“Emberly isn’t here. Turn it off.”
He shrugged but didn’t reach for his phone. When he spoke, his amusement faded into genuine sorrow. “I’m sorry about Savannah. She . . . you know how we’ve talked to her?” At my hard nod, he said, “Hunter told her everything, hoping to help y’all so she would understand that night better. But that mixed with the fight the other day and you being behind Madison leaving—”
“She knows that?” My chest seared with white-hot pain as I realized they’d told her everything.
Madison’s side of everything.
“You don’t want her to?”
“If someone’s gonna tell her, I want it to be me,” I ground out. “Not Madison’s side of how all that shit went down.”
“Are they different?”
“Of course they are,” I snapped. Pushing back into the couch, I forced myself to take shuddering breaths before continuing. “Overall, no. They’re not. But the details? I haven’t heard Madison’s side, but I know damn well they’re different because Madison wasn’t fucking here. She doesn’t know that, after she left, I was the one who told Savannah that Hunter needed to know where Madison was. That he needed to go after her. Madison doesn’t know that, when Hunter drained his savings, I paid for his last flight out there. All so he could get her back, so he would bring her back. Madison can’t know about the dozens of calls I made to her because she ditched her number when she left. When Hunter couldn’t bring her back, I got desperate enough to grab the new number from Savannah’s phone, except Madison had already ditched that number too. She doesn’t know any of the bullshit Savannah and I went through—stuff Savannah still might not realize was because of my guilt over what happened.”
Cayson waited until I was done, head moving in a slow, faint nod as he listened. “So, tell her.”
A harsh breath burst from me, all pain and defeat. “She won’t even let me talk to her.”
“Find a way.”
My narrowed gaze cut to him before shifting to the floor.
“When’s the last time you slept, man?”
My shoulders shifted from the force of my muted laugh. “No idea.”
“Maybe try doing that first,” he suggested as he pushed from the chair.
“I should’ve known,” I said when he scooped up his phone. After a moment, I met his questioning stare. “About you . . . about Dad. I should’ve known.”
His jaw tensed but he forced a shrug. “It is what it is.”
“Had no idea how alike we were until you told us everything,” I went on, regret pooling in my gut as I remembered his words.
“You and me?” he asked doubtfully, a hint of a laugh leaving him.
A grunt of affirmation rumbled in my chest. “There were so many times I got arrested or in trouble at school, and I hadn’t done anything,” I said, flashes of the past rushing up to taunt me. “But it was easy to put the blame on me. The angry one. The violent one. And I’d just take it because . . .” I lifted a shoulder and met his hardened stare. “They already thought it about me anyway, and I was violent, right?”
Cayson watched me, some unknown emotion streaking across his face before he gave a hesitant nod.
“I never stopped to think maybe people were putting shit on you just because they could. Because you were always causing trouble. Because it was easy to pin stuff on us. And Dad . . . I didn’t know, but I should’ve. He was just always more patient with me than I deserved, so I thought he was doing the same with you when you got off the hook again and again.”
“You’re not him,” Cayson said suddenly, then jerked his chin at me. “You asked Hunter that the other day . . . there’s your answer.”
“You don’t know me anymore.”
A scoff of a laugh left him as he took his seat in the chair again, setting his phone back down as the music continued playing. “Yeah, I’m aware. But I’ve talked to Sawyer a lot, and I did grow up with you. And I can see you now.”
“I saw Dad nearly every day of my life, and I didn’t know that about him, Cays. I couldn’t see that he had the same darkness that courses through me.”
“That’s it,” he said quickly. “Right there. Dad hid who he was and hid his anger, pretending to be someone else for our family and the entire town. But I think a part of him loved that angry side. He’d push me until he thought I was gonna fight him. And then he’d encourage it and get mad when I wouldn’t.” He gestured to me, his hand falling heavily to his legs. “I don’t think you know how to hide your anger even though Savannah said you’d been controlling it. Because even though it isn’t who you are, it’s a part of you, and you know that. Understand that. And from the look on your face the other day, I’m pretty damn sure you don’t love it. That you might even be afraid of it.”
I had been afraid of it.
It had controlled me for so long. Blocking out moments of my life while I took down everything in my path. It had threatened to destroy my marriage and my family for so long before it finally did.
“You said you think we’re alike,” Cayson murmured, head bobbing quickly. “Then remember that I hid everything about who I really was from everyone, only letting them see the troublemaker. The asshole. Same goes for you. I think you hide who you really are and only let people see your anger. But I know Savannah sees who you really are. I know she always has because that girl has stood up for you forever, even when you didn’t deserve it. And I’d bet your kids get the real you. Just as I’d bet my life that you’d do anything to keep your anger away from them.”
My chin wavered as I gave a hard nod.
“That isn’t Dad,” he said simply.
My fingers curled and relaxed. Forming fists over and over as the fear that had plagued me for months scraped up my throat and settled heavily on my tongue.
Meeting Cayson’s confident stare, I asked, “But what if that changes?”
My eyelids slowly opened, feeling like they weighed a ton as I glanced around the living room of the condo. Lights still on from when I’d come in the night before, but that wasn’t why the place was so bright.
I glanced at the windows where sunlight was filtering in from the partially opened curtains and tried to figure out how it could be morning when I’d just gotten back. When Cayson had just stopped by, and we’d been talking . . .
Looking to the side at the thought, I saw my brother squished into the same chair he’d been in the night before. Legs hanging over one of the arms of the chair and completely passed out.
Unfolding my tightly crossed arms, I sat up and rubbed at the back of my neck. Searching for my phone and wondering at what point in our conversation we’d fallen asleep. Grabbing my phone when I found it on the couch, I looked at the time and mumbled a curse.
“Cayson,” I murmured as I pushed to my feet. Taking the few steps over to him, I smacked his arm. “Wake up.”
His hands shot out, curling into fists like he was prepared for anything, even in sleep. “The hell?”
“I gotta get to work.”
When he saw me there, his eyes widened and he glanced around, trying to figure out where he was the same way I’d done. “Shit.”