Page 129 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

I freeze, fist shaking in the air, as she cries my name, “August!”

Jake laughs underneath me, and spits blood in my face. “Do it, pussy!” he shouts at me.

“Let him go,” Lennon says, softer this time, reaching for me through the noise. “Baby, please. Let him go.”

Baby.

The word lands somewhere Jake hasn’t managed to poison.

My fist lowers.

Jake sees it, and his eyes flick between us, calculating even now.

“You always wanted to be the center of attention,” he says. “Poor August. Never loved enough so you always had to make everything aboutyou.”

“What are you even talking about?” I shout back against his madness, as confused as I ever was by his vitriol. My voice cracks, and I hate that he gets that from me, even now. “I never wanted that.”

Jake’s smile widens.

The truck engine finally dies behind us. The sudden absence of it makes the gas station alarm sound even thinner and more frantic.

“I just wanted a family,” I say, and the words come out before I can make them harder. “I wanted a family that loved me like everybody else’s did.”

For one raw second, the truth sits in the mud between us.

Lennon goes still.

“Bullshit,” Jake spits. “You couldn’t stand that Mom loved me more.”

And there it is, finally. There’s the whole rotten root of it, dragged into open air.

A laugh drags its way out of me, but there’s no humor in it. “Are you serious?”

I push off him and stand because if I stay on top of him, I will hit him again. I’m man enough to admit where my self-control ends.

“Mom’s batshit,” I say to him. “She kept you codependent on her your whole life because she loved it best when everyone around her needed her. She kept all of us sick, one way or the other. And you learned every trick she had because being useful to her was easier than figuring out how to be a man of your own.”

Mud sucks at my boots as I step back and head towards Lennon, hands shaking. Blood streaks my knuckles.

Lennon’s hands are muddy. Her face is streaked with it, too, one line of blood drying near her temple, and her eyes are enormous.

I lean down and check Lennon over, only calming down mildly when I see that other than the bump on the head, she seems to be okay. Well, the bump on the head and thepoisonshe’s been consuming for god knows how long.

I help her get to her feet, and she sways slightly. She clings to me once she finally gets standing. Fuck, I’ve got to get her to a hospital.

Jake sits up slowly, one arm wrapped around his ribs. He looks smaller on the ground than he ever did in my memory, which should feel good and doesn’t. Not exactly, anyway.

His face changes. Lennon sees it too, because I hear her inhale.

“Did she poison your Dad?” Lennon asks. “Or was it the both of you together?”

Jake’s eyes widen.

Not like the suggestion horrifies him. Just like he’s surprised somebody finally figured it out.

“He was sick,” Jake says. “Everyone knew it. Mom knew it. I knew it.” His eyes come back to me. “You knew it. Just like everyone knows about you.”

For years, those words would have taken me down.