Not looking at anyone. Not talking to anyone.
“He looks…”
“I know,” I whisper to Damon, who’s just come in and sat in the chair next to mine, Joey dropping into the one on his other side. “I don’t…his mom, she was really, really horrible.” Even now my eyes burn, my throat gets tight. “I don’t know how he’s still standing.”
Especially after the chaos of that kitchen.
Blake’s too-skinny body so stiff, his teeth clamped together so tightly he’d bitten his tongue and blood had poured out of his mouth. His eyes unseeing, his hands clenching and unclenching, his neck at the wrong angle and…
The ambulance coming.
The silent ride to the hospital.
And now the wait.
Their parents—if that’s what you can call them—were called back a few minutes ago, so I hope that means everything is fine with Blake—or will be fine.
Except, how can it?
Sara was a wreck when I called her.
Colt is destroyed by cruel words.
And Blake’s body has been through so, so much.
I blink rapidly.
I will not cry. I will not.
Damon slides his arm around my shoulders.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “I can’t fall apart. Colt needs me to be?—”
My brother removes his arm but doesn’t back off. Instead, he shifts, cupping my jaw. “He needs you to be you. Just you.”
“I don’t know if that’s enough.” My lungs hitch, a sob rising in my throat. “His mom…she was raped too and Colt’s dad, or I guess not his dad because—” I break off, bite my bottom lip, but someone I manage to tell him the rest.
That Colt was the result of an act of violence.
That his mother shared that truth with him, inflicting a wound I’m not sure will ever heal.
Ever.
My brother’s hand slips from my chin to drop into his lap, head falling forward, soft curse sliding through the air. “Fuck, what a mess.”
He’s quiet, but only for a moment.
Then his arm comes back around my shoulders. “He healed something in you, kid. Something I couldn’t. Something time couldn’t.”
My brother had known.
Of course he’d known.
“You were existing before, Ky. Doing a fucking great job of pretending to the rest of the world, and”—he leans close—“sometimes I think to yourself too.”
He’s not wrong.
Of course he’s not wrong.
