Page 66 of Bad Boys After Dark - Brett
“It must have been awful for all of you. I can’t imagine what your parents went through. They not only lost their daughter, but they had four grieving children to try to help through it.”
His chest constricted. “Yeah, it was tough, and the way my father handled it pisses me off. He was the man of the family, the one we looked up to. The man who was supposed to protect us. As stupid as it sounds, at ten years old I blamed him for her death. I knew then I shouldn’t blame him, but I was so angry and so fucking sad. I didn’t know what to do with it.” The words fell from his lips like bombs, exploding around him.
“Everyone grieves differently,” Sophie said empathetically. “You must have felt as helpless and lost as your parents did.”
He paced again, unable to stop the truth from coming out. “We couldn’t talk about it. We didn’t know what would set my father off. The overwhelming pain of losing Lorelei burrowed deep inside me, turning dark and ugly, until it was all I felt.”
He faced her again, taking in the pain in his sweet Sophie’s eyes. In that moment, the darkness of his past collided with what he wanted for his future, and for the first time in his life he wanted to own up to his part in their family’s destruction. With his heart in his throat, he stepped closer to Sophie, holding her gaze to be sure she would hear every word he said and hoping like hell she would still want him afterward.
“Sophie, as awful as that time was, the truth of our family falling apart is even uglier. I wanted to blame someone. I wanted to kill someone, and I’m damn lucky that I didn’t. I went out and got in as much trouble as I could. Fighting, causing shitstorms in stores, doing anything and everything to try to get that rage out of my system. Two years after she died, right before my father moved out, I was picked up by the police for trying to beat up a guy who owned a convenience store because he wouldn’t sell me cigarettes. I didn’t even smoke. I just wanted a fight.” He laughed at how stupid he was as a kid, but the reprieve was short-lived. The truth came slamming back like a boomerang.
“You were hurting,” Sophie said as she reached for him again. “You were only a kid.”
He kept her at arm’s length, steeling himself for the truth. “But I wasn’t a stupid kid, Sophie. You need to hear the truth before you give me any more of that sweet heart of yours. My father used his connections to get the charges dropped, but all that trouble I caused was misdirected. I knew it then, and I’m ashamed of it now. At first I was honestly trying to get past the gaping hole inside me. But as time passed my reasons changed. You know how I said I blamed my father? I turned that blame into hatred, feeding off of it. I thought if I got him and his anger out of the house, I’d feel better and my mom would feel better, but that’s not how things work. All that shit I did made things a thousand times worse for my parents. I destroyed him and decimated our family.”
A tear slid down Sophie’s cheek, nearly dropping him to his knees.
“I’m sorry, Sophie.”
“Sorry?” She swiped at her tears.
“That I’m not the man you thought I was.”
“You’re right. You’re not the man I thought you were.” Her expression turned serious. “Because the man I thought you were before we got together was a man who would never admit to something like that. He’d make a joke about it, or get pissed if someone accused him of it. And the man I’ve come to know? The man I trust with my heart?” She stepped closer. “That man has been slowly opening up to me, and everything I’ve learned about him has surprised me. That man owns his strengths and his weaknesses. That man is brilliant. But like the rest of us, he wasn’t born that way. You were a kid when you lost your sister. I can’t imagine how devastating that must have been for all of you, but to the ten-year-old boy who secretly danced with her? The boy who protected her and loved her?” More tears slid down her cheeks. “There are no words for how horrific and sad that must have been and must continue to be when you think of her. You might have been a really smart kid, but as you said, everything you knew was upended when you lost Lorelei. You can’t blame yourself for what happened between your parents. You weren’t acting rationally, and chances are neither were they.”
