Page 130 of The Spider & the Storm

The movie must've started, I told myself as I grabbed my plate and took my food to the living room. I set it on the coffee table and turned on the TV, hoping something would distract me until my brother once again walked through the door.

The latest episode ofGame of Throneswas just about to come on, and I sat through fifteen minutes of previews as I choked down my burger before the announcer finally said, “And now, the HBO original series,Game of Thrones.”

The theatrical, instrumental theme song began to flood the speakers as the image on the screen took me on a trip through the fantastical lands I'd grown attached to over the years, and I sank against the back of the worn, old couch, ready to immerse myself in the show.

That was when Luke came home.

The front door swung open with his dramatic entrance, and he slammed it shut, locking it and peeking through the big oval window.

Then, he turned around to look at me and said, “Charlie.”

My mouth flooded with saliva as a wave of nausea rolled over me at the sight of his heaving chest and shaking hands. His face, drained of all color. His eyes, big and wild.

“Luke,” I replied slowly, carefully. “W-what's up?”

He walked toward me, propelled by purpose. The closer he came, the louder his unsteady breathing became. “Ch-Charlie, I …” He thrust his hands into his hair, his face crumpled, and to my horror, he began to cry. “I fucked up. Oh God, oh myGod, I-I don't know what I'm gonna do. I-I-I don’t know what I’m gonnado.”

He came to stand before me, then dropped to his knees, grappling for my arms with shaking hands and pressing his face to my thigh.

“What did you do?” I asked, struggling to hold on to what little calm I had left, even as my heart raced to a dangerous speed quicker than it had taken for my older brother to fall apart in front of me.

Luke released his hold on my arms as he took a deep breath and sat back on the balls of his feet. He raked back his mussed-up hair and groaned as he scrubbed at his splotchy red face.

Then, he pulled in a deep, quivering breath and pinned me with his watery gaze, and just as a fresh wave of tears began to fall, he said the three words that would change both of our lives forever.

“I … I killed Ritchie.”

The words left his lips.

His breath came from his open, slack-jawed mouth in short puffs as he looked into my eyes with a wide, vacant stare. But my brow furrowed as my hammering heart banged against my eardrums. I shook my head uncontrollably, my eyes watering in response to the tears falling from Luke's.

“What?” There was no way I had heard him correctly. No way in fucking hell. “Ritchie? How did …what?! Y-y-you haven't seen—”

“He was there—”

“Where?”

“I walked in, and he wasthere, and I tried to ignore him, Charlie. I-I tried to fucking block him out—”

“I don't fucking understand what's happening right now!” I squeezed my eyes shut and reached for my hair, stabbing my fingers between the strands and pulling tightly.

“But,oh God, he wouldn't shut up. He wouldn't fuckingshut up. He never ever,everknew how to shut the fuck up!”

I leaned forward, pressing my head against the palms of my hands. The adrenaline pulsed through my veins, my mind zipping in one direction to the other, unable to collect my thoughts and hold on to a single one long enough to process what was going on. Luke was here. Luke was talking. Luke was sitting before me, crying and heading seriously close to hyperventilation, and I wasn't far behind.

This is really happening.

The sobering thought cleared a path through the barrage of discombobulated nothing in my head. I dropped my hands, and despite the force behind every beat of my heart, I made my best attempt at looking my brother in the eye.

The guy who had sat right there and told me I was a lucky butthole for no longer having to go to school.

The guy who had broken his best friend's nose in the basement after he wished me dead.

Sirens joined the sound of the TV, approaching from somewhere in the distance.

He was the one who'd set me up with my first girlfriend. The one who had taken me to my first therapy session. The one who had broken it off with his fiancée to confess the truth of my girlfriend's infidelity.

The sirens were closer now.

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