Jude burst out laughing this time.“I would beat you.”
“No, you wouldn’t!”Tommy protested.
“I’ll see you when I get back,” Jude said, glancing over at me.
“Five days?”My chest ached to think of him gone for that many days.
He nodded.I started to approach him because I wanted to at least give him a kiss goodbye, but he was already turning away.Tommy was busy talking, and it didn’t feel like the moment where I could push.I simply watched him walk away.
ChapterForty-One
Kendall
My brother looked haggard, as if he’d aged a few years instead of a few months.
“Blake, you look exhausted,” I pointed out as we finished off a takeout pizza he’d picked up on the way over.
“I know.I’m hoping that phase of sobriety, where I start to look younger and healthier, happens really soon.I’m sleeping like shit.”
“Even before Cheryl came to stay with you?”
He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair as he let out a weary sigh.“That didn’t help.But I haven’t been sleeping well in general.I’m restless.Feel like I’m jumping out of my skin, you know?”
“That sounds awful.How’s work?”
“It’s okay.I just feel like I fucked everything up so much.”
“Blake, what happened in high school was terrible, and I was too young to help.”
Blake shook his head.“You’ve been helping all along, Kendall.Hell, you were in middle school, trying to remind Mom and Dad about meetings with the principal for me.”The bitterness in his voice wasn’t lost on me, and it twisted my heart.“But I’m sober, and I’m going to stay that way.If I can make it through being a dumbass and going out to the brewery that one time, and now Cheryl showing up, I can do this.I haven’t even been tempted.I finally get it though.For the first time since I’ve been trying to stay sober, I really grasp this is going to be a lifelong thing for me.”
His cheeks puffed out with air as he rested his elbows on the table.Another sigh slipped out.“I’m so sorry.Mom and Dad—” He shook his head again.“Mom and Dad let you down.”
“They didn’t let me down.”My voice was hushed.I’d told my brother more than once over the years that Mom and Dad let him down.“Here’s the thing.Even if they had tried a little bit harder, it probably wasn’t going to change the results with those guys.They had the money.They had the good lawyers, and they used them to keep the school in line.”
Blake turned his arm over, where there was a crooked scar on the inside of his elbow.During the assault, his elbow had caught on the corner of a locker door, and the skin had torn open.“I have PTSD.I have a good therapist now, and it’s made a big difference.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but if everything’s okay with Mom and Dad, why did you call me for a place to stay?They’ve got a whole house.I’ve got…” I gestured around.“A room and a bathroom.”
“Because I guess it’s too close to Cheryl.She’s pushing hard.She says she misses the way we were.”
“What doesthateven mean?”
Blake rolled his eyes.“I don’t know.I suggested my therapist to her.Even offered to take her to AA.I don’t know how she convinced me she was sober, to be honest.I’m a dumbass.”He shook his head.“Anyway, enough about my mess of a life.How are things with you and Jude?”
I thought of the shuttered look in Jude’s eyes, the disappointment emanating from him when I told him Blake was staying here.That was something I didn’t want to discuss with my brother.
“We’re good,” I said, my voice a little forced.
“When you gonna put a ring on it?”
“Blake!”
He grinned.“You were always in love with him.Such a crush.”
All I could manage was a shrug.
“Anyway, where should I sleep?”
