Page 56 of Little Stolen Memories

“How is getting your brother drunk, tying him to a tree, and putting a sign around his neck suggesting he’s a stalker and a pervert harmless teasing?”

Xander’s face went red.

I couldn’t tell if it was because he was embarrassed, or because his anger had flared up, or both.

Marcus stared at me, his expression one of confusion.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Marcus said. “You must be mistaken. My brother was never tied to a tree in a park. If he was, I would have known about it.”

I looked at Xander and said, “Is there anything you want to say?”

“There’s nothing to say,” Marcus said, “except … you’ve got the wrong guy.”

CHAPTER 24

The three of us sat in silence for a time, and I waited for Xander to tell his brother what happened to him when he was in high school. But Xander didn’t seem interested in talking or in clearing up the confusion. He stared at the floor, somber and grim, like he wanted the conversation to end, but I saw no way forward until we tackled the demons from his past.

Marcus made a few more attempts to get Xander to talk. When his efforts didn’t yield a result, he shifted the conversation back my way.

“Who told you my brother was tied to a tree when he was in high school?” Marcus asked.

“Who told me doesn’t matter,” I said. “What matters is that the story is true. Your brother was bullied by several of his fellow classmates.”

“Who would have done such a thing? And why? What did my brother do to warrant that kind of treatment?”

“The ringleader and his friends were the same teens who were murdered,” I said. “They picked on your brother at school sometimes. They teased him, berated him, pretended like they wanted to be his friend, even though they didn’t. They lured him to the park, got him drunk, stripped him down to his underwear, and then hung a sign around his neck.”

Marcus looked at Xander. “Is what she’s saying true? Tell me.”

Without looking up, Xander nodded and said, “Let’s not do this right now, okay?”

“Uhh … we’re doing it,” Marcus said. “I want to know what happened that day in the park.”

“Why? It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter,” Marcus said. “I don’t understand why you never told me.”

The fact Marcus knew nothing about the extent to which his brother had been treated in high school came as a surprise.

What else didn’t he know?

Marcus shook his head, leaning back in the chair as he huffed out an irritated, “Come on, Xander. Talk to me. I need to know why this is the first time I’m hearing this story.”

Xander looked up, and I leaned toward him, curious to know what he was about to say.

“Dad thought it was best not to talk about it, so we didn’t,” Xander said. “You remember how Dad was about this stuff. He didn’t like drama, didn’t like to admit that I wasn’t liked or accepted in school. He wanted us both to be tough. To complain about anything, no matter how big or small, was seen as a sign of weakness. To show emotion of any kind was … well, unacceptable.”

“Dad was an avoider, yes,” Marcus said. “He hated talking about feelings, about anything that mattered. I’m not him. You could have come to me. I would have listened. I would have been there for you.”

“You’d moved to Visalia, and you were busy with your own life. Besides, it wasn’t like I wanted to admit what they did to me. I wasn’t proud of it.”

“Why did they treat you that way?”

Xander glanced in my direction, studying my face like he was trying to decide if I knew the entire story or just bits and pieces of it.

Did I know about the prank calls the girls thought he’d made, the heavy breathing, the word game he’d played with Aubree? Rather than keep him in suspense, I decided to shed light on what I’d been told.

“I know about the phone calls you made, Xander,” I said.

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