“Just give them a chance,” she says in a pleading whisper.
I want to shake my head, but I can’t. “They’re not going to change.”
She lets out this tiny breath and rubs my arm, and in her pitying gaze, I know that she’s not waiting for them to change. She’s always been waiting formeto change—to grow thicker skin. To be less sensitive.
More of a man, right?
I could make her a PowerPoint with all the evidence of their fucked-up deeds and she’ll still claim I left the majority of their brotherly love off the slides.
I stick my arms back into my jacket sleeves, and once I shake off the snow from my hood, our eyes lock for another beat.Protect me, Mom.
Please.
I drop the car keys in her palm. Giving her my escape.
She has a choice to make, and she doesn’t even hesitate. I watch her leave for the driveway. To shut off my running Mustang.
As soon as I walk into that greenhouse, I know for certain that I’m doomed.
* * *
It hurts to breathe. Pain splinters up my side with each inhale.
How do I reach my apartment? I have no clue—the whole drive is a blur. Like a dusty Sega game, the TV screen crackling with static. But I remember the greenhouse.
I remember pushing Davis so hard that he fell into a stack of ceramic pots. They shattered. Dirt spilled. The door was finally clear.
And I left to the sound of my dad yelling at me. For destroying my mom’s precious basil plants. They could’ve been parsley or spinach for all I know.
I didn’t get a good look.
I didn’t care, and I guess that’s my fault, right?
Stupid, clumsy me.
Once I’m inside my Philly apartment, I hold onto my ribs and search my kitchen cupboards. Banging each one open. Trying to find some pain pills. When I was a teenager, one of my friends in the neighborhood dealt pills and gave me oxy. Her therapist would write her all kinds of prescriptions.
All I have now is ibuprofen.
With one hand, I place the bottle on the counter and twist the cap off, having perfected the one-handed twist on “child-proof” caps years ago. It pops. I purposefully knock the bottle and the pills spill on the granite countertop. I scoop a handful, not even counting and toss them back into my mouth.
As soon as they go down, I cough.
Sharp pain erupts in my ribs. They’re broken.
I know they’re broken.
Sinking onto my desk chair, I try to forget what happened. Maybe I can see the events from Hunter’s fucked-up vantage. He just…he threw a bag of potting soil to me. It was heavy. I didn’t see it coming. The bag slammed into my gut and knocked the wind out of my lungs.
I doubled over. Coughing. And the bag—it landed on a gardening hoe and tore open. Soil littered the floor.
Davis slapped me on the back of the head.
I tried to put distance between us, but I walked closer to Hunter. He shoved another bag at my back. As if I had hands connected to my spine to grab the damn thing.
He knew what he was doing.
The brunt force plowed me into a wooden shelf, and the corner jammed into my ribcage. I can still hear thecrackin my ears. I can still feel my feet slipping beneath me and my legs buckling before I dropped to the ground.
