Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I get out of the truck because there’s no point stalling. Cold air bites at my skin. Morgan’s dressed in a jacket and beanie like me. He rounds the truck toward me, and I open my mouth to say something, but before I get the chance, his body slams into mine, arms around me, squeezing so damn tight, my breath is almost cut off.
Morgan is hugging me.
Have Morgan and I ever hugged? I figure we must have at some point in our lives, right? When we were young or something? But if we have, I don’t remember it, don’t know what it’s like to have my brother’s arms around me or how it feels to lift my own and wrap them around him too.
So I do it, grip Morgan just as tightly. Breathe him in, this familiar scent of home—of Mom and laughter, which I get shouldn’t have a smell, but somehow does.
I don’t know how long we stand there together, just fucking hugging each other. Snow starts to fall around us, clinging to us, but still, we don’t move, don’t go inside.
My fingers hurt with how hard they’re gripping him.
We were denied this for so fucking long.
This was stolen from us by the man who was supposed to love us.
Eventually, Morgan pulls away. “You made me barstools.”
I shrug, unable to find my words.
“Why didn’t you say they were from you?”
“Don’t know how,” I admit.
“Fuck. He’s messed us up so much.”
Yeah, he has, but… “It’s not just him. We made our own decisions.”
Morgan blanches. “Are you defending him? Jesus, Rhett, he—”
“I’m not defending him. Christ, I’m just fucking saying!”
We both grow quiet and look at each other.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Rhett. That seems to be our automatic response.”
He’s right. Even in a moment like this, it’s our default. “I don’t want to fight with you either. I didn’t mean to defend him. I see it now. See him now. I’m just…I’m not innocent in it all. He’s not responsible for my choices.”
“It’s cold as hell out here. Can we go inside?” Morgan asks, and I immediately feel dumb for not offering.
I nod, and he follows me in, takes off his jacket, and hangs it beside mine.
“My therapist often talks about how you and I were taught to be jealous of each other, taught not to get along. It’s how he controlled us. If we’d stuck together, he wouldn’t have had that power over us. So yeah, as adults, it’s taken us a long time to get to this place, and we’ve both made mistakes along the way, but we were doing what we were raised to do. We didn’t know any better, Rhett.”
I push my hands into my pockets, unsure what else to do with them. “I should have known better.”
“Why? Why should you have but not me?”
I sigh, walk over to the window and look out. Why do I feel like I should have known better, but don’t put that same pressure on Morgan? It’s similar to how we all blame ourselves for Ella dying. Maybe I should talk to Talia about it. “I’m the oldest,” is the only answer I have.
“You really believe that, don’t you? That you have more responsibility because of your age.”
“Don’t I?” I turn to look at him. “I should have set a better example. I should have protected you all. I should have been there with Ella and…”
“And it still might have happened. All of us have made mistakes because we’re all so fucked up because of him. You’re as much a victim as the rest of us.”
“I kissed the man you love.” Bile burns my throat at my admission.
“And he kissed you too. That’s not easy for me to say, but it’s true. I was leaving. I hadn’t told Dust how I felt—hell, I hadn’t even admitted it to myself. I can’t hold him to a commitment we never actually made. Where’s the fairness in that?”
Jesus, who is this man? I never thought I would hear Morgan say those words, not any of it, and it makes me want to be better too.
“He kissed me, but he wanted it to be you. He was lonely and knew he would miss you. I did it to hurt you.” As terrible as those words are, they’re mostly true. Did I do it because I was jealous? Because I wanted to know what it was like to have someone care about me the way Dusty does him? Yes, in a strange, confusing way, but I also did it to hurt him. “Normal people don’t do that.” People like Dad do. People like me.
“You don’t think there were times when I tried to hurt you too? Because there have been. I’ve wanted to hurt you too. I’ve tried to hurt you. But I don’t want us to be that anymore. I want us to be a family…to be brothers.”