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Worse, it means that maybe the only reason he ever got himself to stay on the wagon was because nobody else will accept his business. It’s easy not to drink when the bars refuse to serve you. It’s easy to forget about gambling when casino security has already been warned about you.
The envelope quivers in my fingers. I take a deep breath, clamp my eyes shut, and then tear it the rest of the way open. Shame hums through my bones, but I have to know the truth. I have to say something, if this is what it looks like.
The letter inside reads like something straight out of my worst nightmare. $200,000 in back debts, with an interest rate that makes his previous fuck-ups look like a kindergartener run amok at the craps table.
I drop the envelope and letter on the counter and stumble sideways onto the couch, too tired to keep looking at it, too beaten by the weight of this realization to stand up anymore. All I can think about is how hard this all was just a few years ago. The drinking, the money loss, the struggle, the debt we’ve only just now clawed ourselves to the top of, or if not the top, at least a place where I can see an end to this tunnel.
And now we’re back at the bottom again, indebted to yet another multi-billion-dollar corporation that gives not one single fuck about anyone like my brother. Or anyone like me, yoked to someone who can’t help fucking up at every given opportunity.
I bury my face in my hands and take several breaths, hoping it will be enough to stop the churning deep in my stomach. I don’t cry. I learned a long time ago that crying won’t do jack shit, even if it does feel good for a moment.
Finally, after a long, long pause of counting my inhales and exhales, I pick up my phone.
Ian still hasn’t replied to my last text about movie night. All thoughts of worrying about what was bothering him the other day have fled my mind now, because the answer to that is obvious. It’s sitting right there on my kitchen counter, in an envelope that makes me want to scream with rage.
Come over. Now, I text him. It’s an emergency.
Because it is. Because this time, I’m not bailing him out again.
This time my brother has finally gone too far.
“How could you?” I shove the letter in my brother’s face the moment he comes through my front door. I don’t even wait until he closes the door again so Amanda from down the hall won’t be able to overhear us. At this point I’m past caring who hears and who knows. Fuck it, why not just announce it to the whole world?
My big brother is a screw-up.
“You told me you were past all this shit. You told me never again. You promised me so many fucking times, Ian,” I say, even as he bends over the letter, his dark eyebrows crushed together, and tries to read the lines in between my yelling.
When he doesn’t reply, I stop shouting, crossing my arms over my chest to keep from shaking. I continue to glare at him, despite the obvious, impossible-to-fake confusion that creases his forehead. “What, did they spell your name wrong or some shit?”
There’s no way he’s talking himself out of this one. I know better than to listen to him when he’s doing shit like this. I should’ve known better all along.
How much of the last four years has been a lie? How much has he been hiding from me all along?
It seems to take him a lifetime to raise his head and finally meet my gaze. “I didn’t do this, Skye,” he says, and I can’t stop the bitter huff that escapes my mouth.
“What-the-fuck-ever. I thought we agreed you wouldn’t lie to me anymore.”
“I’m not kidding,” he says this slowly, emphasizing each syllable like he’s speaking to a child. “At least … not gambling.”
So he does owe someone money.
And now he’s trying to tell me he’s up shit creek but not for gambling.
My lips press into a line so thin it stings my cheeks. “You must think I’m a total idiot. You do, don’t you? Hell, maybe you’re right. You managed to string me along for years, acting like a changed man—”
“Skye.” His voice cuts through the thick air of the apartment like a knife and I jump at the sound. “Stop. Just listen to me, okay? Until I say I’m done, and then you can bitch me out all night if you still want to.” He runs a hand through his black hair, that gesture reminding me of when we were kids, the way he developed that tic at school, always slicking his hair back before he smiled sideways at girls to try and charm them.
I’m done falling for that move, though. “Listen to what?” I snap.
My brother crosses the room and sinks onto the couch, which groans beneath him. “I’ll admit there are some things I haven’t told you.”
I fight the urge to reply, No shit. I keep my arms crossed, my feet planted in the middle of the room, and I stare down at the thinner, stubbly, masculine version of myself. Everyone always spots us a mile away—when we were younger we were constantly asked if we were twins. Now, with his drawn face and thick worry lines, he looks ten years older than me instead of ten months. It’s weird, watching him now, to realize just how much he’s changed in the last few years. How had I never noticed before how tired he looks, how completely fed up with the world?
And then my idiot brother looks me straight in the eye and says, “But I can’t tell you what’s going on.”
This asshole. I fist my hands until my nails bite into my palms. “Ian—”
“I understand why you don’t believe me. I know what this looks like.” He scrunches the letter into an uneven ball. “Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d believe the worst, too. And I’m not saying I’m innocent, just that … this isn’t what it looks like. I need you to trust me on that for now. Okay?”
