His attention shot to me. “Look out for yourself? Please, that’s rich.”
I felt that, and it hurt. My limbs trembled against the inevitable lock up, and my sliver of confidence nearly diminished. But while I fought this inner battle for control, Liam kept talking.
“You still can’t get through one hard conversation without shutting down. After all this time. How do you plan to take care of yourself?”
The last bit of control I regained over myself snapped, but I refused to be silent while he criticized me. The scalding anger broiling in my blood powered my voice.
“How dare you.”
Liam’s brows rose in surprise, but I continued before he could respond.
“How dare you throw that in my face! I’m sorry I haven’t recovered like you have, that I haven’t bounced back from what we went through the way you have. I’m trying, Liam, I’m really trying, but you left me tonight. You left me after you promised to stay by me. I was fine, no thanks to you. While you were busy sucking faces with your high school finale, I had a little moment with Clayton Thomas.”
The anger on Liam’s face melted. He stared after me, stricken. “Did he touch you?”
I rolled my eyes because, of course, the all-perfect Liam wouldn’t hear the part where I pointed out how he screwed up. He instead focused solely on who else there was to blame. “Yes, Liam. He tried to drag me off alone,but thanks to Trey, he didn’t get very far.”
He retreated a step and slanted a guilt-ridden look to Trey, who still stood with me. His mouth opened and closed, suggesting he wanted to argue something, but he dropped his shoulders.
“I know you’d never hurt her. You’re nothing like Clayton. I was caught off guard by this. You never told—you never said anything about—” Liam’s words stumbled, proving the number of drinks he consumed.
“She’s my sister,” he said, as if it could explain everything. Trey nodded in understanding. I huffed with annoyance.
That brought my brother’s attention back to me. “I’m sorry, May.”
Silently, I watched my twin, waiting for the shutdown. For us to follow our same patterns by stopping here, but he surprised me.
My brother took a step forward, dropping his beer bottle into the sand as he exposed the palms of his hands to me. “You’re not the only one who’s still hurting.”
The air caught in my throat as Liam heaved a long breath.
“I’m not okay. I act like I am, like I don’t need the therapy Mom has tried to get me back into. I pretend I don’t wake up every night, scared that I’m in that house again. I act like I’m happy when I really feel like my life is a split second away from combusting. Like I’ll blink and be back in that life where I had no power—where I had to survive the pain because I wasn’t strong enough to fight back. Thinking I was alone and happy to be alone if it meant I could protect you from the shit I lived through every day. Not realizing you were going through your own hell all alone.”
Liam didn’t cry as he took another timid step forward. I didn’t cry as he put his face in his hands and growled into his palms. Trey remained silent behind me as Liam looked up at me and smiled sadly.
“I am so broken, May, and I can’t stand to face it. So instead of talking, I pretend I don’t see it. I don’t open up to Mom when she asks if I’m okay. And I don’t cry when I remember what it was like to be helpless as someone took their sick desires out on me. I smile and I move on.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, tears welling up in his blue eyes, his balance barely swaying. “I’m so sorry, May. You deserve a better brother than me. You deserve…so much more—" He didn’t finish as he fell to his knees in the sand, sobbing.
I couldn’t move. No longer because of my instinct to freeze, but from pure helplessness. This type of vulnerability was something I never witnessed from my brother, and I was lost. Terror of saying or doing the wrong thing paralyzed me.
“…we have to live again, despite the fear, and it all starts with a leap.”
No more thinking, no more fear—I leapt for my brother. I fell to my knees before him and I pulled him into my arms, letting him cry in my hold. Liam’s sobs shook his whole body, and I clung to him with all my strength. Silent tears fell down my face. “Shh, Liam. I have you.”
Twisting to peer over my shoulder, I looked up at Trey, who watched us, his green eyes glossy.
“What can I do?” he mouthed to me.
Remembering he had my phone, I asked, “Can you call my mom?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he nodded, stepping away as he pulled my phone from his pocket.
I continued to cradle Liam in my arms, even as his sobs slowed to heavy breathing. I basked in the moment of connection, of no longer feeling lonely in my pain, as much as I hated to see my brother hurt.
“May,” Liam groaned.
“Yeah?”
“Can we go home?”
