Page 18 of My Unfinished Heart

He takes a deep breath and levels his eyes at me, flattening me with his glare. “I expected you to take the money and run.”

I swallow hard.

“You don't have to call or show up for six years, and you still get everything. Well done. How's it feel?”

I drop my head so he won’t see the shame and uselessness on my face. If I really am all he has left, you’d think there would be at least a glimmer of warmth. I know he has it in him somewhere. He used to be a really sweet kid. But I am all too familiar with the woman I left him with. He might have been a little too sweet. Too soft.

My brother has every right to hate me, and I shouldn’t be surprised that his sweetness is withered and dead along with everything else. I see in him what I tried so hard not to let my mother see in me. The parts of him that my mother would have scorned in full. I hid mine, but he wears his like its own kind of armor.

“I’m not trying to make you angry⁠—”

He zeroes in on me with complete contempt. “Who the hell are you? I mean, seriously, who do you think you are to come in here and pawn me off on the psychiatry department then ask me what my plans are? Why did you even come here? For what?”

I let his words push me back in the chair. My voice comes out low and uncertain. “Just to waste your precious time, I guess.”

“Answer the question.”

His hatred and my rising anxiety snap me in half. “What? Why did I come back? I guess if you had gotten a call in the middle of your lunch break about how I’d been critically injured in a car wreck, you would have just said, 'That sucks' and gone back to work.”

“You're such a saint.” His words are acid. “Who called you anyway?”

“Who cares?”

“I do. Who called you? Who knew where you were? Who had your phone number?”

Helen. “A lawyer called me. He got my number from West’s mom, not that it makes any fucking difference.”

Connor’s eyes narrow. “Well, let me ask you this, then. If you were to have been critically injured in a car wreck, wherever you were, assuming you even have a car, who would have gotten in touch with us?”

“What's your point?”

“Did anyone know who your family was?”

“I'm sure someone would have figured it out. It's not like I was in witness protection.” I rub my face with both hands, trying to channel some of my irritation. “Look, Connor, can we start over? What’s your plan?”

He sighs and throws his book toward the foot of his bed. “I just wanna go home.”

He sees me bite down on my response and glares at me. “Is that a problem?”

“Well, you can't stay there forever.”

“Why not? You already put it on the market?”

“No—”

“But first thing in the morning, right?” he asks, his words abrupt, harsh.

I will myself not to react. I can’t let what I’m feeling show on my face—all the regret, all the fear, rising up like a dark storm inside me, out of context and yet much too familiar. I take a deep breath and try to backtrack to where this reunion went wrong. “Look. I'm sorry about leaving the other day. I didn't know what to do when you got so upset. I figure this is all pretty hard on you.”

He laughs. It’s an evil, demonic-type laugh that sends chills down my spine. He gives me a look that makes my balls shrivel. “But not you, right? Just another kink in all your plans for freedom?”

That doesn’t feel entirely fair. “Connor, I never wanted to be free from you. None of this was ever about you⁠—”

“Oh, I know that,” he snaps. “I didn't factor in at all. Which is why I can't figure out why you're here now—when I’m all that's left, and I never meant a thing.”

“That's not true⁠—”

“You didn't even tell me goodbye,” he shouts.