very guilty about that, but it was the only way I could respond to his touch." Pausing, Brooke looked toward me. "Most of my fantasies involved you." My mouth dropped open at the unexpected revelation. "I never forgot about you, Coop. Although because of my stupidity and cowardice our romance was over in the blink of an eye, I never forgot."

Before I could come up with an adequate response, she continued. "Two weeks ago, my world started turning upside down. I kept a journal on the computer at home, which I added to every day. In retrospect, it would have been wiser to keep that journal on my tablet." Brooke shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe on some level I wanted to be caught. Anyway, this particular day, I neglected to close the program after I finished my latest entry, and that evening when Robert used the computer, he saw it and read some. Unfortunately, what he read caused him to discover that I was living in the closet...that I had been living a lie with him.