Page 68 of A Wedding in a Week

I want to heal his.

“It’s going to be—”

“Don’t say ‘okay’,” Marc grits out. “I should never have…” His gaze flicks to the front of the cockpit, red-rimmed and desperate, which the duke must notice. He toggles something, and I see that he speaks again, but I can’t hear him now—Marc and I are alone. Or that’s how it feels, even with four of us airborne.

The helicopter veers to the right, and I’d see Kara-Tir if I could make myself look away from Marc. I don’t see the farm below us, only High Tor’s peak beside Marc when we pass it, which means we must skim the top of its smaller brother, and a memory pops up as if it’s been waiting for this moment.

“Remember the first time you climbed High Tor with us?”

Marc frowns at this segue, but he nods, red-rimmed eyes fixed on me, and that’s better than his visceral desperation, so I keep going.

“We camped under Whisper Tor the night before, yeah?”

He nods.

“Dad told you it was a good place to leave anything too heavy ahead of our big climb, only he didn’t mean our rucksacks. He meant anything heavy in here.” I touch the centre of my chest, and almost regret that placement until Marc nods again. “All you had to do was stand at the smaller Tor’s base and whisper. It would take that weight so you’d be able to climb much higher in the morning.”

Back then, I’d slanted a dubious look Dad’s way because all of that was bollocks. But he’d known what I hadn’t about how that tor came to be named, and later that night, Marc had crept out of our tent and Dad had followed. I hadn’t heard what the curvature of the tor’s stone base bounced Dad’s way. I’d only seen those huge shoulders of his bowing.

Now Marc shares at least one of those whispers with me.

“I said I didn’t want to hate my brother.” That opens floodgates, ones that must be stiff and rusted. Saying this takes Marc effort. “I wanted to be a good brother to him, like you were with Lukas.”

I must let out a disbelieving sound.

His retort shoots back. “You were good with him, Stef. So good, even when Lukas bugged you. I mean, we followed you everywhere, but even if you put him in a headlock to stop him, it was the good kind, you know? The fun kind of headlock to get him out of your bedroom, not the bad kind that hurts for ages after.” He touches his neck, and that’s a gutting clue that he knows the difference. I guess why the moment he adds, “I couldn’t hate Noah just because my stepdad wanted me out of the way, could I?”

I make myself speak, aware that both of my fists would curl if one of them wasn’t still out of action. “Out of the way? What do you mean?”

Marc shakes his head, avoiding eye contact with me. Then he does meet my eyes and I almost wish he didn’t, this look a reminder of a different rejection, my fault for it.

Now he tries to smile, and that’s somehow worse. He also touches his hair as if every auburn strand justifies what he confesses. “Actual red-headed stepchild, you know? I figured that out after my stepdad moved in. I was in the way. Too noisy once Noah arrived. Too messy. Too… everything, apart from being his. So I stayed out of their way, yeah?”

I nod as if I understand a family pushing away one child for another.

He nods too, looking all of eight years old again for a second. “I knew it wasn’t Noah’s fault. He was only a baby.” His frown adds so many years. “But looking back, things were bad before he was born.”

I ask the one question Dad had made me and Lukas promise not to. “How bad?”

He shrugs. “People had already noticed that I wasn’t allowed home.”

“What?”

Allowed home sounds very different from staying out of the way—an order, not a choice, which Marc confirms.

“When Noah came, I couldn’t go indoors unless it was a mealtime.” He makes that sound normal. “Or for bed.” That also sounds normal from him until he refutes it just as quickly. “Now I see memes online, you know? People reminiscing about only having to come in when it got dark in summer, or drinking out of garden hoses. Doing that year-round isn’t half as much fun. Plus, blocks of council flats don’t have garden hoses to drink from.” He chuffs. “Mine didn’t have any fucking gardens full stop, just gangs and graffiti.”

He’s describing straight-up neglect, and part of me always knew that—kids don’t get into respite fostering programmes for no reason. Respite? He should have been safe year-round not only in the summer. I almost say so, only his next knife-sharp glance stops me.

“My stepdad went ballistic when Social Services got involved.”

I don’t know if he’s conscious of rubbing his throat again. All I know for sure is that my numb fist tingles.

Marc’s hand drops to his chest next, rubbing while he checks his phone.

I guess why. “We’ll be there soon, and Noah—” I don’t swear that he’ll be fine. Another sharp look means I make a different promise. “Lukas won’t leave him.”

Marc nods. He also continues spilling details. “I still don’t know who told Social Services that I was locked out whenever I wasn’t in school. That I had to knock on neighbours’ doors when I was thirsty.” He lets out another chuff. It’s far from laughter. “I told the social workers I was okay, but they didn’t believe me, and they must have done something while I was away that first summer because I wasn’t locked out anymore when I got home.”

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