•Damien's POV•
What surprises me isn't the current situation at all. I always knew my brother was going to crack eventually. He held it all together pretty well. But honestly you can only hide a monster in a cave for so long.
Sooner or later, I knew all of his real emotions would come tumbling out like water from a pot that's boiling over.
He could've stood in front of me as many times as the sun has risen and set and told me that he didn't blame me or feel any hatred towards me for what he had to go through when I abandoned him in that house, and I still would've just nodded my head while secretly acknowledging it as a lie.
And I don't blame him.
Even though it is so easy to blame someone close for the pain that we feel and the trauma and unpleasant experiences we go through in life, I do not blame him for hating me for this.
Because if I was in his shoes...
I would hate me too.
''He went to the other side of the country for you! He couldn't even travel a couple of goddamn miles for me!'' Cody screams at the top of his lungs. His voice cracking at the end.
Not only does it take a lot to get this side of Cody out, the raw, emotionally honest, barring it all without a single care about how it will hurt the ones who love him, side of him, but it means that he's at his absolute rock bottom.
Because even though he puts on one hell of a convincing front that he doesn't care about anything and almost anyone, Cody cares more than anyone I've ever met.
And really that's one of the things that scares him the most.
Because the people who should've cared about him more than anything else didn't.
So, in his mind, even though he does, why should he extend that same courtesy to the people in his life now?
Why should he care?
Caring out of obligation has let him down. He had parents who had one job as the people who gave him life and they failed him.
Caring out of love has let him down. He has a brother who abandoned him and didn't return to save him from the hell whole he ran away from.
Caring out of hope has let him down. He had a best friend who couldn't stick by his side when he decided he'd finally put in the work to better himself.
Caring in general has just crushed him.
''I would've traveled across the fucking world for you Cody.'' I interject, coming down the hall as quickly as I can without breaking into an all-out sprint.
I heard him the moment he started yelling at Steven and I all but broke my neck trying hurry out of the shower and put some clothes on to make it down here.
Every fiber in my being was thankful that he was okay physically, but just as well every fiber in my being knew that something was wrong mentally.
And it's not like I didn't know he was struggling.
It's not like I didn't finally bite the bullet and take Javier's advice to finally get him some mental help.
I was just too late.
And that's on me.
Because I should've been a better brother to him. I shouldn't have failed him in the ways that I did.
I knew exactly what he was going through after having been in that house because I've been there myself. I should've immediately got him into therapy the moment I got him back.
But if I have to be honest.
I did what I did more for me than for him.
I just wanted to believe that he'd be okay.
That they didn't extensively fuck him up like they fucked me up and that he wouldn't need to sit in a therapist's office to put himself back together like I did, after the people who brought him into this world in the first place tore him apart.
And that was so unforgivably selfish of me.
I make it to him, giving him his space and standing a few steps back because I know how he gets when he's upset. And no matter how much good I know a hug will do him right now, I know how he'll react.
He's not in the headspace for me to smother him in affection.
He just wants to get everything that's been weighing him down all these years off his chest.
He just wants to breath finally.
And unfortunately I'm the sponge in this situation.
I'm the punching bag.
I have to to take everything that he dishes out.
I have to stand here and hear it, not only because I deserve it but also because he has right to say it, to let it go finally and to move on and heal.
He has a right to stop protecting me from his feelings and just put himself first for once.
''The reason it took me so long to get you had nothing to do with you at all...or Steven, or anyone but myself. I was dealing with shit that I should have put aside. I should have prioritized you the moment I got money in my pockets and a roof over my head. I fucked up. Not Steven, not you, me.'' I state firmly. I try to keep the tears out of my voice as much as possible even though I know they're getting ready to come pouring out of my eyes and down my face.
I just want him to hear me. Not all of these emotions I'm throwing at him. He hates emotions.
But maybe that's what he needs more of. Growing up in that house the way he did and never truly getting to feel anything without being punished for it. Maybe he does just need to be doused in a healthy amount of emotions and see that he won't get beat for it.
He stares me down. His red rimmed green eyes glaring into my blue eyes.
He's so angry.
He's so hurt.
Jesus I just want to fix him. I want to go back in time and fix it all.
