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Physically, Brooks looked like his father. He dressed like him and even resembled him quite a bit. But as a kid, Brooks had been a scrawny, quiet bookworm who’d looked uncomfortable in the mini-me outfits he’d worn around the ranch. He’d been terrified of getting his clothes dirty and whenever his father had been around, he’d never once talked back to the man or acted out in any kind of way. It hadn’t mattered what words the bastard had thrown Brooks’s way; sweet, shy little Brooks had accepted them without argument and then promised he could do better.
I'd watched Brooks shrink under his father's cruel words. He'd always talked about how things would be different when he went to college. How he would prove to his father that he could be a success. I'd had no doubt when he told me about college that he would succeed. I'd wanted that for him. I'd wanted him to gain some freedom from his father's ugliness. But a small part of me had also thought maybe he'd come back to Eden, even if just for a visit, and I’d see that he’d broken free of his father. I’d pictured him as a teacher who taught kids how to love math, or a researcher of some kind who solved real-world problems with all those fancy theorems he’d prattled on and on about. He’d even talked about how cool it would be to work for the space program. Not once had he mentioned anything about wanting to be rich or famous. I’d always wanted to meet the grown-up version of that amazing kid, but this seemingly confused Brooks who waffled between all-out anger and crippling insecurity quietly broke my heart.
I steeled myself not to let my emotions once again get twisted up in this man’s life like when we’d been kids. His family had been poison to mine.
"And?" I asked. The idea of having him in the room next to mine was going to make me crazy. Already I was imagining him lying in the bed that shared the same wall as the headboard of mine. It would be so easy to just go over, knock on his door, and push him into the room when he answered, kissing him before he could even say a word. Hell, I probably wouldn't even bother with knocking. I’d walk in there and take him the way I wanted to, the way I fantasized that he wanted me to.
Utter insanity.
Brooks stiffened at the indifference I'd managed to put into my voice. "You’ve got him fooled," Brooks said. He shook his head. "Not me."
"That so?” I asked.
"Yeah, that's so," Brooks responded. I could see him struggling for courage, and he was doing a good job. Since leaving prison, men and women alike feared me. Even those who didn’t know I’d been in prison were often afraid of me. My own mother was afraid of me. I saw it in her eyes, just as I saw it in the eyes of those around me. And I couldn’t say I blamed them. I knew I carried myself in a different way. How was I supposed to explain to any of them that I couldn’t just undo the things I’d had to learn to survive in prison?
Brooks actually took a few steps toward me, though I could see it cost him some of his precious courage. I didn't move because I wanted to see how far he’d go.
"I don't know what your game is, but I'm not going to let you do to him what you did to my father."
He once again closed the distance between us so we were just a matter of feet apart. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I hadn't done anything to his father, but instead, I heard myself saying, "And just how are you going to stop me?"
Why the fuck did I say that?
When I saw Brooks's eyes go dark and his nostrils flare, I knew why I’d said it.
His response was why. I’d wanted to see that reaction from him again… to know it was there. To prove that it hadn't been a fluke out in the driveway when he’d jumped me. It was easy to be soft around this man when he was being all cute and awkward. Pissing him off forced me to stay on my toes. It kept me from doing something stupid.
Like telling him the truth just so he wouldn’t look at me like I was so far beneath him. When we’d been kids, he'd never looked at me that way, he’d never treated me like he was better than me.
The last time we'd seen each other, he'd only looked at me with confusion and fear. That had been the night of the fire. I'd waited for him to show up at my arraignment and then again at my sentencing so I could somehow tell him that things hadn’t been as they'd seemed.
