Page 153 of Girls Will Be Girls
“Don’t give me that bullshit.” I shake my head.
“I did.” He says. “I swear.” He wipes at his face again. “I liked her. I liked her, and I was jealous. I got spiteful, and I took it too far because of this constant need I have to prove that I’m better than you.
“For once, I wanted to be better than you, and like an idiot, I used her to do it.” He averts his gaze again. “I didn’t dump her because I was bored. I know you know all about it. I know she came back to you.” He looks at the ground, looking completely defeated. “I wasn’t bored of her. I finally realized I’d gone too far.”
“Six months, Otto,” I say with pent-up anger leaking from my voice. “It took you six months to realize that?”
“Yeah. It did.” He says. “How fucked up is that?” He looks at me. “My therapist says all of this, everything I do, it’s my own stunted, backward, toxic way of me trying to have the brotherly relationship I want with you.”
My mouth drops open. “That is utterly fucked up.”
“I know.”
I raise my arms at my sides. “If you know all this, then why did you try to do it again? Why are you fucking with me again? Trying to take Louisa from me?”
“Because I tried.” He practically whines. “I really did try to be better.”
“Try fucking harder,” I shout.
He opens his mouth but closes it again.
“You tried to steal my work. You went after the woman I love. You brought our parents into this. We never bring them into it, it’s the one thing we don’t do.” I huff. “You’re trying to be better? I think you’re trying to see how far you can take it until you finally break me.”
“I-” His voice cracks, but he shakes his head to steady himself. “Competing with you is what I do, it’s who I am. I don’t know any other way to be. I figured I should just lean into what I’ve always been.”
“Aren’t you exhausted?” I exhale. “This whole one-upping each other thing, living to impress two people who couldn’t care less about us. Aren’t you sick of it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“We could just…” I throw my arms wide with a laugh. “Not.”
He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“How about we just fucking stop?” I say. “Not care what they want.”
He laughs, but it’s watery and humorless. “You wanna teach me how to do that? Cause I have no fucking clue.”
There’s a moment when I study him. “You’re really in therapy?”
“Yeah.” He laughs like he can’t believe it either.
“Maybe you need a better therapist if you’re still pulling shit like this.”
He laughs. “Maybe.” He inhales deeply. “I want to not care. I- I-” He stutters. “I want us to be brothers for once in our lives.”
I sigh. “You make it pretty damn hard to be your brother when you’re consistently out to sabotage my life.”
“I know.” He hangs his head.
I rub my palms into my eyes and take in a deep breath, feeling like this is going to bite me in the ass. Fighting every instinct I have, every warning siren going off in my head.
“I’ll try if you try.” I finally say.
“What?” He looks up at me shocked.
I nod painfully, pushing past every thought in my mind telling me it’s a bad idea.
“Really?” He says in complete disbelief.
