Page 72 of After the Storm

“So you told everyone but me. What the fuck?” he asks, throwing his hands in the air. Mom just watches us all like it’s her favorite sitcom.

“Ares, why don’t you take a breather, honey?” Mom chimes in. That’s just fuel to the fire. I wanted to give my brother the benefit of the doubt and have some sympathy for him. The whole toddler tantrum thing is making it hard, though.

“Easy for you to say. All your favorite people weren’t keeping a secret from you,” he snaps. All she can do is nod. I wonder what’s going through Audra’s head right now. I imagine she’s filled to the brim with misplaced guilt. She did what she thought was best.

“I’m sorry. Just let me explain.” Her voice shakes a little on the back end, but still, she holds strong and doesn’t crumble. For that, I’m proud of her.

“No. I don’t want to listen to you try to talk yourself out of this. You fucked up!” He raises his voice at the last part, and she flinches back. I know he would never in a million years hurt her. She knows that, too, I think. Her reaction was automatic, and so is mine at watching her flinch back.

“Watch how you fucking talk to her,” I spit. His eyebrows shoot up so high, I think they might be permanently ingrained in his hairline. I know I should have stayed out of it and let him cool down. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. No one gets to talk to her like that, not when I’m around.

“Oh, that’s rich. Here comes the peanut gallery to tell me how to talk to my best friend of over a decade,” he scoffs. “You’ve been around for what, a summer?”

“I get it, okay? Your feelings are hurt because you weren’t in the loop. Lashing out at everyone you care about isn’t going to fix it,” I say, expecting him to take down a notch, but instead, it’s just water in a grease fire.

“You think that’s why I’m mad? You all think this is because I wasn’t the first to know?”

“I mean… Why else?” I ask, shrugging. I can see him sift over his thoughts, and for a moment, he looks like he might actually step down and come out with something reasonable. Just like that, the fire is back under his ass, and it’s all aimed at me now. He sticks a finger toward me.

“You don’t think I’ve noticed the girls in and out of your room since high school? She’s my best friend! Why would I want this for her? You don’t know how to settle down.” His words are like venom. The words sting and I try to take them in, but they burn the whole way down. I try to keep it in my head that he’s just upset and lashing out, but it’s hard.

“It’s not like that,” I force out.

“Not like that? It’salwayslike that. She’s just another girl you’re going to toy with until you’re bored. That’s all you know how to do.” The words are like a slap across the face. My cool is quickly diminishing. I search for some calm response, some reply I can give that isn’t hot on the tongue. I come up short, though. I’m burning with anger.

“Fuck you,” I spit. Mom’s eyes go wide, and Audra just drops her head in her hands, either out of exhaustion or defeat, I’m not sure.

“Boys,” Mom snaps through gritted teeth. “I did not raise you to speak to each other like this.” The last part comes out a little shaky, like we’ve broken her heart. I’m sure, on some level, we have. We haven’t really gotten into it like this since we were kids. Except now we have the knowledge to really take low blows at each other.

“I can’t. I can’t fucking understand how no one is on my side.” He throws two hands up in the air. “You’re supposed to be my best friend,” he says, pointing at Audra. His voice wobbles when he says it in a familiar way that digs a hole right in the center of my chest. I know he’s fighting back tears.

“And you.” His voice has more bass to it now, turning to face me with a pointed finger in my face. “You don’t deserve her. You’ll break her heart, and don’t you think she’s had enough broken hearts?”

The notion that I don’t deserve her doesn’t hurt me. That isn’t news to me. I don’t know that there is a soul out there that truly deserves to have her in their life. She’s just that good, that perfect. Knowing my own brother thinks I’m incapable of this kind of love, though? Knowing he thinks all I plan on doing with her is playing some kind of game just to cut her loose? That hurts. That feels a lot like a knife stuck right in my chest.

I don’t have a comeback. In fact, I don’t have words at all. All I have is this ache in my chest that, under all his anger, this is what my brother thought of me the entire time.

Apparently, I don’t need to find one, though, because to my surprise—and seemingly everyone else’s at the table’s—Audra stands up. She meets him where he’s at and sticks a finger in his face. Her cheeks are burning red, and her chest is rising and falling at a much faster pace than normal. She’s fucking pissed. And if I wasn’t so hurt, I might be turned on.

“No. You don’t get to throw a fit and start throwing insults left and right because you’re mad at me. If you’re mad at me, you can say something about me,” she says, turning her hand and digging a finger into the center of her chest.

“He didn’t do anything.” She’s nearly yelling now. “Go throw your fit somewhere else. I get it, I fucked up. I’ll make it up to you at some point, but you don’t get to just talk to everyone however you want in the meantime.” She drops her body back into her seat. The room is silent now. Leave it to my girl to shock everyone into silence.

“Okay,” Ares says, turning toward the stairs.

“Okay?” she asks, obviously confused that her words held any weight.

“Yeah. I’ll take some time, and then we’ll talk.” He shrugs like it’s that easy.

“Okay.” She nods.

Ares makes his way up the stairs and to his bedroom. For a few beats, we all just sit there with raised eyebrows and slightly parted lips, in shock that Audra shut that shit down with ease. Ares is notorious for not being the easiest to calm down once he’s going. Sure enough, though, my girl did it.

Chapter31

Audra

It’s beenthree days since Ares talked to me. Five since he talked to me without yelling at me. I told him he needed to find a way to talk it out with me without insulting everyone and yelling.

---