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He didn’t say a word.
“Can’t you even try to understand my side of it?” she asked.
“That shirt makes me want to puke.” He tossed the washcloth on the end table to his left. Marley took a deep breath and counted to ten, trying to ignore the fact that the shirt smelled like Justin.
“What’s happened to you?” she asked Nate. “Ever since Dad died—”
“Ever since Dad died,” he mimicked viciously. “Yeah, well, fuck Dad.”
“Nathan!”
“Like he was ever there for us anyway. It was always about him. Even when he wasn’t drinking, he never cared how we felt—even up till the day he died.”
His bitterness shocked her. She’d always thought he and Dad were close. Certainly a lot closer than she’d ever been allowed. He looked at her, held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. In that moment she saw the brother she used to know and her heart constricted.
“Talk to me, Nate. What’s going on?” she implored.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
He raised a hand to his lip, touched the split and pulled his fingers away to see if it still bled. His hand shook, and she reached to cover his other one resting on his thigh.
Squeezing gently, she said, “Try me.”
He opened his mouth, but before a single word came out, his face crumbled, and he began to cry. Shock struck her speechless. She hadn’t seen him cry since they were little kids—not even at their father’s funeral three months ago. After a moment, she put an arm around her little brother, bigger than her by an inch and a good fifty pounds, and drew his head down on her shoulder.
“Nate, you’re scaring me,” she whispered.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he choked out.
“About what?”
He remained quiet for so long, she thought he would clam up again. Then he drew a deep shuddering breath and pulled away. “I-I talked to Dad before he died.”
“Did you fight or something?”
“I mean just before he died. He called me on the cell—after the accident.”
Marley’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh, God, Nate.”
“He wasn’t making sense. He mumbled about Dale Blake, about how the bastard had stabbed him in the back and—”
“Dale Blake?” she interrupted with a frown.
He nodded grimly. “He kept saying he should’ve killed him. Then he started talking about Mom and eventually I got that Mom had an affair with him. With Blake.”
“What?”
“Then he threw in Karl Hunter’s name, said he should’ve killed that bastard, too.”
Marley sat back, unable to believe the words coming from Nate’s mouth.
“Just before he stopped talking…before he died…”
Nate’s voice broke and Marley gripped his hand in silent comfort.
“He s-said…’I knew it the day you were born.’” He looked at her as if she should know what he was talking about, but nothing made sense.
“Look at me,” Nate exclaimed. “Blond hair? Blue eyes? You can’t tell me you never noticed I don’t loo
