Page 136 of Winning Brynn

A tear falls, and I nod through it. “I know you don’t mean to. I know you’re only trying to protect me, but it’s stifling. You don’t want anyone getting close enough to me to hurt me, I understand that, but what kind of life is that for me? I don’t want to be lonely for the rest of my life, Alex. I want to love and have friendships and care for little girls who don’t have anyone else looking out for them. I don’t want to only rely on you. I love you. You’re my brother. But to answer your earlier question, that isn’t enough for me.”

His eyes swim with defeat. His shoulders are curled in on themselves like he’s a wounded animal, not a six-foot-something soccer player who never takes anything seriously. “Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling like this?”

“I have told you,” I sigh. “You just didn’t listen.”

He covers his face with his hands as his body shudders. I can’t watch it. Closing my eyes, I chew ferociously at my bottom lip as more tears run down my cheeks, stinging my skin in the cool air.

When Alex finally lowers his hands, his eyes are red-rimmed and despairing. “I don’t know how much you remember from when our parents died—you were only six. But that night, on the steps of the children’s home, I watched you break. And every night after, for months, I had to listen to you screaming out for Mom, knowing that, no matter what I did, or how long I let you sleep in my bed with me, I couldn’t bring her back for you.”

His face contorts as tears of his own leak over his face. Mine are falling freely now. I’ve lost the strength to try to stop them, and seeing my brother cry brings forward a fresh, unstoppable wave.

Unable to take it anymore, I reach forward and clutch his hand in mine.

“Alex—”

He shakes his head. “No, let me finish. I was lying there with you after you’d spent another night crying yourself to sleep, and I swore to myself that, for as long as I live, I will never let you feel pain like that again. I couldn’t—Ican’t—watch you go through that again.”

I smile up at him sadly. “I’m not six anymore,” I tell him gently. “I love you so much for what you did for me back then, for what you’ve done for me every day since, and I’m so sorry that you had to look after me so much that you weren’t able to grieve the way you needed to. You were a kid too, Alex. You needed someone just as much as I did.”

“You’re my baby sister. I’ll always look after you.”

“I know.” I nod. “And I’m so grateful to you for that. But I’m not afraid of pain, and it’s impossible to stop it from happening. Even if we could, I wouldn’t want to.”

He blinks in confusion. “Why?”

“Because pain is born out of beautiful things. If we get rid of the pain, we get rid of what came before it. The love that led to grief. The joy before the loss. I still want those things, even if it will hurt me afterward. You think it wouldn’t destroy me if something happened to you?” I ask. “It would. It would kill me. But it would be worth it, because I got to have you as my brother. Because you’re the best goddamn brother in the whole world, even if you’re unreasonable and insanely overprotective.”

His arms come around my shoulders, and he pulls me in for a long hug. I sigh into his shoulder, feeling like that six-year-old girl again who had no one in the world but her ten-year-old brother, who’d dedicated his whole life to protecting her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my hair. “I’m so sorry, Brynn Bear.”

“I forgive you.” I sniff into his coat.

I’ll always forgive him. Because all he’s ever done is try to keep me safe, even if his methods were questionable.

“Do you think you’ll be able to forgive Leo?” I ask, peering tentatively up at him.

His eyes gloss over with a quick flare of anger. “I’m still mad at him.” His gaze finds the trees beside me as he thinks. “Even if I shouldn’t have tried to dictate who you could or couldn’t be with, he should have told me, you know? It hurts that he didn’t.”

“I understand.” I pull back from his hold and straighten my jersey. “It’s my fault too. I’m sorry for that.”

His eyes narrow before he whips his arm out and traps me in a headlock, rubbing his knuckles painfully across my scalp. I laugh, flailing against him until he finally releases me. “That was uncalled for.” I pout.

“You’re a little shit.”

“Me?” I hold my chest in feigned offense. It feels good to be laughing with him again. My shoulders feel lighter now, the air between us clear, any resentment I was feeling toward him drifting away on the early spring breeze. “You punched your best friend in the face, and I’m the little shit?”

The smile fades from his face as he winces. “Guess I have some apologies to make too, huh?”

“Come on.” I grab his arm and drag him back down the trail to the car. “Ain’t no time like the present.”

Chapter Forty-three

Leo

The sound of thedoor opening has me jolting in place on the couch in the living room. Salem looks up at me quizzically before using the coffee table to pull herself up to standing. She stretches her arm out in an attempt to grab the TV remote I put there a moment ago, grousing when she can’t reach it.

“You have toys, baby girl,” I tell her. “You don’t need the remote.”

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