Eighteen

Eighteen

Parker

I can’t get over how much Jack looks like his brother. He even talks like him too. I keep him company while he eats something, and then he goes back into the office with Rhys and their parents.

I don’t follow him this time. I want them to have some time with each other, and I don’t want to intrude. Instead, I sit with Cam in the lobby. We haven’t spoken too much since we got here, and I get the feeling that he’s still a little irritated with me for hiding everything about Rhys from him for that long.

But if he is, he doesn’t bring it up.

Instead, he watches the officers come and go for a while before turning to me. “Have you thought about filing a report against Dad?”

I shake my head. “I haven’t had the time, Cam. I know it’s what you want me to do, but I don’t know if it would accomplish anything. It’s just my word against his. I have no proof.”

“I don’t want you to do anything,” Cam says. “I just want you to do what you feel is right.”

“That’s the problem. No option feels right to me.” I want to just leave it alone. But what if I do that, and he assaults some other kid? A kid who doesn’t have a big brother to come in and save him? If I were to file a report, Dad would plead not guilty, and we’d go to trial. With the lack of evidence, I’d lose. But at least it’d be on the record if he ever did it to someone else.

But if I were to bring something like that against him, Dad would be pissed. I think of the way Tony used Jack against Rhys, and I know I would do the same thing for Cam. Filing a report could put him in danger, and I don’t think I can do that either.

I hate that people like Tony and my father do these horrible things, and we’re the ones who have to pick up the pieces.

“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” Cam says when I’m silent for a while. “What whatever you do decide, I’ll be with you one hundred percent, okay?”

His words fill me with relief because I really have no idea what I’d do without my brother. I know that whatever I decide is going to be hard but knowing that my brother will be there beside me helps me more than I could ever be able to tell him.

***

Rhys leaves the police station with his family, but he doesn’t move back in with them. Instead, he shows up at my apartment two nights later, looking exhausted.

“Everything okay?” I ask, opening the door further to let him in.

“Yeah.” He lets out a breath and pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans. For once, he has a jacket on  to protect him from the weather. “I’ve lived with Tony so long, been alone for so long, that moving back home is just too strange. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“How’d your parents take it?” I ask, closing the door and moving with him further into my living room.

“They cried a lot,” he says, his words weighted with guilt. “I felt really bad about that. But they also understand that everything’s different now. I told them I’d come see them every day and call them every night. But we all knew my living with them wasn’t going to work long term. I know someone who’ll give me a room for a few days, and then I’ll just go from there.”

“You don’t have to do that. You can stay with me.”

He pauses, his eyes widening in surprise. “I didn’t come here so you’d offer that, Parker. You don’t have to do that.”

“I want you to live with me,” I say. “You should be with someone who cares about you, especially right now. And if it’s too weird for you to move back home, then why not stay here?”

“You’re really serious?”

“Yeah. Of course I am. I wanted you to move in with me once you got away from Tony, but I didn’t think I should ask that when you just got your family back.”

He searches my face for a moment before asking, “What would rent be?”

“Nothing. I don’t want you to pay me anything. And I don’t expect anything from you in return.”

Wariness creeps into his eyes, so I add, “This is something boyfriends do, you know. They move in with each other without expectations.”

He softens a little at the word boyfriend. “You really want to be my boyfriend? Even after… Well, everything with Tony.”

“Of course I do. I can’t believe you’re even asking me that.” I reach out and pull him close to me, locking my fingers together at the small of his back. “You can start something new, Rhys. I’ll help you get your GED, and you can look into college if you want. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Take some time and think about what you want to do. You don’t have limits anymore, okay?”

Rhys slides his hands up my arms to come to a stop at the back of my neck. His voice is shy and quiet when he asks, “You really want me?”

“More than anything else in the world.”

Wetness fills his eyes, but he blinks it away and stands up on tiptoe to press his lips to mine.

I know we’re going to have a long adjustment period, and I know Rhys is going to have trouble trusting me some day, especially in the beginning. But I also know that this is the right move. We both have a lot to heal from, but we’ll get there one day. Together.