Page 71 of The Beginning and End of Everything
"Brandon."
His cold, flat gaze to lifts mine, and I notice a fresh cut on his face. “Hey, poss.” He takes the bottle from the table, cracks the seal on the lid, and brings it to his lips to swallow back several heavy gulps.
Some days Brandon's up, and I think maybe, maybe it will be the day he snaps out of it, but then he goes down. Hard. And this is down. Way down. Every time he comes back from a fight, he's angry and he drinks. When he gets like this, there is nothing that can shake that darkness and rage that hangs around his shoulders like a wool cloak. At times I believe he basks in it.
I've tiptoed around this topic as long as I can. Those fights do nothing but make his situation, whatever that is, worse.
I snag the bottle of whiskey from him on my way into the kitchen and toss the glass into the trash. When I return to the living room, his eyes narrow. "That's real fucking helpful," he says with a humorless laugh.
"Brandon, please tell me you realize you have a problem?”
"Jesus, Poppy." He throws his head back and drags a hand over his face. "All you do is bitch."
"No. It’s not bitching. It’s me caring about you, Brandon. And this—this has got to stop."
"This is a one-way road, possum." He pushes off the sofa, walking straight past me without as much as a backward glance.
From here, I can just make out the grin sneaking over his face when he opens the kitchen drawer—the one where he keeps his weed.
I storm into the kitchen, grab the collar of his shirt, and yank him away from the counter. Then slam my hip against the drawer, nearly closing his hand in it. "You don't need it."
There's a spark of anger in his eyes a second too late. He grabs me by the waist and slams me against the fridge with such force it rocks back, rattling everything inside before it settles on the floor again with a bang. I brace my palm against his chest, and his quickened heartbeats pound against my hand.
I can feel the tension ingraining itself into every one of his muscles.
"Brandon,” I whisper. “Let me go. Please." I swallow. There’s a dark voice muttering in the back of my mind that this is the part of Brandon I don’t know. The part of him I can't fully trust. A part of him that scares me.
A wry smile touches his lips. For a split moment, he's almost the Brandon I recognize, but he's buried beneath so much anger and hatred that it's hard to see the boy I grew up with—the one I love.
His grip tightens when he inches toward me. My skin prickles when the warm air that escapes his mouth fans across my throat. In seconds, his lips brush my earlobe. "Isn't this what you want, Poppy?" There's a cruel edge to his words that I hate, and although I don't want to believe for a second that he would hurt me, he's making me nervous.
"You're scaring me, Brandon."
His gaze narrows and his eyes swirl with a storm of emotions just waiting to hit—one I have no idea of when or where it will strike. But as quickly as it came, the storm passes. Brandon huffs out a hard breath through his nose, lessens his grip, and then touches his forehead to mine. His palms capture my cheeks, and he breathes me in like oxygen he needs for survival. Then, he kisses me. But where I expect violence and anger, hate and fury to transfer with his lips, instead, all I find is reverence.
"I'm sorry," he whispers against my lips, his hands trembling as they stroke my cheeks and down the column of my throat.
I search his eyes for answers, for the whys of how life is such a mess. I want Brandon to make me forget everything that isn't this exact moment. Just him and me. And then he kisses me again, long and hard.
His fingers dig into my waist, and he lifts me, wrapping my legs around his hips before he moves me away from the fridge and down the hall. I land on his bed, and he comes after me, caging me in with solid arms. Before his lips meet mine again, I tug at his shirt while his hands roam my body, and then he stills.
"Not like this," he breathes against my mouth.
And those words are enough to snap me out of the moment, and I stare at him bewildered.
But Brandon barely budges when he closes his eyes and places his lips to mine again. "I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone in my life. But you deserve better. Not like this.”
A flicker of anger spikes in my chest. That has always been Brandon’s excuse, that I deserve better, and while that may be how he feels, I want better for him, too. I want to be his sanctuary, the place he goes when the demons get too close.
"I don’t wantbetter, Brandon. I wantthis." I sweep a hand over his face. “I want you.”
There’s a slight tic in his jaw, and he grips the bottom of my shirt. "Say it again.”
"I want you."
And then the dam between us breaks.
With each passing second, with each touch, we slip farther. And when Brandon finally strips the last piece of clothing from my body, he draws in a deep breath. We’re right back here, on the front lines of the moral war that has waged between the two of us for as long as I can remember.
