Again, he watches me for a few beats before replying, “Yes.”
I clench my jaw and lower my beer bottle before clipping, “No.”
It feels strange coming out of my mouth, my real feelings. The truth. Especially when it comes to Stellan. My twin brother and I, we never really had a very close relationship. We’ve always been different, radically in fact. But instead of bridging the gap between our two contrasting selves, we’ve always ended up widening it.
Our difficult relationship only got worse when I realized he wanted Isadora, same as me. I’ll be the first to say I didn’t makeit easy for him. I knew he liked her, and yet I forged ahead with my relationship with Isadora. I could’ve talked to him, discussed it, but that was never our way. I also realize if it were someone else, Ledger or Conrad, I would’ve stepped aside right away. But with Stellan, things are different. He’s my twin and the fact that he’s always kept me at a distance—due to his own reasons—bugged me more than I’d like to admit. And my anger always came out in strange ways. In ways that I would fuck with him for all sorts of reasons. But anyway, in the end, I never could have taken his girl from him. He’s my brother, my family. I’ll do anything for family.
Only now that he actuallyishappy, I can’t really see it. Maybe I truly am a fucking asshole.
“No what?” he asks, confused.
“No, we made a promise,” I state.
“What promise?”
“Promise,” I say, my voice biting. “To stay together. To stay close to each other. To look out for our sister.”
Stellan is silent for a bit, something going on behind his eyes, and I’m too agitated to figure out what it is. When I’m about to snap him out of whatever daydream he’s entertaining, he speaks. “Callie’s married. Happily married, with two kids. She’s finally,fucking finally, going to Juilliard next year. Because her jackass of a husband loves her too much to knock her up a third time, no matter how much she wants him to. So I don’t think she needs looking out for, because as much as Reed still bugs me, he loves her. More than either of us can imagine.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he keeps going. “And in case you haven’t noticed, our baby brother is settled as well. He’s got two kids, a wife that keeps his hands full, and they’re already thinking about expanding the family even though the twins are hardly a year old.”
Again I try to speak, but he doesn’t let me. “Even Conrad’s settled. Wyn’s planning the wedding and I’m sure as soon as they tie the knot, they’ll be talking about expanding the family too. In fact, the only reason they haven’t is because Con is probably being his usual hardass self and wants Wyn to be absolutely fucking sure about wanting babies because according to him, she’s still too young.”
A pulse beats in my cheek by the time he finishes. “You got a point?”
Again, I can see something is flashing through his eyes and again, I don’t give a fuck about it. “You know, people think that us Thorne brothers are so strong, and we are. In a way. We lived through pretty tragic times, and we came out the other side. Most people think we came out on top, but I beg to differ. Some of us are still trying to make our way up.”
“What the fuck,” I growl, squeezing the neck of the beer bottle, “are you talking about?”
“I never worried about you,” he keeps going in that same tone, and I swear to everything that’s holy, I’m going to throw this bottle at him if he doesn’t get to the point. “Well, aside from the fact that I wanted to protect you from me and my issues, and so I kept you at a distance and spent my entire life being a shitty brother. All you ever did was party too hard and break a few too many rules. Made a few too many jokes. Your grades were always fine. Your soccer was fucking phenomenal. You’re arguably the best of us. And I always thought, back when I used to push you away, that if someone was going to cope with that, it would be you. I always thought, Shep will be fine. Shep can handle it. Shep can handle anything. He isn’t like the rest of us.”
No, I’m fucking not. I made sure of that. I made sure no one had to worry about me because there were so many other things to worry about. Rent, food, Mom’s chemo sessions back when she’d been alive, our asshole father’s drinking problems beforehe thankfully fucking left us, Callie’s dance classes, Ledger’s fights and detentions; everyone else’s issues. There was enough dysfunction in our family, so I made sure not to let any crop up.
But again, what the fuck is the point here?
“I was going to throw this bottle into your face,” I say, holding said bottle up to show him. “But now, I think I’m going to throw it in the air and then fucking kick it in your face. Just because you’ve almost bored me to death and I need something interesting to bring me back to life.”
His lips twitch. “That’s quite the picture.”
I hum. “No, it’syourpicture that’s going to be in tomorrow’s headlines.”
I see him crack a small smile before he nods. “The point is, I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and ignoring you and pushing you away was the biggest. But now I think I may have made an even bigger mistake than that.”
“And what’s that?”
“Taking you for granted and thinking you’d be fine.”
Anger strikes my chest. “Con put you up to this?”
“No.”
“Because I am fine. And I’m going to fucking win the championship.”
“I never doubted that for a second,” Stellan says, and I believe him.
“So then what the fuck are you talking about?”
“That I want you to win,” Stellan says. “I want you to bring that trophy home. But I’m standing in the way of that. I know. I canseeit. I can see you’re in pain because of me and… her. So that’s why I’m leaving. I’m leaving because I want to give you everything that is in my power to give. You did the same for me. Now it’s my turn.”
