Page 190 of The Spider & the Storm

“And I know you knew.”

One single rogue tear slipped down my cheek as my lips fell open with the two most poisonous words I'd ever spoken. “I knew.”

“And yet youstillinsisted that Tommy was haunting you.” Luke rolled his eyes, shaking his head and chuckling loudly. Funny how I couldn't find it in me to join him.

“I didn'twantit to be you,” I admitted angrily, the edge in my voice sharp enough to slice through his laughter and leave his face somber.

“No,” he said, pulling in a deep breath as he nodded. “I get that. But …” He cleared his throat and smiled, a little smug and a lot pleased. “It’s fine. You're not alone anymore. You're okay.”

I huffed an incredulous laugh, finally pulling my gaze from his to lift my eyes to the ceiling and shake my head. “I'm never going to beokay, Luke. I can't go through the shit we've been through and end upokay. I can't …” A knot formed in my throat, and I struggled to swallow it down as my chin quivered and my eyes swelled with tears. “I-I can't lose you and beokay.”

“Maybe not right now. But you will be. She'll make sure of it.”

She. Stormy. Even as I sat across from my brother in some weird half dream, half reality, the tug of longing settled against my heart. I knew I’d wake and be with her. Hell, I knew that, right now, she was lying beside me in sleep. But I missed her.

“I like her a lot, Charlie. She was made for you, man. God, I wish I could've met her.”

“Well, you would've if you hadn't gone and gotten yourself killed.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I know. But, hey, it's all good.I'mgood. You're good despite what you wanna believe. Everything'sgood. And, I mean, considering everything that has happened to us, that's pretty fuckin' amazing.”

I wasn't sure everything was good. How could it be? He was gone. He’d left behind a wife and three kids—all of whom were unlikely to remember him. He’d left me before I had the chance to uphold my promise of returning. All this shit, all this pain and heartbreak, yet he claimed to be good. It pissed me off. It pissed me off so much that he could begoodwith being dead. It pissed me off more than when he'd stolen a life and gotten thrown behind bars. Because it was selfish. It was so fucking selfish … but that was Luke, wasn't it? He'd always been a selfish fucking asshole. Only caring about his own demons, his vices, his anger and incapability to keep it under control, his—

“You're wasting time, Charlie. Focus.”

Through the red-tinted rage I'd been consumed by, I locked eyes with my dead brother. Mine, I was sure, reflected every bit of my volatile ferocity, but his was soft and understanding, albeit stern. It did nothing to quell my anger. In fact, it only served to push me even further.

“God, fuck you, Luke.”

He nodded, allowing me to shove him around with infuriating patience, like some born-again evangelical saint who'd made his peace and was unmoved by the blasphemy of others. “You can feel how you want, but—”

“No, seriously, fuck you.” I shook my head, dropping my gaze to the plate in front of him and the remnants of scrambled eggs. “Fuck you for drinking. Fuck you for pushing Melanie away. Fuck you for simplyexistinginstead of fighting to get her back. Fuck you for killing Ritchie. Fuck you for-for-for …” I reached up, gripped my hair, and tugged as a low, primal groan rasped through my constricted throat. My hands dropped back to the table with a resoundingthunk, rattling his plate and fork. “Fuck you forleaving. Fuck you for that most of all. All these people … your wife, your kids—your fucking kids, Luke! You have fuckingkids, and youleftthem! You left them without a dad, just like you and I were left withoutbothof our parents, but at least werememberthem. At least we had something to miss, something to be sad about, something to hold on to, but them?Yourkids? Goddammit, Luke, they're never going to know you. They won't remember you the way I do. The way Melanie does, and—”

“And did you ever think that, maybe,thatmight be a good thing?”

My brows pinched as I tipped my head and stared across the table at him. “What?”

He clasped his hands on the table and shrugged nonchalantly. So much forrunning out of time. “You ever think it might be a good thing that they won't have to remember their dad, the murderer, rotting away in prison? You ever think it might be a good thing that I can live through stories, told by you and their mother, and not just through monitored phone calls and arranged visits?”

I swallowed and slowly shook my head. “I think stories are better than nothing, sure. But I don't think they hold a candle to the real deal. Stories can't hug you. They don't have a voiceor touch orwarmth. So, again, fuck you for leaving. I'll never begoodwith that, just so we're clear. There's nothinggoodin that, no matter what you might think.”

He pressed his lips in a tight line, and a morose, sad expression blanketed his face. The wrinkles etched into his forehead and at the corners of his eyes deepened, aging him just a little in the heavenly light filling the dining room. And it dawned on me then that maybe it was possible that this wholewe're good,everything is goodact was simply that—anact. Maybe it was what he'd had to tell himself to make his own peace with the way life—his, mine, all of ours—had turned out. Maybe it was what he felt he needed to tell me to move on. Hell, maybe it was what I should start telling myself to make it through the next day and the next, until this brand-new, searing,horrendouspain blended seamlessly with the old ones.

Maybe I should just wake up and be done with this.

Maybe I need to run away again.

“I'll never not be sorry, Charlie,” he replied, low and gruff. “I won't say I'd do it differently because it doesn't matter now. I won't say I regret anything because it doesn't matter now. But I do want you to know that I'm sorry. For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry.”

I shrugged, my shoulders feeling fifty pounds heavier than ever before. “It doesn't matter now,” I said, parroting his words.

“No, it doesn't.” He tugged at the back of his neck and deflated with a sigh. “But listen, okay? I want you to read that letter.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and laid a hand against my brow, shielding him from the tears I was struggling against. “I really don't think—”

“Read the letter, Charlie. As soon as you wake up. Read the letter. Promise me you'll read it.”

The edges of this vivid dreamworld were growing hazy. I could feel it slipping through the cracks between the realms of sleep and awake. Any moment now, I'd wake up, and Luke would be gone again. I didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to say goodbye, and somehow, for some reason, this felt like one. The hardest, most permanent goodbye.

---