Page 85 of My Brother's Enemy
He’d link himself to me if we did this, and eventually he’d see whatever was wrong with me. He’d identify what my family had seen right away, and then he’d be bitter. I couldn’t stick around and wait for the day he looked at me with the same hatred Daniel had—or worse, the day he lookedthroughme the way Dane did.
Suddenly I was back in my apartment in Kansas City. I was at my kitchen table, the gun I’d bought in my hand.
Christ, I wished now that I’d used it. None of this would be happening.
“Rain?” Tyler stood with me.
I shook my head, backing away. “I can’t…” I whispered. I couldn’t get my voice to be any louder. It was physically impossible. Something was strangling me, choking my ability to breathe. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” I looked at Kashvi. “I resign.”
50
RAIN
Igot as far as the parking lot before Tyler burst through the door that had just closed behind me. “You’re going to run? That’s your answer?”
I stopped abruptly.
I had to face him. I knew this. Some deep sense told me that if I ran now, I’d be running forever. Tyler wouldn’t stop. He was a fighter. That’s what he did in every situation. And right now, he was fighting for me.
I turned, my chest heaving, and I tried not to think about what that meant. “You don’t understand.”
“No?” His face twisted in fury. He didn’t give one fuck who could overhear us. He stepped closer, looming over me. “I don’t understand? What don’t I understand? Hardship? You think I have no clue about that sort of thing?”
He laughed in my face, and I recoiled, because it was so hard, so bitter, so real.
“You think I have no idea what it’s like to lose your parents in one day? To worry about the foster system, whether they’re going to separate me from my sister? To just automatically write off hockey, because what fucking kid in the foster systemcan afford hockey? Or no, that’s not enough. What about when my sister comes to me when she’s fifteen and tells me she’s pregnant?Fifteen. Or to have people look at me with disdain, as if I were the one who fathered her kid? That’s incest. Anddisgusting. And they thought that shit about me. But you’re right. I have no idea what it’s like to struggle through life. Not at all. Not when my twin sister has a baby when she’s a sophomore in high school. Or when she decides to keep the most precious gem of our lives. Not to mention that the piece of shit who got her pregnant dumped her the first second she told him about their child.
“We got lucky with someone who agreed to take both of us in,” he continued. “I got sponsored. My sister was dealing. Then comes along a new boyfriend, except he’s a dick of a boyfriend. He’s angry and he’s volatile and he hates me, but Skylar thinks he’s the king shit. Then, because the asshole doesn’t want to learn how to drive, he gets them in a car accident and my sister walks away with a brain injury. Guess what happens with that boyfriend? Just like the last one, he leaves her in the dust. Now it’s me, my sister, and my niece, plus a brain injury. She’s high functioning, but she still has a fucking brain injury and a host of abandonment issues. I swear to God, but you’re right. I have no idea about hardship. Or pushing through it. None at all.” His anger came at me in waves. “Fuck you for bolting. Fuck you for leaving the first second you got a chance. Fuck you, Rain.”
He turned to walk away.
I should let him go.
I should…
But I couldn’t.
God help me, I can’t.
“You don’t understand.Everyoneleaves,” I yelled, my voice cracking.
He stopped before slowly pivoting around. “Everyone leaves? How fucking cliché can you get?”
I winced. His jab hit its bullseye. “Never mind.” I started walking.
“You’re so fucking oblivious. It’s driving me insane.”
I grimaced at the second jab. I stopped, but I didn’t turn around.
He drew closer. “The whole time in there, I listened to you talk about a life devoid of love. You never got that, and then you apologized to Kashvi that your life wasn’t worse than it was. What the fuck are you smoking?”
I jumped at the force of his anger.
He spat, “I don’t know what kind of psychological torment you’re in, but don’t discredit it. My sister loved me. Our parents loved us before they died. We got them for a full fourteen years. I remember them. I know how my mom used to laugh. I know how my dad used to roll his eyes at my mom, before he gave in to whatever she was asking him to do. I have those memories. Life sucked afterward, yeah. But I had my sister. I was loved. I know what that’s like. I don’t question my place in life, but I have to imagine that’s what you do. Is that it? Do you question whether you matter to people? When I laughed, someone responded. They either laughed with me or they told me to stop laughing. But there was something there. I meant something. It doesn’t sound like you ever got that.”
He paused a moment, gathering himself. “Who let you know you existed? No one. Who validated you, praised you, told you that you were worth something? Who loved you?”
Every word he said was painful, but he was right.
