Page 180 of Beautiful Scars

And I try to find the boy in there.

The one who used to cry at nightmares.

The one who used to tell me we would rule the world one day.

One day, when we were men.

We’d be invincible.

Unbreakable.

We’d be ruthless. Void of emotion. Empty.

That’s the thing about empty shells, though. They’re incredibly fucking fragile.

You don’t realize that when you’re draining yourself of everything it takes to be a real person.

We sit like that for a long time. The sun has gone down and nobody has bothered to switch a light on, but I can see well enough. The sun never truly sets in the summer. There’s always enough light to see in the shadows.

I should know, I spent enough nights locked out of the house curled inside a hidey-hole in a swing park.

Cole starts vomiting.

I don’t move him.

“Cillian, he needs help,” Sarah says. Her hand is over her mouth, I can tell because her words are muffled.

“He’s getting the help he needs,” I tell her.

“He needs an ambulance!”

I shake my head, slowly, still looking at my brother.

No ambulance. I’m not going to drag out his suffering.

Calling an ambulance would be cruel, and I’m trying my hardest to be a better man.

I wish he could have tried, too.

But I know deep down he won’t.

Cole is a man who should have died for a cause. I do think that. If we’d been born a hundred years ago, he’d have fallen in a field in France, taking twenty cunts with him. Regretting nothing.

This life, this time, this fucking century, it’s not meant for men like me and him. It’s mortgages and car insurance renewals and finding some poor misinformed cunt to win a debate against on twitter, because it makes you feel better for five minutes.

Cole was born wanting a war. A real one. I think that’s why we used to spend so much time at that castle. Making forts. He was always the King, but the problem was he needed a right-hand man, and he needed an enemy. And since there was only one of me, he could never have both.

Until now.

I suppose he got his war in the end.

It’s just the war he waged wasn’t even worth it.

He’s choking.

I hear footsteps behind me, too heavy to be Sarah.

Derek touches my shoulder. Brave man indeed. “Cillian, this isn’t right.”