Page 58 of Hard to Handle

All I can do is stare at her and her subtle but stinging rebuke and wonder if she hears her own words. If she realizes she may have lost two sons that day, because she gave up on me too. She devoted her life to him, forgetting that I need her too, just in different ways.

My chest aches in a way it never has before. “Maybe I wanted you there early, Mom. Maybe I wanted you to stay after. Maybe I wanted you or Dad to see—” My voice breaks and I fucking hate that it does. “You know what? Fuck it. Just fuck it.”

“He has to come first. He needed his medication and I had to get him back and—”

“I know.” It’s futile. I lost the right to need anything from them the night of the accident.

“We need to keep our voices down. He needs his rest,” she says, trying to usher me out of the room.

“I wanted to see him tonight, Mom. And you and Dad.” I turn to face her in this house that no longer feels like home to me. “I don’t get the time to have with him and you didn’t come early like you said you would. You didn’t let him meet the guys. You didn’t—”

“You just don’t understand how things are, Hunter.” And there it is. My name is spoken with so much derision that I don’t think she hears it anymore.

“Yeah, I do. You see me and you see who he could have been. You look in my eyes and know everything changed—your life, his life, my—”

“You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself,” she bites out, and again, I’m reminded why I kept busy all day with publicity stints for the team. Why I hope every time I come home things might change and then hurt when I realize they never will.

“What about you, Mom? You’ve fired every nurse I’ve hired to come in here and help you out.”

“No one will take care of my son but me.”

“You need to get out more. Go back to teaching or something.” Maybe I say the words I know will cause a fight like every other time so I have a reason to leave. Maybe I poke the sleeping bear so I can find my way out of this house. So I can breathe again.

“We’ve had this discussion a million times. You may have run away . . . but we didn’t.”

“Ran away?” I cough the words out. “Is that what you called it? Pushing me to be everything Jonah was supposed to be? Letting me know every damn chance you had that I would never be him. That I would never be enough.” I clench my fists and resist the urge to punch the wall. “Look at me.” I throw my hands out to my side, my voice rising. “I’m one of the best goddamn NHL players on the ice right now and neither of you can see it. Neither of you can acknowledge I’ve lived up to every one of your fucking goals. And yet, it’s still not enough. It’s still not Jonah.”

“Hunter.” My father’s voice comes as a low warning from the other room. His constant aversion of anything about to show.

“Honey.” My mom repeats the tepid warning in her placating tone. “Don’t upset your father. His heart . . . it’s fragile.”

“It seems everything is fragile in this house,” I grit out, running a hand through my hair and blowing out an unsatisfying sigh.

Nothing fucking changes.

“It’s been a long day,” she murmurs.

“Got it. I know. You’re tired. He’s tired. It’s been a long night, and I should get going because I’m upsetting the balance here.” I walk back toward my brother and look at him one last time before leaving. She turns the lamp off so the light from the open door paints a swath across his cheek.

All I can do is stare at him. At his face that was once the mirror image of mine. At the hands tucked away that I used to play catch with. At the memories I hold closer than anything in the world while hating them all too. At the person I’ve tried the hardest to become.

And wonder, for the millionth time if I’d have been better off being the one in the bed instead of being the one who lives with the guilt for putting him there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

HUNTER

16 years earlier

EACH NAIL I POUND INTO the fence does nothing to abate my resentment.

You think you deserve to go, Hunter? You think with sprint times like that I’m going to reward you for slacking and let you go?

Another nail.

Jonah has your time beat by a full second. Christ. There’s a reason he’s being scouted by the top schools and clubs in the country and you’re not.

I drop the next nail as I try to hold it in place with hands shaking with anger. When I bend over to pick it up I realize my jaw is sore from clenching it so tightly.