Page 7 of My Brother's Bad Best Friend

“Maybe both, if you keep this up.”

He looks up at me, still not smiling, but his morning ocean eyes lock onto mine. “I’d rather you slapped me than cried, if I had a choice.”

I don’t say anything for a second. I’m honestly not sure how to take that. I can’t tell if he just doesn’t feel like dealing with a crying girl, or if he doesn’t want to see me crying specifically. Doesn’t matter either way, to be honest. Jonas isn’t the kind of guy that’s going to make me feel better right now, and I think we both know it. That’s why he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than here.

And I can’t blame him. Who wants to have to deal with my crap? It’s the same, over and over again. Same mistakes, same tragedies. You’d think I’d learn, but no, I never learn. I’m a lot like my mom, I guess, more than I want to admit anyway.

I can still see the way she looked at me, both disgusted and regretful. ”You think this is what I wanted?” she said to me. “You think I wanted to end up like this?”

“It’s a mistake,” was all I needed to say, and the blowup started.

Another fight, another black eye.

“Okay then,” I say. “Lean forward.”

A little hint of a smile. He leans toward me, scraggly, bearded face looming closer. “Go ahead, if it’ll make you feel better.”

I want to do it. I want to feel that rough, handsome cheek, but he’s practically a stranger to me now. Besides, I’m not angry, not at him anyway. I look away from him and he pulls back, smile getting wider.

“I thought you might do it for a second there,” he says.

“I thought I might too. But we’re on your home turf, so.”

“So you’d better be nice.”

“I guess.” I sip my tea, letting the warm bitterness run down my throat and fill my stomach with something other than bile.

“Ezra’s on the way,” he says. “You can hang out here as long as you want, eat or drink whatever you want. Except for the weed.”

“I don’t smoke,” I say.

“Good.” He smirks at me. “Shit’ll rot your brain.” He stands up and I watch as he walks away without another word.

I turn back to my tea, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with Jonas Larsen, bad boy of San Diego, drug dealer scum, skater asshole, playboy, bastard.

* * *

“What the fuckdid he do to you?” Ezra’s in a strangely good mood as he pulls me to my feet and hugs me tight. I can’t remember the last time Ezra touched me, let alone hugged me.

“It’s nothing,” I say to him.

“Liar.” He sighs, holding me at arm’s length. “Royal?”

I nod a little, not meeting his gaze.

“This the first time?”

I shake my head. “I deserved it sometimes.”

He squeezes my shoulders, hard enough to make me wince. I look back at him and he’s angry now. “You never deserve to get hit, Lizzie. God damn it, what did that asshole do to you?”

I want to explain that it wasn’t all Royal. I want to explain about Nathan, how he’d talk to me like I was a dog, how he’d offer to share me with his friends sometimes when he got drunk. He never did it, but he always sounded like he would. I want to explain about mom, all her plastic surgery, all her insanity, the string of affairs with younger men, the pills and the new acting career, but I don’t. I shouldn’t need to explain any of it, because he should’ve known it all already.

I want to be angry at him, and I reach for it, but instead there’s just a hollow little nugget where my rage usually is.

“Can I stay with you for a while?” I ask, meeting his gaze and changing the subject. My half-brother, five years older, practically a stranger.

He hesitates. It’s hard to miss, that hesitation, and I know what it means. But he quickly recovers himself. “Of course you can,” he says, grinning big. “I wouldn’t let you go back to that house even if you wanted to.”

---