Page 38 of This Blood that Bonds Us

I collapsed at its bank and sank into the snow. My knees were icy when I pulled them to the warmth of my chest. With a shaky breath, I rubbed my chest right over the rapid beat.

Is this what my brothers felt like all the time? So miserable inside they wanted to scream? How were they able to keep ithidden? I couldn’t hide this anguish. All I wanted was Luke to come bounding toward me in the snow and put an arm around me and tell me things would be okay. I needed Zach beside me with his snarky smile and his sureness of safety, but that wouldn’t happen. All of my problems were mine now, and the only person who could fix them was me.

I stared out onto the water and spotted a broken dock not far from me. Memories of the lake in Blackheart swirled in my mind. Back in the heat of summer, when we’d jumped in the water a hundred times. I could imagine us all there when it was thawed and green. The pain of the memory was enough to bring that echo of discomfort to my chest and to the forefront of my mind.

They’d never get to see this place.

It was up to me to bring them back, and I was curled up on the ground, covered in blood, crying over a dead animal. The voice was right. I was pathetic.

The snow soaked through my clothes as I made no attempts to remain dry.

I let it bury me as I sat alone in the growing darkness. A clambering of footsteps sounded behind me, and Presley appeared wearing pajama pants and one of Mom’s faux fur coats. Any other day, I’d have laughed.

I tried to wipe my tears from my cheeks and smeared deer blood across my face.

“Uh-oh. Who’d you kill?”

“A buck.”

“Oh good, I didn’t want to have to find a shovel.”

I sighed and turned back toward the pond. What was worse was having my little brother watch me fail in every way my older brothers had succeeded. I could never fill their shoes. It was pointless to try.

“So, is that what we’re doing now? Freezing and crying in the snow? Because next time, I’m going to need an invite to this kinda thing.”

I scoffed. “Don’t try to make me laugh.”

“I’m not. I legit want an invite to this sob story where we cry and make snow angels after. I’m going to have to veto the animal killing, though.”

I buried my head into my knees, and he rubbed my back. Something tight in my chest loosened. I hadn’t even noticed it until it was gone.

“How’d you find me?”

“Some of it was your footprints, but the snow kinda covers it. I just had this feeling and followed it. I could tell the moment you left.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was doing my own thing and then I kinda felt like I was going to throw up all of sudden, and you were the first person that came to mind. When I went to look for you, Kimberly told me you’d been gone for a while. She wanted to come look for you herself, but I convinced her to stay.”

“You came for me,” I said, rubbing my chest. The ache was still there.

He shrugged. “I’d rather sit and be miserable with you than be miserable alone.”

I never thought I’d be thankful to be united by blood, but something about it was comforting. I wasn’t alone in my pain, and neither were my brothers, and it didn’t matter how much distance separated us, blood didn’t lie.

“I like to think they can feel us too, even if they don’t realize it,” Presley said, watching the sky like someone would part the clouds and fly down in a golden chariot.

“I’ve been thinking that.”

The snow fell silently on the dock in the distance. Who was I kidding? They had felt this way probably more times than they could count. My brothers had been tricked into turning. They’d seen Sarah killed in front of them, then dealt with the mental repercussions all in silence. They’d dealt with the agony of knowing they were going back to that place to be tortured all the more, and I’d never seen them curl into a ball.

Neither of them ran away and cried. If it had happened, I never knew about it and had to worry. As the weight of the cold hit me again, wave after wave, I knew I was being childish.Old habits die hard, I guess.

I had people who needed me. It was time to grow up.

“I’m sorry, Pres. I shouldn’t have run off.”

“I don’t mind it. But I know a girl who’s probably counting the minutes till our return. I told Mom you went to the store for milk and eggs and then she had a conniption because she buys it from this certain guy in town.”