“Yeah, kid?”
“Thank you for not forgetting me.”
“Don’t thank me.”
“And for my marble,” he whispers too low for anyone to hear.
The door slams as he stares at the small orb in his palm as Asher says,“You used to have a jar full of them on your window.”
“Delilah helped me pick them.”
With the mention of her name, Kane smiles wider. They had an innocent love, although it began with a betrayal. She was obsessed with the stars in the same way he was obsessed with her. He spent years watching her, waiting for the perfectmoment to overcome the inferiority he felt in Asher’s shadow to make her his. Only, while he was waiting, Asher took.
The door reopens, two pairs of dress shoes tapping against the linoleum floor as Kane curls his fingers over the marble to prevent it being taken from him. He sits up straight, ready to greet his parents, only when the visitors step around the table, it’s not them.
“It’s never them,”Asher grits as he places his clean hand on Kane’s shoulder in the way a caring brother would.“We don’t need them when we have each other.”
Having each other is a concept Kane hasn’t experienced before. It’s always been Asher then him. Yet now, in this visitor’s room, he has the one thing he’s always wanted—his brother by his side—so he doesn’t shy away from his lawyer as he asks, “Did my appeal go through?”
The woman shakes her head as she adjusts the soft silk collar of her blouse. A small pin sits on the lapel of her blazer above the visitor’s badge, and it takes a moment for him to work out the image hidden in the swirls. A lion head, a ram’s head, and a snake, all three animals intertwined together.
His lawyer takes out a small tablet from her bag, clicking away until she turns it around for him to watch the love of his life laid in the middle of a bed with one man between her legs and another straddling her chest.
Choking noises fill the small visitor’s rooms and Asher grips his shoulder even tighter.“That fucking bitch.”
But Kane is staring at the time stamp. Two months ago.
“While you’ve been in here,”Asher spits,“she’s been whoring it up out there. Getting fucked and spit-roasted like a fucking porn star.”
The woman who’s supposed to be on his side changes allegiance as she skips to another clip, another date, anotherassortment of men taking the same pretty girl he thought was his.
“This is your punishment,” his lawyer says. “You took from us, now we will take from you until you’re left with nothing.”
“It’s not her?” Kane asks his brother.
“It is,” she answers instead. “This is your precious Delilah, the one you killed for, who you destroyed your family for. I hope it was worth it, Mr. Xandros, because you’re not going to recognize the man you were when we repay your misdeeds.”
“I didn’t,” he begs.
His lawyer doesn’t care. She’s filled with disdain as she gestures for her assistant to pass Kane the envelope. Asher tries to pull his hand back as he says,“Don’t read it. You know her.”
He doesn’t heed the warning, curiosity getting the better of him. He unfolds the ripped edge of the envelope tab to remove the three sheets of loose paper. The first has Delilah’s handwriting on it, but it’s erratic and tear-stained. He traces each inky splotch thinning the paper while his heart breaks further at an altered version of history. An account of false events all penned by the woman who owns his heart along with another letter addressed to the judge of his case, both portraying Kane as a sick, obsessed stalker.
“Kane, don’t read it,”Asher says again.
He keeps ignoring the warnings as he flicks between watching the screen and reading different lines of the letters. Each new piece of information makes him sink deeper inside of himself.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Until Asher becomes more aggressive, filled with hate.
“She’s a fucking bitch, she did this to you,”his brother snaps.
Kane holds the marble tighter, pushing it deeper against his palm to the point it hurts. A good pain that he enjoys, distracting him as he holds the letters in a loose fist in his other hand. The distraction of Asher’s cursing, the marble, the images of Delilah with different men, and her words calling him a rapist are too much. They make him forget ninety when his visit comes to an end and the guards take him back to his cell.
