Page 16 of Did They Break You

CHAPTER

FOUR

CORTLAND

I hearMom sigh as I come into the kitchen, Tristan with his head bowed at the table, a bowl of cereal in front of him.

Nothing reallyseemswrong, but the tension is thick in the air. I open up a cabinet as Mom closes the fridge, a jug of juice in her hand.

“What’s wrong?” I ask quietly, pulling down my own bowl. I glance at the time. Just after sunrise on a Saturday, and Mom is going into the office because of course she is. I wanted to run at Hyde Park before I met Brinklin for a movie.

Mom pours her juice as I reach for the cereal under the cabinet, and Tristan stays silent at the table.

“Your brother has a cavity. Just told me this morning, too.”

I frown at that, shaking out the cereal, glancing at the multi-colored flakes, before I roll down the bag, close the box, and put it back under the cabinet.

“Yeah,” I say. I’m the one who took him to the dentist last week. “So? He’ll just get it filled, right?”

I turn to the fridge as Mom shoves the juice my way and I take it, meeting her eyes for half a second. Then I set it on theshelf and grab the milk, glancing at Tristan, still staring into his full bowl, but he’s not eating.

My stomach twist into knots, but I close the fridge and pour my milk.

“So he’s not to eat anything with sugar until he can learn to keep his teeth clean,” Mom says, shrugging as she sips from her own juice, leaning back against the sink. She nods to Tristan as she lowers her glass, her manicured nails tapping against the counter at her back with her free hand. “Isn’t that right, baby?” she asks him, her tone condescending.

I see his face flush red beneath his cloud of hair.

I tighten my jaw as I fling open the fridge, put away the milk and shut the door before I snatch a spoon from the drawer.

“It’s okay, Tristan,” I tell him, plopping my spoon in the bowl.

I wish Dad was here.

Not the first time I’ve thought that since he’s been on the road. But I let it go, coming to sit across the table from my brother. I jerk my chin toward the kitchen adjacent the dining room. “There’s a lot of fresh fruit in there?—”

“Sugar,” my mom says in a singsong voice.

I clench my hands into fists as Tristan keeps staring down at his bowl.

He’s ten.

I glare at my mom, wanting to say exactly that, but not wanting to embarrass him further. “Then what the hell should he eat?” I snarl, leaning back in my chair and refusing to touch my own cereal.

Mom’s eyes widen as she turns and rinses out her juice cup. “Watch your language, Cort.”

“And why’s he got a bowl of fucking cereal in front of his face if you don’t want him eating sugar?”

Mom drops her cup in the sink and turns toward me, her eyes narrowed.

She takes a step closer, and I grit my teeth, staring up at her.

“He’s learningself-control,” she snarls. “I put the bowl there so he can figure out how not to give intotemptations.”

My pulse pounds in my ears and I dig my nails into my palms, wanting to run them down my skin.

“And if you don’t watch that mouth, Cort,I’ll have to teach you some self-control, too.”Then she turns from me, stalking off, snatching up her keys from the island. “If he so much as eats a single bite of that, he can fast for a week.”

She leaves, slamming the door closed behind her.

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