I told myself I didn’t want to know, but that choice to stay ignorant prevented me from being there for him if something bad happened. The tension vibrating from him tells me that he knows this game–that he knows exactly what it means when his father toys with blades.
The thought makes my empty stomach churn. Could he have hurt his own son?
For the first time tonight, I can’t help but wonder if we’re in over our heads, pushing back when we should have been keeping quiet.
Elias lifts his elbows to brace on the table, his eyes locked on our uncle with a cold, unwavering stare. My hand reaches under the table wanting to try to signal that he needs to remain quiet, but his mouth opens before I can stop him.
“If you think we should be so wrapped up in what killed our mother,” Elias says, his voice calm but edged like broken glass, “do you also think we should devote all of our time and energy into curing the cancer that killed our father? Or are you just concerned with using the dead parent that you were related to that advances your agenda?”
The words crack across the table like a whip to our uncle. For a heartbeat, silence swells so thick I can hear the blood rushing in my ears.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 8
ELIAS
Uncle stills at my words, the knife frozen mid-spin between his fingers.
Callum twitches at my side, giving off a concerned energy that wasn’t present at the beginning of this dinner. Maybe I’ve missed something…or maybe I’m just too over our uncle’s shit to be afraid of anything he does.
My eyes narrow on him, daring him to use that knife. I’d love to see which of us is faster.
I see intrigue flare in his slightly widened eyes, and I hate the way I know exactly why that is–because I seek out the same.
We both want a challenge, and the thought of having anything in common with him makes my skin crawl, yet I can’t change this facet of myself. Not after all of my trauma and suppressed grief molded me into this version of myself.
I can’t escape the invisible scars.
I can’t outrun the nightmares that plague me.
I can’t wish my parents back to life on a shooting star.
My uncle’s head tilts slightly as approval flashes in his grin. “Maybe you aren’t as soft, Elias. I see the hatred in your eyes. You need to harness it.”
A quiver passes through my upper lip as I fight the urge to snarl at him. That’s what he wants and he knows exactly what to say to incite it further. And I’m helpless to the way my mind sharpens with intrigue at the thought.
I’m constantly begging for a fight with anyone, just to fucking feel something. I lash out even when I don’t mean to, constantly. Earlier tonight is the perfect example.
Sure, Briar had annoyed me by ramming her little shoulders through Callum and me, but it should have been a minor annoyance to swat away. Instead, she’d become the object of my fascination the second I saw the defiance in her gaze. I craved the fire. The fight.
Every word that had fallen from my lips before she went into the admissions building was meant to pull her into that back and forth that set my body on fire. Only when I saw the broken pieces mirrored in her gaze later in the night did the desire tamper out, instead replaced with an even more troublesome need: wanting to protect her.
My tongue pushes at the back of my teeth as I clench my jaw. The way my uncle’s eyes had swept over her like a meal. Nothing has drawn me closer to the edge of losing all semblance of control like that had.
His eyes slide from my face to Callum, and his smile falls. The downturn of his lips reveals his dissatisfaction before he even opens his mouth.
“You, on the other hand, don’t inspire much hope within me for your ability to climb the ladder here.”
My hands fall loudly from resting beneath my chin to the top of the table, clattering the plates and silverware atop it.
No one fucks with my brother.
I tried to distance myself from Callum for so long after our mom was killed, worried my shitty attitude would rub off on his carefree one. Only in the past two years since being out of highschool did I realize he’s been struggling just as much as me this whole time, just masking it with quips and smiles.
After being held back a grade in middle school the year Mom was killed, I was forced into Callum’s graduating class, and somehow I never saw the way he was hurting through it all. Not until we had nothing but each other, our shared love of music, and our newfound obsession with the gym to fill our time, did I see the suffering leaking out. For me, it always comes through in the lyrics I write, and for him, the chords he plays on his guitar. Together, we make an epically depressing pair.
Each year, we applied to NYU together, hoping for a fresh start. The first year had gutted us, getting our denials, but we agreed to blow them away the next year with our applications and a co-produced song. Uncle had humored our time off, saying it was good for us to hone our bodies in the gym and build muscle.
