Page 120 of Beautiful Broken Love

“Deke, you don’t have to keep going,” Davina whispered. “You can stop if this is triggering you.”

“No.” I swallowed again and stared down at my plate. “Because this shithauntsme, Davina. I feel like it’s my fault Damon killed himself. After my dad beat him like that, my mom was hysterical. She said she was calling the police, and there was a big argument between them. She kicked our dad out that night, and I used to share a room with Damon, so I saw all the mess in there, the broken chair, blood on the floor. When he got back from the hospital, he was crying harder than I’d ever seen him cry before. He wasmoaning—I can still rememberthe sound of it.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s been embedded in my brain—it wakes me out of my sleep sometimes, D. Damon kept saying he hated his life that night, that he was tired, that everything hurt. Me and Whitney tried comforting him, and he did eventually fall asleep.

“The next day, me and Whitney went to school, and Damon stayed in bed. My mom had to work a double, so no one was home with him, but he knew how to take care of himself, so we figured he’d be fine. When I got back, I saw he was still in bed, but he wasn’t moving. I tried waking him up, but I—I found a letter in his hand. All it said was ‘I’m sorry. It’s all too much.’ I saw deep gashes on his wrist, and there was so much blood beneath him. I saw a knife. I ...fuck. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started screaming for Whitney to come to the room.

“Whitney saw and called our mom, but it was too late. Damon had just started his senior year. He had so much ahead of him. He ... he sliced his own wrists with a kitchen knife. He bled out on that bed by himself. I really don’t know why he’d taken such a drastic approach. I mean, I knew he was sad, I knew he was hurting, but I just ... I never thought he wouldkillhimself. And that note in his hand, I kept reading it, knowing exactly what he meant.

“Our dad was an abusive asshole who was too hard on us. He coached me and Damon for years and taught us everything we knew, but he was too much. He was too strict, too harsh, just ... over the fucking top. Even before he started drinking so much, if we lost a game, he’d punch us dead in the chest for however many points we lost by, but we considered it tough love then. Damon was talented, but I remember him getting to a point where he didn’t want to practice or play anymore because he hated the consequences of losing.

“But of course, our dad kept making him. He wouldn’t let him quit, and Damon was good—hell, he was better than I was on the court, and my dad made sure to let me know that. I guess it all came crashing down on him, though. It had to for him to take his own life. My dad got arrested for what he did to Damon, but my mom dropped the fucking charges just so he could attend the funeral. I was so fuckingmad, D. My anger has always gotten the best of me, and I was so heartsick and pissed off because he was just back in our house like nothing happened, groveling to our mom, manipulating her while she was sad and weak, but I saw right through that shit, so while my mom was sleeping, I told him he needed to leave. And if he didn’t leave, I’d tell the police that he’d been hitting me too.

“He left for a couple hours but came back later that night. He was so fucking drunk, stumbling through the house like an idiot. I was in my room and all I could hear was him screaming my name, ‘Declan! Declan! Declan! Who the hell do you think you are? Get the fuck out here,Declan!’ Then I heard a bunch of commotion. I heard my mama screaming at him, so I opened the door, and my mama was trying to push him back down the hallway, but he was so drunk and furious that he pushed her to the side, and she hit her head on one of the picture frames. She hit it so hard the glass cut her head. I saw her bleeding, but I had no time to go and help her because my dad charged toward me and wrapped his hands around my throat.

“He shoved me back on my bed, and he kept choking me and yelling in my face. He kept telling me I would never be as good as Damon, that I’d never amount to anything, that I should’ve been happy to be trained by him and that I wouldn’t have any of the talent I had if it weren’t for him. He kept saying I should’ve been the one to go, not Damon. And in that moment, I was so scared. But not because he was choking me out or anything. It was because his words were sinking into me like seeds, planting themselves there and taking root.

