Chapter 32: : Part 3 – Chapter 32

June, age 19

This isn’t happening.

My father staggers away, hand clasped over his mouth, as if he’s trying not to vomit. Tears pour out of me, desperate, ugly tears, and I search for my dress as Kip moves out of frame.

Brant sits beside me, breathing heavily and totally silent. He looks like he’s in shock.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

Locating my dress peeking out from under the bed, I throw it over my head and whip off the covers as the front door claps shut. “I-I have to go talk to him…” I mutter through my tears. “God, Brant…”

Brant doesn’t respond.

He just sits there, glassy-eyed and void.

“What should I say? What should I do?” My whole body is shaking as I stand beside the bed on trembling legs, fists balled like stones at my sides.

Nothing.

He doesn’t even blink.

“Brant,” I choke out, leaning over the bed to shake his shoulders. Panic tightens my chest. “Please. I need you.”

After a long moment, he finally cranes his head toward me, his jaw rippling with tension. “I forgot to set an alarm. I didn’t mean to sleep in.”

My fingers curl along his shoulders, my lungs feeling wheezy. I drink in a few choppy breaths as our eyes meet. “Th-that doesn’t matter. How do we fix this?”

“Fix this?” His dark eyebrows pinch together, his muscles stiffening as his gaze tracks my face. Then he murmurs in a low, defeated voice, “There’s no fixing this, June.”

I shake him again with flared emotion. “Stop. There must be.”

“No.”

“Stop!” I shriek, drawing back from the bed. My ribs ache from the weight of my breaths as I glance around the room for my purse and car keys. “I-I need to talk to Mom. She’ll understand. She’ll understand…” I pant out, my thoughts scattered while I idly step into a pair of house slippers. “I can fix this.”

Before I stumble out of the bedroom, I look back at Brant who is still rooted to the mattress, frozen. His face falls into his hands. “You can’t fix it.”

I choke on a strangled cry, gripping my purse strap.

I have to.

Spinning around, he says to me as I retreat, “We were broken before we even began.”

Dad’s car is in the driveway when I pull in.

My heart thunders as my tears fall like a violent rain shower. He’s probably telling my mother the sordid truth right now.

Squeezing the steering wheel, my forehead collapses against it as I let out a hopeless sob, wondering what the hell I’m going to do.

How can I explain the inexplicable?

How can I excuse the inexcusable?

How can I justify the unacceptable?

With all the words in existence, I can’t seem to piece together any that will make this sound even remotely reasonable.

We were careless.

We were reckless and foolish, and my worst fear has come to life.

Instead of sitting down with my parents with a laid out plan, a well-rehearsed explanation, my father walked in on us spooned together like lovers, naked in Brant’s bed.

Humiliation warms my skin.

And then a sharp tapping at the window pops my head up from the wheel.

A gasp escapes me when I lock eyes with my mother through the glass. She’s waving at me with a smile, but that smile slips the moment she notices the torment gazing back at her.

She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know yet.

My hand quivers as I twist the key out of the ignition and push open the driver’s side door. Two slipper-covered feet meet the cement, but they are not enough to hold me upright. With knees made of jelly, I buckle, falling at my mother’s ankles with an anguished cry as tiny pebbles dig into my palms. Tearstained hair curtains my face, my shoulders heaving with grief.

“June? Dear God… what’s wrong, honey?” Mom drops beside me, immediately pulling me into her arms as we huddle on the driveway. “What happened?”

I can hardly speak. I shake my head back and forth as she combs loving fingers through my hair.

“June, please talk to me. Is someone hurt? Is it Brant?” Mom’s comforting touch turns wrought with fear. She pulls back, clasping my face between her hands. “June. Is Brant okay?”

My stomach coils. I’m sure she’s flashing back to that hospital right now.

Hearing the devastating news.

Finding out that she just lost a son.

She’s about to lose another.

Blinking back the wall of tears, I manage to croak out, “D-Dad saw us.”

“What?” Her deep blue stare is full of bewilderment. “Sweetheart, you’re scaring me.”

“Please…” I choke, sniffling and gasping. “Please don’t hate him.”

Mom frowns, inching backward as her hands fall from my cheeks. “Why would I hate your father?”

I swing my head back and forth, a piece of hair catching on the wet tears pooled along my lips. “No… not Dad,” I rasp, still trying to catch my breath—trying to keep an asthma attack from overtaking me. “Brant.”

Confusion clouds her eyes. We both face each other on the pavement, our knees touching, while the humid late-summer breeze seems to go still. The air turns stale and stifling, like it’s waiting for the next moment to unfold.

Expectancy hums all around me.

My mother licks her lips, inhaling a slow breath. “What would make me hate Brant?”

She asks the question softly; so softly, almost as if she doesn’t want me to even hear it because she’s terrified of what the answer may be.

