“And I’m sorry.” His voice cracks. “I wasn’t thinking. I should never have lied and made you the bad guy. If I knew what he was going to do, I wouldn’t have ever said anything.”
I shudder at the devastation in his voice.
Finn blinks, and a tear rolls down his cheek. “I’ve lived with this guilt for years, and every time I see your face, I’m reminded of what I’ve done. I almost lost you because I stupidly made up a rumour to get you away from him, when I should have just told you the truth. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was fucking desperate, and I’ll live with that regret for the rest of my life.”
“Finn—”
“No,” he breathes out sharply. “Let me finish.”
I manage a nod.
“You might hate me,” he whispers beneath his flooding tears. “Iwantyou to hate me for what I’ve done and what I’ve caused you, but I want you to know that I have hated myself every single day since I lied to them. I knew what I did, and as time went on, I struggled to tell the truth because of the shame that swarmed me. That’s why I bury myself in alcohol to make the pain go away, to make me forget that I’m a bad person, to make me forget that I almost lost you.”
My throat aches as I attempt to swallow. “You’re not a bad person. You just made a really bad choice.”
“I am,” he shoots back at me, eyes burning. “I’m a fucking monster, Ivy. I won’t blame you if you never want to speak to me again for what I’ve done. I deserve it.”
Two more tears roll over his cheeks, and it cracks my heart into pieces.
“I want you to get better,” I confess.
Finn’s gaze strains.
My lips roll together as I take a step closer to his bed. “You need help, Finn. We’ve been trying to tell you for months, but you don’t want to listen. And just now you’ve admitted you usealcohol to push away your pain and make you forget. That isn’t healthy. You need professional help.”
He glances away and raises his hand to brush his tear-stained cheeks.
“You had to have your stomach pumped,” I continue. “You could have seriously hurt yourself last night, Finn. We could have lost you.”
“Probably would have been for the better,” he mumbles.
I stare at him incredulously until he finds my eyes again. “Why would you say something like that?”
Finn shakes his head.
“You might have done what you did, but you’re still my brother, and I still love you.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, as if the words are too painful for him.
“I want to see you get better,” I grind out between my teeth. “I don’t want to see you give up or end up drunk in a ditch somewhere no one can find you. I want my brother back. I need him. Don’t you want to get better? I know you don’t want to keep relying on alcohol the way you do.”
Finn curses and rolls his head to look up at the ceiling, eyes glossy. “They want me to go to a rehabilitation centre,” he grumbles with a clenched jaw.
“It’s probably the best place for you. Then you can talk to professionals and get a therapist, and try to work through everything in your head. I want to see you get better, and I want you to want to get better. Because this isn’t you, and I wantyouback.”
“It’s not going to help.” He blows out an exasperated breath.
“It won’t with an attitude like that.”
Finn wipes his eyes once more.
“If you don’t do this,” I say after a moment of silence. “Then I don’t know what will be left of our relationship.”
He whips his head towards me. “What?”
“I’m not threatening you,” I shake my head. “But you need to work this through with someone and figure out your own head. I want to see you get better, but I can’t guarantee that if you continue on like this, that I’m going to be there time and time again when I’m literally begging you to get help.”
He buries his head into his hands. “Fuck.”
