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He’s eight years older than me. By the time I was in kindergarten, he was already in boarding school, being the star student and athlete, living his life away from the house, away from me, only coming home a couple of times a year.
He had no place for me in his life.
He never did.
He was — is — my father’s son and yeah, I admit to entertaining the fantasy that my big brother would come save me from our monster father when I was little, but then I grew up. I realized that no one was coming to save me, certainly not my own family when they were the ones I’d needed saving from.
So I never told anyone.
Not even Lucas.
Maybe I should have — because he was going through the same things — but I could never bring myself to after my encounters with Mom. So all Lucas knew was what everyone knew: that I was a spoiled troublemaker that my parents were very unlucky to have. Despite that, he was still my friend.
“I…” my brother begins. “I’m… I don’t know what to say except that I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Reign. I wish I… I let you down. I wish I’d treated you differently. I wish I’d known. I wish I’d —”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Because it doesn’t.
It doesn’t change anything.
It doesn’t change the past, the fact that he didn’t know and that he knows now. And from the looks of it, is regretful. The reason I don’t doubt that is because he just threw the F word at me. Homer is too polite to do that so yeah, I guess his remorse is genuine.
But as I said, it doesn’t matter.
We are who we are.
He’s the favored son and I’m the fuck-up.
We have different lives, different paths and nothing will ever change that.
“I’d like to,” he says, his eyes staring hard at me, “make it right somehow.”
“Make it right how?”
“I’d like you to come work with me.”
“What?”
“At the company.”
At this, I once again find myself stopping. Freezing.
Unable to say a single word.
“I know he wrote you out of the will and seized your trust fund. But I’ve been talking to our lawyers. There’s a way that I could give it all back to you, all the money, now that I own the majority of the shares. And I want to. It belongs to you, Reign. Half of this company’s yours. But I…” His chest expands. “I want you to come work with me.”
“To make it happen, you mean.”
His expression is cool but I see how firmly his jaw is set. “Yes.”
“Even though you just said that that money belongs to me.”
He lets a few seconds go by in silence. Then, “It’ll be full-time for the summer. And then when your classes start, you could do part time. I understand you have soccer and other obligations. Work with me until you graduate and it’s all yours.”
Right.
All mine.
