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I watched Sean kick a rock, sending it skipping across the ground.
“Well, it is.” He better make his peace with that. No amount of denial could wash away the bitter taste of betrayal.
His jaw clenched, darkening his glare. “Why the fuck are you still here?”
That was a good question. A few times I considered walking away, but for some reason I couldn’t leave him alone.
“Just enjoying your misery,” I said, while folding my arms over my chest.
“I don’t need your sympathy, Kessler.”
I snorted out a chuckle. “No worries there.”
Wrapping Sean Callaghan up in a warm, fuzzy hug was right up there with arming my brother’s girlfriend with a bunch of forks.
“I need to talk to my sister.”
When he walked towards the house I called out, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
He stopped next to the hood of his car and gave me an ‘are you kidding me’ eye.
“Fine. If you want to make your sister relive all that bullshit, be my guest.” I waved him off. “I personally think she’s been through enough, but hey, go ahead and retraumatize her.”
There was a reason I stopped asking Harper for specifics. For years Logan suffered through flashbacks, and every time he’d get this dull look in his eyes. The same dullness I’d seen in Harper’s the other day. I was just too pissed off to put the pieces together.
“God damnit.” Sean slammed his fists down on the top of his car. “I lived in the same fucking house.”
The guy had a point. He should’ve fucking known. Then again, the same could be said about myself, or Lana, or Star. Anyone in her life, really. We’d all failed. Including Harper. She could’ve said something, but fear was a powerful motivator.
“Why didn’t I see it?”
I shrugged. “She was good at hiding it.”
Sean’s head cocked my way. “Why the fuck did she tell you?”
She didn’t. I figured that shit out on my own. Though I guess one could argue that she did tell me at least some of it.
“I saw the bruises,” I explained.
“Fuck me, she had bruises?”
I nodded. “Probably a couple broken ribs too.”
My goal wasn’t to hurt Sean. Actually, I sympathized with the bastard. I knew what it was like to find out the people you grew up with lied. While I had time to work through some of it, Sean was just starting to traverse the dark web he was tangled in. Couldn’t help but hope he didn’t head down the same drug and alcohol fueled road I did. Harper didn’t need to suffer through that shit show.
Neither did Micha, and yet I put him through it. Was what he did really so bad? Yes, my brother was overbearing and a giant prick, but he’d never gone out of his way to hurt me. Sean was beating himself up over what happened to his sister, like it was his fault their old man was a piece of shit. So could I really blame Micha for wanting to protect me?
“She should’ve told me,” Sean muttered.
My brotherly issue could be dealt with another time.
“Okay, say she did tell you.” I rolled my neck, swinging my stare his way. “What would you have done?”
Why did I ask him that? Maybe I was testing him? Maybe some small part of me thought he deserved revenge as much as I did? But would he have the stones to carry through? There was a difference between being pissed off about being kept in the dark, and actually doing something.
When Sean answered me there wasn’t a single tremor or crack in his tone. “I’d have killed him.”
But would you?
