Page 193 of Charming Like Us

Those words slice me up worse than his fists ever have. I nod slowly. “Yeah, I’ve felt that,” I tell him.

He grinds down on his teeth. His wavy hair blows in the wind. Jack unhooks his camera bag from his broad shoulder, dropping the thing to the grass. I meet understanding in his gaze, and he gives me a strong nod, shooting strength through my veins.

God, if I had to do this without him…I can’t think it. Don’t want to even imagine it. I realize it doesn’t matter what he’s here as—my boyfriend or some limited edition husband. It makes no difference. His support is still the same spellbinding force that carries me tonight.

I take a breath and turn to my brother.

Quinn drops his arms. “It used to be easier ignoring you and just letting the silence eat at us. But every time we’re in therapy it’s so fuckingunbearable.” He grinds down on his teeth. “Because I have to sit there knowing that you’re the reason I still have a job. You did something good for me. You were willing to quit security for me.” His eyes redden. “But I still can’t stop hating you.”

What did I do?

“Just tell me why you hate me so much. I want to know, Quinn.” Desperation clings to my voice. “Please.”

Colorful lights dance across his cheek, across the scar beneath his eye. Someone in the distance cheers as they win the strongman game.

He waits for their celebration to end before speaking. “Telling you won’t change a damn thing,” he breathes. “Other than kill me and hurt you.”

“This has already killed you, bro. It’s already hurt me.”

He chokes on a sob and presses a hand to his eyes.

I want to comfort him, but I’m afraid it’ll just incite his anger. “Whatever it is,” I end up saying, “you don’t need to carry it on your own anymore. I’m here.”

He lets out a staggered breath, nearing a panicked laugh. “You’re here,” he repeats and stares at the grass. “You know I used to idolize you. My bigbrother. Oscar Oliveira. The strongest, biggest badass I knew.” His eyes meet mine, and he struggles with the next words. “I’d follow you aroundeverywhere. You remember that? I’d tell you: “Quando eu crescer, quero ser como você.”When I grow up, I want to be like you.

It hurts to breathe. “I remember.” He was just a little kid. Five or six.

He twists the silver chain around his neck. Our mom gave him the necklace after his confirmation. A pendant of Saint Michael the Archangel is engraved in the middle. “What about when I was really little?” he asks me. “You remember how you’d bend down to my height and you’d put both hands on the top of my head, and you’d tell me: Eu sempre vou te proteger.”I’ll always protect you.

We’re in an open field, but it feels like walls are closing in around me. I’m back in Vienna, trapped in an elevator. This time it’s just me and my brother and the gnarled roots we’ve kept buried for years.

“I remember,” I whisper.

His nose flares. “You’d say that over and over. Eu sempre vou te proteger. Eu sempre vou te proteger. Even when I was nine, and you left for Yale, I believed you.” He ruptures into tears. “You kept telling it to me when you were hundreds of miles away, and I fucking believed you!”

I choke on my own breath.What happened? What the fuck happened?!I want to scream it. I want to protect him right now. I did something…I didn’t do something. I’m so lost, but I feel his fucking pain, and I want it to end. “Quinn, I love you—you have to know that.”

His hand goes to his heart, and he fists the fabric of his shirt like he’s trying to stop the organ from beating. “Your love is weak, Oscar. It never protected me.”

I blink back tears, a hand to my mouth. Jack edges close like he means to comfort me, but I just shake my head. No…no…my brother wants to hurt me.Needsto. I’m going to let him.

“You came home eventually,” Quinn continues. “But it wasn’t long before you joined security, and then you might as well have left all over again.Eu sempre vou te proteger.Fucking bullshit.” He sucks in a harsh breath. “I wasfifteen.” He chokes. “Fifteen. You were twenty-fucking-five and you couldn’t protect me!”

He just gave me an age…a timeline.

For the first moment in my life, I know when our relationship shattered. This news pulverizes me to the very core. “Fifteen?” I breathe, knowing this wasbefore. Before he started training to box.

“High school was hard. Every day, I went there knowing I’d be shoved into a locker or railed on. Stupid shit that you’d think only happens in the movies,” Quinn says, teeth clenching, “but I was the loser who landed into every fucking cliché.”

“I don’t understand. You were popular in high school,” I say, desperate to make sense of this. “You were co-captain of the field hockey team.” Though I know that sport got dropped as soon as he took up boxing.

“But you never saw the other co-captain slam me against the locker room walls. Never saw my teammates shove my face into the grass.” He blinks. “You just assumed that I was popular because I played sports? My teamhatedme. They hated me for no fucking reason other than I cried when I got knocked down. Same reason dad spit-screamed into my face the first month of training.” He shrugs but it’s stiff like his whole body is made of iron. “And maybe I deserved it. I was just counting on my big brother to come save me or something.” His eyes sink into mine. “But that never happened.”

Eu sempre vou te proteger.

I will always protect you.

“If you would’ve called me—”