I rolled my eyes and moved past him again, exiting the kitchen.
“You’re hurting. I get it.”
“Get it?” I laughed because the thought that my brother could possibly understand what I felt was comical. “You get what?” I looked him square in the eye. “You understand what it’s like to hold your dead son while your wife sobs her eyes out?”
My voice came out shrill and three octaves louder than usual, but all of my emotion from the past few months bubbled to the surface.
“You get what it’s like to declare your love and life to one person and then have them walk out the fucking door, leaving nothing but memories and heartbreak?” I shook my head and pointed at Micah.
“No, you don’t understand shit. Not Mr. I Won’t Ever Fall in Love.”
Micah flinched. A slight feeling of triumph coursed through me. I knew I stuck him where it hurt. He’d made his declaration after our mother died, and Joel went to pieces with grief.
Micah surveyed my apartment again. “Looks like my decision saved me more pain than it is you right now.”
My top lip curled. In a flash of anger, I was in Micah’s face, gripping his shirt in my hands.
“Go ahead,” he goaded while keeping his arms at his sides.
He gave me ample opportunity to knock him on his ass. At six-three, my brother was only an inch taller than me, but he had more muscle on his frame, given our almost seven-year age gap.
I wanted to hit him. Not because I was angry at him, but because I was mad at the whole fucking world.
Life was cruel.
In the past few years, it’d given my mother a cancer diagnosis, followed by a horrible fight to stay alive, and in the end, she’d lost the battle. The only person who’d kept me sane during that time was Savannah.
When she and I married, I knew that was it for me. Months later, when we found out she was pregnant, nothing could’ve made me happier. Terrified, for sure, but I was ecstatic to be a father with the woman I loved. Then our son died, followed by Savannah’s abandonment.
So yeah, I wanted to hit my brother but not because of anything he did.
I released his shirt and pushed him away from me while I stumbled over to the couch and collapsed into it.
“She’s gone,” I mumbled.
Micah didn’t say anything as he moved closer and took a seat next to me on the couch.
I buried my hands into my hair and stared down at the floor between my feet. “She fucking left me.” It was as if I had started to realize this truth for the first time.
“Savannah’s gone,” I choked out on a sob.
First my mother, then our son, and now my wife.
How much loss could one person take?
“Ace.”
“Don’t touch me.” I pushed Micah’s hand away and stood, fists clenched at my sides. I didn’t want his sympathy or his comfort.
I stared at my brother. “Maybe you have the right idea,” I said, rethinking this whole love bullshit.
His forehead wrinkled.
“If someone can get up and leave without so much as a fuck you, then you’re probably right.”
For weeks, I’d sat around pining over Savannah. Hoping beyond reason that she’d come to realize that she made a mistake. I dreamt that I would wake up the following day, open the door, and she’d be standing there with tears in her eyes. She would beg my forgiveness and say that leaving me was the worst mistake of her life.
But each passing day, that dream became less likely.
