Page 136 of Van Cort

“I’m not asking you to forget it, West. God knows I can’t. I don’t even have a decent excuse for it other than blind rage, confusion, hormonal reaction. Alcohol maybe. Years of goddamn abuse. You, her. I was a disaster waiting to happen. Still could be, I suppose.” He sighs and stops, shifting his body so he’s not next to me. “But I’d still do every minute of it again as long as you didn’t get the brunt of our father. I would. I don’t regret that part of anything. It was my job to keep you safe. I did it as well as I could.”

“It wasn’t your job. And I never asked you for it.”

“Maybe not, but I took it on anyway.”

I frown and shove my hand in my pocket, uncomfortable with this line of conversation. “What do you want from me regarding that?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes, you do. You called me the problem that night in your apartment.You said that you let her go over that cliff because I didn’t let you have her, as if I should have understood your pain and realised you needed me to give her to you. The thing is, Rhett, I’d already made that choice. I accepted that she would go with you to Harvard, despite it hurting like hell for me. That was my penance for those beatings you took. I was ready for that. I didn’t know she was going to say what she did. What did you want me to do? Say no?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I wanted you to say back then.” He shrugs. “I probably wouldn’t expect the same now, or make the same choice now.”

“Probably?”

“Probably.”

“So, if Andie comes back now and says she wants me over you, you’ll be fine with it?” He takes a sip of his coffee and stares out over the water, presumably thinking that conundrum over. I expect he has already. I have.

“I’ll do my best not to drop her off the roof.” My head whips sideways to glare at him.

“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Hmm.”

“No handshake and the best man won speech?”

“Absolutely not. I might love you, and I might have to respect her decision, but I don’t have to congratulate you for it. Don’t expect me to.”

“Would be nice if you did.”

“I’m not nice. And she’s not going to choose you anyway, so it doesn’t matter. She’ll choose us, or neither of us.”

“You don’t think she’ll choose you over me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because her forgiving me enough to still want me means she loves me, and that means she knows how much I need you. There is no version of me alone that she’ll want now. I’m unresolved without you.”

I’d like to give some pleasant statement in reply for him telling me he loves and needs me, but I’m still too pissed at the crap proposal to bother.

“Maybe she will want me over you then. I am the better brother after all.”

He side-eyes me again.

“Maybe. It’s possible. I wouldn’t count on it, though.”

Kicking a stone into the water, he turns and starts to walk along the path leading to the stony outlet. It’s quieter now than it was last time I was here with her, fewer people, which is probably the reason he’s chosen here to meet.

“Do you want to go back there?” I ask, as we keep moving. “Home, I mean.” He looks at me briefly before choosing another direction to gaze into.

“I don’t think it was ever a home for me, and I won’t go back there without her.”

I nod, understanding that without hesitation. “But you must miss the silence, Rhett. All this around you now seems so unlike the you I once knew.”

“The me you once knew wasn’t a stable man, West. I think you’d prefer this version for what we’re hoping to achieve.”