Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

CHASE

T he low I was expecting comes, and it’s just as heartbreaking as I thought, if not more. Okay, definitely more. Look, logically I know that depression isn’t something that has an easy fix. If it was, everyone that has it would snap their fingers and be done with the damn thing. But the less logical side of me is absolutely certain that Easton never had a fair shot and that fucking sucks. He started out on an uneven playing field and still has persevered. He’s so strong, and I hate that he has to be.

I’m also aware that if this thing between us, whatever it is, continues to develop, I need to accept all sides of him. He’s the dark days as much as the good ones and everything in between.

Still fucking kills me to see him not doing well.

Which is how I end up on the phone with my sister on a rarely warm Sunday afternoon. “I don’t know, Lo, I’m just trying to be supportive here.”

She hums in agreement. “I know, and I’m sure you’re doing everything you can for Easton. My main concern is how you’re handling all of this. It’s been a lot for you too, you know?”

Normally, she would have passed the phone off to Sage already because most of the time, I’m not the easiest person to have a conversation with. But today, she called me because she wanted to check on me, more than the surface level of how things are going, and my concern for Easton had my walls a bit lowered. Her super-sister powers have been remarkably successful, I’m very impressed. So here we are, her too many miles away with her feet propped up on the balcony railing and me in an Adirondack chair in my backyard, hoping to see signs of life in my house.

“It has been,” I admit slowly. “But I’m figuring it out. And it’s not like it’s been bad. Easton is fucking wonderful, the dynamics are what needs some getting used to.”

I mean it, highs or lows, Easton somehow woke me up after emotionally coasting for fuck know’s how long, and he belongs here with me. Where he’s safe to feel whatever he feels. If tomorrow, he decides to move back in the spare bedroom and call things off with me, that still stands. It’ll suck, but I’m not ever going to make him leave, so it’s easier for me when he’s comfortable here.

Logan sounds sympathetic. “He really thinks Brady walked out?”

“He did until we got back. I’m not sure since then. He hasn’t talked about it and I haven’t pushed. He’s got a lot going on.”

I hear Logan shifting on the other end of the line. “Look, if there was a competition of who loves their baby brother the most in the world, you know I’d put up a hell of a fight for you three heathens, but Brady would pull out the win on that one. He adores Easton. This has got to be breaking his fucking heart. ”

“It’s breaking Easton’s just as much, but it’s not as easy as Brady just clearing the air and they’re back to being best buds. The trust was decimated, and both of them have to be ready to build it back.”

The nostalgia hits me out of nowhere. I hate being the one who left in moments like this. Washington is my home, but sometimes dropping in for a visit to see my family just isn’t enough. “Oh, hon. Being in the middle of that can’t be fun.”

Logan rarely ever uses pet names, making that one go down like a mouthful of glass. After clearing my throat, I tell her it isn’t easy, but I’ll make it.

“I love you a bunch, a bunch. You know that, right? If you need me to take off for a while to physically be in your corner, I’ll be on the next flight.”

I exhale a quiet laugh, knowing without a doubt she’d be here, toddler in tow or not. “I’m really okay, Lo. Parker is coming soon and he and Easton are supposed to go to a concert. You’re only a phone call away.”

She sighs. “It’s my nature to worry, I’m someone’s mother for Christ’s sake. Ohmyfuck. Chase, I’m turning into Mom!”

She sounds horrified. I, however, think it’s absolutely hilarious. “She’d be so proud.”

My sister cackles. “Oh, fuck you. Hate you so much, call soon.”

“Hate you more, Lo.”

The weight on my chest is lessened considerably after we hang up. Enough that I go back inside with a fragile ball of hope cradled to my chest. Maybe he’ll feel better. I’ve managed to persuade him to get up a couple of times, and he has a box of dry cereal to keep the hunger pangs away. I tried more substantial foods, of course, but at this point, all calories are good. He’ll be over the hump soon, I can feel it .

My Chaos is exactly where I left him, curled in a ball on our bed, dozing fitfully. I sit carefully beside him, not wanting to wake him. Even if it’s not exactly the best quality sleep, it’s got to be better for him than crying or being catatonic, and that’s seemingly the only three options he’s got over the last couple of days.

I feel utterly useless. It’s not a feeling that sits well with me, especially when it comes to Easton. I’ve let him down enough for a lifetime, so not being able to find a way to pull him out of this is doing a number on me.

Regretting any amount of time I’ve spent with him is impossible, but it’s not lost on me that the chemistry between us is manifesting for an awful time for him. Fresh out of an abusive relationship, trying to find his feet in a world, he’s unsure of his place. And he went straight from depending on one man for another, not that I care about that. I’m a firm believer in the dynamic between two people is no one’s business as long as everyone involved is satisfied with it. But that can’t be easy for Easton. He struggles with self-worth on a good day, so this has got to be a constant battle for him.

