I knew she’d do this. I knew she’d try to convince me of things that weren’t true. “What do you want from me, Aly? I keep telling you I don’t have anything for you. I can’t be what you want me to be.”
Aly shook her head. Wetness soaked her face, pieces of her hair sticking to her cheeks, her green eyes desperate. “You are what I want, Jared. You’re everything. Don’t you understand that?”
My fingers dug into her arms. “No.”
She started crying harder, little choked sounds hiccuping from her throat. She clung to me, hot tears dripping onto my chest as she battled to get closer while I pushed her away.
“I love you, Jared.”
And there it was.
What I could never give and what I could never receive. The reason I should have fucking run that first night when I’d opened my eyes to find her green ones starting back at me. Because I’d felt it then, the shift in my wasted world.
I took my mom’s life and now I owed mine. A penance. My payment.
I don’t get to have this.
My hands clenched, fingertips burrowing into her soft flesh. “No, you don’t, Aly. You feel something that’s not real. You and I have both been hanging on to something that isn’t really there.”
I knew I’d do this. I knew I’d fucking take and ruin and destroy. I could see it clearly on her face.
“No, Jared, no… can’t you feel this?” She wrestled to free my hand and pressed it over her heart. Erratic, her heart thundered under my palm. “You feel it. I know you do.”
“Just stop, Aly.” The words raked from my throat as a plea. “Just stop.”
I did it.
I ruined the good.
“Yes… I do… I love you,” Aly choked over the words again, forcing my hand closer to her heart. “I know you can feel it.” She stared down at me, begging, “Tell me you love me, too.”
“No.” I ripped my hand away and grabbed her by both wrists, restraining her. “No, Aly. You’re wrong. I warned you. I fucking warned you.”
Aly thrashed, jerking free. Determined, she forced my arms down, her mouth back at my chest as she begged through her whisper, “You don’t understand… I love you, Jared. Oh my God, I love you so much… Please tell me you love me. Please.”
And I let her… I let her pin me down as she sobbed. The sound of it constricted every fucking cell in my body, as if each cell were compressed so tight there was nothing they could do but implode. My back arched as Aly covered me whole.
Because I wanted to. I wanted to love her. But that was impossible.
I don’t get to have this.
“Stop,” I cried, taking her back by the shoulders. I shook her hard. “Just fucking stop,” I shouted. The words fell as a vicious plea from my mouth because I couldn’t handle one more second of this torture.
The crash at Aly’s door came without warning. The entire room shook, the impact vibrating along the walls. It took little for the thin wood to begin to splinter and crack.
Aly gasped, and her eyes widened with fear.
With the second kick, it busted open, flying back where it banged against the wall.
I was still clutching her, pinned under her body with the two of us wearing nothing but our underwear, when Christopher appeared in the doorway, vibrating with hostility. He pointed at me. “You’re dead, you sick bastard.”
He launched across the room, his face contorted in rage.
Aly screamed, lying over me like shield. “Christopher, don’t!”
Her voice didn’t penetrate his wrath. He was screaming his insults, maligning my name – as if there’d been anything left to malign. Every word he spoke was the truth. “You really think you’d ever be good enough for her? For my little sister?” I saw it all written there, the disgust lining his face. The hatred that I’d already known he would feel.
I destroyed everything I touched.
And I welcomed it, willed his assault because I deserved whatever beating he could give.
What I wasn’t prepared for was Christopher yanking Aly off me and shoving her aside. He threw her back so fucking hard, his attack unwarranted and fierce as he directed some of the hatred I’d earned at her. Like he somehow didn’t know how perfect she was, this girl that was the only good thing I knew.
Aly flew off her bed. The crack of her skull against the bookshelf reverberated through the room. She cried out, clutching the back of her head in her hands.
“Are you fucking stupid, Aly?” He spat the words at her like she was garbage while she lay curled on her side, crying. “You’re really sleeping with this piece of shit?”
Aly whimpered, “Please, Christopher, you don’t understand.” Her voice was rough, tortured. Her hand fluttered out toward Christopher, a silent entreaty.
The tips of her fingers were covered with blood.
Fury rose in me like a tempest. Red colored my vision. I was blinded by it. The only thing I could see was what he had done.
He hurt her.
Jerking up, I dove for him, ramming him in the stomach with my shoulder. He grunted and stumbled back. Aly’s cries rose from where she lay, an unwilling participant in all this shit, her cries taunting my ears.
He hurt her.
Christopher sneered. “Come on, you piece of shit.”
My fist collided with soft flesh. The blow resonated around the room as pain exploded in my hand. Blood spurted from his nose and streaked in webbed lines down over his mouth.
The walls closed in and the red glowed.
So much blood… so much fucking blood. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it. The girl cried.
My fists landed again and again, ragged breaths ripped from my lungs, skin tearing under the rage leaking from my hands.
He fucking hurt her.
He hurt her.
I hurt her.
“Jared, oh my God, please stop.” She’d jumped on my back, begging, trying to haul me away from her brother, who lay crumpled on the floor, his arms shielding his face while the blows continued to land with incoherent violence against his stomach and arms and sides, any fucking flesh I could find.
“Stop!” she was screaming, and screaming, and finally her pleas broke through. “You’re hurting him… stop.” The last she begged in my ear in a muted whisper. Her breath rushed across my face, invaded my senses, took me over.
In horror, I staggered back with my hands fisted in my hair.
And everything hurt. My hands. My heart. This blackened soul.