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I stared at her for a long moment, my emotions swirling inside me.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” I said roughly.
She smiled, a small, knowing smile. “I could say the same about you.”
I chuckled, and we both groaned at the sensation.
We laid there in silence for a few moments, catching our breath. I could literally feel our hearts intertwining, and it was both exhilarating and terrifying.
“I want to tell you about Tyler,” I finally said, breaking the silence. She stared up at me, her green eyes soulful, understanding.
I inhaled sharply. How did I even begin to tell her about him? About the things that happened to me growing up? It all felt so heavy, so insurmountable.
Too heavy for my sweet, perfect girl.
But as I stared into those starry eyes of hers, I knew I could tell her. I could show her my scars.
"I don’t know where to start," I said finally, my voice hoarse.
"It's okay," she murmured, reaching out to touch my cheek. "Take your time."
I nodded, taking a deep breath. "Tyler was my hero," I began. "He was ten years older than me. He was the only one who ever protected me from our father. The only one who ever believed in me. Tyler was everything to my parents, the perfect one, the heir to my father’s throne, so to speak. But he was also my protector, my savior."
I paused, lost in the memory of my brother's kindness.
“Why did your father beat you?” she whispered in an anguished, broken voice.
I shrugged. I’d long since gotten over the fact that my parents had hated me from my birth. “They’d moved on from being active parents; they were living their lives, and then probably the one time they’d had sex since Tyler’s conception…they ended up with me. It just pissed them off, or at least that’s what I think. We’ve never really sat down and talked about it.”
I was trying for a bit of humor, but as she bit down on her plush bottom lip, her gaze sparking with anger, she wasn’t laughing.
I loved her even more for that.
"One day, after my dad had beat the shit out of me yet again, Tyler took me to the skating rink. We watched a team playing hockey, and I was…I was caught. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me." I smiled sadly at Monroe, remembering that moment, reliving the spark of joy, the flicker of freedom I’d gotten that day.
"He took me to all of my practices and games after that—going against my father for the first time in his life. Tyler was my biggest fan and supporter, told me he saw something in me. Thought I could really be something someday." My words caught in my throat. I tried to breathe through the pain. "He believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself."
I closed my eyes, a tear trickling down my face. Monroe’s soft hand brushed it away.
"In ninth grade, there was a huge hockey exhibition in Minnesota. Tons of scouts from colleges and the NHL were attending. I was practicing on a frozen lake near the facility, because I was fed up with how crowded the arena was, when I fell in. I was drowning when Tyler jumped in to save me."
Flashbacks of that day cycled through my mind. The icy cold darkness of the water. The realization I was going to die…and then the hands lifting me onto the ice.
"He got me out of the water, but...he didn't make it out. He drowned right in front of me."
All the pain and guilt I’d worked so hard to push down, rose to the surface. It was an open wound that stabbed and twisted, refusing to close and heal. "I couldn't save him, Monroe. He hadn’t even wanted to be out there. He hated the fucking cold. But he’d done it because I’d bitched so much about it." I stared at her with pleading eyes, hoping she'd understand his death felt like my own. "He was my hero, my brother, my best friend. And I killed him."
* * *
Monroe
I listened, my heart breaking for him. He was splayed open right then, his deepest pain lying before me.
I knew he didn’t want to hear that he wasn’t responsible for his brother’s death. Those kinds of words never worked when they went against something you really believed. People said false platitudes, thinking they would make you feel better.
And it never worked.
So I just held him.
