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Prologue
Lucas
13 years old
My mother sets a cake in the center of the table as I stare at my brother over the thirteen individual flames.
“One, two, three, go,” Adam announces.
Caleb starts to laugh, but quickly presses his lips together as he gazes wide-eyed at me across the table.
Mom starts singing first, her sweet soprano voice louder than my brothers’ or dad’s. Isaac and Adam are standing on either side of the table, trying to make one of us blink as Caleb and I battle each other in a staring contest. The same staring contest we have every year on our birthday.
I won last year, and neither of us has won two years in a row yet, so I’m trying my best to beat him again.
“Boys, knock it off,” my father booms from the head of the table in the middle of the song.
When Isaac waves his hand in front of Caleb’s face to get him to blink, Dad swats him in the back of the head, and I flinch, blinking immediately.
“I won!” Caleb proclaims, throwing his hands in the air.
I can’t take my eyes off Isaac as he clearly fights the urge to cry.
“Blow out your candles!” Mom says excitedly.
Still tense from watching my dad hit my brother, I forget to make a wish as I lean forward and blow out the candles with Caleb. Mom kisses the top of my head before she cuts the cake and hands me a piece.
“Happy birthday, my sweet boys,” she says.
Then, she hugs Isaac to her side and I see a single tear fall down his cheek, so I push my cake away and glare at the man at the head of the table.
I think my mom notices because she immediately tries to distract us and lighten the mood—ever the mediator.
“What did you boys wish for?” she asks excitedly as she takes a bite of cake from her own plate.
“I bet Luke wished to finally get a girlfriend,” Caleb jests with a laugh.
I scowl at him. “I don’t even want a girlfriend,” I reply. “I bet you wished for an extra brain cell since you probably lost the last one playing football.”
He flips me off where our mother can’t see it and I laugh to myself. Even my dad cracks a smile at seeing my brother and I poke fun at each other.
But when the room goes quiet for a second, little Isaac asks, “Do you want a boyfriend?”
The sound of a fork clinking against a small dessert plate is the only sound in the room as we all stare wide-eyed at Isaac.
“What did you just say?” our dad asks with a cruel, biting tone.
Isaac starts to shrink into himself. The tension creeps in as I wait for him to say something, trying to understand why he would ask that.
“Be—because Luke said he doesn’t want a girl…friend.”
Isaac’s only six years old. He doesn’t understand why a teenage boy doesn’t want a girlfriend, and his innocent mind only assumes that means I want the opposite.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I say, staring at him with warmth in my expression. “That’s not what I meant, but it’s not wrong to ask that. Some boys do want boyfriends.” I know full well this response will not go over well at our family table with our dad at the head.
A loud booming sound fills the dining room as my father’s fist lands against the table, rattling the dishes.
“Lucas, so help me God,” he shouts. “If you don’t stop it, right now.”