Only… I think she already knows.

She knows the answer.

It lights up her eyes like a bushfire.

How does she know?

Her head shakes slightly. She pats at her loose hair bun, like she’s searching for the pen that usually resides inside of it, but it’s not there today. Mom pulls her lips between her teeth, falling back on her heels and gazing off over my shoulder at a bicyclist riding by on the sidewalk. A long, quiet moment stretches between us, causing my skin to prickle with anticipation.

Then she cups a hand over her mouth and sighs. “How long?”

Pushing my hair back with my fingertips, I stare down at the cracks in the driveway, hoping one of them will suck me in. I can’t seem to muster a response.

She repeats louder, “How long have you been sleeping with him, June?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a shuddery breath. “A week,” I confess, mortification heating my face. It’s horrible enough talking to my mother about having sex, but this?

Her daughter is admitting to a sexual relationship with the man she deems a son.

Cowering on the pavement, I wish I could shrink away into nothingness.

“A week,” she clarifies.

“But… it’s more than that,” I say, lifting my chin and braving a glance at her. My voice breaks as I repeat meekly, “It’s so much more.”

Teardrops fall hard, disappearing into the stone cracks, but they don’t take me with them.

Mom’s hand is still clasped over her mouth, her eyes shimmering with debilitating disappointment. Her crow’s feet crease as her head bobs slowly, absorbing my words—my sins. Then she blows out a breath and pulls herself to her feet, swiping grit from the driveway off her khaki pants. “This is going to destroy your father.”

I crumble as I watch her march toward the house. “Mom, please…” Rising to unstable legs, I chase her through the front door, begging for pardon. “Please, understand. Please… I love him.”

“I know you love him, June.” She storms through the house, then plants her palms face down on the kitchen table, leaning forward. “That’s not the point.”

Stopping a few feet away, I wipe at my falling tears. “Of course, it’s the point. It’s everything.”

She whips back around. “It’s not everything. Have you fully grasped the severity of this situation? You’re a smart girl, June. Think.” My mother taps her index finger to her temple. “Think long and hard about what you’re doing.”

“I am thinking.” My right hand presses against my chest, fingers twisting the fabric of my dress. “I’m thinking with my heart, and that’s what counts.”

Her arms drop to her sides with addled frustration. She heaves out another big breath. “You think I haven’t seen it?” she asks me, eyes trailing back to my startled expression.

My insides buzz.

What?

A glimmer of tears reflect back at me, but they don’t fall. “You think I haven’t noticed the signs?” she echoes softly. “I watched you grow up with Theodore, and I watched you grow up with Brant. And let me tell you… it wasn’t the same.”

I swallow, fisting my dress in a clammy palm.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” she continues. “With curious eyes as a small child. With possessive eyes as you got older. You always needed to be near him. And when you weren’t near him, you were talking about him. You’ve held a torch for Brant your whole life, and I just prayed it would burn out before it burned you both.”

I lick away a stray tear, trying to find my voice. “You… you never said anything.”

“Because he’s your adopted brother!” she bursts, temper flaring, arms lifting at her sides. “There’s a legal document upstairs in my closet that confirms that fact. My God, June… I thought you’d have the common sense to not pursue him in that way.”

“There is no sense in love,” I counter, swiping away more tears. “It’s a senseless thing.”

Mom pauses, pinching the bridge of her nose, chin tucked to her chest.

I forge ahead. “And I didn’t pursue him. He didn’t pursue me. It just… happened. Because that’s what love does. It happens. It sneaks up on you, and then it burrows. It festers in your blood. And once it’s in your blood, you can’t just flush it out. It’s a part of you now. Trying to get rid of it would be like cutting off a limb, or carving your heart right out of your chest.”

She looks up, her brows knitted together.

“You love Dad, right?” I wonder gently. “If you love him, really love him, then you understand.” I press my hand to my heart again as I step closer to her. “And I hope you do. I hope you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Swallowing, my mother straightens as she shakes her head. “Of course I love your father, but this is different. I fell in love with the right person at the right time.”

“I completely disagree,” I contest. “When you find the right person, there is no ‘right time.’ There’s only right now because that’s all we ever have.” Tears blot my vision as I inhale a quick breath and finish, “I bet Theo would agree with me.”

Mom’s eyes round with pain.

With warning.

But her words are cut short when the front door barrels open, and I spin in place.

My father stands in the doorway, his cheeks rosy red, with bloodshot eyes to match. He tousles a hand through his graying hair and pins his stare on me.

He must have been riding with Kip this morning.

Through trembling lips, I whisper, “Dad.”

“You’re going to New York. I’m booking your flight,” he says in a grief-ridden voice, storming through the foyer, not bothering to close the front door.