Without really meaning to, I reach for him, my hand finding his corn silken hair and rubbing his scalp. I’ve got to find a way to help him get some of his independence back without unsettling him. There’s got to be something I can do without just calling things off simply because the timing sucks.

When the stick turned pink, the timing couldn’t have been worse for Logan. She was dancing at a club at night and going to college during the day. Who the dad was is a bit unclear. But she loved Sage from the very beginning, huddled on the bathroom floor with my useless ass on speakerphone. Mom was in New Orleans, meeting with an up-and-coming graffiti artist, and I was a shitty stand-in, but she didn’t need me as much as she thought she might have. I really admired her then and still do. As always, I find myself wanting to take a page out of her book.

The timing sucks, but there has to be a way I can make this work. I just don’t know what it is yet.

Against my hip, he stirs. “Hey, sweetheart,” I whisper.

Easton blinks up at me sleepily, wordlessly, but there’s something in his eyes, fighting to come out. Determination maybe. I can’t quite say. It feels like a win, though. Silently, I chant for it to surface. He needs it.

We sit for over an hour, me, a spectator to the cage fight of depression versus the human soul. He’s so ready to be done with this, the vast emptiness is draining. The anguish is far worse.

Abruptly, he sits straight up, knocking my hand away in the process. “I can’t do it anymore.”

Fear spikes my heart rate. “Do what anymore…?” Surely, he can’t mean that.

He scrubs his hands over his face and groans. “Don’t let me come back here until it’s all worked out.”

Well, now I’m confused, but he’s already shoving out of bed and heading to the door, wearing nothing except for my ridiculously big joggers and an I.U. T-shirt at least three sizes too big. Both of which he’s been in since Friday night when we got ready for bed. Dumbly, I follow behind to see what the hell is going on. He doesn’t pause at the door for shoes, just walks right out and turns left.

Oh.

He’s going to Brady’s house. Holy shit.

“You’ve got this, Chaos,” I mumble to the empty doorframe.

~~ ~

Easton

He’s holding my coping strategies hostage, and I fucking want them back. Among some darker thoughts I’d rather not bring to the forefront of my mind again, the simmering anger at my brother wouldn’t let up. Those fucking paints were haunting me and something was in the way. Someone, I concluded.

My stupid, beaten down heart won’t let me have a fucking break until Brady and I get through this. As wonderful as Chase has been, I didn’t come here because of him. There’s too much left unsaid. I know I’ve been completely closed off to his attempts, but it’s eating at me. When I had no one as a kid, I had Brady. Brady, who protected me, included me, never tried to crush me. Brady, who let me paint mythical creatures on his walls until all hours and slept with his shoulder shoved into the wall so there was always room for me beside him. I never had to face my struggles alone, there were no words exchanged, but it was a well-known fact. As long as I had my brother, I had a safe place to escape myself.

I don’t knock, for fear of losing my nerve, just barge straight in and hope for the best.

“Eas?” he asks, dropping his console controller mid-game with his jaw slack.

After cursing my parents for never encouraging us to talk about our feelings, I swallow roughly. “We need to talk.”

It’s not much, but it’s a start. “We do.” He agrees easily, but it seems I’ll have to kick things off.

My memory is shaky when it comes to that night on the porch. Too caught up in my anger, I suppose. But it needs repeating. When I ask him to, he tells me to sit and goes over everything again for me. How long it’s been since he’s spoken to Mom and Dad. The efforts spent trying to find me, including driving to Washington from Florida with everything he owned.

I bring my knees to my chin on his lumpy, ugly couch, and try to breathe through it. I want Chase. Against a thousand reasons, he believes in me. I’ve constantly shown him that I’m a lost cause, but he doesn’t waver. This pain is mine though, mine to get through. While his support helps give me strength, I’m the only person who can re-break this bone and hope it heals correctly this time around.

“Aaron showed me messages between you two on Instagram. Where you said awful things about me.”

He flinches. “Easton, if I knew the guy who had you locked up like Rapunzel, I would have dragged you out of there even if you were kicking and screaming. I don’t know what he told you, but I can swear to you on everyone that I love, you included, that no one ever reached out to me about you.”

Aaron lied. He lied all the time. He had this wickedly magical way that made it seem like even if I caught him in one, he could make me think I didn’t.

But faking screenshots seemed like a lot of effort. Why would he want me isolated from my brother? He knew I didn’t have anyone else. Wasn’t I already vulnerable enough for him? And if he went to all that trouble, would he so easily let me go?

“How am I supposed to believe you?” That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? Could I even believe my own eyes after my perception became so muddled?

Brady leans back and takes a deep breath as he thinks. “Because I’ve never lied to you?”

