Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Anyway, I knew right away as soon as I woke up that today was going to be one of those days when I needed to distance myself from everyone.
“What the fuck was all that?” my brother Conrad snaps.
This is not distancing, though.
I look at him from where I’m standing just inside the door to one of the back rooms on the bus. We’re on our way to our next game and this was the only place we could’ve talked. Set up like an office with a tiny desk and a chair, this isn’t a huge space, but it affords privacy. And it’s better than standing in the middle of the parking lot and having words with onlookers, which is what my brother wanted.
If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.
Standing on the other side of the desk, he doesn’t give me a chance to reply as he continues, “I cannot believe I’m having this conversation with you: but what’s going on with you? What’s happening? You’re benching players, arguing with them. You’re acting like you’re pissed off at the world, more than usual. Is it because—”
“Mom would say that,” I say softly, causing him to stop and look at me with a frown.
“What?”
I lean against the door only because my knees are shaking. “She’d say she walked into a door.”
Conrad is watching me carefully. “What are you talking about?”
I look into his eyes. “When he beat her.”
Conrad blinks.
That’s the only reaction he gives me. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t affected. Our oldest brother is the most controlled, disciplined, self-sacrificing man I’ve ever known. He gave up his dreams, his career, his happiness for the sake of us. And he would’ve kept doing it if he hadn’t found the girl of his dreams and if she hadn’t pulled him out of his still life.
He’s the best man I know.
People compare me to him. My own siblings say I’m Conrad 2.0. Good, controlled, quiet, responsible. They can depend on me. They know I’ll show up. They know I’ll get the job done.
But I know the truth, don’t I?
I know I’m nothing like Conrad.
I know I’m not good.
All of this is a way to keep me leashed. It’s a way to keep them safe from me.
It’s a way that I don’t become the man who birthed us.
“You…” he begins but trails off. “When he beat her.”
“I know,” I tell him.
His jaw clenches for a second. “What do you know?”
I swallow, pressing my spine against the door, looking for something in the room that I can use to ground myself. Because the world is slowly disappearing. And then I remember.
Her touch.
From only a few minutes ago.
It was soft, feathery at first and then became tight and hot. Strong. Stronger than I could’ve guessed for a girl so tiny.
I use that.
I use the memory of her touch in the middle of all the chaos and take a deep breath. “That on top of being an alcoholic with anger issues and a fucking manwhore who fucked around on Mom, Dad was also abusive. He hit her. Smacked her around when anger got too much.”
“You—”
“And I know you know that. Of course you know that. You’ve seen it. You grew up with it more than any of us did. Which is why I also know that you’ve kept it from us.”
His fists are clenched and that tight control that’s his forte is straining at the edges. I can see he’s shocked that I knew. But also angry that there was something to know in the first place. And then his protective instinct kicks in like always and he asks, “Does anyone else—”
“No.” Then, “Not beside you and me. And more recently Ledger.”
Ledger had to be told because of his own anger issues.
Conrad’s still cautious. “So Callie doesn’t know?”
“Absolutely not,” I assure him.
I’d die before I’d let Callie find out. Even though she’s married now—to the guy we all hated once upon a time, by the way—with a baby girl and another on the way, she’s still our baby sister. And nothing touches her. Least of all our piece of shit father who left as soon as she was born, quoting her birth to be the reason for his abandonment.
“And Shepard?”
I think of how small her hand looked on my heavily breathing chest only minutes before and take another deep breath at my twin brother’s mention. “No.”
Not that it gives Conrad any relief because he asks in the same tight voice, “How do you know?”
Sometimes I forget that I’m one of his brothers. That he cares about me as well. Not because he hasn’t shown it over the years but because it’s hard for me to imagine, after all that I am and all that’s inside of me, that he’d find me worthy of his care.