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“You ready?”
Gus came around the side of the barn to where he stood, the sunlight hitting his brother’s scarred face and making the pockets there look a little bit deeper. But it didn’t make him look less happy. Ever since marrying Alaina, Gus had looked happier than ever.
It was always hard for Lachlan to look at those scars. Because what he saw was sacrifice. What he saw was a whole bunch of pain that had been meant forhim, but had been meted out to his brother. Their father hadn’t done anything with efficiency. He had done it with rage. Messy, overwrought rage that caused utter destruction.
Gus had taken the rage for him that day.
“Yeah. I’m ready,” he said.
“I’m proud of you, Lachlan. I really am. You and I went through shit. Everybody did. Everybody. They all had to live around the violence. But you and I got the worst of it. He used you like a damn punching bag.”
“Great. This is just the best man speech that I wanted to get right before I got married, how did you know?”
“Well, it’s the best man speech you’re gonna get. I know what you went through. I mean Ireallyknow.”
“Yeah. I know. We both should be dead, really.”
“Yeah.”
Gus had deflected the rage that their father had directed at Lachlan. During that fire. Gus had taken that rage on himself.
He’d had the worst of their father’s violence.
But Lachlan had hishatred. Their father had accused their mother of having an affair. Of Lachlan not being Seamus’s. How Lachlan wished that were true. But he looked like his dad. They had the same blue eyes. Sometimes he worried the same mean streak. Though Lachlan had spent his life finding ways to not express it. Not ever. To not give it oxygen.
Their father had tried to kill Gus. But only because Gus had made him angry. He tried to kill Lachlan because he hated him. Just for being born. Just for existing. Hated the idea so much that his blood ran in Lachlan’s veins that he refused to believe it. And what the hell was that? What the ever-loving hell was that? Everyone else hadseenit. But Gus was the one that really knew how it looked when that hatred was unmasked entirely.
“I just think it’s... It’s a good thing that you’re letting yourself have this. That you’re letting yourself have her.”
“I thought you were a big proponent of our platonic friendship,” Lachlan said.
“Yeah, because in a lot of ways I thought it was a nice way you were letting yourself be happy. Having a friend. But I think it’s even better if you can love her.”
He’d told her that he loved her yesterday. She’d said it to him.
It had triggered a whole bunch of shit. Shit he definitely didn’t want to think about now, because he had to go get married. And he didn’t want any of it hanging over him tonight. Didn’t want to spend tonight contending with demons. That forced him into a space of wakefulness that either demanded he drown it with alcohol, or sit there in a fight with that urge to drink, because he knew it was what his dad would do.
He used to get kind of a perverse pleasure out of the fact that for him alcohol primarily fueled his happiness. His sex drive. That it could banish demons rather than call them up. But on those endless nights when sleep eluded him, he questioned the difference. It was all just a lack of control. A willingness to surrender himself to something that got to dictate who he was and what he did. Yeah. Sometimes he wondered if he was winning that game, or just losing it a different way.
He wasn’t an alcoholic. It was just about his relationship to it. What he used it for. That defiance he had as a cocky young guy who thought he was so different than his dad just because of how he worshipped at that particular altar.
He said he loved her.
Hedidlove her. That, he supposed, was the final victory against his dad. He could love somebody, and it could be this. It could be healthy. At least as healthy as he could be. So there.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Lachlan said. “You did enough of that. I’m fine.”
“I hope so,” Gus said.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“BecauseI’mnot always fine, Lachlan. Even with everything being the way that it is. Even with Alaina, and Cameron, I... I’m not always okay. That’s part of marriage. She’s there for me. There are some difficult things that come up when you have kids. I’m afathernow. And when I think of how Dad treated us... When I look at Cameron, and I think... The one job I have as a father is to protect that kid with my life. And I would. I wouldn’t just kill for him, I’d die for him. In a heartbeat. I would cut off my own arm before I let anything happen to him. Dadhurtus. Suddenly when you look at your own child you realize what that means. How young you were. How helpless. It’s hard. I’m not always okay. Being married to Alaina doesn’t mean I’m always okay. But she gets me. And she’s there. She loves me anyway. Because of it, in spite of it, I don’t know. I just know that I’m lucky. Because I might’ve had a terrible childhood. I might’ve had a shit time of it, but I have a wife that loves me. I have a son. It’s just waves of love. But it’s waves of grief sometimes, too. And that’s okay. Sometimes I envy my kid. My own kid. Because he’s got two parents who love him more than anything. And we didn’t even have one. It’s hard. It doesn’t make things perfect to get married. But it does make them better. I guarantee you that.”
He didn’t know what he felt about that. Because he thought... He thought that Gus wasfine. That he had somehow overcome all that stuff. He didn’t think he was...still actively dealing with it.
Maybe that wasn’t realistic, but hell. It wasn’t like he had any examples of reasonable healing in his life. It wasn’t like he was all that familiar with how functional adults did relationships. Or anything.
But things would be better with Charity. They had to be.
