Page 35 of Stand By Me

Thankfully, when Clay went to check if Ben hadn't fallen asleep on the toilet or brained himself on the tiles, he found his brother sleeping soundly in his bed. His clothes were lying haphazardly on the floor, so Clay picked them up and put them in the hamper before pulling the blanket from the foot of the bed to cover Ben to his middle.

Ever since Ben was maybe four or five years old, he'd never wanted his covers up to his chin for some reason. "The middle and no further," he'd repeated every night, summer or winter. Clay would sometimes pull them up once Ben had been asleep, to make sure his brother wasn't too cold, but Ben would inevitably push them down to the acceptable level, seemingly without waking up.

Clay smiled at the memory of that little kid, reminding himself that there had been a time when his brother hadn't hated him so much.

Now, Ben had this entire different life—the demanding job he clearly loved, people who cared about him, a woman whom he might be dating—and Clay knew nothing about it, outside of whatever their mother shared with him.

That's what you get for leaving for so long, Ben would have most likely told him. And sure, yes, Clay got the point. But he'd tried to keep in contact, tried to call, and text, and email. Ben had refused any and all of his offers. He'd even opted out from travelling to Switzerland with their mom each of the few times she'd come to visit.

Clay rubbed the base of his nose and left the room. Maybe it would be better to stop trying. Maybe there was a line he had to finally draw in the sand, tell Ben enough was enough. He could go on hating Clay if he wanted to, but Clay was done.

Yeah, right. He couldn't imagine throwing the towel now.

It was tempting, sure. And maybe a break from sticking his head out only to take another hit to the jaw was a good idea for a bit.

But he wasnotquitting on his brother. His family.

No matter what.

A text message signal beeped in his pocket and he pulled out his phone, expecting it to be Mario. Clay had let him know earlier what was going on and they'd exchanged a few texts, but it had been a while, so he figured Mario had fallen asleep. But maybe he—

The text was from Troy.

I need to talk to you about Jake.

Clay sat up and called Troy right away, the ideas running amok in his head.

"Whoa, I didn't think—"

"What happened?" Clay demanded. He couldn't leave Ben alone until their mother came back, but he needed to know what was wrong.

"What? Damn it, no," Troy said with a sigh. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. He's not in danger, or injured, or… whatever else you thought could've happened."

Clay fell back against the couch cushions. This evening was an absolute hell on his nerves.

"All of that, and more," he admitted, staring at the wall as Ben's words from earlier about him needing to be saved in order for Clay to care came back to take another swing at Clay's heart.

Maybe his brother had hit closer to home than Clay had realized.

"Sorry," Troy said. "I wasn't trying to be an asshole here."

A few weeks ago, Clay would have made a crack about how Troy was an asshole, just not about this, and they would have traded some friendly insults before moving on.

Now, it was awkward like it hadn't been since before Jake and Troy had reconnected for good.

And Clay hated that. He hated all of it.

"What were you trying to do, then?" he asked, tired and weary.

"Exactly what I said in the text—talk to you about Jake." Troy paused. "He misses you, and he's hurt. He's also sorry, okay? He's really sorry. You know he didn't mean what he said."

"Do I?"

"Yes, you do," Troy stressed. "You know him better than almost anyone else. Hell, maybe even better than anyone, period, and you know I take no joy in admitting that."

Yeah, Clay knew. They'd begrudgingly grown to be friends over the last several months, but there was always going to be a part of Troy that wouldn't forgive Clay for getting all those years with Jake that he'd missed out on.

"So you know how he gets sometimes," Troy went on. "He's scared and takes off running in the opposite direction, but first he needs to burn all the bridges while he's at it or it doesn't count."

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