Page 79 of The Spider & the Storm

“But you didn’t tell me! Another woman fuckingkissedyou, and you didn’t say anything! You don’t see that as a problem, Luke?”

He didn’t reply.

Damn him. Why the hell couldn’t he just say something at the right time foronce?

Melanie shook her head, disappointment ablaze in her eyes as she took a step back from my brother.

“What were you doing at a bar?” she asked, and I knew then where the betrayal and disappointment truly lay.

“I wasn’t drinking,” he whispered, telling the truth.

“Oh, bullshit, Luke. Don’t—”

“I’m not lying,” he snapped, thrusting a hand toward me. “Ask Charlie!”

“He didn’t drink,” I was quick to say, taking a step closer to the table.

“I had some water—that’s it. I just needed to—”

“Youknew?” Melanie asked, stunned by the betrayal, her eyes burning a hole right through me. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I—” I stopped myself, shame and anger igniting beneath my skin, and I hung my head as I silently cursed my brother for making me promise not to tell.

Melanie had nothing left to say. She was right; she was tired of talking. Instead, she turned on her heel and hurried out of the dining room and up the stairs, where I assumed she went to pack her things.

I could only drop into a chair, staring at the meal left uneaten as my eyes glazed over with the pain of losing the only person who had kept us together, and asked, “Why aren’t you stopping her?”

“Why didn’t you fight to stop Jersey?”

Fury dried my tears away as I twisted my lips into a snarl and clenched my fists against the table. “Because I don’t want to waste my life on someone who would do shit like that, let alone not tell me—”

“Right. And don’t you think Melanie deserves to be with someone who feels like that? Because I do, Charlie.” His voice broke as he jabbed his chest with his finger. “I fuckin’ do, and I’m not too blind to see that guy’s notme.”

A torrent of terrible emotion swept over me, and I struggled not to let it take control. I swallowed relentlessly until I was able to reply, “I thought you couldn’t see your life without her.”

He cleared his throat and shrugged, sniffling a little and rubbing his nose, before saying, “That’s because Ican’t. Butblood is thicker than lies, Charlie. And I wasn’t gonna just”—he gestured at the table—“sit back and wait for that bitch to tell you the truth, knowing damn well it was probably never gonna happen. You needed to know, despite the consequences, so I told you.”

I deflated with my exhale, my heart breaking more with every passing second. “Melanie deserved to know too.”

Luke nodded. “Yeah. She did. And now … we live with the aftermath.”

***

I had left Luke at the table, using the excuse that I needed to get something from my room before creeping upstairs. I passed my room, the bathroom, and the door that always remained closed. When I reached Luke and Melanie’s bedroom, I hesitated before gently rapping my knuckles against the door.

A soft, broken, “Yeah?” came from inside, and I pushed the door open slowly, allowing it to creak quietly against its hinges.

I found her sitting in the middle of the floor, several full garbage bags and a suitcase surrounding her. In her hands was a stack of pictures and pieces of paper.

The top picture was of the three of us—Luke, Melanie, and me—taken a few nights after Tommy’s party.

Before my parents died.

Before Luke and Melanie were much more than friends.

Before adulthood and alcohol and life and pain.

She looked up at me from the picture and barely smiled before looking back at the faces of three kids I hardly recognized now.

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