''Those weren't your battles to fight, and I'm so sorry you had—''
''They weren't yours either. And you fought them for someone who didn't even give a fuck about us. Why?'' Cody demands from me.
Why?
Because...I felt obligated to.
Because I had to protect us.
Someone had to protect us.
I couldn't just keep watching him hit our mother, I couldn't just keep being a punching bag for him either.
And I thought that if I just stood up to him once, just one time, he'd stop.
I thought he'd realize that we weren't easy targets, that we weren't targets at all, that we were his family, his wife and his son and that he'd stop.
But he never did.
And I had to fight every day after that.
''Why?!'' Cody yells at me, snapping my mind from my own thoughts and back into this moment with him.
His hands shoot forward and push hard against my chest, and he puts enough force into it to where I'm actually stumbling back.
I feel Stevens hands on my body, steadying me. But I don't dare turn around to give him an ounce of my attention or so much as a thank you because that would only make Cody more upset.
I step forward, not intimidated by the fire burning in my baby brothers depressed eyes.
He can't scare me away. He's hurting, and deep down he just wants to be done feeling how he feels.
''Why Damien?! Do you think she would've done the same for you? You think she did the same for me?! The one time, the one time I had the upper hand on him and he was as beneath me, on the floor beneath me and I was towering over him for once, you want you want to know what she said to me?!'' Cody screams.
And I'm afraid to answer.
Because I know.
I know she put her husband first, if there's only one thing she's never failed at in life it's putting her abusive alcoholic husband before her kids.
''Do you want to know?'' He asks again, his voice less erratic now. His green eyes losing their shade of anger to be replaced by pain and the brimming of tears.
He's falling apart on the inside, and it's spilling out.
Everything that he's stuffed inside of his head, his heart, his soul, every traumatizing moment of his life up until this point is all overflowing and coming out.
''She yelled at me to get off of her husband. She begged me to stop hitting him, begged me to stop hurting him. She tried to pull me off of him. She's never tried to pull him off of me before. Never. The moment her hand touched me I had to stop my fist from spiraling into her face. I wanted to break it,'' A miserable huff of air leaves his lips.
And in that moment I realized something that I never noticed before.
Something that should've been easy for me to see.
He's my brother, I know him better than anyone.
Or so I thought.
But I didn't notice.
I didn't notice that he hates himself.
Cody hates himself.
I can hear it in his voice. Peeling away at his subconscious and suffocating his heart.
He's afraid...
Of his past yes, of our parents, of course but mostly...mostly of himself.
He's disgusted and ashamed...of himself.
And now that I've heard it I can't unhear it.
I hear it on every last thing he's ever said. Every deep conversation we've ever had. Every dive back into the past he's shared with me.
I hear it all so clearly now that I don't understand why I couldn't see this before.
Why couldn't I see just how much he was hurting?
When did he get so goddamned good at hiding it all from me?
''I wanted to break that unloving, condescending, heartless face of hers.'' He admits, shame lacing his voice thickly, his eyes now void of anger, and instead overflowing with sadness that spills over and wets his face.
''And it took everything in me not to. Everything, Damien. So I packed my shit up and I went to stay with a friend until I found you. And thank god I did, because if I hadn't and I had to go back to that house I know I wouldn't be capable of walking away a second time. And I know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hit her, hell I can barely live with myself now.'' He admits, shaking his head as he closes his eyes for a moment, bringing his hand up to run over his face.
''And now I'm like a fucking runaway train, destroying everything in my path that hurts me because I refuse to ever feel that type of pain and loneliness again. And you hurt me, Damien. And you're out here breaking your neck to be a part of Steven's life when I had to find you. I had to break my neck to be apart of your life. I had to find you when you knew where I was the whole entire fucking time! I sometimes wonder how you can sleep so peacefully at night knowing what I was going through just a few miles away. I close my eyes at night, and I can't breathe Damien! I feel our fathers' hands around my neck every second I find a moment of relief and I hate him for that, and I hate her...and deep down...deep down I hate you too.'' Cody finally admits, the tears taking over and claiming a permanent place on his face.
Before I can put the right words together to tell him that it's okay he's turning around and heading for the door.
