Page 76 of Broken Roads
Bradley
Everything inside me turns to cement—muscles, blood, even my fucking lungs. Twenty years of silence, of birthdays and Christmases where his name became a ghost word we all carefully avoided, and here he is, casual as Sunday morning, standing in our dining room like he never left.
Like he didn't walk out that door without so much as a backward glance, leaving me with a ranch too big for one son and a father who pretended not to break a little more each year.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I ask again, each word scraping my throat raw.
Sebastian's perfect, clean-shaven face tightens the slightest bit. "I thought it was time to come home," he says, voice too even, too controlled.
Home. This hasn't been his home since the day he chose to leave it.
Ruthie moves toward Sawyer and Beckett, her eyes wide with alarm. "Boys," she murmurs, "why don't you help me check on those fence posts out by the east pasture?"
Neither of them argues. One of them has lived on this ranch long enough to recognize a family storm brewing. Sawyer throws me a look—half sympathy, half warning—before following Ruthie out. Hailey's fingers tighten around mine, a quick squeeze that says everything her voice doesn't. Then she slips her hand from my grasp.
"I should go too," she whispers.
"Stay," I growl, not taking my eyes off Sebastian.
"Bradley." Her voice is soft but firm. "I'll be right outside if you need me."
Then she's gone, and I feel naked without her anchor beside me. It's just us now—me, Sebastian, and Dad, who stands at the head of the table like a referee knowing he's about to lose control of the match.
"Time to come home," I repeat, my laugh short and bitter. "After twenty years of radio silence, you just decided today was the day? What happened, Sebastian? Run out of rich patients to bill? Or did you finally remember you had family out here in the sticks?"
My brother exhales slowly, hands sliding into his pockets. Always so fucking composed. "I deserve that."
"You deserve a lot more than that."
"Look, Brad—"
"Don't call me that." The childhood nickname ignites something ugly inside my chest. "You lost the right to call me that when you left without saying goodbye."
Dad shifts his weight, leaning heavily on his cane. "Son, maybe we should all sit down and—"
"No." The word cuts through the air between us. "I want to know why he's here. After years of Christmas cards and five-minute phone calls. After missing your surgeries. After leaving me to handle everything while he played doctor in the city."
Sebastian's jaw tightens, a flash of genuine emotion crossing his perfect fucking face. "You think I don't know what I missed? You think I don't carry that every day?"
"I think you never looked back," I spit. "Not once. Too busy becoming Dr. Sebastian Walker, big-shot diagnostician. Too important for the dirt and shit and sweat of this place."
"That's not fair, and you know it," Sebastian says, taking a step toward me. "This place was never for me. You knew that. Dad knew that. Hell, everyone knew."
Dad makes a pained sound. "Boys, please. This isn't helping anyone."
But we're too far gone now, two decades of unspoken hurt finally finding a voice.
"You abandoned us," I yell. "Dad was sick. The ranch was struggling. And you just packed your shit and disappeared before dawn, leaving nothing but a fucking note."
His composure finally cracks. "Because I couldn't face you. Because I knew if I tried to say goodbye to your face, you'd make me feel like I was betraying everything. Like I was some kind of traitor for wanting something different."
"You were a coward."
"I was eighteen." Sebastian's voice rises for the first time. "Eighteen and suffocating. Every day on this ranch felt like slowly dying. And you—" He jabs a finger at me. "You were so perfectly at home here, so naturally good at everything I struggled with. You think it was easy being the one who never fit?"
"So you ran."
"I did what I had to do to become who I am." His eyes flash dark fire, so like mine and yet not. "And I stayed away because every time I thought about coming back, all I could imagine was exactly this. You, judging me for choices I made two decades ago."
