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I could only huff out a degrading groan. “He always knew me better than anyone. And that day, he figured out shit about me that I didn’t even realize about myself. I mean, I knew I liked watching you sitting there on that table, but when he started teasing me about having some kind of stupid crush, I completely blew it off. Because I honestly didn’t think it was anything. To me, it’d been like watching a small movie clip, but in real life, you know. It was a stirring scene, sure. But I thought that was it. He knew, though. And that’s why he targeted you that night. Because of me. It was one of the last things he confessed to me before he died.”
She wasn’t connecting the dots, though. Blinking at me, she tilted her head and murmured, “What? You’re not...” Shaking her head, she squinted. “You’re not saying he slept with me to hurt you, are you?”
“No,” I answered immediately, only to wince and admit, “I mean, yeah. Basically. But it wasn’t like that. Not for him.”
“Then what the hell was it like?” she asked, beginning to look horrified.
“He thought it would help me,” I started. “In his own weird, stupid, wonky reasoning.”
“What?” Lucy hissed, her eyes wide with horror.
“He was worried about what would happen to me after he was gone. He didn’t want me to get too sad, missing him. So he thought that if he did something to piss me off, I’d be too mad at him to actually miss him.”
Lucy gaped for a full ten seconds before saying, “That’s fucked up.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, well… That’s Duke’s brain for you. He knew what would bother me more than even I knew.”
“But…” Lucy heaved out a breath and tried to speak, only to frown. A second later, she hissed, “I can’t believe he did that. He used me to hurt you. That…that…” Squeezing her hands into fists, her eyes flared with righteous indignation as she demanded, “Aren’t you pissed at him?”
“I was...” Blowing out a breath, I thought it through before admitting, “I was irritated with him the moment I looked up and found you coming out of his room, yes. That’s why I wasn’t the most hospitable to you that day. But it wasn’t like I’d called dibs or told him to stay away. He’d been the one making all the insinuations about my feelings, which I had denied. I didn’t even know you. So I just forgot about it. I mean, that was simply Duke being Duke. He was the most obnoxious, disrespectful little ass I’d ever met, but he was my little brother. He was my entire world. I couldn’t hate him, no matter what he did. And he realized he’d messed up. That’s why he confessed everything to me and apologized. I think that’s why he apologized to you that night too.”
“But…” Struggling with finding her own forgiveness, Lucy sniffed out a bitter sound. “He should’ve… Why didn’t—God! If he was so worried about you carrying on without him, why didn’t he just introduce us to each other? So I could be there for you, and you wouldn’t be alone after he was gone?”
I shrugged. “If that even occurred to him, it occurred too late. And here we are instead.” I spread my arms wide. “Everything that’s happened to you in this past year to flip your life upside down—Ava, your money issues, motherhood, all of it—is because of me. Because of one look I sent your way that my brother saw.”
“My God,” she whispered, unable to argue my point.
“I am responsible for wiping out everything that was your normal. And if I end up with you now—while you’re still scrambling through the debris of your new life to find your bearings again—what would that make me? I’d feel like a damn vulture, just waiting to swoop down and devour—”
“Vaughn, don’t,” Lucy begged, her chin trembling. “Please. That is not what it’d be like.”
“I’m sorry I got you caught up in Duke and my issues.”
“Stop,” she begged on a rasp. “You didn’t—”
“And despite all that, I’m still in love with you,” I said, feeling my eyes clog with tears yet again. “I’m so fucking in love with you it scares the shit out of me. A year ago, Duke was the most important thing to me. But now, you are. And Ava is. And just… your whole damn family. And I wouldn’t have any of that if he were still alive. But how can I wrap my brain around the fact that my brother had to die for me to end up happier than I’d ever been before? Jesus, God.”
Tears rushed down my face in a flood. “I didn’t want him to die. I swear I didn’t. I would give anything to have him back again.”
“I know,” Lucy said, opening her arms and pulling me into a hug.
I was too wrecked to reject it; I simply collapsed against her, pressing my face to her shoulder and gathering a handful of her shirt as I bawled all over her.
“But I’d also give anything to keep this thing I found with you,” I rasped, barely able to speak through the sobbing. “And sometimes, when I’m holding Ava, I… I start to think of her as mine. I wish she was mine. And I hate myself for it.”
My voice broke on that confession because it felt like one of the worst, and I just squeezed my eyes shut, soaking Lucy’s shirt with my torment before I found myself looking up and spilling out the rest of the deepest, darkest secrets of my heart.
“I...I hate myself because I was mad at Duke for sleeping with you. For the briefest moment, I wanted to hurt him. He took something I wanted, and I felt fucking betrayed. But I couldn’t be mad at him because I loved him, you know, so I took it out on you when I saw you come out of his room. And I...I…”
“Shh…” She stroked my hair and murmured, “It’s okay. I understand.”
“But I don’t,” I snarled. “I don’t understand any of this. How could I be so mad at him that I wanted his pain? How could there be that much darkness in me toward someone I loved? I don’t understand why I couldn’t keep from falling for you or why he had to leave me. None of it makes any damn sense.”
“Because no one’s perfect,” she said simply, stroking my hair. “We all mess up and have some kind of darkne
ss in us, and everyone pays for it. It’s okay to forgive yourself for that.”
“But I don’t want to.” I shook my head insistently. “I just want to be punished for it.” So it’d just go away.
