Remy picked up the note as soon as I lifted my finger, holding it up for a second, so he could see me flipping him off. He gave a halfhearted smirk, smoothed out the paper, and read the note. Then he handed it to Rhett who read it quickly, shaking his head the whole time.
“Goddammit. Why does he keep doing this to himself?”
“You know why, and I do, too. That night hit something deep in him, deeper than we ever knew until now.”
“I am so fucking tired of hearing this kind of vague bullshit with this family.” I nearly screamed, startling the note from Rhett’s hand, so it fluttered back to the counter. “Let me make myself absolutely clear, so there’s no misunderstanding. I want your uncle. I want him in every way you can want someone, sexually and emotionally. I want it all from him, and something is going on here preventing me from having that.”
I stared into each of their identical blue eyes so they would really hear these next words.
“I need to know what the fuck that is so I can finally have a chance at winning over this amazing man and making him mine, freaking finally. So can we stop with the avoidance and just tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
Rhett was the first to speak after a long silence, my yelled words echoing off the walls in the kitchen.
“We’re sorry, Ethan. We are, but you have to understand that this is hard for us, well, for Remy especially, to relive. It was years ago, and we don’t like to think about that time. What you have to understand is that when we moved here, it wasn’t all roses and Cinderella fairy tales. Ladd was older and dealt with it okay. He was always the optimist, and he saw this as the best thing that could ever have happened to us. I didn’t believe it at first. I was younger and had my own feelings and issues to deal with. The one who had the hardest time adjusting was Remy.”
He got off his stool and walked around the island to stand next to Remy, who was now staring a hole in the counter.
“Remy was always our protector. Even at thirteen years old, he was the outspoken one. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt us if he could help us. He got into fights at school when the other kids would make fun of our old clothes and shoes or that we had to take the free lunches and breakfast because we hardly ever had food in whatever place we were living. He had built this tough exterior and was convinced if he didn’t take care of us, then the world would chew us up and spit us out. He didn’t adjust well when we moved here. Not at all. He was suspicious and so unbelievably angry.”
“I can understand being suspicious. I can. I felt the same way in the back of my mind when I moved into Jensen’s house after my nan died. I wanted to know what they were getting out of it, even though they were like my parents and I’d known them for years. But why the anger?”
Now Remy lifted his head, and his eyes were red-rimmed and bright with unshed tears. When he spoke, he had to clear his throat first and work through the pain I could hear choking his voice.
“I want”—then a cough and a shake of his head—“I wanted to know why it had taken so long to find us. Why had we been in that fucked up situation for so long, when all that time, there had been this paradise waiting for us that we didn’t even know about? In my little boy brain, I wanted to know why they had waited so long, left us to suffer so long. Why had they abandoned us and then when we got older, then they came and got us. I had conspiracy theories running through my mind every day. They wanted to use us for something. This was only temporary. Every new piece of clothing was a way they thought they’d buy our compliance, our silence for whatever was to come.”
I saw a tear fall from Remy’s eye and trail down his cheek and noticed he looked so pale right now. There were sadness and a hint of fear in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure what he was afraid of. I didn’t want to ask questions now, though. There would be time enough for that later. I felt that Remy hadn’t visited this time in his life in quite a while, so I just nodded. He mirrored my movement and moved closer to Rhett, who picked up the narrative.
“You see, Remy was always sticking up for the underdog at school, mostly because we were always the poorest and were picked on for it. But one time he wasn’t able to handle the situation by himself. It was the school year right before we came here. He got cornered in a bathroom by some high school kids and was about to get the shit beat out of him. But one of the coaches walked in and broke it up. He took Remy to his office and patched up the few cuts he’d already gotten from a couple of fists to the face.”
Remy seemed to shrink beside his brother. They were so alike beneath the tattoos and piercings. Side by side the similarities were striking, but Remy seemed to be fading the more of this story Rhett told. I got the feeling Remy couldn’t talk about this incident. Not that he didn’t want to, but that he physically couldn’t, so Rhett was doing it for him.
“Coach Dan was what he told all us kids to call him. He coached the middle school baseball and basketball teams. We never joined because we couldn’t afford the equipment, but we would go to the games and cheer on the teams whenever we could, so the coach knew who we were. He patched Remy up, talked to him, and offered to teach him how to fight after school if he was interested. He seemed nice, polite. He had a wife and one little girl, the perfect little family.”
I heard the change in Rhett’s voice in the last sentence. He was more monotone now, robotic.
“It was perfect except for the fact the guy was a pedophile and started grooming my brother to be his next toy.”
I knew this might be heading down this road, but even so, I couldn’t stop the sharp breath I had to take at the truth.
“Rhett, Remy, no. Please say it’s not true.” I reached across the island and held my hand out to Remy for support. He looked at it through his red-rimmed eyes and slowly laid his hand in mine.
“It’s true, but it didn’t go all the way with me like it did a bunch of the other kids. The first time he touched me when we werewrestling.I told Rhett, and he said I had to stop going there after school. I didn’t want to stop, though. He was nice to me and the closest thing to a dad I thought I’d ever have. I didn’t want to lose that. I thought it must have been an honest mistake. But the next afternoon I went by there, and I saw one of the kids in my class leaving his office. He was buckling his belt and tucking his shirt into his jeans. He was crying. I knew Rhett was right and I never went back. He tried to talk to me a few more times the last month of school, but I avoided him.”
“So, you see, Ethan”—Rhett continued right where Remy left off—“when we got here and saw all this luxury, with James giving us everything our heart’s desired, Remy automatically got suspicious. Was this guy, James, going to be the same as Coach Dan? Was he going to groom us and use us, too? Why had he waited until we were older? And if he’d found us earlier, he’d never have had the situation with that asshole anyway. His thoughts were jumbled and twisted in a loop of shame and suspicion and anger. He lashed out at everyone in that first year. He would punch and even bite Uncle James at times. He’d get so angry that Uncle James would be worried he’d hurt himself so he’d try to hold onto him, but that would send Remy into a panic, and he’d bite and scratch to get away. Therapy at that time wasn’t working for him because he believed the therapist was trying to brainwash him into going along with whatever Uncle James had planned for us. The whole time was a huge adjustment for all of us, but for Remy, it looked almost impossible.”
I nodded my head again and finally spoke. “I can understand that. I’ve heard of those kinds of situations happening. I can see where Jay would try everything he possibly could to help you guys adjust and killing himself if it wasn’t working. But what is this incident that everyone keeps referring to?” I gulped when I realized what might have happened and gently squeezed Remy’s hand that still limply lay in mine. “How did Jay get that scar, Remy?”
Remy closed his eyes tight, and two lonely little tears flowed down his cheeks into the scruff on his chin.
“It’s all my fault, Ethan. I almost killed him.”
