“Don’t fucking call her that,” he rasps.
Richard’s eyebrows rise. “Or what? You’ll put me in the hospital too?”
“Maybe I fucking will.”
“Kai.” Sharon’s voice is pleading. “Please, darling, just apologize so we can have a nice dinner?—”
“A nice dinner?” Kai scoffs. “Are you fucking kidding me? There’s never been anything nice about this family.” He points at his father. “You beat Ezra bloody for years, and you—” he swings to Sharon “—just fuckingwatched. And you?” He faces his brother with narrowed eyes. “You turned around and did the same goddamn thing to me.”
“Jesus, playing the victim card again, bro?” Ezra rolls his eyes. “Classic Kai.”
“I’m stating facts,” he snaps back.
“What facts? That Dad disciplined us when we acted out? That’s called parenting, you pussy.”
“Discipline?” Kai’s voice cracks. “He broke your arm when you were six! I’ve lost count of the ribs he’s cracked!”
When Ezra just shrugs without looking up from his phone, Kai turns to his mother. “Mom! Tell him what Dad did to us wasn’t normal.”
But Sharon’s staring at her wine glass like it holds all the answers to the universe, if only she could read the dregs.
“Mom!”
She starts, glancing up at Kai with sincere confusion. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she whispers. “Yes, your dad was strict with you boys, but?—”
Kai cuts in with an incredulous, “Strict? Jesus, Mom, he threw Ezra down the fucking stairs the first night we moved into that dump on Hollow Way!”
I remember that crumbling rowhouse—it was a massive upgrade from the trailer park, despite the broken radiator and the fact we could hear the neighbors fighting through the walls. But we weren’t there a week before Richard started drinking.
“You boys needed a firm hand,” Richard says.
“A firm—” Kai’s face is white. “You broke Ezra’s jaw! It was wired shut for a month. He ate through a fucking straw!”
There’s a beat of silence that feels as clingy and charged as the static in a lightning storm.
No one speaks because no one wants to admit to the nightmare they were forced to live through.
“For fuck’s sake, Kai,” Ezra murmurs, glancing at his brother. “Just sit down. You’re not going to win this.”
“I’m not trying towinanything! I’m trying to?—“
“What?” Ezra carefully sets his phone down on the table before sliding both hands into his pockets. “Get them to admit what they did?” He chuckles, and it’s the most awful sound I’ve ever heard. “Why the fuck are you trying to save a family you couldn’t wait to run away from?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Kai snaps.
“Youleft. Every fucking day, every chance you got, youfuckingleft. Running off into the woods with your little trailer trash girlfriend over there.”
Kai’s face crumples. “So what?” he rasps, glaring at his older brother. “I was just supposed to stay there and take it?”
“Idid,” Ezra rasps as he rushes to his feet. “I spent my entire childhood getting fucked up while Mom looked the other way and you ran off to play in the fucking woods, and nobody—nobody—ever gave a shit!”
There’s something wild in Ezra’s eyes now.
I’ve never seen him this manic before.
Richard’s face has gone a deep, ugly red, jaw clenched so hard I can see it from across the table. He wants to shut this down—I can feel it—but Ezra is completely unhinged, and even Richard knows that stepping in front of a runaway train just gets you flattened.
Kai’s brother drags his hands through his hair, and we all just watch, waiting to see if he’s finished.
