“Don’t touch him!” Beau cried, shoving his brother so hard that Shea’s anger shifted into shock and he let go of me, stumbling back.
Beau quickly positioned himself in front of me with his arms out.
Protecting me.
“Don’t you touch him, Shea, he didn’t do anything.” Beau turned and rested his hand on my arm, his eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?”
I caught Shea’s bewildered expression over the top of Beau’s head and said, “Yeah, I’m fine, babe.”
Beau followed my gaze and turned around, pressing his body back against mine. “Leave him alone,” he said fiercely. “He didn’t do anything wrong, so just leave him alone!”
“I thought he was…” Shea trailed off, confused and shocked. “What—” He ran his hands through his hair, tugged at the strands, then let his arms fall to his sides. “What the hell is going on?” He looked between me and Beau, shaking his head.
And Beau—dear, sweet Beau—proclaimed, “I’m gay. And—and I’m in love with Lea. And he loves me back, and?—”
And oh, I wanted to kiss him for his courage.
Shea looked as if he was being strangled. “What? When did this happen? Why wouldn’t you tell me something like that? Beau, I…”
I set my hands on Beau’s shoulders, and he immediately covered them with his own. “I think I should leave and let you guys talk.”
“No, you don’t—” Beau started to say.
“Beau, he’s right,” Shea sighed. “You and I need to talk.”
“I’ll be in the living room,” I said quietly, placing a kiss on top of Beau’s head and walking out of the room, shutting the door behind me and hoping Shea didn’t hate me now.
27
BEAU
“How could you treat him like that? He’s your best friend,” I said in disbelief.
Shea shook his head. “Exactly. He’s my best friend. I left you with him thinking he’d look after you while I was gone and?—”
Anger surged in me, stronger than anything I’d felt in a long time, and I shouted, “I don’t need you to look after me, or for your friends to look after me! I’ve been on my own since I was thirteen and I haven’t needed you to protect me for a long, long time. Stop treating me like a child. You had your chance to be my brother—you had your chance to protect me, and it’s over now. So just—juststop.Please.”
The words spilled from some bitter, angry part of me that had kept a firm hold on all my resentments of the past. My hands trembled, so I curled them into fists and dug my nails into my palms.
“Beau, I didn’twantto leave you,” he rasped. I looked at Shea then—really took him in. He looked tired and defeated, and I wasn’t sure it was all because of what he’d just discovered. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and his clothes were wrinkled and unkempt,his hair too long and looking like it hadn’t seen a brush in a while.
“I didn’t want to leave you with her,” he whispered, sinking to the floor and burying his face in his upraised thighs. Panic and regret for my harsh words dropped me down beside him and I laid my hand against his back.
“Shea, it’s okay, I’m sorry, I was just—I just got—I don’t want you to be mad at Lea because he didn’t do anything wrong. No one did. I know it’s—it’s probably…a big surprise,” I said. “And I felt like I couldn’t tell you the truth about me because Mom was always there, and if she found out—if she knew I was everything she hated, then—I just couldn’t bear it if she hated me, too. You left and she was all I had.”
Shea raised his head, his face streaked with tears, and his next words were like a knife to my heart. “I wanted to kill myself,” he said in a thin, flat voice. “That’s why I left. Ihadto leave. If I stayed there for one moresecondI would have done something so much worse than just move across the country.” The anguish in his eyes was deep and real, and I felt like my entire world was crumbling around me.
“What…?” I breathed. A deeply uncomfortable icy sensation slid down my spine.
Shea straightened his legs out and took my face in his hands, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m so sorry, Beau. I didn’t want to leave you, but I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
My heart was being torn to pieces, an awful helplessness filling me. In a few short words, he’d destroyed any hard feelings I still harbored. They fell around us like ashes, the now-harmless fallout of secrets that never should have been kept.
Shea had been in so much pain back then that he’d wanted to die…and I’d never known. For twelve years I’d resented him for the decisions he’d made. God, I was a fool. I wished I could go back and just hold him. Tell him I would forgive him for anything, that it was okay to leave, because more than anything, I just wanted him to be happy.
I felt as tired as Shea looked now. My hands were still shaking as I placed them on his shoulders, needing to be physically connected to him in some way. Needing to reassure myself that he was right here, that he hadn’t done what he’d been wanting to do all those years ago.
“Of course I forgive you, Shea. Of course I do. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, I didn’t… Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve…” But what would I have done? What would I have been able to do for him? I was only thirteen.