Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(108)

It’s the torment in my little brother’s eyes. It’s the way he’s looking at me—like I betrayed him. Like I ruined his life. Like I ripped up his f*cking soul. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t mean to cause him more misery. You should have left him alone.

But he would have been drunk! He would still be f*cking drinking if I didn’t walk into his life. I shook him as hard as I could back then. I brought him to rehab. I talked to him nearly every night during his ninety day recovery, and afterwards, I looked after him.

Yeah? Look at him now.

Fuck! I want to punch something—I’m silently screaming for this internal battle to finally end.

“Hit me,” he sneers.

I shake my head, my fingers digging into the red dirt, trying to form fists. Stop, Ryke. I could so easily stand up and beat the hell out of him. And he’ll let me. It’s what he wants. He’s asking for that pain. It’s like at that Halloween party when I first saw him three years ago.

He’s begging to feel something more than these emotions, suffocating with this torment. He’s asking for me to replace this f*cking torture. And right now, I can’t feed into that illness. I can’t.

“Come on,” he sneers, his eyes reddening with rage and sorrow. Tears welling. “I’ve seen you beat the shit out of guys twice the size of me. I know you want to punch me.” He steps towards me. “Fight back!”

I pick myself off the ground, staggering unsteadily. “I won’t.”

He shoves me in the chest.

I raise my hands. “Lo—”

He punches me again. I stumble backwards but keep my balance this time.

Daisy wails in the background. “STOP IT!” She’s crying.

Lily is crying.

I even think Rose may be crying. But she dusts off her tears quickly and sniffs.

Lo points at me. “You’re a goddamn coward.”

Now he’s starting to sound like our father. I just keep my mouth shut.

Through gritted teeth he says, “You’re so f*cking scared to talk to our dad. You’re so scared to talk to your own mom.” He takes a few steps forward. I take a few steps back. I’m the prey, the thing he’s about to skin alive.

“What do you want me to say?” I growl. “I’m f*cking scared?” I point at my chest. “I’m f*cking scared, Lo!” My eyes burn with this horrible f*cking pain. Fucking hell. “I’m so f*cking scared they’re going to manipulate me into loving them when all I want to do is forget!”

“What’d they f*cking do to you?!” Lo screams. “I lived with our dad. You sat in your pearly white f*cking mansion with a mom who loved you!”

I shake my head. This isn’t going to solve anything. My chest rises and falls.

“Tell me!” Lo yells. “Tell me how you had it so f*cking bad, Ryke. What’d he do to you? Did he smack the back of your head when you got a C on a math test? Did he scream in your face when you were benched for a little league game?” He nears me, his eyes narrowed, his cheeks wet. “What’d he f*cking do?”

I shake my head again. I’m not the victim like Lo. There’ll be no good in explaining myself. It’ll just be more shit on top of shit.

Lo pushes me in the chest again and this time something snaps and I respond, pushing back. He stumbles, but the force doesn’t knock him to the dirt.

“I’m not f*cking fighting you!” I scream. But he doesn’t listen. He charges again, and when he tries to push me over, I shove him down to the ground.

I’m stronger than him.

I’m older than him.

I’m the best and worst thing that ever came into his life. I know this.

I pin him down on his back, my hands on his wrists and my knee digging into his ribs. “I don’t want to fight you, Lo,” I choke.

His eyes redden further. “You spend so much of your f*cking time trying to save me,” he says, “and you don’t even realize you’re killing me.” A tear slides down his cheek. He takes shallow breaths and then he lets it out. “The news isn’t just in Philly, you know. It’s everywhere we f*cking go. All the way to a gas station in Utah.” His eyes are flooded with sadness. “They think he molested me. The whole goddamn nation. People think my own father touched me, and you won’t do a thing about it.” His broken gaze stabs me repeatedly. “Why do you believe them and not me?”

“I believe you,” I whisper, no hesitation this time. I believe him. I think I may always have. Something more stops me from defending Jonathan Hale, something so raw that it hurts to touch. I’m forced to confront these emotions again because I returned to this life. I could have left it all behind like I planned to. If I had done nothing three years ago, if I had left Lo at that Halloween party, I would have never revisited this hate. I’d never meet these feelings that I had shelved away.

Lo must read the look I wear because he asks, “What the f*ck did he do to make you hate him so much?”

He’s asked me this once before, and I gave him a half-assed answer. The whole truth is going to seem vane and selfish. So f*cking stupid compared to my brother who’s had twenty-three years with him. But I owe Lo the truth. I’ve lied to him enough.

“He chose you,” I say. “He chose his bastard kid over me and my mom, and I f*cking lied for him my entire life. I hid my identity for him. I had no mom in public because I was Meadows and she was Sara Hale. I had no f*cking dad to show for. I saved his reputation, and he buried me six feet in the f*cking ground every single day he chose you over me, every day he paraded you around and shoved me aside. I couldn’t breathe I was so f*cking angry.”