John’s heart broke in his chest and he felt his own tears burn behind his eyes again. “That’s not it. You know that.”
“Thenwhy?” she gasped with a sob.
He sucked in a breath, “I dunno why… I just…”
“You don’t talk to anyone!” Justine snapped, her emotions breaking over her like a hurricane. “Aboutanything, Johnny!”
He suddenly realized this had nothing to do with his sexuality. This was much bigger.
She let out a frustrated grunt and slugged him hard on the arm, making him step back, stunned and yet… not. They were both highly sensitive people. Where John could let his emotions run into a deep well, Justine was more of the flaming campfire that sometimes sparked and crackled when one least expected. It’s why they balanced each other so well. Her willingness to show her emotions, without shame and without self-criticism, was always something he envied.
Wyatt also had this ability.
John blinked, wondering if he should stop fighting the emotions pent up in his chest, like a lake bearing against a dam, and just surrender and accept the way his sister could. The way Wyatt did.
Justine jerked a pointed finger to Jacob’s gravestone, yanking him out of his thoughts. “Do you know how worried I was about you? How scared I was this past year, wondering if you… If I was gonna lose another brother?”
He stilled, jaw clenching like a steel plate, and realized in that moment that she knew all along how close to the edge he stood. “You know I wouldn’t.”
“Do I?” she hissed, tears streaming down her face.
“Justine…” he reached for her.
She shoved his hand away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted roughly. “I didn’t know.”
She blinked through her tears, “That’s not good enough, and you know it.”
He glanced toward Olive, heart hammering in his chest, seeing that his niece had stopped playing and was watching them, frowning. John swallowed hard and shook his head, averting his gaze from his sister, the first person in his life he couldn’t lie to.
“This last year was hard,” his voice tightened. “Really hard. I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t function unless I was at work, and even then, it wasn’t enough. I didn’t realize how far gone I was until Wyatt saw me. And then I saw him…”
John thought about that night at the bar, thinking of how lost he had been, how dark he had gotten. How dark he allowed himself to go. Yet he had been more nervous about Wyatt, shaking like a leaf, and when their gazes met and held, when their lips touched, everything fell away.
The dark edge that John had been standing up against vanished.
Because Wyatt was safe.
And his sister was safe, too. She always had been. But he had forgotten what that felt like because he’d been staring too long into the dark, and it had blinded him. And for some horrible fucking reason, John believed he had to cling to this darkness and push those out who wanted to help.
He supposed that’s what darkness did. It made people irrational and difficult. Because the harsh truth was that this wasallhis doing.
It was John who had complicated his relationship with Wyatt.
John, who put up the arbitrary barriers and rules to keep Wyatt away from him.
John, who had become a silo, slipping into an echo chamber of darkness of his own creation.
And it took someone he didn’t know, someone he didn’t have to worry about or take care of, to see him in that darkness.
God, I’m a fucking idiot.
He scrubbed a hand at the back of his neck, heart sinking, and glanced once more at Olive. “You okay?”
She nodded, her wavy curls bouncing. “Are you okay, Uncle Johnny?”
Tears released, seeing her in a pile of leaves clutching her toys, then seeing his sister, mad as hell and face flushed with it, glaring him down while she cried—and then his brother’s gravestone, cold and lifeless.
