Page 156 of Give Me Love

“For some reason, Bryce thinks he has to help that woman.” He shakes his head. “She’s never been good to us. She’s never been the mother we both deserved. But Bryce can’t shake her.” He looks down at his crossed feet.

I try to let his words sink in. If I had told the boys about catching her, maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation. Or maybe…like he says, she would. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale the buildup of stress on my shoulders.

This whole situation is shredding years from my life.

“Our father was a good man in love with a bad woman. Some people are just broken and there’s nothing you can do about it, no matter how hard you try, but my brother won’t accept that.” He blows out air and tilts his head up to me. “Have you spoken to him?”

“No,” I reply, my voice sounding defeated. I can’t help the guilt that I feel. Deep down, I know I didn’t make Mary do what she did, but it doesn’t change the fact I could have stopped it…somehow.

He nods. “Me either.”

I narrow my eyes. “Why?”

He shrugs. “That’s Bryce. He’ll talk to me when he’s ready.”

This worries me. Even though he’s not speaking to me, I still care. I can’t shut that off, no matter how hard I try. My feelings for him are like a leaky faucet. Slowly they drip through the cracks he’s fabricated inside my incarcerated heart.

“Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Jace removes a hand from his warm pocket and runs it over his buzzed hair, reminding me of his stubborn brother. “I have an idea or two.”

“Can you tell me?” I ask, moving to sit beside him, I put my knees together and press my arms to my sides.

“You sure you want to see this side of him?”

“This side of him?” I furrow my brow. I remember how drunk Bryce got the night he and his mom argued. Surely he can’t get any worse than that?

Jace slides his hands over his thighs as he sits up. “Bryce hasn’t always been so…self-controlled. When we got into that car wreck and our dad died, something broke inside of my brother.” He exhales and moves his coat to the side as he reaches for the cigarette pack I now see in the front pocket of his button-up shirt.

I’ve never seen this side of Jace before. He’s always super laid-back and joking, but when he talks about his brother and the past they share, I can see the pain he hides from the world. He’s older this way.

Placing a smoke between his lips, he lights it and leans back against the bench. “Growing up on Grant Ranch wasn’t easy for Bryce. He withdrew from everyone and became angry. He constantly partied and would come home piss drunk and mad as hell at the world.” He hits his cigarette. “It was tough to watch.” Like fog, smoke crawls out of his mouth as he looks down at the ground.

“He was thirteen, right?” I say after a minute of silence.

Jace lifts his brow. “Hmm?” His thoughts ran away with him, and I see how Bryce acted as a teenage boy really affected Jace.

“I said he was thirteen, right?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He nods.

“So that must have been tough on him. I mean, all he knew was the family he already had. One minute he’s having to take care of his kid brother because his parents aren’t able to and the next his father is gone, his mother gives him up, and he’s thrown into this new lifestyle. One where he actually gets to be a teenager and not a father figure. Who wouldn’t go a little wild? Who wouldn’t be mad at the world?”

Jace brings his brown filter to his lips and closes an eye to keep smoke from irritating it. He shrugs. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”

“Really?” I ask. “How can you not?”

He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m not sure. I guess I relied on him…maybe too much.”

“And you feel like he let you down?”

He looks at me, and I see a hint of his own shame. Jace put Bryce on a pedestal, forgetting that he’s only human.

We fuck up.

We make mistakes.

Sometimes we win; sometimes we learn.

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