The Other One {Harry Styles AU}

31. Then

There is nothing quite like the cracking of a bone. The sound. The agony. And then the numbness.

He kicked so fast, his size 13 combat boot aimed right for my face. I didn't have much time to defend, just enough to raise my hands. I knew instantly. I just knew it was broken. I backed away from him and onto the couch, cradling my broken right hand in my left. Matty's eyes widened at me. He knew, too.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, leaning back on his hands.

I shook my head, just staring at my broken thumb, the skin oddly stretched around my knuckle.

It used to be us, united, against everyone else. But for the last year or so, I could feel him drifting, shifting, pulling away, turning on me. Turning his anger on me. All those years, all those times my father hit him, blamed him, Matty was finally paying back to me.

His hugs had transformed into hits, his love was replaced with fury, and his smile had vanished into a fog of drugs. Anything he could get his hands on. Weed. Mushrooms. LSD. Nitrous. Ketamine.

It was some combination of all those hallucinogens, maybe the acid and shrooms, maybe the fucking laughing gas and horse tranquilizers, that ruined his mind. His soul was already so damaged, and when he went looking for something to feel better, to feel whole, he ended up destroying the best parts of himself.

He was sucking on one of those fucking tanks when I walked in that last day of December, his last day of December. I was so furious. I needed my brother back. And those fucking drugs were stealing him away from me. Killing him. I slapped the tank out of his hand, cracking the nozzle.

He hit me, fist to cheek, and I fell, clutching my face. But he fell too, thrown off balance by the momentum of his punch. And I struck back, clawing my bitten nails against his cheek. Grabbing at his overlong hair. Kicking at whatever I could reach.

He mirrored my actions. And then crack. Ache. Nothing.

Matty didn't touch me again after that day. Not to hit. Not to hug.