Page 5 of Two Sides of Sin

His expression softened slightly as he moved closer, his hand moving to my face to gently wipe away a tear with his thumb. “You have me, June. You will always have me. I would never let anything happen to you. I would never hurt you.”

“I know,” I sniffled, though the words felt like a lie I was forced to tell.

“Sit up for me,” he commanded gently.

I moved like a puppet on a string. I always did. He reached for the hairbrush on my vanity and began to work through the tangles. His movements were soft and careful, working through the knots as if he could brush away the trauma of the afternoon.

I hated that I loved the way Julian touched me. It was gentle. It was the only time I felt seen instead of watched. But as he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the top of my head and promised to be the one to pick me up tomorrow after school, a sudden, icy shiver raced down my spine.

It had been a week since Cain had broken Alex’s ribs.

Around me, the hallways were buzzing with energy. Graduation was only a few months away, and everyone was obsessed with prom themes, senior pranks, and University acceptance letters. I watched them from the fringes, feeling like a ghost haunting my own life. While they were busy planning their futures, I was just trying to survive the present.

My goal was simple, make it to the end of senior year without any more drama, any more blood, or any more rumours. But in a town this small, the stories were hard to outrun. Every time I turned a corner, the whispers died down just a second too late, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

I’d been avoiding Cain with a frantic, desperate energy, dodging that black car like it was a hearse. I stayed in my room until the sun went down, ignoring the heavy, vibrating, ominous thrum of his car idling outside Nana’s house in the middle of the night. At school, the whispers were relentless. “Did you hear what her brother did to Alex?” “The Blackburns are psychos.” “Don’t look at her, she’s a curse.”

Every time they used that word, I wanted to scream. Julian and Cain weren’t my brothers.

The only real brother I ever had was a foggy memory named Jack, a four year old’s recollection of a baby who was taken because my parents were too selfish to keep him, and Nana wasn’t eligible to take on a newborn in her later years. I push him down, forcing the memory into a bottomless pit so I don’t have to feel the ache of his absence. I always find myself looking at a blank space in my life, wondering if it belonged to him.

“It will all be okay, Junebug,” Julian had whispered to me that morning as he caught me on the porch. He’d tried to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, his touch lingering and warm, but I’d flinched.

“He’s been asking for you every day, June. He hates that you’re avoiding him.”

I felt a bitter spark of irritation. “He doesn’t need to ask about me,” I bit out, my hands shaking as I gripped my books. “He never stops watching me anyway. I can feel him behind the tinted glass of his car, just staring, Julian. It’s like a physical weight on my skin, following me everywhere I go. He’s like a goddamn stalker I can’t shake.”

Julian didn’t even try to defend him. He just stepped closer, his expression softening into that protective look that always made my heart race. He sighed, a small, weary smile tugging at his lips. “I’m sorry, June… I know he can be… a bit much sometimes. He’s intense, but I promise he’ll grow on you… eventually.”

I let out a dry laugh that felt tight in my chest. “It’s been years, Julian… It hasn’t happened yet, so I definitely won’t be holding my breath…”

He let out a laugh, the sound low and warm, breaking the heavy tension between us for just a second.

But deep down inside, we both knew the truth. Cain really did have some serious issues.

Chapter 4

June

Iwatched from the kitchen window throughout the afternoon as Julian spent hours in the sweltering heat. He’d promised Nana he would finally fix the sagging support beams on the back porch, a job her arthritis had made impossible and that my parents had never cared enough to help replace.

He had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, sweat making the fabric cling to the broad expanse of his back. I found myself unable to look away, my sketchpad forgotten on the table. He moved with a focused strength, his muscles rippling as he hoisted the heavy timber into place. He looked so normal, so good, as he laughed at one of Nana’s old stories while she brought him glasses of iced tea.

He was the hero of our small world, filling the gaps left by two addicts and a crumbling house. He made himself indispensable, I couldn’t remember what it felt like not to have him around.

By the time he had finished, the late summer night was perfect, the kind of night you desperately never want to end, terrified that if it does, it might never happen again.

The air was thick and warm, smelling of freshly cut grass and the sweet honeysuckle that strangled Nana’s back fence. We were lying side by side on an old quilted blanket, far enough from the porch light that the fireflies looked like sparks from a dying fire drifting over our faces.

I loved these nights. After the chaos of the school hallways and the suffocating feeling of being property, lying here with Julian was the only time I felt at peace.

My fingers were laced through his, his palm solid and calloused against mine. I was eighteen now, and the way I saw him was changing drastically, shifting from the protective family friend who fixed our leaky roof into something far more dangerous to my heart, and body…. I found myself noticing the way his forearms flexed beneath his rolled-up sleeves, the dormant strength he carried as if it were a burden he was used to. My eyes locked onto the heavy, veiny lines of his arms, and a sudden heat flared beneath my skin. Fuck. Someone get me some holy water before I end up in a confessional.

“I read something that reminded me of you today,”

He began to recite, his voice a low, melodic vibration that seemed to hum right through the air and into my brain. It was Emily Dickinson.

“Forever is composed of Nows