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We all know why. It’s so fucking obvious every time he brings her around.
She’s waiting to run.
She’s cute and sweet, but there’s something about her that makes it almost painfully apparent that a kid like Tyler could never hold on to her. It would take a man to keep that cute little ass.
Just thinking that as I stand in the kitchen, watching the two of them in the dining room makes me feel like a pervert. She’s only sixteen, although her curves make her look like more of a woman and less of a girl.
He gives her little touches as they sit next to each other watching something on his laptop. Her laugh makes him smile.
He’s foolish to think she’ll stay with him. Girls like that don’t stay with men like us. He can keep pretending if he wants to. He can keep bringing her home and cuddling up with her because he doesn’t know how easy it is for people to shove you away.
She’ll shove, she’ll push, she’ll leave. And I can’t blame her.
Her shoulders shake as she laughs and leans into him. His broad smile grows and like the kid he is, he wraps his arm around her shoulders.
The smile dies when Addison leans forward and away.
He doesn’t know she needs space.
It’s not his fault though. Tyler has a lot to learn. Hard life lessons.
Like the ones I’ve had to endure.
Cancer took our mother and left us a bitter father who likes the belt a little too much. Not to mention a pile of bills that a single person couldn’t possibly afford. It’s taken years to turn my father’s small-time dealing into a thriving business. Years of destroying what little life I had left.
“Let’s not,” I hear Addison say and when I look up her eyes are on me. Caught in her gaze, I hold her there, but it doesn’t last long. Tyler’s always there to reclaim her attention.
A sense of loss runs through me, followed by disgust.
I haven’t been a good person in so long, maybe I’ve forgotten how. Or maybe I never was a good person to begin with.
“You and Carter going out tonight?” my father asks as he interrupts the view I have of Tyler andhisgirlfriend.
It’s only ever Carter and me. Never my other brothers. We’re the oldest, after all. The ones who need to pick up my father’s slack. The ones who pay these bills and make the business what it is.
We’re the ones who have to shoulder the burden. And really it’s Carter’s hard work and brutal business tactics that make any of this possible. It sure as fuck isn’t my father. He’s good at hiding his pain. But every time he remembers my mother, I know he copes with a different addiction. One that makes using that belt easier.
Only ever for Carter and me though.
“Yeah,” I tell him and wait for him to hint that he wants us to bring some of the supply back for his personal use. Friday marks four years since our mother’s been gone and I know a relapse is coming. He’ll disappear for days, maybe even weeks. It was worse when she first passed. I guess I should be grateful that he’s better now than he was then.
“Be careful coming home. I heard there’s a patrol on the east side so maybe come up the back way after you get the shipment.”
A second passes and then another before I nod.
Some days I wonder if he cares for me anymore. He was always a hard man. But when Mom passed, he was nothing but angry. The years have maybe changed him to be less full of hate. But it doesn’t mean he has anything in him to take its place.
I give him another nod and look past him as the sound of Tyler and Addison getting up from the table catches my attention.
My father glances over his shoulder in the direction I’m staring and then turns back to me. He only shakes his head and makes to leave, but I hear him mutter, “She isn’t yours.”
I hate him even more in this moment. Because he’s right.
The sad, pretty girl doesn’t belong to me.
No matter how much I think she’d take my pain away.
CHAPTER15