Panic sinks into me. “What?”

He looks disheveled and lost as he winds his way to the study where his laptop resides. “I already spoke with Celeste’s aunt. You’re more than welcome. I’ll pay your portion of rent until you secure a job and—”

“Daddy, stop!” I rush toward him. “I want to stay here.”

“I don’t care.”

“Please!” I plead to his quickly retreating back. “I don’t want to go to New York.”

He flies around with fury in his gaze. “And I don’t want my daughter fooling around with her goddamn brother!”

Both of our chests heave with labored breaths. I’ve never seen my father so upset. So riddled with emotion. While he’s always been the more sentimental parent, as Mom is the voice of reason, his temper has never gotten the better of him.

I broke him.

My tears keep falling as my mother sidles up beside me with her arms crossed. She keeps her voice level. “I agree with your father, June. I think it’s best if you go to New York.”

I’m flabbergasted. Outraged. My own anger heightens as I look between them. “So, this is how you choose to deal with me? Ship me off to a new state?”

“It’s not like that,” Mom says.

Dad intercedes. “It’s exactly like that. Distance is the best way to handle this situation.”

“I’m nineteen years old. You no longer need to handle me,” I bite back. “I’m a grown adult, and I don’t live under your roof.”

His jaw tightens. “Is that why you moved out? So you could gallivant around with your brother in private?”

Fisting my hands at my sides, I snap, “Stop trying to cheapen this. He’s not my real brother… we’re in love.”

“Damnit, June!” he shouts, slicing a hand through the air. He moves in closer—close enough that I can see the stress lines etched into his features. I can see the desperation glinting his eyes. “Listen to yourself. You’re trying to justify a crime. You’re defending a predator.”

Mom jumps in, holding out her hand. “Whoa, hey… Andrew, don’t go there.”

A horrified cry escapes me.

He can’t think that. He can’t possibly think that of Brant.

This was mutual.

“No,” I squeak out. “That’s not true at all. He’s a good man… he’s your son.”

My father’s face contorts with disgust, a finger pointed at me. “He stopped being my son the moment he chose to put his dick inside my daughter.” Then he turns around, disappears into the study, and slams the door behind him.

His hostility vibrates the walls.

The picture frames rattle.

A photograph slips from its place above the doorframe, shattering on the wood floor beside my feet. My hand flies to my mouth as I realize it’s a picture of me, Brant, and Theo on Prom night when we stood in front of the bay window, our arms linked around each other. We’re slightly silhouetted, but our smiles glow bright. And even though my head is tipped to Theo’s shoulder, my bottom half is pressed into Brant.

My right arm is draped casually around Theo’s neck, but my left arm is curled intimately around Brant’s waist.

I suck in a quivering breath, bending down to pick up the photo sprinkled in shards of glass. Memories of that night race through me as I trace a finger over Theo, raking my eyes over his police uniform and knowing it would be the last time he’d ever wear it. His grin is cheesy and wide, and I recall Mom telling us to think about that time we dressed up Yoshi like a UPS man for Halloween. All three of us started laughing, and Mom snapped the picture, catching the precise moment when Brant looked down at me, his face lit up with authentic joy.

I start to cry.

Hard.

Painful.

My mother moves in and collects me in a warm embrace, stroking her hands through my tangled hair and pulling me close. The picture falls from my fingertips and floats down to the pool of broken glass. She whispers into my ear, “I love you. And I love Brant.” Her chin rests atop my head as I fall against her chest. “But I don’t love this.”

I don’t love this, either.

I don’t love that I fell for the one person I shouldn’t have.

It’s not fair.

It hurts.

Wrapping my arms around my mother, I sob quietly into her shoulder, wishing I could jump into the photograph and change our fate.

Theo wouldn’t go to that accident scene, and I wouldn’t kiss Brant on a silly dare.

My eyes land on the photograph, lying amongst the jagged pieces of the picture frame.

Fractured.

Cracked.

I think back to seven years ago when I was standing on the frozen pond. I can still hear my pounding heart. The cruel laughter coming from Wyatt and his friends. Brant calling my name as he raced toward me, his face a mask of blind fear. And then… that sound.

I heard it, louder than all the other sounds.

We all heard it.

That first crack.

I’ll never forget the feeling that shot through me when the ice split. It was only a tiny fissure—a chip in the surface. But it was a catalyst for the big break. The ultimate collapse.

The end.

I’d gone completely still, weighing my options as I held Brant’s horrified gaze from across the pond, knowing that one wrong move could kill me.

And now, as I cling to my mother, a crumpled mess of grief, that same feeling ripples through me. It’s like ice in my veins.

We’re that first crack.

Me and Brant.

One wrong move, one misstep, and we’re going under.

We’re going to drown.

And I don’t know what to do.