Page 231 of Before We Were

The way he spits my name—the same name he once shouted across football fields with pride, the name he'd call when nightmares woke him—makes it clear this conversation is already derailed, but I have to try. I settle beside him, hoping the calm water might steady us both. The proximity is physically close but emotionally distant, like sitting next to a stranger wearing my brother's face.

I need to tell him about Nora, about these feelings I've been suffocating. I know my little brother better than he thinks. I've seen the way he looks at her, even if he hasn't figured it out himself yet. And it's killing me that the person I would have once trusted with every secret is now the one person I can't confide in about the heaviest thing on my heart.

"Look, I'm sorry about everything that's happened lately??—"

"Fuck your sorry." Jake whips around, face contorted with a rage that feels too familiar, too much like our father's. "My entire fucking life, I've lived in your shadow. At school, at home, everywhere I went, I was just 'Nate's little brother'. Then you go and fuck up your life, and somehow I'm left scrubbing clean the mess you made of our family name."

Anger pulses hot in my veins. I dig my nails into my palms until the pain numbs the anger in me, anything to keep from saying something I can't take back. Jake springs to his feet, pacing like a caged animal, like he's got poison he needs to spit out.

Go ahead.

I can take it.

I'm the one who always takes the hits—verbal, physical.

They all leave the same scars now.

"And the one goddamn time I finally feel like I'm finding my feet, when everything's finally falling into place, you show up and wreck it all. Like you always do."

His words slice straight for the throat, but I force myself to stay calm.

"Jake, that's not what this is about??—"

"Isn't it?" He spins to face me, and the hatred in his eyes hits harder than any physical blow. "I'm done cleaning up after you, done with your self-destructive bullshit. You're nothing but a selfish prick who??—"

I'm on my feet before I register moving, going toe-to-toe with him. His venom catches me off guard, but the fury in my voice makes him flinch.

"No one's stopping you from doing whatever you want. You created this rivalry in your head. Not me. You're the one living in a fucking fantasy world, pointing fingers when shit doesn't go your way. Welcome to reality, little brother." The words taste bitter on my tongue. "But while you're busy letting everyone else poison your mind, you're missing what's right in front of you. I'm not your enemy."

Maybe someday you'll understand why I did everything I did.

Maybe someday you'll know what it cost me to keep you safe.

He takes a step closer, his jaw set like stone. "And what you keep failing to see is I'm not a fucking child anymore. Something both you and Mom can't seem to understand."

Not a child anymore.

If you only knew what that means in this family.

I snap.

"This is what you've been keeping pent up inside all this time?"

His voice rises like a storm. "Dad never noticed anything I did because he was too busy watching you. The golden boy. Nate and his football career. Nate and his scholarships. Then you go and blow that up, and suddenly both Mom and Dad are focusing on trying to keep you out of jail and off the fucking streets."

Watching me.

Yeah, he was always watching me.

Waiting for me to slip up, to give him a reason.

My hands start to shake, and I shove them deeper into my pockets. "That's not??—"

"What? Not fair?" He barks out a laugh that sounds like broken glass. "You wanna talk about 'fair'? Let's talk about how when you started losing your shit—quitting football, partying, spiraling—Mom stayed up all night worrying about you. You! Dad was pissed at the world because of you! And me? I'm the one getting shipped off to fucking camps for months at a time to stay out of the way. Because God forbid I add to their stress, right?"

Mom wasn't up worrying about me. She was worrying about you.

She was up hiding bruises, while I was planning escapes we'd never take.

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