Page 101 of The Tomorrows After You
“How about I heat some SpaghettiOs and you can start from thebeginning?”
They kept Brennan in the dark, as they did to me and Nicolette when we were brought in. They kept him waiting even longer though,only questioning him once that Saturday evening and it was the same question they had asked us.
“They played the recording of you confessing the truth to Nicolette.” Brennan blinked at me and my face flushed.
“Brennan, I’m so sorry about that. She was halfway there on her own and I thought I could trust her. I promised it was yours and mine only and I broke that promise and you have no idea how sorry—”
“They said they had traced its origins back to this property.” I didn’t think my heart could break into more pieces but now that I knew Nicolette had lied about that too, I was hollow all over again. “Then they asked if I was aware of who sent it.”
“Yeah, they asked us the same thing.” My eyes grew dark, the anger beginning to replace the sadness. “Of course, Nicolette lied and pretended to know nothing about it. I swear if I ever see her again—”
“It’s unlikely sheknewabout the audio’s existence.”
My hand stopped stirring the pot in front of me. I turned to face him.
“How would you know that?”
“Because when I first accessed the file, it showed no signs of modification since its origin. I suppose shecouldhave known about it but she’d have to have pretty extensive knowledge of metadata erasure and while I would not underestimate her—”
“What do you mean whenyou firstaccessedthe file?” My voice climbed higher.
Brennan clasped his hands, and he looked down.
“What do you mean, Brennan!”The volume of my voicestartledhim and hestoodup, taking a step back, his eyesdartingall over the room,landingeverywhere but on me.
“I overheard you two talking.” His words were aimed at the ground. I turned the stove off and threw the spoon in the kitchen sink, a fresh wave of dread creeping up my throat. The sensation of falling made me grip the counter. “On Friday night. You said the last few weeks with her were the happiest you’d ever been.” The feeling of falling came to a sudden halt and it was as if I had smashed through the plate glassdoor of the screen room. “You said having to be stuck here without her would be crippling.” The shards of his words pierced my soul.
“Brennan, I didn’t mean it like that. Iwasn’treferringto you—”
“You’ve done everything for me, Riot.” His eyes still shifted around awkwardly but they hovered closer to my head. “I was supposed to be the big brother.”
His lower lip quivered, and I was stunned. The last time I saw Brennan emotional, it was at our dad’s burial. I was incarcerated for our mother’s but I somehow doubted he managed to shed a tear.
“I thought if I sent that recording anonymously and they heard the truth, it might shed just enough doubt that you could at least be released from parole sooner.” He twisted his gaze around, sheepish, before meeting my eyes with so much sentiment I think my heart might burst.
“Iwassupposedto be the one to take care ofyou. And I never did. I never could.”Heshookhis head apologetically. “I never could handle being in the world where youlived. Iwantedto. I shouldhavetriedharder. But those things don’t come to me like they come to other people. Youwerealways the strong one. The one peopleunderstood. The one who could make sense of the unkindness of the people around us. Youknewwhat to say, alwaysknewwhat to do.
“When Iheardyoutalkingto Nicolette on Friday about not being able to be with her because of the probation… because ofme. Well, itwasthe first time I everknewwhat to do. I justknew, Riot. Ihadto take care of you. For once, Ihadto be the big brother.”
I tried to be angry. But as tears glistened in his eyes, I watched one spill down his cheek, and the only thing I felt in that moment was love.
It took us some time to let our moment pass. I was okay with the silence that ensued. We both slurped SpaghettiOs on the couch. When we were just about done, I regarded him, red sauce smeared on the corners of his lips.
“Alright, whathappenedthe rest of the time youwerethere? Saturday youtoldthem youwerethe one to send the file. What about the other three days?”
“Well, they were closed on Sunday, so I wandered around Charleston.”
I frowned. “And you didn’t think to call me? Brennan, I was losing my mind!”
He paused and blinked at me. “I tried calling the house. But it said it was disconnected.” We both turned to where I’d ripped the landline off the wall.
Well, shit.
“I stayed in a motel next to the office building. On Monday, they were very interested in watching me demonstrate how I sent the audio file, which is peculiar because it wasn’t all that sophisticated of encryption. I was sending it to the Godot Police Department, so I didn’t bother masking my IP address. I erased the metadata from the audio so that—”
“Brennan.” He paused mid-narrative. “This is all very interesting, but what did the FBI want?”
He frowned. “I cannot know for certain.”
