Page 181 of Made Better Together

Landon’s brow is furrowed. “So she’d come in your room, and keep saying her normal shit right in your face?”

Rawley adds, with a sheen of sarcasm: “Like the classics ‘you’d be no one without me’ or ‘no one else will amount to anything in this family’?”

I nod. “Yes…only, it felt different when I was alone, and she said those things. It was also…nonstop. Daily.”

“You were bombarded with the negativity,” Grace says slowly. “With no protection.”

Sharing this, hearing their validation of my experience, it’s different from I thought. Easier. They understand, and they’re readily listening.

“Imagine being told how much of a failure you are every single day, with no one else there to help you bounce back.”

“What a bullshit artist she is,” Landon interjects angrily. “You had straight As. You were accepted into an Ivy League school.”

“There’s no logic to her gaslighting, you know that, Landon,” Grace says softly.

“Making it worse, I had no parental figure to help with real-life things. I know you two did what you could from college,” I direct to my two oldest siblings, “but the everyday things like laundry, food, taking care of my car…it was sink or swim on my own at age sixteen.”

“Shit, I…I can relate to that,” Landon acknowledges. “But at least it was all four of us together when I was that age.”

“Yes, and…” I stop myself. I was about to explain the wake-ups, but they’re a different animal.

This part is going to be hard for them, since they had no clue. I feel calm inside, which makes me relieved for myself. But I’m nervous for them. For the emotions—guilt, hurt, anger—they’re going to feel.

“What else?” Landon grits his teeth.

If you’re going to be honest with them, you need to tell the full truth.

“You know how she wakes up early, around four usually?”

They nod. Since we were young, she’s been a notoriously horrible sleeper, constantly complaining about it.

I lean forward, looking down at the table. “She, uh…she would come into my room then too, and force me awake. Yell at me to do my homework, scream insults.”

“What?” Grace says. The sharp tone in her voice makes me tilt my head back up, and she has a shocked expression.

“Senior year, it was all the time…I was constantly exhausted, and I swear most of my…trauma has come from those wake-ups. Not to mention, it really fucked with my sleep.”

“She never—” Landon looks at my siblings in succession before turning back to me. “She never did that to any of us.”

I breathe out. “Things escalated when you were all gone.”

“Not even your room was a safe space,” Grace mourns.

Rawley’s turned ashen. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I lock eyes with him. “You were trying to survive college, Rawls. I thought…if I sucked it up until I left myself, it’d be best for everyone.”

Grace’s face is wet, as tears begin to fall. “Oh, Connor.” She stands up and wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry.”

Rawley’s up out of his chair next, circling his body around us both. He’s silent, but gripping us hard.

Landon joins the embrace too. “Love you, brother.”

All three of them form a protective cocoon, and at the same time that their love pushes in at me, I feel the strain of this secret I held on to for years leave my body.

One more secret, done with.

We stay like that for so long that Grover comes over to investigate, sniffing at our feet.