Page 107 of Creatures Like Us

Reluctantly, I leave Noah’s side to stand like a shield between my brother and the bed. “What are you doing here?” My voice doesn’t come out as biting as I want. I’m so tired.

“Can we talk?”

“About what?”

Ethan lets out a sigh, shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry, okay? I thought he’d hurt you, and I thought he was going to hurtyou again.” He gestures toward Noah’s unconscious form, and a surge of anger crowds my exhaustion away.

Snarling, I push my brother out of the hospital room, and we end up in the corridor. It’s early morning, so there’s no one around, but still, I keep my voice a hiss.

“Do you understand what you’ve done? What you almost did?”

“Is he okay?”

I scoff. “As if you deserve to know.”

“Come on, Ash, don’t you get it? I wanted to protect you from him!”

I cross my arms and look sullenly to the side. “Well, maybe I didn’t need your protection.”

“I guess I got a little carried away. I’m sorry, okay?”

“You want me to forgive you?” I huff out a laugh of disbelief. “After you almost killed my boyfriend?”Boyfrienddoesn’t feel like enough to describe it, but I don’t have any words in my somewhat limited vocabulary to describe what Noah and I are to each other.

“He’s your boyfriend?” Ethan asks skeptically. “That freak?”

I surge toward him, grabbing hold of his jacket, no longer caring about making a scene. “Shut the fuck up! Don’t call him that.”

“What else am I supposed to call him? He fucking hurt us, Asher.”

My mouth drops open. “So you were there. You were there with your friends, trying to bury him alive?”

His expression softens with a flicker of guilt. “We didn’t mean for it to go that far. He was just?…?he was just so weird. He scared us. You don’t understand.”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. Just because someone is different, or you don’t understand them, it doesn’t give you the right to?…?to?…” Images flit across my mind. Images of Noah as achild, trying to fend off his bullies, my brother among them. His screams?…?His mouth filling with dirt?…

Ethan sighs. “I know. I was just a stupid kid, and I’m sorry.”

I let go of his jacket, but I keep glaring at him.

“There’s something else I’m sorry about,” he continues.

“Yeah?” I mutter, feeling too tired to even process this conversation but at the same time too angry to walk away.

Ethan sighs again, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You bullying Noah? Yeah, I know—that’s on you.”

“No, not that. Our parents.”

“Our parents? What the fuck are you talking about?”

He makes a frustrated noise. “The reason I changed. Why I started acting differently around you. Why I said all those things to you before I left for college.”

Oh.

That.

About how I was hopeless from the start. About how our parents didn’t want me. Every time I remember that day, something dark sinks into my stomach, making it hard to breathe. My eyes burn, and before I know it, words spill from my mouth, voice low and miserable.