Page 206 of Did They Break You

“My life was already fucked!” I hiss those words, my hands clenched into fists. I take a breath, my chest heaving. But I can’t stop it. The memories burstingthrough my dam. And always with him.

Always.

“It was already fucked, Cortland.” I think of Mom, dying on that couch. Of the ambulance, and the emptiness, and Silas’s unrestrained cruelty. For all her faults—disappearing during the night to sell her body formore, passing out during the day because she was doped up on pills, fighting with Silas and denying her problem—her presence kept Silas in check.

And for all ofhisfaults, of which there’re too many to list,he loved her.It’s why he was cordial to me, when she was alive. It’s why he stayed with her even when the cops delivered her on our doorstep instead of taking her to the station when she was found giving some dude a blowjob in a parking lot for pills.

Just like with Crystal, Silaslikedmy mother. Helovedher.

And I know she loved me, too. We would watch horror movies while she faded in and out on the couch, but she’d hold my hand until she couldn’t anymore. She would stay clear headed enough to feed me, until the end, when she was just…gone.

She loved me.

And when she died, all that love disappeared. From her. Silas.

It wasn’t until I met Sloane three years later that I got any love back again.

Then Cortland… he felt kind of like love, too.

“What happened to you?” Cortland whispers now, and he takes another step, until we’re toe-to-toe.

His words make me uncomfortable, because I’m thinking of all the things that happened to me, and as I do, he doesn’t even factor in there.

While he was supposedly avoiding me to keep me from hurting,I was hurting all the more.

“What happened toyou?”I counter, looking into his eyes. Thinking of his words about his mom being a cunt, and his brother trying to kill himself. I remember his brother in the stands, cheering Cort on. Sometimes, Tristan would glance down at me with a shy smile.

He looked just like Cortland in so many ways.

But he never introduced me to him.

I think of that question Cort asked me in the tent, and I repeat it back to him now. “Has anyone ever taught you what love looks like?”

His brows pull together, and for a moment, we just stand there, looking at each other.

Finally, he takes a breath and nods, looking over my head. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “My dad.”

I think about my own dad. A man I never met. He died shortly after the one night stand he had with Mom. Before she was even an addict.

Mom never spoke ill of him. He never even knew I would exist. I feel hollow about that. Wondering what would’ve happened if a car hadn’t crossed the center lane and hit him head on.

How would my life be different?

Would I have stayed away from boys like Cortland?

“My brother,” Cortland continues with. He scrubs his hand over the back of his neck before he drops it, still staring out into the night over my head.

His eyes shift to mine.

“You.”

I shake my head. “You don’t love me.”

He shrugs. “The fact that you can even stand in my driveway,” he reaches out a hand, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip , “this close to me…” He drops his hand and takes a deep breath, looking up at the sky. I see his jawline. His chest heaving.

He meets my eye again.

“That’s taught me enough.”

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