Page 37 of Free to Breathe
Jack turns his head to the side and smirks before whispering, “Maybe. Can you read well enough to find out?”
Crack!
I don’t even realize my hand is flying through the air to connect with his face until the sound echoes off the walls of my home. I’m in such shock, I stumble until my back hits the counter.
“Why?” Hot tears make tracks down my perfectly reapplied makeup. “Why would you do this to me? To him?”
“I didn’t do anything but protect him! Any brother would do it for someone they love!” he yells, cradling his cheek.
“What?” I barely whisper.
“God, it was bad enough a Hunt would stoop so low as to associate with someone like you. A low-bred ingrate whose ass was so big, it should have taken two of Colby to pick you up. Jesus, I heard about you becoming this slut after we graduated. I should have sent the guys who fucked you money as a prize. Colby was fucking fixated on you. I was afraid he would come running back to you if you ever responded to him!” he shouts.
There’s no air in the room when his rant is over. All that keeps spinning around and around in my oxygen-deprived head is that these letters have been here all this time.
All this time, Jack is the person who really hated me. Colby had been reaching out for years. Trying to repair something he knew was broke but had no manual on how to fix. Who knows what these letters would have done? Maybe if I read them, I would have found something in them to have forgiven him. All this time, wasted.
And there’s nothing worse than wasted time.
Not to someone who might be dying.
I swipe beneath my eyes at the tears that won’t stop coming. “Get out,” I whisper. “Now.”
“Corinna, you have to understand, you’re just not good enough for him,” he states matter-of- factly.
“I don’t have to understand anything other than you’re a liar and a thief.” Isn’t there some kind of law on mail fraud? I have to remember to ask Ali the statute of limitations on that.
“You were standing in the way of what is rightfully mine!” Jack shrieks.
“Colby?” There’s something I’m missing. I just can’t figure it out.
He nods. “I did what I thought was best.”
Of course he did. “For yourself, sure. Not for me. Not for him. You have no right to stand there and act so righteous when you’re the cause for so much of my resentment toward him. So much could have been healed…” I leave the thought unfinished. He doesn’t deserve to hear what I need to say to Colby. He deserves my fire. Without thought to any consequences, I keep going. “What else am I going to find out tonight, Jack? Do you doctors like to talk in the locker room or something? Did you know about my brain tumor too? Before I had a chance to tell my family?” I scream.
I’m yelling so loud, I never hear my front door open. Until Ali growls, “We sure as hell know now.”
I tear my eyes away from Jack and see my brother and sisters in varying degrees of shock, holding dishes.
“You were super late,” Cassidy says weakly, unable to stop the tears from falling down her cheeks.
“Must have been a problem with taking out the trash,” Phil remarks, right before he lands a fist to Jack’s gut. Jack retches. Phil follows this with a right hook to Jack’s jaw, which makes him stumble backward. Tripping on his own feet, his head knocks on the edge of the counter, dropping him in a slump on my kitchen floor .
Holly and Em cheer right before they each step over Jack to enter my kitchen.
Ali’s voice is cool as a cucumber, but I can tell how angry she is when she spits out through clenched teeth. “A brain tumor?”
I nod.
“Son of a bitch!” Ali yells. She turns left, then right, looking for something to vent her anger on.
Jack unfortunately chooses that moment to groan from the floor.
Ali growls before she turns on him like fresh meat. Cassidy catches her by the arm. “Stop, Ali. This won’t help.”
“It will make me feel better.”
Cassidy turns her tearful face toward me. “I don’t think much is going to do that right now.”
