Page 3 of Fight for Me
“I’m not your son.”
“You four should think about what it would look like. You’re all back, Sean’s car has damage on it, and you said two people are dead …”
Connor’s breathing grows louder, and I see him clenching his fists. “You’re disgusting.”
“Maybe so, but you seem to have gotten yourselves into a mess. If I were you, I’d keep your mouths shut so you don’t end up sending your brother to jail. And no one will let a convict in the military.” Then he turns his gaze to Sean. “It’d be a shame to see you lose that scholarship, wouldn’t it?” He smirks at me and then walks inside, leaving the four of us stunned.
“He can’t do this!” Jacob yells. “He can’t pin this on us, can he?”
They look to me, always to me, and I shrug. I don’t put anything past him. “I don’t know.”
“I can’t go to jail, Dec,” Sean says.
No, he can’t. Sean is going places. We all are, and it’s far away from this town. I can’t do this to Sydney either. I can’t saddle her with the burden of what happened last night and destroy the future she so desperately wants. What kind of a life could I give her if he ever made good on that threat? How would she go on to law school being married to a man who left two people dead on the side of the road?
And if I can’t have her, then there will never be another.
There’s only one option: a vow between the only three people who matter more than my own life.
“We promise each other right now,” I say with my hand extended and then wait for each of my brothers to circle around me and link together hand to wrist. “We vow that we will never be like him. We will protect what we love and never get married or have kids, agreed?”
It means I give up Syd. It means I ruin every fucking dream I have, but it’s the only protection I can give her. She’ll find another man—a better one—and be happy. She has to be.
Sean bobs his head quickly. “Yes, we will never love because we might be like him.”
Jacob’s voice is as hard as steel when he says, “We don’t raise our fists in anger, only to defend ourselves.”
Connor’s eyes fill with anger. His hands are like vices, squeezing tighter as he stares at me. “And we never have kids or come back here.”
In unison, we all shake. The Arrowood brothers never break promises to each other.
A few hours later, we’ve moved the car into the abandoned barn in the back. We’re all tired, broken, and exhausted. Jacob, Sean, and I are leaving tomorrow, but Connor has a few weeks before he leaves for boot camp.
“Dec?” Sean grips my arm as I pass him.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to do this, you know?”
“Do what?”
He sighs and then pushes his hair back. “Break her heart. I know what we said, and while it works for the three of us, we all were … fucked in the head. You love Sydney.”
I do. I love her more than anything in the world, enough to let her go. Enough to give her a better life than I ever can. And I love her enough to know that breaking her heart is the best gift I can ever give her.
“I can’t love her and think to weigh her down with all of this. I can’t give her a future, and I won’t break my word.” My heart is breaking just thinking about it, but I have to stay strong. “If I stay with her, we will always be tied to this town. I can’t do it. I have to leave, start a new life, and give her the opportunity to do the same.”
Sean pinches the bridge of his nose. “She’ll never let you go.”
I shake my head, blowing out a low breath. “She doesn’t have a choice.”
I walk away because there’s nothing more to say. At this point, all that is left is the hurt and pain from the decisions we’ve made. I have to spare her. From this point on, I have to hold on to the fact that what I’m doing is right. No matter how much it kills me to do it.
After everyone is asleep, I head out of the house and down through the fields. I could walk this in my sleep and find my way to Sydney. She’s always been the pull that keeps me moving forward. When we met, we were little more than two kids with horrible fathers, but we found a closeness I never knew was possible. Now, I have to sever it.
When I reach their modest farmhouse, I climb the oak tree that gets me close enough to her window that I can knock four times.
After a few minutes, the pane lifts, and I feel like I can breathe.