I reach out and grab his arm to pull him back and almost instantly he turns around, his left fist flying towards my face.
Lucky for me I'm used to getting hit when I least expect it, from someone I'd never expect it from.
I catch his fist in my hand just before it makes it to my face and force his hand down despite him fighting against me. I look at his face to see him frowning.
His eyes are full with anger again and he pushes me away from him, letting his other fist come swinging out at me, forcing me to tackle him to the ground just to avoid being hit.
I know it's not personal.
I know he's just having a literal mental breakdown right now.
And I'm not going to hit my brother and I'm not going to let him hit me because he'll probably never forgive himself for it.
This is all he knows at his core.
This is his baseline form of communication.
This is how it's always been for him.
Because when our father felt hurt, or misunderstood, mistreated, angry, sad, or even fucking happy, he beat us.
And to drown his guilt he drank, and the liquor only made him feel like more of an outstanding person who didn't have to treat his kids like they were human.
So he beat us more.
But that's not us.
We can break this cycle.
I'll die before I let it break us.
''Stop! I love you, stop!" I yell out at him. "We don't fight each other Cody, that's not what we do, we're not him! We're better than that!'' I scream, but it's like talking to a hollowed-out version of him.
He hears me but nothing I'm saying is registering to him.
He's mentally checked out.
That's how bad he wants to quit feeling all the pain he's been holding onto.
But I'm not about to let him quit on himself.
He can't quit on himself, he can't quit on me!
And if this is just me being selfish again I don't care!
He's a fighter. I'm a fighter. We never just roll over and take it.
We can get through this.
With all the force I'm using to try and keep him from hitting me, he manages to free his hand from my sweaty grip and it comes up to whack me right across the face before I can even try to stop him.
My few seconds of shock are used in his favor as his knee is suddenly colliding with my stomach, knocking the air out of me and he shoves me off of him before getting up and running towards the door.
And despite the way my stomach aches and I feel like I might literally hurl, I get up and chase behind him.
He slings the front door open, making a dash towards his car and I run after him, tackling him yet again to the ground.
"Stop!" I tell him seriously. "Cody let me help you. I'm your brother. And I'm sorry! I'm so fucking sorry for everything. And I know you're hurting just let me help you. Look at me!" I yell, pinning him down despite his constant struggle against me to get up.
He refuses to look me in my eyes and I feel tears coming on again as I admit something to him that I've never told another soul.
"I would have killed him so many times over if it wasn't for our mother stopping me. And every single time I look at what they've did to you, I wish I had." I confide in him. "I would do anything for you, anything! I'm your brother and I was supposed to protect you and I didn't. I messed up and I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry." I plead with him.
What more can I say?
I can't pull my heart from my chest and show him how pure my words are.
I need him to trust me, he's got to believe me.
"I don't want to be—I don't want to feel like this anymore. I'm so sick of being so lonely inside my mind." He cries out, finally stopping his fight against me. Finally looking me in my eyes and taking a deep breath. "I'm tired." He sighs out. "And I don't want to live like this anymore. I just want to give up."
No.
No, not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever, will I let him give up.
He's angry, he's depressed, he's scared, he's suicidal, and I get it, I've been there, I've been in these exact emotions that's suffocating him right now.
I just have to show that there's a way out.
But he has to want it.
I can't make him want it.
I can't make him want to live.
He has to do this for himself. It has to be his own will for life or it'll never mean as much and he'll just find himself in the exact same place he's in right now.
I had to learn that the hard way.
And now I'm going to teach it to him, and it'll be every bit of difficult as it was for me to do it alone, except ten times more because now I have to watch my brother go through it.
"Get up," I say to him. I stand up, grabbing his arm, helping pull him to his feet.
A deep sigh leaves his lips.
"Come with me," I tell him, my hand still on his arm as I pull him along with me.
We make our way around the house, through the side gate and into the backyard. I stop in front of the pool. I turn around and look at him.
When I was at my lowest, my absolute lowest, I tried to take my own life.
And the crazy thing is, at the time I thought I was just fine, I thought I wanted to live, I never thought that I'd want to just be done with life altogether but the depression was rooting itself deep inside my soul and I couldn't take it anymore.