“I knew I’d never be as good as Damon—and I didn’t want to be. I didn’t care. But I also knew that since Damon was gone, I was going to have to carry on his legacy in some way. That’s why I wear the number seventeen. That was his number and the age he died. I was scared people would see me as this fraud, or the person who wasn’t worth a damn, you know? I was scared that he wasright... that I’d never amount to a damn thing. But here I am, best of my team and one of the biggest facesof the NBA franchise, and there’s still this hollowness inside me,” I said, tapping the center of my chest with the tips of my fingers.

“There’s this part of me who knows all of this wasn’t forme, Davina. I have this life and this fame because I wanted to prove that motherfucker wrong. A lot of what fueled me was heart and passion for the game, yes, but whatreallygot me going was therage. I’d see my opponents on the court, and all of them had one face: my dad’s. I’d run circles around them. I’d prove my point, I’d win, and I’d walk away.” I felt my eyes getting hot, burning from the unshed tears.

“My mom managed to get him off of me and call the police, and this time he was locked up for a while. It was only eight years, but it was enough for us to uproot. When he was out, she divorced him, and I thought that would be the end of it. I thought we’d never have to see his face again, but here we are. About to have Thanksgiving with this motherfucker.”

“My goodness. I can’t imagine how scared you were or how much pain you were in over your brother, Deke. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I get why you don’t like talking about it now,” Davina said.

I shrugged. “The pain never left, honestly. Just got easier to manage.”

Her throat bobbed, and her eyes were lined with tears. One blink and they’d fall.

I huffed a humorless laugh. “The worst part is that, to this day, I don’t know if I’m angry at my brother for leaving me back then or envious that he escaped that hell.”

The tears dripped down Davina’s cheeks. She pulled her hand away to swipe at them, and I stood up, taking her hand and leading her to the couch.

I held her in my arms, and the emotion in my throat thickened. I was so close to crying, myself. I hadn’t cried about my brother in years, and didn’t want to start now. I wanted to be strong for Davina. I told my story, and now she knew. It was up in the air and off my chest, and frankly, I was relieved.

“Don’t cry for me, D,” I whispered in her hair. “I’m past all that.”

“No,” she muttered. “You’re not, Deke.” She sat up to look at me. “Listen to me. You’re anamazingperson, okay? Your life isyours. You built this for yourself. You are talented and handsome and smart. Everyone loves you, Deke. Everyone wants to be you.”

“Yeah, but what they see isn’t the real me. That’s just a front I put on to prove I’m okay and to tell myself that my past will never define me.”

“It doesn’t have to define you, but you can’t run from it either. I see the real you, and I know your heart. You’re worthy, baby. You’resoworthy. Don’t let your dad or anyone else in this world tell you otherwise.”

I felt a hot streak fall down my cheek, and I closed my eyes as she used her thumb to swipe it away.

When I opened them again, I said, “This is why I could understand you and why I wanted to be patient with you. Because I know that pain. I live it every single day, and I know how hard it is to let people in when you’re hurting. It took me a while to step out of my shell when Damon died.”

“Thank you for that. Seriously.” She laid her head on my chest and was quiet for a few seconds. “Is that why you don’t like to be called by your real name? Why you corrected me every time when we first met?”

I had a feeling she already knew the answer to that, but I responded anyway. “Yeah. That’s why. When anyone calls me that, all I can hear is my dad shouting my name down the hallway. All I can remember is his hands around my throat, my brother’s blood on the mattress. You wanna talk about triggers?Thatfucking triggers me.”

She tilted her head back, peering up at me. “You can’t let him have your name. He took enough away from you. You were born with that. Don’t let him keep it.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “My mom says the same thing.”

“See? And if she raised you, I’m sure she’s a wise woman.”

I gave her a peck on the cheek before consuming her lips. When our mouths parted, I hugged her tight, because there was nowhere else I wanted to be than with her. Outside of my family and a few people who knew Damon, no one else was aware of his suicide, not even Javier. I’dpurposely kept it buried when high school was over and never wanted to revisit it again, because when my dad was in jail, I worked on becoming a new man.

Telling Davina took a weight off my shoulders, though. One that’d been dragging me down for nineteen long years. And for the first time that night, as our lasagna went cold and we curled up on the couch, I felt nothing but sweet relief.

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