Page 87 of Not Made to Last

I should’ve expected it, really, and I don’t know why I hadn’t prepared myself for such a visceral reaction from my brother. Dominic’s hotheaded. He always has been. But that energy that ignites the stands when he’s on the court is the same one he has to work to control in real life.

Last night, we stayed in my bathroom for however long it took me to tell him as much as I could, even the parts that made me uncomfortable.

I told him about the first night Rhys and I met. How I’d hit Rhys with the truck, taken him to the emergency room, then spent the next few hours with him.

I told him about the weeks after that, when Rhys sought me out through the Get Grubby app and how he’d invited himself to ride with us a couple of times.

Dominic already knew about that, only in his mind it was some random guy named Timothy he’d linked all those events to.

He didn’t know about the days after, while he was with Max at summer camp. It was hard to tell him those details. Soincrediblyhard. How do you tell your brother that you’ve been in bed with someone he despises? And worse? That I allowed that someone into our home. I apologized for lying to him and for revealing things to Rhys that we swore we’d never tell a soul. “I thought I could trust him,” I told Dom.

“Well, you thought wrong, Ollie.”

And he was right, obviously, because Rhys took all my secrets, along with my pain, and he released them to the world as if it meant nothing.

As ifImeant nothing.

Years ago, when I told Dominic I’d gotten a scholarship to St. Luke’s, he told me it was a bad idea. That they would crucify me for who he was. I didn’t believe him. Not really. But I trusted his instincts, and when he told me that in order for me to even make it through one year at St. Luke’s, we should (as much as possible) hide who we were to each other. I’d agreed with him. School was important to me, and I wanted to see it through. Sure, I could’ve gone to a different school, a public one, but IwantedSt. Luke’s. I wanted something close to what I’d had before. So, for years, I’ve gone to Dom’s games and sat in the back while Max sat with his best friend, Dre’s, family. I watched from afar, unable to trulycelebrate all the greatness that Dom had achieved, and later, all the things that Max would achieve at that same school.

All three of us, including Max, kept up the lie that my mom always worked out of town. We kept our lives private and our home our sanctuary.

Until I ruined it all with one stupid, selfish decision.

I let Rhys into my life.

And into my heart.

As soon as the truck pulls into the driveway, I get to my feet and rush over to it. The second Dom’s out of the car, I’m running my hands across his face, over his body, touching every bit of exposed skin, searching.

He grasps my wrists, carefully lowering my hands. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Checking for injuries.”

“What?”

“I got a text,” I tell him.

He closes the car door and starts for the house. “What did it say?” he asks over his shoulder.

I follow him. “That you and Rhys were about to throw down.”

“Pshh. As if I couldn’t take that fucking asshole.” Dominic turns to me. “That motherfucker’s lucky he’s still walking.”

I stop in my tracks, my gaze lowering. I don’t know why it pains me to hear Rhys referred to in such a way. Dom only sees him as the Rhys he knows, and I wish that I could, too, but sometimes, like now, I see him as the boy who was there for me during my darkest times. A boy who told me to keep breathing. To keep going. A boy I made a pact with all those years ago…

Breathe. One more time. Every time. And I promise to do the same.

Clearly, I suck at hiding my emotions, because Dom dips his head to look right at me. “You’re fucking kidding me, Ollie.”

“What?”

“He actually means something to you, doesn’t he?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t get it,” he laughs, disbelieving. “How can youstillfeel something there? Even after what he did… after he hurt you like that?”

I release my breath and close my eyes. Count to ten. And reveal the truth only I know. “Because I hurt him first…”

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