Page 99 of Second Alarm
"Cal."
" — during which — "
Cal swings.
He doesn't telegraph it. He crosses the kitchen in two steps and his right hand comes up — the hand not in the sling — and his fist connects with my jaw at the angle a man gets when he's been working a heavy bag for twenty years and knows exactly where to put the weight.
The hit puts me on the floor.
Tile floor. Kung pao chicken near my left ear.
I don't swing back.
"Cal!" Hanna is across the kitchen. "Cal, stop — "
"Don't you — "
"Calvin!"
"You — Brennan, you — "
He's standing over me. His fist is ready for another. My lip is split, iron on my tongue. I don't swing back. I'm going to take whatever he gives me in this kitchen, because ten years of lying to a man who loved me buys him a certain amount of floor timeon my jaw, and the physics of this isn't something I'm going to fight.
"Cal," Hanna says, "if you hit him again I'll break your other shoulder myself."
"Hanna — "
"I'm not joking. I'm a paramedic. I know exactly where to hit you. Don't hit him again."
He doesn't.
He stares down at me. His face is doing the crumple of a grown man whose brain has finished running the reel. His fist opens. He staggers back, drops into his own kitchen chair, puts his good hand over his face. His bad shoulder twitches. He swears, long and loud and graceless, at the ceiling.
"Cal."
"Shut up, Brennan." Hanna doesn't look at me.
"I'm not going to defend it."
"Good."
"I'm not going to pretend this wasn't what it was."
"Good."
"And I'm not going to apologize for loving your sister."
The kitchen goes quiet again.
Cal takes his hand off his face.
"What did you say."
"I'm not going to apologize for loving your sister. I'll apologize for the lying — every day, Cal, for the rest of my life. But not for the loving."
"You're so lucky I'm injured."
"I know."
