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“Ledger,” he says by way of greeting. “Is everything okay?”
I grit my teeth.
Both at hearing his voice after weeks and weeks, and the concern in his tone.
My oldest brother Conrad and I have never gone this long without talking before. Even when our mother was alive and he was away at college, he’d call home every two to three days to check up on us. Mostly because our mom was sick during those months, but also because that’s who he is.
He’s responsible.
He’s a caretaker. A guardian.
And he’d make it a point to talk to each one of us.
And then when we all scattered around and went away for college, he’d still carried on that ritual and called up individually every week. All his calls always started with ‘is everything okay?’ As if some invisible danger always lurks around us Thornes. Although when he asks me this question, he usually means, ‘is everyone around me okay?’ Or have I broken any new bones lately.
Ignoring the twinge of longing at his voice and my irritation at his age-old question, I say, “Yes, everything is okay.” Then, “Everyone around me is fine too.”
I hear him sigh.
Something else that he does a lot when I’m around.
Sighing and breathing deep.
Sometimes praying for patience. Other times irritated and annoyed.
This one’s irritated as he says, “I’ve been calling you. We all have been.”
“Yeah, I know. Stellan told me when he showed up at the house last week. I’ll tell you the same thing that I told him.”
“Which is what?”
“I lost my phone.”
Another sharp, irritated breath. “You think this is a joke?”
“Holy shit. He said the same thing.” I let out a humorless chuckle. “Well, then I told him —”
“Enough.”
I grit my teeth at his tone.
I grit my teeth harder when he speaks. “I don’t fucking need a blow by blow of your conversation with Stellan. I already know what happened and what a dumb little shit you are who isn’t done fucking around yet.” And then maybe because he can’t stop himself, he keeps going. “You do understand that everything you’ve worked for is hanging by a thread right now? That the board isn’t happy with you? You’re losing endorsements left and right and the press is going nuts about that. Pretty soon, no amount of PR damage control is going to help you. The team’s going to drop you to save their own asses and you’ll be left with nothing. Everything that you’ve worked for, everything that we fought so hard to give you, me, Stellan, Shep, all of it is going to go away. Just because you can’t get your head out of your ass. And —”
“Yeah I know,” I cut him off then. “And like you, I don’t need a blow by fucking blow of what Stellan already told me.”
The familiar burning starts up in my gut.
The familiar tightness. The itch.
That threatens to take over everything and color my vision red.
The silence on the line stretches for a few seconds before he clips, “Well, at least you were listening.”
“I was,” I tell him, my muscles tight. “So if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to the point.”
“By all means then, let’s get to the fucking point.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“Go to,” fucking, “therapy.”
It was hard to push those words out.
It was hard to push any words out except ‘fuck off.’ To him and by extension to my other two brothers too.
That I’m done with this. I’m done being beholden to them. I’m done being their hotheaded little brother that they can all boss around and keep in line.
I can do this on my own.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? My reputation precedes me. Something my agent likes to remind me every other day.
It doesn’t matter how good of a player I am, how valuable to the team. They will drop me and if it gets out why then no team in their right mind would take me on. And if it was just me, I wouldn’t care. It would hurt, yes, that my dream of being the best, going to the European League would be destroyed but I’d live with it.
If it meant finally breaking free of my family.
But it’s not just me anymore.
It’s her too.
The girl I left in my bedroom with the door locked. Even though she’s still tied up and can’t go anywhere.
You’re a fucking psycho, aren’t you?
Yeah, only for her.
My Firefly and her as well.
That tiny baby girl in her belly.
I don’t know if she’s there yet or not. But I know that I’m doing this for her too.
Because I’m the one who’s providing for her.
No matter what happens in the future, where or who — the anger jumps in my veins at the thought — my Firefly ends up with, I will always provide for her and our baby girl. I’m not going to be like our father who abandoned everything, every responsibility and left us to struggle in his wake. I’m not going to ever, not ever, abandon them.
