Sleepless nights have become the norm, and on nights when I do manage to grab a few hours of sleep, I usually wake either screaming from a nightmare or drenched in sweat as all the crap leaves my body. That first week, I spent half of it worshiping the porcelain gods as I repeatedly emptied my stomach. And let’s not mention the headaches or the intense involuntary body tremors I have no control over.
Going cold turkey sucks, but I’m feeling better this week, so I hope the worst of that part is behind me.
Now the real torture starts—facing up to my trauma and finding a way to move forward in a nondestructive manner. Once I return home, I will be continuing my therapy with Denise, Selena’s therapist. Nancy has already been in touch with her, and they are working out a treatment plan. She has a couple of other suggestions, for complementary tools to aid the healing process, but the most important thing is I can go back to Harvard Law, with them none the wiser, and work on my recovery while I’m continuing my studies.
The door opens, and my parents step inside the room. Nancy rises, walking toward them with a smile on her face. Nausea swims up my throat, and my knee jiggles at a greater pace. I’m still a mess of conflicting emotions, veering from anger to shame, between fear and remorse.
I didn’t ask Presley to come here today—although I’m dying to speak to her—because I want to meet with her separately. My feelings for the woman I love are a clusterfuck of epic proportions thanks to that sick bastard she grew up with. It’s all so fucked up.
The only things I know for sure is I love her, what we shared was the real deal, and I hate the shit I said to her at the hospital. I was wrong to vent my pain in her direction, but I can’t help how I feel. She’s had a ton of horrific revelations dropped on her, which can’t be easy to handle. I know she loves me too, but I don’t know if love is enough to overcome the mountain of obstacles in our path.
“Our other sons are waiting outside,” Mom says, looking between me and the doctor. I asked my brothers to come without their spouses. I couldn’t handle a room with that many people. Saying what I need to say to my parents and my six brothers will be challenging enough without adding their partners to the mix. There will be time to meet with them when I return home.
“You can ask them to come in,” Nancy says, helping Mom into the seat beside me as Dad goes out to get the others. The room is rectangular in size, and there are ten chairs in a half-circle on this side of the space, all facing the white board in front. Nancy asked me who I wanted to sit beside me, and I couldn’t even decide that. She suggested I sit at the end and let Mom sit beside me, so I’m doing that.
I’m still processing my anger and my hurt, and I have no idea how this session is going to go down.
One by one, my brothers walk into the room. My lips tilt at the edges as I watch the good doctor try not to react unprofessionally, but it’s a struggle. And I get it. My brothers are all tall, good-looking, and famous. A lethal combination where women are concerned. The wedding bands on their fingers don’t deter the die-hard fans who are convinced the marriages aren’t real. It’s ridiculous. You only have to look at any of my brothers with their partners to know they are in love and very happy.
My brothers glance at me and then the doctor, hesitant on whether to approach me, unsure of the protocol. Nancy regains her composure, asking them to take a seat. Keats enters the room last, and he walks straight toward me, leaning down and hugging me. Tears prick my eyes, and my arms tentatively go around him. He’s the only one who wasn’t at the hospital to witness my meltdown because he and Austen were still on a plane. By the time they landed, I was already en route here.
“I love you,” he says when he pulls back, his eyes clouded with tears.
I nod, swallowing roughly, wondering how the fuck I’m going to get through this with any semblance of sanity intact.
Nancy introduces herself, gives them a quick audience-friendly summary of what I’ve been doing since I got here, and explains how this session will work. Then she gives me the floor.
And I clam up.
My tongue darts out, wetting my dry lips, and my heart is pounding so hard it feels like I’m dying. My brothers all look at me, and the weight of their expectation presses down on me.
“Kent. Take a deep breath,” Nancy says, reassuring me with her kind eyes and her soft smile.
I inhale and exhale, and gradually, the panicky feeling in my chest settles down. Mom takes my hand in hers carefully, like I might break. It’s too much. I know she means well, but I just can’t right now. Extracting my hand from hers, I wrap my arms around my body as I try to form words.
“Kent.” Nancy looks directly at me. “Why don’t you tell your family how you are feeling right now, and we can take it from there?”
“I’m on edge,” I admit, looking at no one in particular. “And I’m scared. Ashamed too.” I drop my eyes to the carpet. “But mostly I’m angry.” I lift my chin, looking at my family. They all look nervous too, which should help, but all it does is make me angrier. “At those assholes who did this to me. At myself for letting it happen. At Presley for not seeing that bastard Clay for the monster he was. At all of you for not ever seeingme.”
“Kent, we tried. We—”
“No, you fucking didn’t, Mom!” I shake my head, looking at both of my parents. “You shipped me off to one useless therapist after another, never stopping to ask why it wasn’t working. You blamed me for not opening up to them instead of asking me why I was behaving like that in the first place. You cried over where you went wrong with me, but neither of you ever asked me what happened to change my behavior. It was always why can’t you be good like Keanu and Keaton? You are disgracing the family with your reckless behavior. You’re such an embarrassment. We have given you everything you need and this is how you repay us?” Those statements, repeated to me so many times, are imprinted in my brain. “It was always aboutyou. Never about me.”
Mom pales, but she doesn’t try to defend herself. Neither does Dad.
“You’re right, son,” Dad says, a couple of seconds later. “We didn’t handle it correctly, and we are deeply sorry for failing you.”
“I’ve felt like an outsider in this family for so long because you were all so dismissive of me. Even in the way I was introduced to your friends and your partners. Like, oh that’s Kent, the black sheep of the family.” I sniff, chewing on the inside of my mouth. “Yet none of you took the time to understand why I was like that.”
“Would you have told us if we asked?” Keanu asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know, but none of you even tried. Not in any real, meaningful way.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kalvin says, leaning forward, placing his elbows on his knees.
“Could you have fessed up if this happened to you when you were fifteen?” I ask, and the expression on his face tells me all I need to know. I doubt any of my brothers could’ve spoken out if this happened to them at that age. But I need to try to explain it in a way they will understand. This is a hard truth to admit. “At first, I was too scared. They recorded it and threatened to stream it on the web.”
“I could’ve gone after them and gotten rid of it,” Kev says. “I was already hacking government systems by then.”