It’s not that easy anymore. The silence between us stretches until it’s uncomfortable. It’s not like I enjoy this, I’m doing this because if there’s hope to repair what’s broken, we’ve got to unearth all these lingering skeletons .

“Eas, that wasn't fair. I know you’re trying, and I appreciate that.”

Efforts falling short getting acknowledged is not something I’m used to anymore. “There’s not much more of this I can take. And I think I’m hurting Chase. That's the last thing I want to do.”

Brady’s chestnut eyes go all soft and mushy. Gross. “He’s good for you.”

There’s no hope of stopping my snort. “Yeah, too good.”

My brother raises an eyebrow at me. “Why would you say that, Eas? You deserve the absolute best, and that's Chase.”

He really doesn’t fucking get it does he? “Because he ruined me. I’m not the same person anymore. Fuck, there’s no way I can even come close.”

His brow furrows as he pulls his lip in between his teeth. He wants to hug me, the grip on his knees gives him away, but he knows it’s unwelcome.

Physically, Brady and I couldn’t be more polar opposite. He’s got at least five inches on me, and where I’m bone-thin, he’s broad and muscular. Brady’s a copy of our father with his dark brown hair, chocolate eyes and strong jaw. Me? I’m our mom, through and through, much to her ever-vocal dismay. Boys should be tough and rowdy, I was quiet and timid. It’s like she never accounted for the fact that having kids meant that she’d create a whole new human with its own personality, not figurines of her husband. Because, of course, she wouldn’t have been able to bear having girls.

Since the very beginning, Brady was the perfect son. If only he didn’t have that pesky heart that stopped him from pulling the pigtails of girls he thought were cute or picking the weird kid first in dodgeball. That was what stopped him from instigating wrestling matches with me when it was obvious I didn’t stand a chance to hold my own.

That bleeding heart he wears right on his shoulder for all the world to see, like I wouldn’t have been shamed for having it in the same place.

Neither one of us knows how to properly address my confession, it's hard to debate facts, but there’s still more I want to know. “How did you not know they were going to hate me?”

Brady seems puzzled, but it’s bothered me since he said that he was too stunned to face the reality. I can understand that he was only twenty years old and lacked the maturity to know how to react if he was surprised, but seriously, how did he not see it coming?

“You did? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you even go talk to them if you thought they wouldn’t accept you?”

“Because I was being blackmailed into it, you blind donkey!”

My brother freezes, mouth agape and a hand uselessly hanging in the air. Good to know Chase has kept my secrets for four years. Though, a part of me knew he would. That’s why I told him to begin with.

While I fully expect him to scream, accuse me of lying without a shred of context, he only sounds profoundly sad. “You didn’t tell me that.”

I didn’t this, and I didn’t that. He didn’t do things either. “Do I need to tell you everything? Can't you figure something out on your own?”

Communication was obviously not a skill that was learned in this family. Maybe it’s fucking hopeless. We’ll never be able to understand each other. Leaning forward, I dig my knuckles into my eyes until starbursts fill my vision and sigh. All the motivation I originally felt is draining more rapidly than I had hoped.

“Easton, I want to fix this. More than anything, but you gotta help me out here. To me, Mom and Dad kicking you out came out of nowhere. All I knew is that you were having trouble at school and you were sad.”

How is it possible that we spent practically every second together before he left for college and we have such vastly different memories of when we were growing up? To me, it was a series of feeling inadequate and terrified. Those are as clear as day in my mind’s eye down to the green carpet I stared at in church, trying to ignore my mother’s pointed stare as vitriolic hatred was met with a symphony of amen. Things in between the trauma are fuzzy at best and entirely absent at worst. I don’t know how to explain a lifetime worth of being the lesser child in a way he would get it.

“When you look back on everything pre my life going to shit, what is that like? Do you have happy memories of them?”

The couch creaks as he stands, then his footsteps can be heard as he leaves me behind again when things get too hard. Chase is going to be so fucking disappointed in me.

Something is pressed against my hand, causing me to look up. Brady’s there, holding out a peace offering.

“Sour candies,” he answers before I can ask. Shrugging, I tear into the package and shake a few out into my palm before tossing them into my mouth. My lips twist up as the bitter flavor explodes.

Brady forgoes civility and dumps some from his own bag straight in his mouth. “I still always have them around, just in case. Some habits are harder to kick than you’d think.”

I chew slowly, trying to find the hidden meaning to his words. It doesn’t spark an immediate answer, but there’s something itching in the back of my brain. Some little pest that is insistent about seeing daylight, but I can’t quite grasp it. It seems like too many pieces of my past end up like that. Unidentifiable, but bothersome.

