He scowled at me, and I almost gave him a quote just so he’d stop.
He grunted and said, “Tell you what, come down tonight and you can get every round on the house. How’s that sound? I’ll even throw in an appetizer.”
“Yes, you have to come,” Lea piped in. “Free everything for the tech genius of Blue Harbor.”
I felt like I couldn’t say no, and part of me didn’t even want to say no. Because if I said yes, then Lea would smile at me like I’d given him the moon and stars.
“All right,” I said, glancing over at him. The smile that stretched across his face was brimming with joy and excitement, and I thought I might do anything for this man if it meant I got to see that smile.
I decidedto go for a walk instead of straight back to the apartment. Plus, it was overcast today, so fewer people were out and about.
I was really, really upset with Shea. I didn’t come here so he could fight all my battles for me. I knew he was just being a protective older brother, but we weren’t kids anymore, and I hadn’t needed his help or intervention in a long, long time.
I was honestly surprised Lea wanted me to stay. I thought maybe he was just being nice or being a good friend to Shea because there really wasn’t much benefit to him, having me here. It was the opposite, in fact. I could barely even speak when I was around Lea. I kept tripping over my words because he flustered me on a deep level, and it was difficult being around him.
It was just…he was everything I’d never be. He was carefree and playful, affectionate and funny. He was such a bright, beautiful person that I felt like the dark, stormy cloud that had moved in to rain on his parade.
When I got back to the apartment, I hung my key on the little octopus key holder, grabbed a soda from the fridge, and went back to my room.
I left my door partially open—trying to be more available,less secluded, like Lea had asked—and slid back into my desk chair, my mind a million miles away from work as I just stared at the screen.
I propped my elbows in front of my keyboard and rested my forehead on my palms, sliding my fingers through the longer hair on the top of my head. I pulled on it absently, feeling the softness of the strands, letting it soothe me.
The emotional drain of earlier had sapped all my energy, and Lea had unwittingly dredged up painful things.
I can’t imagine anyone getting mad at you.
Mom easily got upset with me.
I closed my eyes and breathed through the heavier emotions, tried to let them dissipate with each breath.
They were just useless remnants of my old life. I was on a new path now. I had to keep reminding myself of that, because it was easy to slip right back into the past and all the feelings that came with it. Like putting on a heavy jumpsuit that had everything I’d ever felt sewn into it, every moment and emotion a different-colored patch. I didn’t have to wear that suit anymore. I had a chance to shed it and make a new one. A better one.
I’d gone to therapy a few years ago to work through some of the things that kept coming up constantly. Thoughts that weren’t mine, but hers. Words that I never would say to anyone or think on my own.
It had taken time, but I’d gotten rid of all of them.
She was a hateful person, someone so deeply unhappy with her own life and how it had turned out that the way she viewed the world was permanently distorted.
I didn’t think she’d always been as bad as she was, but she definitely always had the capacity for it. When our dad walked out on us—which I didn’t even remember, I’d only been three—she’d gotten worse, and she just kept deteriorating into someone who hated easily and became easy to hate.
And Shea despised her. I’d found it an insurmountable task, trying to hate her. I couldn’t. I just…she was still mymom.
Shea had tolerated her condemnation, her bigotry, her petty spite, until he couldn’t tolerate it anymore. I’d never been as strong as him. As brave or outspoken or willing to stand up for myself.
She’d favored me over him, but that didn’t mean she was always kind to me.
I had been terrified the day Shea moved away. Lost without my older brother. He was my hero back then. He was the only one who had ever cared about me. He was the only one who listened to me when something upset me, the only one who supported every interest I ever took up, the only one who confronted my bullies, or took me to the movies, or slept with me when I had nightmares.
But he’d had enough of Mom’s hate and had taken the one chance he was given to escape it. He’d received an academic scholarship to the University of Delaware and went on to get a degree in marine biology.
I’ll come back for you, Beau Bear.I promise, I’ll come back for you, he’d said.
But he hadn’t come back. Not in any kind of permanent way, at least, so I’d made my own plans to get out once I turned eighteen. I was good with computers, had taught myself how to code and gotten a job doing that when I turned sixteen. After graduating high school, I was finally going to leave.
But then Mom’s diagnosis came, and everything changed again. She had no one; no friends, no family, not a single other person to take care of her.
It was up to me.