“What?” Laney pushes to her feet and walks toward me. “You went there without me?” Her eyes are red and I wonder if she’s stopped crying since she found out.
“You shouldn’t have to do it.”
The look in her eyes changes to an anger she’s directed at me only one other time. “Fuck you, Maddox! Fuck what you think I should have to do!” she yells.
Adrian’s to his feet and by her side as Bee steps toward her. “He did something really fucking hard so you didn’t have to.”
Laney’s eyes dart to Bee as though she’s shocked she stood up for me, but I’m not. She would do it for anyone. That’s just her.
“Don’t.” My eyes don’t leave Laney as I talk to Bee. “If she has something to say, let her.”
Her voice is softer but still hurt when she says, “You should have told me you were going, Maddy! We should have done it together! I need the closure as much as you do! No matter what, I loved her and I’m tired of you treating me like I’m so breakable. I should have had the choice.”
Adrian’s grabbing for her, but Laney pulls free.
“You didn’t fucking need to be there! Look at you. You haven’t stopped crying and you want to go in there and see her dead?” The second the words are out, guilt slams into me.
“Don’t give her shit for feeling something because you don’t.” Adrian pulls Laney closer to him as though I’m going to hurt her. It’s a stab through my chest.
“Dude,” Bee says to him. “You need to stop—”
“Nah.” I step closer to Adrian, cutting Bee off. “Keep going, man. Say what you want to say.” Adrian moves closer, too.
Colt gets off the bed and then Cheyenne, probably expecting to have to break up a fight that would feel really fucking good to start. I open and close my hands, my eyes right on Adrian.
Don’t give her shit for feeling something because you don’t…
My anger at him, at fucking everything tries to block out those words but it doesn’t work. That’s me, right? The cold bastard who doesn’t feel anything. Just like our dad.
“It’s not the fucking time for this shit. Your mom fucking died,” Colt says to me, then looks at Adrian. “Your girl’s mom is fucking dead. All of you need to grow the hell up.” There’s a depth to his voice that I don’t understand. Pain laces his words.
Laney doesn’t stop, though. She grabs my arm with both gentleness and anger, not letting go when I jerk away. “You need to stop doing this. Adrian is wrong—I know you feel something, but you need to stop trying to protect me. I love you and I know you love me but I can’t deal with being babied. We’ve been through this, Maddy. She was my mom; you’re my brother. I should have been there with you! When are you going to see that? We’re all each other has left now, but all you do is push me away.”
Her voice cracks, splintering me apart. Because she’s right. And because I know that I’m not a good brother. I’m not as fucking good as she is. “You heard your man, it’s because I don’t feel anything. You want to see her, go fucking see her. I’m done.”
Bee moves out of the way when I jerk the door open.
And then she slams it behind us, never farther than a foot away from me.
She doesn’t say anything as we head to our room. Part of me wonders if she thought I would leave but I can tell she doesn’t. That she knows me better than that because no matter what I said, I won’t walk out if Laney needs me. I might not be the best kind of brother, but this is the only kind I know how to be.
“I’m texting her that we’re in our room.”
I don’t have it in me to argue. It takes me three times to make the stupid keycard work before the green light flashes and I open the door. My hands are actually shaking as I pace the room, trying to breathe, trying not to think about beating Adrian’s ass or how much I disappoint my sister.
“Don’t feel guilty about what you did. It might not have ended up being the right thing but your heart was in the right place. Don’t let them make you feel like it wasn’t.”
“Was it? Was it in the right fucking place?” My feet won’t stop moving. “I did it because of guilt. Because I let them both down and that’s not being in a right place. It’s being selfish. It’s trying to make up for all the shit that I screwed up. That’s what I did, Bee. Don’t try to make a hero out of me.”
Once the words leave my mouth, there’s not even a second I want them back. I’m so tired of staying fucking quiet. I want this shit out of me. “Everything I do isn’t because I’m some great guy with a big fucking heart. It’s because I owe people. Because I let them down and this is the only way to make amends for it.”
Bee crosses her arms. “Bullshit. I don’t believe that for a second.” She leans against the table looking almost relaxed.
“Why? Do you see the good in everyone like my sister? Do you think you can save me? Honestly, I’m not that fucked up. My kid didn’t die. My mom didn’t hate me. I’m an asshole who kept his mouth shut for selfish reasons when I should have spoken up.”
“You’ve lost stuff too. Don’t try and pretend you haven’t.”
At that, I laugh. “What? Football? A dad who I don’t give a shit about anyway?”
“A dad who was still your dad. Football, which was something you loved. And what about your mom? Your sister? Your childhood? You can pretend all you want that you’ve never been hurt before and that you’ve never lost anything, but I will continue to call bullshit, Scratch. Loss is loss. It’s not a contest about who’s been hurt more. We all have our own battles to fight.”
I’m suddenly begging my mouth to stay shut. I’m going into territory I’ve never traveled before. I wish like hell I had a cigarette on me, but since I don’t, I walk over to the window and push the curtain open. It’s something to keep me busy because as much as I’ve never wanted to talk, I know I’m about to do just that. I have to tell someone and she’s the only person I can imagine seeing inside me.
“Did you miss the part where I said it’s my fault? That I could have stopped it?”
“Well I’m about to get to the part where I say it doesn’t matter.”
Her reply almost makes me laugh but it’s stuck inside me. She doesn’t get it. How much everyone has lost. Turning around, I look at her—at her blond hair and the determined look on her face. At her gorgeous fucking body and know that I want her to know me in a way no one else has. That even though I never thought I would fall for anyone that I’ve somehow fallen for this woman.
That I love her… because everything almost feels okay with her standing with me. Going to the morgue was easier and seeing Laney too. There’s always this anger inside me that she somehow soothes.
She deserves to know who I am.
“I knew, Bee. I knew Dad gambled and I went with him—races, illegal games, whatever he could find. I found out later about the cheating and I never told. I let myself believe he wasn’t going to hurt Mom anymore and let him continue to lie about his trips out of town so he could make money for me. Because I wanted football so fucking bad and scholarships weren’t a guarantee.”
She takes another step closer to me, so close I feel the heat of her and wish I could lose myself in it.
“You were a kid. It wasn’t your job to fix it. He put you in a bad position with all his secrets.”
Nausea turns in my gut at what I’m going to say next. At the thought of how much my silence has hurt other people. “I knew he wasn’t where he said he would be the weekend he killed Adrian’s son. I knew and we fought and he told me to keep my fucking mouth closed and I did. I sat back and pretended he was working when I knew he wasn’t. I let him go and lied to my mom. He got in that car with another woman and killed Adrian’s kid!”
The words are almost choking me now but I can’t stop them from coming out. My heart is beating so hard my chest hurts and I see Adrian’s son’s eyes, which are engraved into my brain after as many times as I’ve looked him up online over the years.