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I bite my tongue to keep myself from telling him that his brother got what he deserved. No, I take that back. His brother got less than what he deserved. Bastard got away with three years, and he would’ve gotten half if it weren’t for his other crimes.
He had a bunch of offenses on top of attempted murder, mostly drug-related charges. There was also that time he stabbed Finn in the arm after he failed to hurt him the first time around. If it were up to me, the psycho would have gotten life.
“Then I heard Finn’s full name at the party, and I just knew. I knew it had to be him. Lots of people are named Finn, but his last name… that shit was undeniable.”
I slouch into my seat. “Looks like you already know everything. I doubt I’ll be of much use to you.”
“You were there, correct?”
I hesitate. “Yes?”
“Then you’re the only person who can tell me what I need to know.”
“And what is that?”
“I want to know if he did it. I need to know if he really tried to kill Finn.”
I stifle a bitter, resentful laugh. I understand why he’d want to see the good in his brother. We all want to believe our loved ones can be redeemed, but the fact that he’s asking me that question tells me I was right the first time.
Chance doesn’t know his brother.
He has no idea what Joel is capable of.
Boy, is he in for a rude awakening.
“I had to watch the family dog bleed to death. What do you think?” I fire back.
Chance’s mouth drops open at my response, and while I wish I’d delivered the news in a more sensitive way, I don’t regret telling him the truth.
“So, he did it, then…” Chance barely says. “He told me he was set up. He made it sound like Finn’s family was bent on ruining his life and he was the victim here. He had me riled up and got me to feel bad for him, but he really did all these things, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
I allow Chance a few minutes of silence to make peace with the information he’s just been given. The sad part is he doesn’t look surprised. He looks disappointed. Like deep down, he knew Joel was full of shit but didn’t want to believe it.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“Of course.”
A few seconds elapse before I gather the courage to say, “Can I ask you a question, too?”
Chance nods. “Hit me.”
“How come you’re not close with your brother? Didn’t you guys grow up together?”
Chance sighs, throwing his head back against the headrest. “If you want to get technical about it, he’s my stepbrother, and no, we didn’t grow up together. My mom got pregnant with Joel when she was sixteen. Her parents were strict, very religious people and kicked her out when they found out. Long story short, Joel’s biological father was some twenty-two-year-old loser, but he was all she had, so my mom fell in with the wrong crowd, doing anything she could to survive.”
I keep quiet, waiting for him to reveal more of his story.
“Joel was surrounded by hard drugs when he was a kid, and once my mom turned nineteen, she got approached by some fucker claiming he could give her and the kid a better life. Of course, it was bullshit. She wound up trapped in sex trafficking by the time Joel was two. Took her seven years to get out of it, and when she did, Joel was already scarred for life. He ran away when he was ten. You can imagine what life had to be like out there for a ten-year-old kid on his own.”
Knowing Joel’s backstory does help me understand why he turned out the way he did.
“My mom met my dad after she got herself out of that nightmare. She was a wreck over my brother and addicted to all sorts of drugs. Joel had been the only reason why she’d stayed alive for the past ten years, but she didn’t want to go to the police, afraid they’d start digging into her past. She just felt hopeless.
“My father came through for her when she had nobody, and she was scared he’d end up being like all the other shitbags she’d encountered. Thankfully, he didn’t. She got clean, and they moved in together after a while. A year later, she got pregnant with me. So, yes, Joel is my brother, but we’ve never been close.”
I wonder what Joel would be like today if he’d been born a few years later. Would he be a good person? A respectful guy with goals and a family? These two had the same mother but completely different lives. All because one of them was born earlier.
