“Well, when Mom was alive, I didn’t have to be. She was out of her mind so much that I could come and go as I pleased.”
Not that I did, I almost add, but he doesn’t need to know that my propensity for being a hermit started long before I moved here.
He walks over and slides the lock back in place, leaning against the door. For a long time, he studies me, and out of habit, my tongue darts out to touch the scar at the corner of my mouth.
I’m suddenly hyperaware of the evidence of my trauma, and as Boyd tracks the movement, I can’t help wondering if he is, too.
I covered the scars extensively when I lived with him. Went to extremes to ensure that I’d never be caught off guard by my appearance in a mirror or catch looks of pity from people who otherwise didn’t give a shit about me.
It was a protective mechanism, and since Aiden barreled into my new life and forced my walls down, I’ve thought less and less about them. Right now, they’re all I can think about—all I can feel—and as the memories come flooding back, so does my brother’s anguish in the aftermath.
Reaching up, he scratches at the back of his neck and sighs. “I used to be jealous that you called her that.”
I blink. “Mom?”
“Yeah. It was stupid, but I grew up calling her LeeAnn. She’d even asked me to, at one point. Every time you called her mom, it was like we were referencing two completely different people.”
Pushing off the door, he moves around me and into the kitchen. A light glows above the sink, and I see a tub of strawberry ice cream open on the counter, a spoon sticking out of the top. He grabs it and sits at the island, shoving a spoonful into his mouth.
I glance out the back windows to Aiden’s cabin, noting that the whole house is dark. He’s probably asleep, and while I’m sure I could go over and wake him up, something in my soul is telling me not to.
Not yet, anyway.
Exhaling, I kick off my boots, grab a spoon from a drawer by the fridge, and join Boyd at the island. We eat the ice cream in silence, the darkness settling around us the way it seems to have our whole lives—quickly and fully, enveloping us in its warm embrace.
Leaving just a tiny sliver of light.
“Kind of weird that we’re eating ice cream when there’s snow on the ground,” I comment after a few minutes.
He points his spoon at me. “Neither one of us is exactly normal.”
“Yeah, I guess that ship kind of bypassed our docks, huh?” Pushing my tongue into my cheek, I stab my spoon into the pint and sit back, folding my arms on the counter. “Do you think we ever could be?”
“Normal?” I nod, and he laughs.
Laughs.
My broody, angry-at-the-world, too-serious-for-his-own-good brother laughs.
And I hate how my heart still has the courage to hope.
“I think normal is boring. Abnormalities make life more interesting.”
Groaning, I drop my forehead to my arms, burying my face. “I think I’m dating my brother.”
“Well, I would not suggest telling that to Fiona.”
Snorting, I shove at his bicep, rolling my head to the side. “Not literally, dick. But the tattoos, and the philosophy? You guys would probably get along great. You know, when you’re not pointing a gun at him.”
A small, sad smile tugs at Boyd’s lips, and he pushes the ice cream away, turning his spoon in his hands. “I failed you, a lot, when you were growing up. Let all the resentment and anger I had toward… our mother cloud my judgment. Let it bleed onto you. An innocent bystander just caught in the middle of things.”
My throat tightens, emotion winding around and around my sternum, a boa constrictor prepping its next victim.
“I didn’t think it was hurting you. Or, rather, I didn’t want to see if it was. And every time I came over, you were always so excited to see me, and it felt like the universe was just driving the metaphorical knife deeper into my gut.” He swallows. “Then… you got attacked, and I walked into the trailer to find you…”
Boyd pauses, sucking in a deep breath as he presses his palms into the countertop. “He was standing over you, and you didn’t even…” His fists curl, knuckles bleaching, and my sinuses burn as I watch him struggle to relive it.
There’s blood everywhere.
The memory flashes across my vision, assaulting my senses with its force, and I latch on to it the way one might their comfort character, letting it permeate my skin as if it deserves a place in my life.
“You didn’t look like you,” he finally manages, his words harsh. Rushed, like they’re as painful to utter as they are to hear. “I don’t think I’d ever seen so much blood in my life, and I knew things couldn’t be good if that much of it was outside your body. And I felt so fucking guilty that in the milliseconds before I processed, I wished for the universe to open up and just swallow me whole. To punish me, once and for all, for being an absolute piece of shit brother.”
His voice cracks, and so does something in my chest.
“I swear, Riley, if I had ever thought something like that would happen to you, I would’ve done anything to have prevented that.”
Tears sting my eyes, and I turn away, the agony etched into his face unbearable. “You couldn’t have known, Boyd. It’s not like I told you how Mom was, or what her boyfriends were like.”
“But I did know. I lived with her. I knew what she was capable of, but I was fucking selfish. So selfish, and you paid for my mistakes.” Palming the sides of his face, he lets out a ragged breath. “I thought bringing you to live with me might be my second chance. That I’d… I don’t know, fix you, or something. Reverse the damage I’d caused and absolve myself of my sins. But I still didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, or how to help, and then you were growing up and begging to go to New York—”
“And then I left,” I finish, mashing my lips together.
He peeks at me through his fingers. “And then you left.”
Every cell in my body is screaming to apologize—for leaving, for not going to him for help, for being the one our mom kept. The words claw their way up my chest, heavy with the weight of self-flagellation I’ve carried my whole life.
Shame I felt for things I had no control over. Grief for the girl I could have been—should have been, had Boyd been able to see past his own experience.
“I want to tell you it’s okay, and that I forgive you,” I say in a soft voice, and the spark of hope that flares in his eyes almost breaks me.
It slices through my heart, shredding it to pieces, leaving me bleeding and helpless on the floor all over again.
Biting my lip, a tear spills over, and Boyd’s shoulders slump. “But you can’t tell me that.”
“No.” I shake my head, looking down at the counter, drawing tiny circles on the granite with my middle finger. “Not yet.”
I’ve never seen my brother cry, or even come close to it, but as he sits in my kitchen, soaking in our shared regret and misery, his eyes grow red and puffy like he’s trying to hold it in.
And as much as I want him to stop fighting, I know that path isn’t linear. Or easy. So, I don’t say anything, letting the quiet ebb around us like soft waves kissing the shore.