Page 6 of Unstoppable You

When I’d been in Boston I’d barely heard from him once a month. In the two days since I’d been back, he’d messaged me at least five times. As if I had some sort of responsibility to help him claw his way out of his bad choices. Connor had a lifetime of them piled up by now.

I ended up just calling him rather than go back and forth with messages for an hour.

“Hey, Connor, no, you cannot stay with me. You’d have a place to live if you hadn’t cheated on your girlfriend, who was too good for you, by the way,” I said as a greeting.

“Aw, come onnnnn, Jimmy. It wasn’t my fault.” He knew how much I fucking hated it when he called me “Jimmy.”

“How? How wasn’t this your fault, Connor? She walked in on you fucking someone else. Did your dick just happen to slip into her body?”

“That’s not what happened,” he said and then rambled out a long story of how he wasn’t to blame for anything. I’d heard it all before. He needed to get a new script.

Finally, he took a breath and I cut him off before he could keep going. “Connor. You are twenty-seven years old. It is time for you to grow the fuck up, get your shit together, and be a damn man. Do the work and maybe then we can talk. Until then. Bye.”

I hung up on him, shaking with anger.

My parents would be his next call. Dad first, and then Mom. One of them would help him after he talked them into it. That was what Connor had always done and it had always worked.

No wonder he thought he could cheat on his girlfriend and talk his way out of it. He’d talked his way out of anything from speeding tickets to vandalism to cheating. Delaney wasn’t the first girlfriend he’d fucked over.

One of these days I wasn’t going to answer his messages at all. That day hadn’t come yet, but it would, eventually. I simply didn’t want someone in my life who didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. Yes, he was my brother, but that didn’t entitle him to a place in my life.

Frustrated and annoyed at having to deal with my manchild brother, I tried to go back to reading, but my mind wouldn’t settle. Instead, I threw on some shoes, turned on a podcast about a religious cult, and went outside. I was still all shaky and sore from Pilates, but I needed to move. Outwalk my family drama.

This shit was why I’d moved away in the first place. I had no doubt I was going to get messages from both of my parents about being a terrible sister for not letting Connor crash on my couch, eat my food, do zero chores, and pay for nothing. The rule was that I had responsibilities to him, but he didn’t have any to me. Ever.

“Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them,” I chanted as I stomped my way down the sidewalk. I was relatively close to the park, so I veered that way and tried to take in the trees and the fresh air and the ducks floating on the pond to give me some kind of peace, but it wasn’t working. I wanted to throw rocks in the water and scream and maybe break some shit.

I did a quick search but there were no rage rooms nearby. Of course. I’d never been to one before but now that I needed one, there wasn’t one to be had.

I paced around the park until I was hungry again and stopped to buy a brick oven pizza slice the size of my head at a nearby restaurant. That helped my mood somewhat and by the time I returned to my apartment, I was a lot calmer. Maybe I should start meditating or something. This stress probably wasn’t good for my blood pressure.

Raging about Connor inevitably made me think about Delaney. The two of them had been together for four years. I’d been floored when I’d found out from my parents that they were a couple. He hadn’t looked twice at her when we’d been in school and had even said some shitty things about her looks, but since I’d done the same thing, I didn’t feel like it was my place to give my two cents about her dating him.

And would she have listened to me anyway? Not likely.

Delaney, Delaney, Delaney.

When I’d kicked the dust of this state off my shoes and had started fresh in Boston, I’d put everything about my old life behind. My family, people I’d known in high school, everyone. Including Delaney.

Not that she’d wanted to see or talk to me anyway. The wounds I’d left from the slings and arrows of middle school were deep and they weren’t healing anytime soon. The guilt I carried had eaten away at me over the years, waking me up in the darkest hours of the night, sitting on my shoulder, whispering on my ear. I’d thought about reaching out to her so many times. Hundreds of times. Had written dozens of messages and even letters. I still had some of them somewhere, folded away and living in journals.

Now I had my chance to do this in person, so maybe there was a reason I’d never sent those letters or typed those messages. Maybe it was supposed to be like this all along.

Chapter Three

Delaney

To sayI was furious at James for ruining my post-Pilates endorphin high was an understatement. I was LIVID. It was a struggle when I got home not to trash my entire apartment or scream until my neighbors called the cops.

Instead, I rage-shopped online, finally buying the skirt I’d had my eye on for ages, as well as a special edition hardcover with sprayed edges from an author that I was obsessed with. You’d think being a bookseller that I would get sick of books, but it had had the opposite effect on me. I couldn’t get enough of them.

Someday, if I ever managed to get my hands on a bunch of money, I was going to buy a house and devote the entire place to books. There wouldn’t be a single wall that wasn’t covered in books. Obviously there wouldn’t be any in the bathroom, but I’d already picked out the perfect bookish wallpaper.

Someday.

Thinking about my book house was much more fun than thinking about James. Fucking James. Why did she have to choose now to show back up in my life? Was this some kind of cosmic punishment? Hadn’t one member of her family already ruined my month enough?

At least Connor hadn’t contacted me today. He’d still been randomly sending me messages, which was funny because he’d barely sent any when we’d been together unless he was asking me to do something for him.

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