My one ticket out of that hell, was football. Not because I was from the rough side of town, or that I have ten cents to my fucking name, starving with only one fucking pair of smiling Goodwill shoes, far from it. I have more money than most people see in their lifetime, but still, football was what I saw for myself.
I didn’t see myself in a stuffy suit, sitting in a stuffy office, feeling suffocated with stuffy work. I saw myself on the field, with a roaring crowd, adrenaline rushing through my blood.
But that’s all gone now, well, not all of it.
There’s adrenaline in what I do now. A whole fucking lot of it when you hold someone’s life in your fucking hands and determine their fate.
To be perfectly honest, it was over for me the day Mia was taken from me. I accepted death that day and now that I’m still here, I see it all as some kind of extra time or some bullshit like that.
Which is why today, the first item on my to-do list is bearable because I have to face the first guilt that drove me to feel like I’ve been buried alive.
Aiden.
Liam, Dad, Cole and I are all standing in front of where we laid Aiden to rest a little over two years ago, before Mia came back into my life like a tornado.
It’s cold, the sky dark with clouds heavy with rain and seeing as it hardly rains much this time of year in Rye, New York, where Aiden wanted to be laid to rest, I take it as an omen of some kind, but I won’t dare classify it.
There really isn’t a valid point in trying to look for meaning in anything these days.
What’s supposed to happen, will happen.
Like Mia thinking she can slip past me and start a whole new life without a word, thinking I don’t know. I let her because well, my to-do list.
“We’re going to get fucking drenched out here,” Cole mutters beside me.
“Right,” Liam snaps. “Can we fucking get to the point, here.”
“Liam, show some fucking respect to your uncle.”
Uncle. I’m still noy used to referring to Aiden as my uncle, so I don’t bother. But I do appreciate Dad shutting Liam up. He’s been pissy for a while, itching for a fight but I know what he wants. He’s been giving me the look since he landed earlier today.
“Right boys, we’re here because we only talked about how Aiden died only once and never talked about it again,” I start, keeping my voice low but clear as I stare at the marble headstone. “But now, Liam and Dad, I know it bothers not knowing exactly what happened to him so today, I’m going to tell you.”
There’s silence. The wind blows around us, rustling the trees nearby. I reach into my dark coat and take out a report. Then I remove my leather gloves to unfold it and then pass it to Dad.
“Wait,” Liam says silently. “Is that why we’re here?”
“Yes.” I never told any of them what happened the week leading up to Aiden’s epic fall that’s still ingrained in my mind and after talking to Mia about it that night, giving her everything I am over a fucking phone call, I think it’s finally time I let them know. “Aiden made himself fall.”
“What?” Both Cole and Liam demand at the same time. I wait for Dad to say something, but he doesn’t, so I just go on.
“We talked, Aiden and I. Liam you were running plays with Cole that day. I have no idea where Dad and Courtney were, but I remember the house smelled like caramel popcorn and ice-cream for some reason.” As I say it, I start seeing it all in my head again. “He said he was tired.”
“You said he fell and hit his head.”
“Deliberately,” I mutter.
“What?”
“You have to understand, the treatment they were giving him for his leukemia made him sick, irritable and well, in the end he was depressed.”
“I remember that,” Cole says silently beside me. I’m, fucking grateful that he flew in for this. I know he’s been going through it recently with his sister and some fucked up letters he mentioned once when he was drunk.
“Yeah, and well, Aiden was tired of it all. Physically, mentally, emotionally.”
And with it’s there, in front of his grave that I tell my brother and father everything that happened like I did with Mia. I don’t even hide my involvement or the guilt I carried. By the time I’m done, no one says a word.
“Any fucking questions?” I mutter.
“Just one,” Liam says, finally turning to look at me. “Where the fuck have you been? You look fucking different! Hell, the look in your eyes… what happened to you?”
“Liam…” Dad starts, but I hold up a hand. I can answer this.
“Do you really want to know?” I mutter, watching him silently,
The truth is, I went through hell. I was put in fucking impossible situations that I thought at least once that I wouldn’t be able to go through, but I had to. I know how to kill a man fifty different ways. My mental state is different now. I know how it feels to be in sub-zero temperatures. I know what it’s like being a fucking desert.
It was like going to a fucking Navy Seals bootcamp, but this was worse, much worse. There’s an underbelly that runs the world. A world where marriage contracts are fucking nothing. And now, because John was part of that world and needed and heir to get out, I’m now in it.
The Phoenix Corps.
“If you want to know, Liam, I suggest you ask.”
Before, when I thought I could dump everything, the family business and legacy on Liam’s shoulder, I believed he could handle it, but I was naïve. I didn’t know what the Fitzgeralds are part of, but now… now I do.
Now, I’m in it up to my fucking neck.
“No.”
“Well then,” I mutter. “If there are no more questions, I have a plane to catch.”
I’ve been patient, I’ve waited this long, but now I feel like I might just combust if I don’t get to her. By now, she must’ve received her invite.
“Where are you going?” Liam demands.
“To get what’s mine.”
I know Liam and Cole have kept in touch with Mia. I started out asking them for details but then my jealousy of them spiked up that one day, I even punched Cole for telling me about how ‘happy’ Mia is without me.
That brings me to the second item on my to-do list, it’s not time for it yet but I can fee; the question.
This one’s been fucking burning a hole in me since the day I made sure Liam knew I had this of his. The black envelope I promised my brother. I still have it, tucked safe in the safe of my apartment.
“I graduated months ago,” the asshole says.
“I’m aware,” I mutter. “Did you want another round of applause.”
“You promised me something, were you fucking with me?”
“No. I’ll give it to you when you graduate.”
The fuck?” he explodes. “You meant when I graduate college?”
“Bingo.”
“Oh, you fucking sonofabitch.”
“Yeah, well, how is Courtney?”
Liam stares me down, “You’re a piece of work, you know that right?”
“What do you think is in the envelope, Liam?” I ask instead. He holds my gaze, but he doesn’t say anything. “Why don’t you think about that until then?”