“I was ten.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waves her hands, eyes still focused on the walkway, but tone a bit chipper. “Were you actually standing up for her, though?”
“For Rosie?” Billie hums and I jerk in surprise. “Of course. How could you even ask that?”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You just… don’t usually do stuff like that.”
Sighing, I nod. To her, to myself. To Grant, who awkwardly glances at me and shrugs. It’s the only time I’ve done something like that, but it should’ve just been the first. Today should’ve been the second.
“It just happened. I wasn’t really thinking of anything in the moment, other than how much Rosie gets bullied by that guy.”
“Jeremiah?” Grant seems happy to pipe up with information he knows. He gives Billie the quick summary of who Jeremiah is and why he’s not just some scorned ex-boyfriend, and she huffs.
“Imagine being so insecure, you act like that.”
“Exactly.”
My brother and I speak in tandem again, and I chuckle.
“Someone was recording the whole thing. It went semi-viral on the finance bro side of the internet. Dad is pissed.”
Billie laughs. Not a sad, empty laugh, but a real one. Clapping her hands and looking at me with wide eyes. “Holy shit! Did Locke McCarthy piss off our dad, on purpose, for the very first time?”
She holds her hand up for a high-five, but I stare at it.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Sure you did.” She offers her high-five to Grant, who takes it, then turns back to me. “Right after, or sometime during the whole thing, you must have thought, ‘Wow, Dad is going to be so mad’? Right?”
My mouth opens to protest, but I don’t have anything. Because that did happen. Multiple times.
Billie smirks. “You knew exactly what was going to happen, and you did it anyways.”
She starts strolling down the walkway. Pieces of broken autumn leaves stick under her boots. My mind is still jumbled from what she’s implying, but at least my sister isn’t crying anymore.
I glance out to the water and say, “I knew he’d be mad. But, at that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Rosalie was my priority.”
Is my priority.
A large hand slaps down onto my shoulder. Grant asks, “Do you care now?”
I think. Ponder over everything that happened between past and present. The innate fear of my father while standing in his office, waving a finger at me like standing up for someone is a crime. That shell of me only cared about my father’s opinion and nothing else.
But I think about other things, too. My friends who I laugh with over board games and drinks. My siblings here, who kick fallen leaves at each other and throw light-hearted insults, because that’s how siblings work.
I think about Rosie. The girl who fell into my life when it felt like I needed her most. I think about how unknowingly lost I was before her. How lonely life was before I could sit on a couch with her and laugh about anything and nothing.
Those are the versions of myself I love. That’s who I want to be. More than a piece of my father’s self-driven puzzle. A small smile tugs at my cheeks when I glance at Grant.
“I think I care about being someone other than his son. More than just a McCarthy, you know?”
His hand tightens on my shoulder. Mine and Billie’s entire lives have been defined by being my father. How we acted, who we talked to, what we became. My sister gets off easier becauseDad doesn’t want a woman running his company, so the worst of it goes to me.
But Grant grew up without that. With his mom, somewhere deep in the suburbs of Massachusetts. He knows what it’s like to be more than a McCarthy.
Grinning, he nods. “I do know. And you are more than that, Locke. You’re more than just his son.”
I grit my teeth. Swallow the large lump of emotion growing in my throat and force it down. It feels unexplainable, hearing someone else say it.