It was about a year after Javier found me. And my life had actually changed dramatically by then. I had everything anyone could possibly need to be happy.
But I wasn't happy.
I was broken.
I was alone, in a hotel bathtub in Tokyo for some modeling job and I just thought to myself...
What if I just let go?
Right here, right now...
I can sink and never resurface, drowning all of my problems with me.
And then I'll never feel this way again...
I'll never feel anything, ever again.
And I did.
I let go, and I let myself sink below the surface of that tub.
And it felt like an eternity that I was just laying there. It really couldn't have been more than a minute and a half but every second felt like a minute.
I didn't feel any pain as my body begged for oxygen. I had felt pain my whole life, this was nothing compared to that.
It honestly felt freeing.
The more and more I let go, the more and more peaceful I felt.
It felt liberating, to feel my body fighting back against me, pleading with me, begging me, to just breathe.
It felt liberating, that for once, I didn't need anyone to fight for me, because my own entire being was fighting for myself right now.
And that's when it hit me.
I didn't want to die.
I just needed to feel exactly what I was feeling in that moment.
The will to fight.
The desire to want to do it, not for anyone else, not for Javier because I felt like I owed him something, not for anybody, just for me.
Living for everyone except myself for so long, I had forgot what that felt like.
That breath of air when I broke the surface felt as emancipating as anything I had ever felt in my entire life.
I had never thought I'd be able to let any of my trauma go, I thought I would wear it for the rest of my life like a second skin.
But I definitely left a part of me in that bathtub that day.
The part of me that needed to die, so that I could find my will to live.
"Jump," I tell him, gesturing towards the pool.
He squints his eyes at me, confusion all over his face as he tries to figure out what the hell I'm talking about.
"You think I want to go for a swim right now? Are you fucking with me?" He asks, the anger coming back strong in his voice.
He pushes my hand off of him and frowns at me, opening his mouth to say something but I beat him to it, my words leaving my lips first.
"We're not going to swim, we're going to sit at the bottom. You said you want to let go, then let go. I won't stop you, I'm here for you. We'll go to the bottom and we'll give up, we will hit rock bottom together. And then after we've been there a while, you decide if you want to come up. Don't decide for me. I'll be down there too, I'm making my own choices. You decide for you. Breathe for you. Live for you. It can't be for anyone else Cody, just you." I say seriously.
I take my phone from my pocket, tossing it on the grass behind me.
"I'm right behind you," I assure him, nodding towards the pool.
He looks at the pool. I see the anxiety in his face as his teeth come to tug at his bottom lip, but then without a second thought, he jumps.
I watch as his body slowly falls deeper and deeper into the water. I watch as it engulfs him just as it did me, swallowing me whole and soaking me to the bone.
I took a deep breath.
And then I followed him under.
While the decent looks fast from above, as the the cold water wrapped around my skin, I realized it was a slow fall. A slow drop to the bottom of a bottomless hole.
I get to the bottom, blinking a few times to better my bison and I reach out and grab his hand in mines as he sits across from me, his eyes shut and his whole world on his heart.
And we sit there.
And even when my chest begins to ache and my head feels like it's going to explode, I don't leave his side.
I made a promise, and I'm going to see this through with him.
Just when I feel as though I can't possibly take it any longer, I see his eyes shoot open. He pulls his hand from mine, lunging for the surface.
I follow quickly behind him, kicking off the bottom of the pool and breaking the surface just in time enough to see his head emerge from the water as he coughs, gasping for air.
I swim to him, taking in my own deep breaths of air as I pull him over to the shallow part of the pool and the moment I can feel the ground beneath my feet I squeeze him in the tightest hug despite the fact that he probably needs all the air that he can get right now.
"It's okay," I tell him, holding him closely to me as I feel his arms wrapping around me.
"It's okay," I say again, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths.
He's going to be okay.
• • A/N• •
This is like a walk of shame. SMDH. It's been years y'all.
Would y'all believe me if I said I haven't updated in so long because I'm secretly a super famous celebrity with a very busy schedule? No? Yeah, me neither cause that shit ain't true...or is it?
Anyway, I'll be seeing y'all around cause we gotta wrap this story up lol, it's been too long.
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Posted: January 10, 2024.