Prologue
IT WAS A beautiful picture.
Taken just before Christmas Eve Mass, in 1990-something. The smiling parents, still so in love even after years of marriage. The attractive pair of identical twin boys, no older than nine, stood in front of them. There was fire in those boys’ eyes, burning with life and promise, their Mom and Dad beaming with undeniable pride.
This was a family. This was love.
It really was a beautiful picture, a favorite even.
Yet pictures are nothing but memories. Fragments of time captured to be stuck in a frame or an album, to spark joy or nostalgia or cause an indescribable surge of pain.
Now this picture sparked nothing but broken promises and broken hearts. All thanks to me.
And the guilt was getting heavy.
Chapter One
“DO YOU HATE your brother, Blake?”
"I never said I hated my brother."
"But you implied it." Dr. Vanessa Travetti lowered her notepad and pen to her lap. She peered at me from over her black-framed glasses, and if she hadn't sufficiently pissed me off with that asinine question, I would've been all about this hot librarian thing she was giving off today.
"How exactly did I imply it?" I sneered, leveling her with my steely glare.
"You tell me."
Leaning back against the overstuffed armchair, I crossed my arms and kept my eyes trained on her. "You know, Doc, I really hate when you play these fucking mind games with me."
Her glossy pink lips quirked with an obvious amusement she never intended to show. She quickly remedied the slip-up with a hasty shake of her head. "What mind games, Blake?"
I thrust a hand toward her and shouted, "Those mind games! Everything I say, you respond with another goddamn question. Trying to weasel some bullshit out of me that doesn't even exist. Why do I hate my brother ..." I scoffed, shaking my head. "I never fucking implied that I hate my brother. All I said was, I've been taking care of him for most of my life, and I'll continue to take care of him for the rest of it. How the hell is that the same as saying I hate him?"
Head canted and lips pursed, Dr. Travetti clasped her manicured hands over her notepad. "Do you understand that it's not what you said, but how you said it?"
"There you go again with the fucking questions."
"Why are you getting so defensive?"
I unraveled my arms and pounded a fist against the arm of the chair. "Because you're putting words in my mouth! I never said I hated my fucking brother. Do I hate that I'm strapped with the burden of dealing with him for the rest of my life? Yes. Do I hate that I can't make a goddamn decision for myself, without having to think of him first? Abso-fuckin'-lutely. But don't you dare tell me that I hate him, Doc. Because I don't."
"Why do you come here every week, Blake?"
I narrowed my eyes at the unrelated inquiry. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
She shrugged. "You don't have to come here—”
“You know I have to come here.”
Holding up a finger, she shushed me and went on, “Nobody is forcing you to come here. You could find yourself another therapist, and if I'm reading into your thoughts inaccurately, then maybe you should. So, why do you come?"
"Why?" I answered exasperatedly.
"Yes."
"Because ..." My voice trailed off as I shook my head and turned to look out the window. Just down the street was my brother's daycare. I wondered what he was doing right now. Maybe eating a snack, or perhaps finishing the craft project he and his friends had been working on this week. It was more likely that he was giving his teachers a hard time, but I liked to think he wasn't making other people miserable. I liked to think that side of him was reserved only for our parents and me.
"Blake?"
Returning my attention to Dr. Travetti, I asked, "Huh?"
"Why do you come?" she repeated insistently albeit gently.
"Because, Doc," I continued with a heavy sigh and a shrug, "who the fuck else would I talk to?"
“Another therapist,” she suggested lightly, offering a vague smile.
I shrugged again and canted my head with a helplessness I didn’t want her to see, while hoping so badly she would notice. “Yeah, but I chose you first. Why the hell would I start going to someone else now?”
***
"Jake," Miss Thomas spoke softly as she knelt beside the long table. "Your brother is here to pick you up."
Jacob “Jake” Carson looked up from his drawing to sweep his gaze across the room. His eyes searched until they pinned themselves on me, standing in the doorway of his daycare classroom. His grin spread across his smudged, stubbled cheeks, and I made a mental note to give him a shave when we got back to our parents’ place.
"Blake!" There weren't any volume controls on my brother and he always spoke too loudly. A few of his classmates turned to face me with irritation and curiosity.
"Hey, buddy," I said, making sure to speak quietly in the hope he'd eventually learn the difference between outdoor and indoor voices. "Time to go home. Go get your stuff."
At six foot two, Jake was as tall as he was clumsy. He scrambled to get up from his chair with the grace of an ice-skating elephant, with his feet kicking the legs of the table to jostle the pencils and crayons. I tried not to chuckle as every pair of eyes turned to glare at him with how dare you exasperation.
"That's Blake, my brother," Jake told Miss Thomas. He kept his eyes on her as he walked backward, in the direction of his cubby. "Blake looks just like me but we're not the same. He can drive and he has a job. We're not the same."
Miss Thomas nodded with delightful intrigue, pretending as though she hadn't already seen me a thousand times. "I bet you can do things that Blake can't, though," she offered, shooting me a small smile.
I stuffed my hands inside my pockets while slowly moving to stand beside his daycare teacher. Jake prattled on about his own personal talents. He might not be able to drive, but the guy could put a puzzle together quicker than anybody I know. And if you put a Lego set in front of him, there was no stopping him from showcasing his architectural skills.
"How was he today?" I asked quietly.
This was all part of the routine. Every day, I picked him up, and every day, I asked Miss Thomas how he was. Every day, she gave me the same response.
"Good!" Miss Thomas answered with too much enthusiasm. I read right through that bullshit and my eyes said so. Her exuberant expression wilted and she shrugged. "You know Jake. He has his moments."
Moments. Jake's life was a patchworked tapestry of moments. Good moments, bad moments. Moments in which he brought me to the brink of insanity and made me question every decision I'd ever made. And moments that made me hate myself more than I could ever hate him—take that, Travetti.
"He gave you a hard time?"
Miss Thomas faltered, eyes wide as though she’d said something she shouldn’t have, before she shook her head. "No, not really. But he did get into a fight with Mr. Scott."
"A fight?"
I turned my glare on Jake. He was shrugging his Red Sox windbreaker on and telling Mr. Scott for the billionth time that he couldn’t do zippers. Mr. Scott—the other teacher in the room—didn’t seem to have any issues with my brother presently, so whatever issues they might’ve had earlier, clearly weren’t lingering.