Chapter Twenty-Eight

Start from the beginning
                                    

            “Brandon,” I say, looking up at my brother as he slides into the seat beside me, a beer in his hand.

            “Hey.”

            For a while we swing in silence, just soaking up each other’s company. I’m not sure if the quiet is intentional, or whether Brandon’s trying to work up the nerve to say something. After about two minutes of staring out onto the lake, both of us internally mulling things over, he finally breaks the silence.

            “So how long do we have to sit here before you tell me what’s wrong?”

            Half surprised by his bluntness, I try my best to look confused. “What are you talking about?”

            “Give over, George,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You’re not fooling anyone. You’ve been looking miserable all week; something’s bothering you. And all this sitting out here alone? Come on, I want to know what’s going on.”

            I’m kind of amazed how he can read me so easily. Am I really that transparent? Still, I suppose the change in atmosphere is pretty hard to overlook. I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on them. “It’s nothing.”

            “Oh, sure,” Brandon answers sarcastically. “It’s something to do with Connor, isn’t it? He’s been acting weird too.”

            “It’s a really long story,” I say, trying to deter him, but the look on his face tells me he’s not giving up any time soon. “I don’t really know where to start.”

            “How about the beginning?”

            I smile with enough sarcasm to match his own, but it quickly fades from my face. Sighing, I run a hand through my hair and rack my brains for a last-ditch attempt at avoiding this. However, I come up short. Brandon’s looking at me with an expectant expression, obviously determined to weasel the information out of me.

            Maybe it’s a good idea to tell someone, anyway. Keeping it to myself hasn’t exactly done wonders for my mood the past week. And Brandon’s a lot less likely to broadcast this across the family tree than Mom.

            So I take a deep breath, and I tell.

            Sparing no details, I relive the events of the past months. It takes a while, but the story comes tumbling out a lot more easily than I had expected. Once I start, it’s surprisingly difficult to stop. Julie’s divorce, their unexpected arrival, Connor’s inexplicable hatred for me. Then there’s Connor’s party, my brief courtship with Nathan, the kiss in the storeroom and of course, the big finale: the dance. When the story trails off into the present,I exhale deeply, feeling the weight on my shoulders decrease marginally. Suddenly, it becomes clear that I should’ve done this a while ago. I wonder how I’ve been able to keep this bottled up without going crazy. My eyes flicker back to my brother, trying to gauge his reaction.

            He looks slightly overwhelmed, his gaze still trained on my face until he leans back into his seat and takes a sip of his beer. “Well,” he says eventually, “that’s something.”

            “No kidding,” I answer, my mood rapidly deteriorating. I had hoped for Brandon to have some solution, a piece of advice that would enable me to glue the pieces of my life back together, but his perplexed expression is something of a disappointment. Maybe hoping for a magic potion to erase this mess is a big ask, but come on. I need something.

            Then, his gaze snaps back to me. His eyes scan over my face, studying it intently. “You really can’t see it, can you?”

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