Page 89 of Turn

I was running out of arguments. Maybe if he wouldn’t come back for his own benefit he would do it for someone else. “What about Brecken?”

“He’s got you.”

“He was devastated when you left. He needs you. We both do.” My voice cracked. “The three of us, we’re the Mulligan brothers, a matched set, like the three wise men.”

For a second I thought there was a chance, that maybe something I said had gotten through. But then Tristan answered me with the certainty of a man who would not be persuaded.

“I’m still you’re brother, Curtis,” he said. “I just can’t go with you.”

Tristan started to walk away. Then he turned and said, “Take care of Brecken. Tell him I’m sorry.”

This was agony. I couldn’t let him go. And yet I had no choice but to let him go.

Tristan whirled around and muttered a curse when he heard me chase after him. I thought he might take a swing at me but he let me hug him fiercely one last time.

“If you ever need me,” I choked out, “you come find me. I don’t care what you’ve done or how much time has gone by. Promise you’ll come find me.”

Tristan let out an odd noise and I thought he’d push me away but he didn’t.

“I promise,” he said and I could tell he was crying now.

He was crying just like the day he came home from the hospital and my proud parents placed his newborn body in my small arms. He was crying like the time he was six and crashed his bicycle into a dumpster, requiring twelve stitches to repair the damage. He was crying like the day our father was killed and he looked to his big brother to explain why this had happened to us and his big brother had no answers.

Then he finally did push me away and ran back to the place where he’d come from, a place where I couldn’t reach him. I tipped my head back and looked up at the impassive stars, wondering how many heartbreaking scenes they were watching tonight.

Tristan was nearly a man, at least in the legal sense. He wouldn’t be talked out of living his life the way he wanted and maybe I shouldn’t have been chasing after him at all. Maybe coming down here had been a mistake.

But I couldn’t have just let him go without a fight. I had to try. I had to try even though deep down I’d known all along that I would lose.

There was a gentle hand on my shoulder and Deck Gentry said, “I’m sorry, Curtis.”

I nodded. “Let’s go home now. There’s no reason to stay.”

As Deck drove us out of there I realized my feelings about Emblem were the complete opposite of Tristan’s. The prison we passed on the way out of town was just a depressing landmark attached to a place I’d once called home. I’d built a new world sixty miles northwest where I was an honest citizen who held down a good job and did his best to be a responsible guardian to his young brother.

And maybe, just maybe, that was the guy who could earn the right to be with an incredible girl. A girl who, against all odds, had turned out to be everything he never knew he needed.

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