Page 44 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
She wastes no time enclosing them in her own hands, warming my frigid skin, and immediately, the tremors end. I blink a few times and pinpoint my glossy gaze on our layered fingers, still trying to wrap my head around how quickly Cali’s touch calmed me, and now I’m mirroring her puzzled expression with one of my own.
“You freaked out as soon as Teague hit the ice.”
“I…”
It hurts to breathe. Why does it hurt to breathe?
I’m trying to get my brain and tongue to cooperate with one another, but the words never budge from my mouth. Nothing’s physically restricting me from saying anything, yet I’m struggling with a speechlessness that’s foreign to me. My throat makes this pathetic gurgling noise in lieu of an actual response.
“Okay, let’s sit down,” she coaxes, guiding me to the side opening of the rink. I practically have to puppeteer my limbs to keep them from buckling underneath me.
We take a seat on the curb, and her concern has somehow grown tenfold over the minute it took for us to get here. Her face is veiled in shadows cast by the harsh lighting, and her teeth print impressions into her bottom lip. She hasn’t let go of my hand since she grabbed it.
Her big, frisbee-sized eyes adhere to me. “Are you okay?”
Please say something. I’m fine. I’m good. Say anything, you idiot!
I moderate my voice as best as I can given my lack of breath. “I’m okay.”
And like some weird fucking placebo effect, I force myself to believe it until my physical symptoms almost all wane, leavingme with the searing reminder of Teague’s accident instead of the searing hole in my belly. Oxygen returns to my chest, the heat in my temples recedes, and control reaffirms its iron reign.
She doesn’t stop examining my face, and her fingers only slip from mine so she can caress my cheek. “Gage, what happened out there?”
I’m done hiding my past from her. It’s time to tell her everything. She deserves it.Ideserve it.
“I haven’t told you the full story about my brother,” I admit, partially hating myself for not telling her my brother’s story sooner, partially hating the way hurt dampens her eyes. She’s patient with me while I choke down the rest of my qualms and free a long-hidden truth from a lockbox of trauma.
She slowly lowers her palm back onto my folded hands for moral support. If I thought mentioning him at the hospital was bad, this is going to be torture.
“His name was Trip, and he was my best friend. We used to do everything together as kids. We’d go on adventures down near the creek behind our house, we’d spend sleepless nights reading ghost stories to each other, we’d bake the most disgusting creations in the oven while my parents failed to supervise us.” A laugh wrests itself from me—a laugh I didn’t think I’d be capable of given this fucked-up trip down memory lane.
“He was, um, born with a heart defect. To be more specific, he had something called aortic stenosis, which basically meant that his aortic valve was too small. In order for his blood to flow properly, his heart had to work ten times harder to push blood out to the rest of his body. And over time, his heart grew weaker from the stress. The doctors told us he would be able to live a long, normal life as long as he received constant treatment, but my parents…”
I can’t even say it. For a split second, I’m controlled by myfear again, watching helplessly as it tears at my insides and rips me asunder, letting me bleed out from pulled-apart muscle. The moisture in my eyes triples, but I don’t blink, because I don’t want to let a tear fall.
“I’m here, Gage. It’s okay. I’m right here,” she murmurs, salving my newly opened wound with her soft voice, sidling up against my body and keeping our laced hands close to her heart.
Aside from Fulton, I’ve never told anyone else about Trip. I never talked about him because I didn’t want to share him with anyone. I didn’t want people to know him becauseIbarely knew him. I didn’t get seventy-some-odd years to know him or see what kind of man he grew into.
I’m close to running away from this conversation, to hiding from that pitiful look in Cali’s eyes. But the moment I feel the beat of her heart, it neutralizes that terror inside me. I know I should want to bury that memory, but this is the first time in forever that I don’t punish it—or myself—for existing.
I square my shoulders and take a breath, comforted by the feel of our skin touching and by the lullaby her heart plays just for me. She gives me strength that I never would’ve found anywhere else. She gives me more support than my parents ever did.
“My parents are terrible, money-hungry fuckers who never gave a shit about me or my brother,” I growl, feeling unchecked anger wring the last remnants of grief from my body. “They knew how sick my brother was, and they didn’t do anything to help him. It wasn’t a matter of money or resources or time. It was a matter of fuckinglove. And in the end, Trip suffered because of my parents’ neglect.”
“I’m so sorry, Gage.”
“I could’ve saved him. If I’d just taken matters into my own hands, he still would be here today.”
I’ve tried so hard to be okay. I’ve tried so hard to stop punishing myself, but the truth is, if I don’t punish myself, I’ll grow to accept what happened to Trip…and that’s something I could never bring myself to do. The warning signs were all there. There was a sufficient amount of time for treatment to be done. This wasn’t some out-of-the-blue illness that appeared overnight. I was a kid, yeah, but all I had to do was go to someone—anyone—and ask for help.
I can’t believe I just thought he’d be okay. I was so fucking stupid. I was his big brother. I was supposed to look out for him, and I didn’t. He relied on me to keep him safe. That was myonejob. That was my purpose in life.
“Hey.” Cali’s cheeks tuck into a frown—a sight that I hate every time I bear witness to it—and she rubs circles over the back of my knuckles. Her touch isn’t the electrifying firework show it usually is, though. It’s so inexplicably cold that it doesn’t even feel like she’s there.
“None of it was your fault. None of it, okay? Please tell me you know that.” A rare desperation rides on the heel of her words, and although her assurance is gentle in delivery, the weight of it bludgeons me.
“I was supposed to be his protector.”
