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“Something about this place will always be home though. We’ll always be the boys from the Heights. It’s in our blood. Fuck,” I grunt and take off running.
“Ace,” Conner calls. “What is it?”
I come to a stop outside our old trailer. The doors and windows are all boarded up. Apparently no one wanted to move in after I found our mother with a needle hanging out of her arm and dead on the floor.
Reaching out, I pull at one of the loose planks of wood someone has haphazardly nailed on. It comes away easily. I continue until I can squeeze inside.
“You can’t be serious,” Conner says, bending down to look in.
“You wanna risk not checking?”
“Nah, bro. It’s a good shot, I guess.”
Once I manage to get myself inside, I find a similar kind of devastation to James’. I know we left this place in a mess, but it wasn’t like this.
“Cole, are you here?” I walk down the narrow hallway, taking in the holes in the walls and the blood stains surrounding them.
Please be okay. Please, for the love of fuck, be okay.
A whimper sounds out a second before I get to the living area, and there, curled in a ball in front of the built-in couch is Cole. “Fuck, Conner. In here,” I call dropping to my knees in front of my brother.
His hands are totally busted up and dripping blood onto the already stained carpet. He’s got scratches all up his arms. But none of that shocks me. It’s nothing I’ve not dealt with before. It’s when he looks up at me that my world crashes to a halt.
His eyes are dark, soulless, but they’re full of tears that are tracking down his cheeks.
“Fucking hell, Cole,” I wipe his cheeks before pulling him into my body. He trembles in my arms as I hold him tight.
“Fuck. Is he okay?” Conner comes stumbling in and drops beside us, his arms wrapping around both of us.
It’s a haunting image, and it’s not the first time something similar has occurred in this hellhole of a home.
I spent countless nights with one, or both of them, in my arms as I tried to get them to sleep, tried to shield them from the reality that was our lives.
“It’s okay,
” I say, my body automatically rocking back and forth.
After long minutes of silence, Cole lets out a shaky breath. “Is it true?” He looks up at me, his eyes begging for me to tell him that everything he knew about his life wasn’t a lie. But I can’t.
“Yeah, bro. It’s true.”
“Motherfucker.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Grasping the backs of both of their necks, I press my forehead to theirs.
“It’s not your fault,” Conner says, his tone totally different from his angry one when I first found him earlier.
Releasing them both, I sit back against the couch and they both follow my move.
“You ready to hear all this?”
They both look a little skeptical but agree.
I tell them everything I know, everything I’ve discovered.
“This is one massive fucking head fuck, bro. Our dad is our uncle and our uncle is our dad. Fuck my life,” Conner mutters, resting his arms over his bent knees and dropping his head as if he needs a moment to figure it out.
“And he’s still alive,” Cole adds.
