Page 100 of Here's to Yesterday

“For meeting your mother. It’s her fault all this happened. He wouldn’t have joined if she wasn’t a whore or aboozy.”

Fighting the urge to drop him, I say, “And maybe he wouldn’t have run off if you weren’t such anasshole.”

“But that’s your fault,too.”

Fucker.

Biting back the hateful words I want to spew at him, I help him out of the garage and into the living room, where he falls into a heap on thefloor.

Glancing up, I notice that Maura is still sitting on the couch. By the expression on her face, she heard all that because I left the garage door open. Her eyes darken for only a moment, and I sense that she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. Instead, she closes her eyes, drops her head, and doesn’t sayanything.

Wedon’t sayanything.

We only keepexisting.

* * *

How comewhen something awful happens and you want the day to be over with, it takes forever for that clock to strikemidnight?

This is the day that neverends.

After getting Aaron in from the garage, I had to make phone calls until my voice got hoarse because my mom wasn’t up for it. In fact, she locked herself in her room. Maura sat beside me in silence the entiretime.

When I make my last phone call, I scoot my chair back from the table andstand.

“I’ll take Tanner’s old room,” I tell my silent companion. “You can have mine. Second door on the left. I’ll be directly across the hall if you needanything.”

I don’t wait for an answer as I trudge through the house and up the stairs. When I enter Tanner’s bedroom, my stomach sinks. It looksexactlythe same as it did when he left for basic training, while mine was turned into a guest room the instant I moved out. The walls are still a deep navy color, and hisSports Illustratedposter of a scantily clad model is still hanging on the wall above his beat-up wooden desk. I glance around and see his football trophy for MVP his senior year is sitting proudly on his dresser, along with the old watch he used to wear. Everything is still thesame.

My brother wasn’t my best friend, or really a friend at all, for that matter. I felt like we were roommates more than anything. We occupied the same house, but we never bonded like brothers and friends should. I don’t mean that we never had any fun times—we did. They were few and far between. We fought more than we got along, and we ignored one another more than wetalked.

It seems we only existedtoo.

As I sit down on his neatly made bed, I try to conjure up the last time I was in this room with Tanner. It was the month before he left for basic, and he was a dick asusual.

“Definitely, babe. I’ll sing to you anytime you want,” I hear him say from across the hall. He must be talking on the phone, because no one responds. “Yeah, I’ll play you a song now. Let me go grab my guitar. Hangon.”

His feet thump on the floor, and I know he’s coming over here. He doesn’t knock but instead flings the already cracked open door so it hits loudly against thewall.

“Get in here, dickhead. I just told this chick I could sing, and we both know I can’t carry a tune for shit. Come help your big brother get some pussy. Maybe I’ll give you a few tips so you can finally lose that fucking v-card your bitch ass is hanging onto.”

Mentally, I create a Fuck YouList:

1.No.

2. I’m not a virgin like he seems to think. If he’d been paying attention, he would know that I’ve had a girlfriend for a year now, and we’ve had sex plenty in thattime.

3. Go fuckyourself.

Out loud, I groan in disgust and close my songwriting notebook. Glaring at my brother, I say, “The only thing I’m going over there to do is tell that poor, unsuspecting girl that she can dowaybetter than your pigheadedass.”

He’s on top of me before I can blink, smashing my head between his forearm and bicep in a headlock. He starts punching myback.

“You’re gonna do it, fucker. Or I’ll beat your scrawny ass.Again.”

This is a regular thing with us. Tanner cornering me into doing bullshit things, me refusing, and him using his fists to get what he wants. Since I wasn’t into getting punched or fighting back, I usually ended upcaving.

But nottoday.

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