The Anti-Hero (The Goode Brothers, #1)(93)

Together we walk to the front porch of the house. It’s a beautiful late summer evening, and here in Texas, that means it’s still humid enough to choke on the air but cool enough to withstand it.

We each take a seat, but I’m too upset to relax. So after a long drink of the dry red Cabernet, I hold it in my hand while leaning forward, my unkempt hair hanging over my eyes.

Everything in my life feels unkempt at the moment.

“She’s healing, Adam. And healing takes time.”

“What if she’s not healing?” I ask. “What if…my presence is keeping her from getting better?”

With a tsk, she shakes her head. “I was afraid you were thinking that.”

“I mean…it was my father who did this to her. Does she think of him when she looks at me?”

When my mother remains silent, her thin lips pressed into an apologetic expression, I know the answer. And it’s not what I want to hear.

I could be the reason Sage isn’t getting better. Or at least healing slowly. As much as she says she’s not mad at me and she loves me and wants me with her, resentment buries itself deep. There’s a good chance Sage doesn’t even know it’s there, slowly poisoning her until, eventually, she’ll break.

“What do I do? Leave her?”

“I think patience is the only thing that’s going to work right now, Adam.”

I love that my mother’s knee-jerk reaction to this isn’t God or prayers or grace. I love that her faith can take a back seat to logic when needed.

But I still don’t love the answer, patience. Because every minute I spend waiting is a minute I spend worrying. And if I wait too long, I’m afraid it will be too late.

The last time I saw someone so shattered in grief and pain was my mother…the day we realized Isaac wasn’t coming back. It feels impossible to even bring it up, but the last time I thought something was impossible to talk about, it ended in Sage getting hurt. I’m not shying away from the impossible anymore.

“Mom…” I say, delicately approaching the topic. She sets down her wineglass and stares at me expectantly. Bringing up my brother feels like I’m hurting my mother intentionally, but I have to do it. “When Isaac…ran away. How long did it take you to recover?”

A slow, sad smile pulls across her face as tears gather in her eyes. “Honey, I never really recovered,” she replies. “Not from him leaving. Not from the way your father treated him.”

“Then why did you stay with him?” My voice cracks as I ask the question that feels like an assault.

As a tear slips over the pink blush of her cheek, she shrugs.

“I was scared. And I have been so codependent on your father that I don’t know how to decide anything on my own.”

“I’m so sorry,” I reply, blinking salt trails over my own face as I stare in anguish at my mother and all of the pain I’ve caused her. “I should have been better. I should have helped you or him. I just…wanted to be a good son.”

“You are a good son, Adam.”

“To him,” I reply in agony. “I could have protected Isaac. I should have stood up for him. Offered him a safe place to stay or told him that I loved him. But I just…kept quiet. You lost Isaac because of me.”

I’m sobbing now, my hand soaked with my tears as I cover my face. When I feel her comforting touch on my shoulder, I force myself to look up.

“Adam, honey. I never lost him.”

When I swallow, it feels like needles in my throat. I wipe my face again, staring at her in confusion because it doesn’t make sense. Of course, she lost him. She’s only saying this to spare my feelings.

“No, Mom…” I reply with a shake of my head. “Isaac’s gone.”

“No, he’s not, Adam. I know…where Isaac is.”

I pause, frozen as I search her eyes for answers. “What?”

“I talk to your brother nearly every day.”

The muscles in my body clench with anxiety as I work to piece together what she’s telling me. “You…talk to Isaac?”

Tearfully, she nods.

All these years, I had nothing but hope that my brother was still alive. Gone without a trace, he stayed frozen in time at seventeen, but now I’m racking my brain trying to imagine a twenty-five-year-old man existing somewhere just out of my reach.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask in desperation.

Again, her lips tighten and her brows lift. Then she strokes my hand like she’s delivering bad news. Then it hits me.

“You were protecting him,” I say with another cracked sob.

She doesn’t have to nod for me to know. My mother was protecting my brother…from me. Because I am my father’s son. Because I was so focused on being like him when that’s the last fucking thing I should have ever wanted to be.

I burst out of my chair, dragging my hands through my hair with a feeling of panic. What the fuck is wrong with me?

This whole time I thought I was ruining my reputation by rebelling against that man, but this whole time…I was worse when I was trying to emulate him.

It was never about the videos or the club or Sage. I never used her to get back at him. I used her…to get away from him.

She was my lifeline. The lifeboat carrying me from the storm.