Page 57 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

The fury boils hotter.

I position myself so that my body is between August and Jake.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t have the same feral response when it came to protecting myself from Jake’s manipulations.

But there’s something about watching him do it to someone else that makes the insidiousness so much clearer than when he was doing it to me.

Five minutes later, not one, but two police cars pull up, red and blue lights spinning. Four officers spill out in the beige and brown of the Hays County Sheriff’s Department.

Which tells me I need to know about how Jake must have described the situation to the dispatcher.

Jake hurries up to them as they approach, gesticulating wildly in our direction. He’s no doubt eager to share his version of events to get it framed in their heads the way he wants to.

Which is infuriating.

Maybe he expects me to jump forward and go argue with him in front of them. Playing into his expectations of me as a hysterical woman.

But fuck him.

I stay right where I am, continually murmuring that it’s going to be okay to August, who pulls even further into himself at the flashing lights.

Ricky and Raven come to stand around us, along with Mom and Patrick, who she introduced me to over the weekend.

“What’s going on, honey?” Mom asks, coming up beside me and August.

“It’s fine, Mom. Give us a little space, please?”

Mom backs up to join the group standing beside us as support. She’s good like that. However tumultuous things were between us for a while in my early twenties, I feel like we’ve gotten to a good place of navigating each other’s boundaries as adults.

Patrick has his arms over his chest, and Ricky’s stone-faced as he watches Jake emphatically complain to the police officers about August lunging violently at him.

Since there are four officers, two of them finally break off to come over to talk to us.

“Anyone need medical?” one says, gesturing over to where August stands, silent like a statue. August vehemently shakes his head no.

“No,” I say sharply, then stand up and temper my words, giving the officer a big smile. “No. Hi. I’m Lennon. This is August.” I gesture toward him, and then quickly towards Jake.

“That over there is my soon-to-be ex-husband. We were all having a lovely evening when my ex-husband came here and started threatening us, then calling you lovely folks. August is my ex-husband’s younger brother. Nobody touched anybody. If Jake says they did, he’s lying. We’d all just like to get to turn in for the night.”

“We’re gonna need to talk to each of you alone.”

I stand taller. “That’s fine. Just know that August here is non-verbal sometimes.”

I’m talking out my ass with terms I’ve vaguely heard of on TikTok, but I need this cop to stand down and leave us the fuck alone. I know enough to know that adding cops to a situation rarely makes it better unless there’s a break-in or actual violence has broken out. Neither of which is the case here.

The deputy looks from Jake to August, who has backed himself up against the side of the RV, arms held tight over his chest like a shield against the world.

“He came at me,” Jake calls out. “He’s crazy. Look at him.”

The deputy’s expression doesn’t change. “Sir, I’m going to need you to step over by the porch.”

“He needs to be taken in.” Jake snaps. “He was about to attack me.”

August flinches in reaction to his brother’s voice.

The deputy who walks close to him keeps his voice low, but I’m still close enough to overhear. “Right now I need to know if you’re hurt, if you hurt anybody, or if you’re thinking about hurting yourself.”

“No.” August’s voice cracks as he manages the word.