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“I have no contact with her,” I admit. “For… many reasons. One is that she has been an alcoholic and drug addict since I can remember. And she…” I sigh. “It was not easy to be her son, let’s put it like that.”

Aden reaches out his hand, his knuckles brushing over my cheek. This gesture alone sends butterflies through my stomach like I am some silly teen in love.

“I have blocked her everywhere, but every now and then she manages to reach me through a different number or… I don’t know how she does it. Sometimes, she actively searches for me and suddenly stands in front of me. This time, it fortunately was just a message. But it’s always the same. The same old toxicity. The same old reproaches and guilt-trips.” I pause. “It always makes me spiral.”

Aden stays quiet for a moment. “You must have gone through a lot,” he mutters. “As a kid, but also now. I am sorry this happened to you, Noel.” He pauses. “And your father?”

I stay quiet, my chest clenching so painfully that it takes my breath away. “He passed away,” I finally say. “And I wish I could be sad about it, but I am not.”

Aden turns towards me as much as his swing allows him to. For a while, he is quiet, then he turns back, looking at a point in the distance.

“I don’t have a good relationship with my brothers,” he says into the silence. His words almost make me drop my coffee. I didn’t expect him to share anything at all. “That’s why I don’t talk about them. Now that we are all adults, they regularly reach out to me. I think they want to mend what’s broken, but I don’t know if I want that.”

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Five,” he says. “I am the youngest.”

I grimace. I don’t know much about Aden, but from his online profile on the gallery’s homepage, I do know he grew up in the countryside. “I can only imagine how rough it must have been to have so many older brothers.”

“Yeah, but that was not the only issue,” he continues. “I am their half-brother. Their parents separated, and after a while, our mother began dating my dad. They absolutely hated my existence. One of them outed me as gay, too, which was awful.”

“No way,” I blurt out. “That’s the worst! Like, who the fuck outs someone? It could be so dangerous!”

“I know. I was fortunate that my parents didn’t mind.”

“Was it Kayden?” I ask. “He must have had something to do with it.”

This makes Aden look at me, clear surprise in his eyes.

“Because you…” I feel my cheeks flush. I will just sound pathetic now. “You sounded upset when you talked to him. Differently upset than… I don’t know… I don’t have a comparison. But I felt like it was personal.”

It’s silent for a while. “You are perceptive,” he says. “It wasn’t Kayden per se, but he was the one who backed up the brother who did it and mocked me for being gay… more than the others did.”

“Bitch,” I mutter.

At that, Aden chuckles.

“It’s true! He had no reason to do what he did.”

“To them, I was the fault for their parents’ splitting. You know, the affair baby, though they didn’t even know if Mom and Dad had an affair. They hadn’t, by the way. They met after my mom separated from her ex.”

“Even if,” I exclaim. “That’s no reason to bully your sibling! What the fuck! And they were older than you. At least a couple of them must have known how wrong they were.”

“When my dad died, only my oldest brother and I went to his funeral,” Aden adds. “I guess part of me was never able to forgive the others for this. Oliver was also the first to reach out to me later on. I think he is the only one I feel some attachment to, or rather, I resent him the least.”

“Didn’t you mention your friend, Lynn, dating one of your brothers?”

“She dated Oliver,” he explains. “That’s how she and I became friends. She saw firsthand how fucked up our family was. I think a lot changed while she was dating Oliver. She must have said something to him, but I don’t know for sure.”

“And then?”

“I inherited quite some money from my dad. Once I was eighteen, I moved out to study, and now I am trying not to look back.”

“But they don’t let you,” I conclude.

“Yes, and it’s difficult to make the break, because there is still Mom. She is the only real family I have left, and I really love her.”

I stand up, walking over to Aden, and wrap my arms around him. “Fuck them! When I see them, I will kick their asses,” I say with emphasis because I suck at comforting someone, and this is the only thing that comes to mind, now.