AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Garin’s mother reached for his face again, and he jerked back. He had to get the words out.
“And they can’t do that if I don’t handle you!”
For a long moment, Garin’s mother said nothing. He kept his gaze riveted to their hands, and, silently, she put her other hand on top of his and patted it.
“And I’m glad that you’re doing so well now.” Garin shook as he continued. “But it has been two months that you’ve been here and two decades that you’ve been functionally gone, Mom, and if we lose you again, I cannot let that land on them.” He jabbed his finger at the door his siblings had left through.
“Have you ever thought that maybe they don’t want it to land on you, either?” His mother pulled his hand back down and forced him to look at her.
Garin scoffed. “They’re too young.”
“They were too young. They’re not anymore.” Garin’s mother clutched his clenched fist. “They don’t want you to sacrifice yourself, Kevin, and they certainly don’t want to be the reason you do it.”
Garin pulled his hand free. “Better me than them.”
“That is not true.” Garin’s mother grabbed his shoulders. “I know I am the reason you have had to shoulder so much. And you have no idea how grateful I am for how you took care of this family, for how you took care of me. But I will not hold my son back anymore.”
Garin winced. “Mom, you didn’t?—”
“I did.” Garin’s mother’s jaw clenched, her eyes serious but pained. “I did. But that’s over now.”
Garin sighed. “Mom, you don’t know that.”
“The meds are working and I am working and I will pay for them.” His mother slid her hands from his shoulders to either side of his face.
“And if they stop? If the price goes up?” Garin tried to tug free.
His mother didn’t let him go. “Then you have three amazing siblings that will help carry the load, Kevin.”
“No!” Garin tore himself loose. “I don’t want that for them.”
“And they don’t want this for you.” His mother dug her fingertips into the couch’s upholstery and didn’t grab for him again. “Don’t make them watch you ruin your life.”
Garin stood. “I’m not ruining my life.”
“Where’s Sazahk?”
Garin’s spine went rigid. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Do you think this is what your siblings want?” Garin’s mother snapped to her feet. She’d been so hunched and waifish for so long, Garin had forgotten she was almost as tall as he was. “You think this is taking care of them? You think this is protecting them?”
“I’m doing this for them?—”
“It’s not for them! It’s for you.”
Garin recoiled.
His mother pressed her advantage. “For them, it is guilt and grief and sorrow and worry. Don’t make them live with that. They don’t want to be the people that abandon their brother. Don’t make them those people.”
Garin’s own words hit him like a slap in the face. Don’t make me that person. That was what he’d said to Dominic. He couldn’t have lived with letting someone he loved throw everything away.
Was that what he was making his siblings live with? Was that what Beaty carried every time she found out about the hazard pay they’d get because he’d volunteered for some horrible mission? Was that what Lucas and Ethan carried? Was that what they’d felt when they’d looked at Sazahk and they’d looked at him and known it would end in tragedy?
Because his siblings weren’t stupid. His siblings saw what he did. And as much as Garin denied it, they saw what it did to him. And he’d struggled to make sure they would never feel about their life the way he felt about his.
Because the pain of that would have been unbearable. But he was forcing them to carry that pain.
When he’d walked out of Sazahk’s ship that morning, he’d stabbed himself in the heart and he’d stabbed the hearts of every single damn person that loved him and loved Sazahk.
