Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
All I know is that I do.
I do love her.
“And the problem is?” he prods.
“Me,” I tell him, still looking out the window. “I’m the problem.”
A couple of minutes of silence.
Then, “How’s that?”
“I’m not you,” I reply.
“What?”
I sigh, my ribs throbbing with a dull pain that I know has nothing to do with the beating I took — it was nothing; I’ve had worse — but from this love inside of me.
“I’m not good,” I tell him. “I’m not responsible. I’m not a rule-follower like you.”
“Okay. So?”
“So I’m the second son. I’m the disappointment.”
Another couple of minutes go by before Homer asks, “And?”
I sigh again, this time sharply. “And I’m afraid that I’ll always be that. I’m afraid that I’ll disappoint her like I do everyone else. And she deserves better than me.”
That’s it, isn’t it?
That has always been the case.
What she deserves and what I am.
I mean, look what happened. Look what I fucking did last night.
Not only did I violate her body, I fucking violated her privacy.
Instead of leaving her alone like a decent human being, protecting her like a decent human being, I exposed her to the world. All because I couldn’t handle what she’d said to me.
I wanted to purge this angst inside of me.
That her words had caused.
And the only way I knew how was to go see her.
Prove to her that I’m not the guy she thinks I am.
And well, I did, didn’t I?
So yeah, I’m the problem.
“I never wanted to run the company,” Homer says.
“What?”
“I never wanted any part of this.”
“Yeah and that’s why you trained so hard for it all your life.”
He chuckles again. “I never said that I knew I didn’t want it.”
I frown, still looking out the window.
“It wasn’t until he passed away and I truly became the boss… Actually,” he backtracks, “it wasn’t until I left college and went to graduate school that I realized I didn’t want to do this.”
I finally turn to him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He glances at me for a second. “I realized that I didn’t want to sit in an office all day and run meetings. I didn’t want to read reports and make deals and everything else that goes with it. I thought I wanted it. I was told that I wanted it. And when people tell you something, every single day of your life, you start to believe it. Their beliefs become your beliefs. And then before you know it, you’re trapped. You’re caged and you don’t know what to do. You don’t know how to get free, if you can get free even if you tried. So you’re stuck. Sometimes you’re stuck forever. Sometimes you don’t get the opportunity to become unstuck.”
I stare at him, my big proper brother, in his three-piece suit, with no hair out of place.
Everything appropriate and perfect.
He glances at me again, his lips quirked up in a humorless smile. “He told me that I was the heir. That I was supposed to be a certain way, and I believed him. You believed him too, didn’t you?”
I swallow thickly.
When she had said the same thing to me, I was angry. I was furious.
That she had the audacity of throwing everything I’d shared with her to my face. I showed her the parts that I myself don’t acknowledge are there and she took them and shoved them at me.
The abuse. The rumors. The fucking lies that people believed about me.
But now, looking at my brother, I don’t feel the same anger.
I feel… fear.
I feel that he — and in turn she — might be right.
“I know you did,” he continues. “I don’t blame you. He fooled us both. And that’s because he’s the disappointment.”
“What?”
Another glance at me. Then, “It’s not you who’s the disappointment, Reign. It took me some time to see that. It’s not you, it’s them. It’s the world. The world has disappointed you. Our father who was supposed to be a loving, patient authority figure, abused you. Our mother who should’ve looked out for you, protected you, let him do that. Even now, where the fuck is she? Vacationing in Italy rather than being worried about her son. Your brother, me, again who should’ve looked out for you, ignored you. And your best friend. Who stood up in front of the cops yesterday and said that you were trying to force yourself on someone. He lied about you to the cops. He tried to ruin your life. What do you call that, if not an epic fucking disappointment?”
Lucas did tell the cops that.
That when he opened the door to her bedroom, he found her tied up and crying. He found her clothes torn off and me on top, forcing her. Raping her.
That is a disappointment, isn’t it?
I knew we weren’t on good terms. I knew that.