Free Fade Back (A Stepbrother Romance Novella) by Stephanie Brother Page A

resilience.
    In the meantime, she couldn't bring herself to take any action. She just knew she wanted Fitz back—to feel him, to smell his hair and the warmth of his breath against her cheek. And since he was on her dad’s side in all of this, Becka just felt miserable.
    She watched daytime TV, and late night TV, and dozed in between, fretfully dreaming of Fitz. She’d wake up sticky and strangely sad, surrounded by pizza boxes and delivery containers in the same pair of sweatpants over and over. She took days off work, for the first time ever, and when she went back in, she was a shadow of her former self, smiling like an automaton, yet nobody there noticed. With this fresh perspective on the scene, Becka realized how shallow her interactions were. She may be one of the golden goddesses of clubland but it was lonesome up there on the pedestal.
    Becka thought about grad school. About changing her job. About geometry. She didn't look in the mirror much lately, and she didn't try to read the lines of ink on her torso like Braille any more. She didn't do much of anything for those long, miserable weeks.
    Eventually, her friends had enough. Jerome called Mick, and Mick dragged the normally belligerent Karen along to Becka’s apartment. They brought air fresheners, garbage bags, and a salad. Jerome brought a bottle of Bacardi. All three of them turned up outside Becka’s door one afternoon, banging away and shouting at her from her talk-show induced stupor. She peeked through the peephole, even though she recognized their voices instantly, and considered pretending she was out until she heard Jerome grumble through the thick wooden door: 
    "We know you're there, and we don't care how pasty and gross you look. I can smell you from here.”
    And for a split second, Becka smiled, the first expression beyond a pained grimace she'd managed in all that time. She opened the door, and like particles filling a vacuum, her friends swarmed in, even Karen, who beyond the confines of the tattoo parlor was more than capable of dropping her scowl. The sight of her holding Mick’s hand, her assorted rings and bracelets chiming, their casual intimacy... it made Becka want to cry. And worse, she remembered how things like that used to make her sneer and scoff with derision. Love is for cowards , she'd proclaim to anyone listening, for the wimps, ugly, and dull . She realized all those times she'd simply been describing herself, or her worst fears for herself. 
    Mick noticed Becka wiping off a tear as he swept arm-loads of detritus from the surfaces, while Karen and Jerome together tackled the clearly two-person job of fixing a round of Bacardi, lime, and sodas. He left the two tattooed freaks to argue the finer points of lime wedges vs slices and sat himself down beside his friend. Rumpling her caramel-colored hair, he didn't make a face when he felt its greasy lankness. He wiped a tear from Becka’s face and sighed while he rocked her gently.
    "You party girls are really shitty at this stuff, huh?" he coaxed in a voice he normally reserved for dealing with children and dogs. "Come on Becka, is this really the first time you've been in love? You’re used to have all these men at your feet every day.”
    "I don’t know. I guess I just thought I was... you know, tougher… than anyone else because I never let anyone close.”
    "You didn’t! You were the queen of never letting anyone close!” Jerome trilled merrily as he rammed a mason jar of foaming cocktail in his hands like it was succor for a bombed-out family in the blitz, and Becka received it in that spirit. 
    "Yeah, well, I guess I realized there wasn't anyone who was worth it. I just liked all those guys because I wanted to feel hot and admired, but there was never any love."
    "Well, now that you know what it's like, I guess you've got a couple of choices," Karen said. She sat down in the armchair opposite Becka and crossed her illustrated legs under her miniskirt, resting her