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Our gazes lock tight, as a virile need to defend her simmers in my bloodstream. Just imagining her getting involved with Wyatt, the lowest of the low, has my heart hammering, my hands curling into fists. She’s still just a kid, despite her curves and air of maturity. She’s only sixteen. A question gnaws at me, and I blurt it before I think about it. “Did you sleep with him?”
She gasps, her eyes going wide.
“Did he put his mouth on you? Touch you?”
“Brant, please…”
“I know I can’t keep you from men, or sex, or getting your heart broken, but I swear to God, if Wyatt Nippersink is your first—”
“No!” she says in a burst of appalled breath, her face stained with blush. “God, Brant, please don’t ask me things like that. It’s humiliating.”
She sinks back into her seat, swiveling away from me, her arms folding over her chest once again. I sigh, defeated, and put the car back into drive. “Yeah,” I murmur, tires squealing as I turn out of the parking lot. “Sorry.”
My anger drains as we make the drive home in silence, and I hate that I allowed Wyatt to get under my skin. I feel like a traitor in my own body.
How did my father feel when he made the decision to murder my mother?
What drove him to wrapping that silk purple tie around her neck?
Was it something she said? Did? Threatened?
Or had he just gone mad?
The unknowns of that night have followed me around my whole life like parasitic hitchhikers. Uninvited, unwanted, but clinging tight, determined to come along for the ride.
And I know the “whys” don’t matter because “whys” would give way to excuses, and there are no excuses for what he did.
But that doesn’t stop me from wondering why.
We pull into the driveway, and the engine hasn’t even been killed when June pushes the door open with her sandals and hops out, leaving only the scent of her flowery shampoo behind.
It lingers. She lingers.
I pull the key out of the ignition, exhaling a deep breath, and just sit there, watching her disappear into the house.
The last two years have been a complicated whirlwind of change, muddled dynamics, and ever-shifting tides. Hormones are a vicious, unpredictable beast, and ever since the night I reamed June out for kissing a boy behind our mulberry tree, I caught the unfortunate brunt of them. There were days she hated me—literally despised me. Those were the days that twisted me up inside, like brittle rope and barbed wire. All I’ve ever tried to do was protect her, but it seemed like the more I pushed, the more she pulled back.
The more she slipped away from me.
Samantha told me it was common, that she herself was a menace at that age, and she had taken those destructive, confusing feelings out on the people she’d loved most.
It was natural. Normal.
That didn’t make it any easier, though. Explanations and rationales didn’t change the fact that the little girl who adored me with her whole heart, who lived for lullabies and piggyback rides, was quickly morphing into a moody, complex young woman with fire in her blood and venom on her tongue.
“I hate you, Brant! When will you move out, already? You’re ruining my life!”
Then there were days she loved me like she used to.
She’d sneak into my bedroom and sit cross-legged on the bed, hungry for advice or comfort, eager to share details about her day at school. She’d choose to spend a Sunday afternoon with me, playing video games, going for bike rides, walking down to the beach for swimming and sunshine. She’d choose me instead of window-shopping with her girlfriends at the mall, or going to the movies with some boy I secretly wanted to pummel.
“Forgive me, Brant. I didn’t mean it. You know I love you, right?”
Those were the days I lived for.
Those are the days I still live for—and luckily, they’ve been more frequent lately. While fifteen was the age of the devil, sixteen has already been so much sweeter, bringing about a mellower dynamic between us.
More tenderness, less toxicity.
