Page 111 of Break My Heart

I swallow hard.

Around us, rain continues falling softly over black umbrellas, fresh graves, and generations of Hawthornes buried beneath the estate grounds.

Behind me, my father calls my name again, demanding my presence. But I don’t turn around. For the first time all day, he isn’t my focus.

Only this envelope from Albert is.

Suddenly I realize something that hurts almost as much as losing him. His friends were telling the truth. He really did want to reconnect.

Now I’m holding proof that he did.

Later, after everyone is in bed, I open his final words to me.

Leo,

If you’re reading this, then I’ve either become dramatically sentimental overnight—which, let’s be honest, would concern both of us—or things have gone very, very wrong.

I’m hoping for sentimental. If it’s the second option, then I’m sorry. God, I hate that my first instinct is to apologize to you. Maybe because I’ve spent most of my life doing exactly that in my head.

I’m sorry I couldn’t shield you more.

I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him from his cruelty.

I’m sorry I couldn’t make our family into something softer than it was.

I recall when you were nine or ten, you told me you didn’t know what was wrong with you. That I was better at handling Father. I know you believed that. But the truth is, I wasn’t better at it. I just learned earlier that surviving and changing people aren’t the same thing.

I kept thinking if I did enough—said enough, became enough—I could absorb the worst of them before it reached you. I truly thought that if I stood in front long enough, eventually you’d stop getting hit by the fallout.

Maybe that’s what older brothers tell themselves. Maybe it’s arrogance.

But I need you to know something. None of what happened in our home was because there was something wrong with you. Not one bloody thing.

You were never too loud.

Never too emotional.

Never too reckless.

Never too much.

You were simply born wanting love in a family that didn’t give it credence. That isn’t a flaw. It’s the thing I admired most about you.

I know you thought I embraced our world. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I even convinced myself I wanted it. But if I’m being honest? I think I liked it because someone had to.

To Father, I became the heir and, once Lila and I had Alex, he dismissed you as if you were a servant. I knew he could do worse, which is why I didn’t speak up in your defense that night. I was wrong.

You left. And Leo, I was glad you did. God, I was relieved even.

Every time I watched you on the telly during a race, with every article I read, and through every interview I listened to, I felt absurdly proud. Yes, I followed your career, every second of it.

I watched your qualifying sessions while sitting in hotel rooms. I listened to interviews while pretending I wasn’t. I knew when your shoulders looked tight before a race weekend. I knew when your smile was real and when it wasn’t.

And every single time I saw you climb into your car, I thought the same thing. That’s my brother. Free.

You looked more like yourself in a helmet than you ever did enduring Father at Hawthorne. I want you to know that I saw it.

I saw you.