Brady continues, sparing me the frustration of trying to figure it out. “You really don’t remember?” I shake my head, trying to resist the temptation to tear at my cuticles. Any of my personal failures, big or small, end up showing on my body. Maybe that’s how I ended up with Aaron. The thought threatens to turn my stomach inside out. “That’s what I see when I look back at our childhood, Eas. I see you. Sour candies to help keep you from spinning out. Pixie sticks to get you out of bed when it was hard for you. You know, they say that the oldest sibling leaves behind a fraction of their DNA in the womb that’s passed on to the younger ones, but I don’t believe it for us. It’s always been you that’s a part of me, not the other way around. Maybe a small part of me knew that I needed to shield you from Mom and Dad, maybe that’s why I found ways to keep your struggles out of their line of sight. But I never thought of it like that. It wasn’t a burden, though, it was more of a harmless secret. So what if you were sad sometimes, you were my brother. It was my job to take care of you. Dad made the money, Mom kept us fed, and I made sure no one knew that your mind weighed you down occasionally. Maybe that was where I went wrong. Too wrapped up in the day-to-day and it made me miss something big. I’m sorry, Eas. I’ll keep saying it until you believe it. But I’m never going to apologize for trying my best to take care of you. I knew they wouldn't understand. But I never for one second thought they’d kick out like that. I really thought they loved us unconditionally.”

As he speaks, memories start coming, sparking up like flames. Brady kneeling by my bed, begging me to get up with a handful of flavored sugar. Him taking me away when Mom and Dad would argue because it would give me panic attacks when Dad would yell. The way he’d always claim to have whatever I did so that we could stay home sick from school together .

“They love you unconditionally,” I snark without as much venom as I would like.

He shakes his head. “No one that loves me would treat you like that.”

It hangs in the air while I try to convince myself to trust him again. It’s no easy task and there’s no way I could immediately fall back to what we were before, but something has got to change.

Well, me. I guess I have to change. But it’s not easy.

There’s no one to blame but myself. My situation was the product of some fucked-up stuff, but I didn’t have to let it get so bad. I didn’t have to let him isolate me from the one person who’s always been my number one supporter. Brady never would have let someone he was dating control if he talks to me or not, and if he thought I said something out of character, he’d be calling me to get it straight from the source. He’d never let someone take a wrecking ball to our relationship, but I did.

“It’s all my fault, huh?” I ask as tears gather at the inner corner of my eyes.

Everything. Every-fucking-thing comes back to the fact that I am a goddamn idiot. If I could have just flown under the radar for a couple of more years, none of this would have happened. I could have just moved out at eighteen like we planned and then told Mom and Dad to eat gravel after I was somewhere safe. It could have been that easy.

“That’s what I asked Logan when she pried the full story out of me in Chicago. Wanna know what she told me?”

Chase swears she has super powers, call me curious. Maybe a masochist. “What?”

Brady offers me a soft smile, a fraction of his usual one making my heart pang uncomfortably at the sight. I really do bring everyone down. Fucking hell. “She told me that I had to let the guilt go. You were somewhere scared with your whole world turned upside down, and if I was going to be worth a damn when I found you again, I had to forgive myself for the ignorance of youth.”

“Did you?”

He chuckles sadly. “Yeah. As much as I could, at least. It was only weighing me down, and I cared more about apologizing to your face than beating myself up in my room at night.” I can’t help but make a frustrated noise, it’s hard not to be annoyed with myself for being the way I am. “Hey, ease up on yourself, Eas. I never said it was easy. It took a long time, plenty of therapy, and a lot of work internally, but I had goals I wanted to achieve, so I was motivated.”

I’ve always known there was something wrong with me. Other little kids in school were balls of energy, babbling on about the cartoons they watched or what games they were going to play at recess. I was always… reserved. Doodling in the corners of my notebooks, listening in on the joy I could never seem to muster. But when I was especially low, that’s when it was crystal clear, I wasn’t like them and never would be. I couldn’t even voice it to myself, much less Brady, but there was always a lingering… what if, that no child has any business wondering. What if I jumped off the overpass?

What if I never existed at all?

Brady would be better off, I’ve known that since I was old enough to understand—which was younger than I’d care to admit—that he was fine without me, but the opposite could never be true.

What if I did him a favor and took the out?

My views on the afterlife are half-formed at best, as a fun little side effect of any higher power wanting me to burn for eternity because I kiss boys, but even then, all I hoped for was sleep. Rest for the wicked, after all. My heart would ache each morning when I peeled my eyes open and discovered that I had to make it through another day. But then, my brother would be there with his paper-wrapped cavities looking so damn happy to see me, and I knew I had to try again.

Through a choked voice, I mumble, “I missed you so fucking much.”

He pulls me up and into a bone-crushing hug before I can blink. “I missed you too, Koda.”

Hot tears land in my hair, and for the first time in a long time, a kernel of hope blooms in my chest.