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And I never slacked off.
Even as a kid, it had been hard for me to get into the rhythm of summer vacations at my grandfather’s cabin. Brody hadn’t had that problem. Nor had he minded missing church every Sunday, or lying to our parents about not attending or not doing our nightly bible study. My mother’s father hadn’t been big on church, so he’d never enforced my parent’s rules about attending Sunday services or reading our bible every night before bed instead of watching television. I’d done both anyway because doing any different had felt wrong. But there’d been many times I’d wanted to break the rules like my brother. I just hadn’t been wired that way.
I wanted to believe that was why I’d turned on Brody after I’d discovered him in tears the night of our prom and he’d admitted he’d had sex with his girlfriend and had hated it. I myself hadn’t ever had sex at that point, so I’d been certain that it was just the newness of it all, but then Brody had uttered those few words that had changed our lives forever.
I think I’m gay, Nathan.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself as I felt the tears sting my eyes. I hadn’t meant to let my mind go back to that night. But now that I was there, my subconscious refused to let me walk away from it.
“No, you’re not, Brody,” I said as the reality of his words crashed over me.
Tears continued to slip from his eyes. “I’m sorry, Nathan. I’ve…I’ve tried to be normal…”
“You can’t!” I shouted. “You can’t be a…a fag,” I said, completely horrified as I realized I couldn’t protect Brody from something like that. “You’ll go to hell,” I whispered as even the thought of my brother burning in eternal damnation threatened to send me to my knees.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated as he wrapped his arms around his waist. I’d gotten home from the prom hours earlier after saying goodnight to my own date with a simple kiss on the cheek right outside her front door. I’d been studying my bible when I’d heard Brody enter his room, which was right next to mine. I’d gone in to see how things had gone and had found him curled up on his bed, still in his tux, and sobbing uncontrollably.
“It’s a mistake,” I said as I shook my head.
“It’s not!” Brody cried as he settled his eyes on me. “I’m gay, Nathan.”
The certainty in his voice was my undoing, and I jumped off the bed. In that moment, he wasn’t my brother. He was all the things my father had said.
An abomination.
The devil.
I nodded my head. Yes, it was the devil talking through him. That had to be it. “You’re a sick pervert,” I snarled at him, and then I did the only thing I could think of to save my brother from the evilness that had taken him over. I went to find my father.
It wasn’t until my body began to feel cold all over that I came out of my daze and remembered where I was. I’d somehow ended up sitting on the shower floor, my arms around my raised knees and my head resting on them as tears streaked down my cheeks. The water was quickly turning cooler and I managed to reach up and turn it off before it became ice-cold. I carefully climbed to my feet and got out of the shower. I hadn’t thought to find a towel before getting in, but luckily there was a stack of clean towels on the edge of the vanity and I quickly grabbed one and began drying off. I avoided the mirror because I didn’t want to see the proof of what had just happened.
It wasn’t often that I lost time like that, but when I did, it usually had to do with the memories of that night, the weeks that had followed, or the night three years earlier when I’d cast Brody out of my life for good.
Since I’d worn the same clothes this morning that I’d been wearing the night before, I decided to put on the jeans I’d packed at the last minute the night before when Vincent had given me ninety seconds to figure out what to bring with me. But when I reached the bedroom to get them from my bag, I stilled at the sight of something sitting on the foot of the bed.
I realized what it was as soon as I picked it up.
A digital tape player. I glanced up and saw the bedroom door was still closed, but the player’s presence was an obvious sign that Vincent had come into the room at some point. And since I hadn’t thought to close the bathroom door while I’d showered, it was very possible he’d seen…or heard me.
