AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pause, frozen as I search her eyes for answers. “What?”
“I talk to your brother nearly every day.”
The muscles in my body clench with anxiety as I work to piece together what she’s telling me. “You…talk to Isaac?”
Tearfully, she nods.
All these years, I had nothing but hope that my brother was still alive. Gone without a trace, he stayed frozen in time at seventeen, but now I’m racking my brain trying to imagine a twenty-five-year-old man existing somewhere just out of my reach.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask in desperation.
Again, her lips tighten and her brows lift. Then she strokes my hand like she’s delivering bad news. Then it hits me.
“You were protecting him,” I say with another cracked sob.
She doesn’t have to nod for me to know. My mother was protecting my brother…from me. Because I am my father’s son. Because I was so focused on beinglikehim when that’s the last fucking thing I should have ever wanted to be.
I burst out of my chair, dragging my hands through my hair with a feeling of panic. What the fuck is wrong with me? This whole time I thought I was ruining my reputation by rebelling against that man, but this whole time…I wasworsewhen I was trying to emulate him.
It was never about the videos or the club or Sage. I never used her to get back at him. I used her…to getawayfrom him. She was my lifeline. The lifeboat carrying me from the storm.
I’ve had it wrong this entire time.
The onlybadthing I’ve ever done was try to be the next Truett Goode.
“Are you okay, honey?” my mother asks as she approaches me from behind, placing her hands on my back.
“Yeah,” I reply, nodding my head. “I just…realized something.”
“Adam, listen to me.” With her hands on my arms, she spins me until I’m facing her. Then with her hands on my cheeks, she forces me to look into her eyes. “You’re not like him, baby. You are a good man and a good son. It’s okay if you were lost or if your faith in one man led you astray. I taught my boys to think for themselves, but I was afraid he already had his claws in you.”
It’s like being punched in the heart, having my eyes opened for the first time in my life. Seeing my family for the people they are.
Touching her wrists, I realize what it is I desperately need to know about my mother.
“Did you…know?” I ask, searching her eyes for answers.
Her features fall, guilt written across her face. “Yes. I knew about your father.”
“Jesus,” I reply, turning away from her. Snatching the half-full glass of wine off the table, I guzzle it down without stopping. It’s not strong enough.
Turning my back to my mother and this little nugget of information I’m not quite ready to face, I head into the house and march straight up the stairs. She calls after me, but I don’t stop. Even when I reach the closed French doors of his office, I tear them open and walk directly to the bottle of whiskey he keeps in the small bar in the corner.
Hands shaking, I pour myself a glass. After tossing the stopper on the floor, I throw the shot back with a wince.
Once I feel the alcohol burn my throat and warm my bloodstream, I think about the bombshells my mother has dropped at my feet.
She knows where Isaac is.
She’s protecting him from me.
She knew about my father’s cheating ways the entire time.
Was I the only one in the dark? Did I have my head so far up that man’s ass that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me? What would have become of me if none of this would have happened?
I would have been the next Truett Goode. Liar, hypocrite, cheater, homophobic, abusing, murdering monstrous piece of shit.
“No,” I mutter to myself as I pour another shot. “No.”
