Page 109 of Degrees of Control

“Yeah, yeah, save the routine for your old lady once you’re caught dippin’ your dick in one of her friends. You don’t have a faithful bone in your body, Jimmy-Boy, you never did. That would require some goddamn restraint.”

James knew Will wasn’t talking about the failed relationships that came before Charlotte, the things he’d borrowed and broken, the times he’d showed up blind drunk to Thanksgiving. He meant what Meghan had done to him. Shame hit him like a meteor out of hell, his face went cold and his whole body prickled with panic. He’d fucked his brother’s girlfriend. How could he have forgotten he’dfucked his brother’s girlfriend? Who the hell did that? What kind of trash was he?

Then he breathed deep and remembered his hours spent sitting on a rough couch talking about the summer he turned fourteen. How he’d never wanted Meghan to come to his bed and do what she did, how he’d been a fuckin’ zombie afterward, how Kelsey had found out and confronted Will who’d brushed the whole thing aside—worse, made out that James was the one who’d done wrong, because that was easier than the truth, more convenient than the truth.

“Speakin’ of bein’ faithful,” James said through numb lips. “How is Meghan?”

“Goodbye, asshole.”

But Will didn’t hang up. James’ pulse pounded in his ears. “Funny how robbers always think they’re bein’ robbed. According to you, I’m the big fuck-up in the family, but you don’t see me draggin’ up our shitty past every chance I get.”

“Meaning what? You don’t want to bring up that you fucked my girlfriend when we were kids?”

“We weren’tallkids!” James’s fury exploded out of him like a geyser, acid and steam and decades of pressure. “Iwas the fuckin’ kid, Will! I was four-fuckin’-teen and she jumped me in my bed! I didn’t want to have sex with her, she was nine years older than me! You know what that is, right? That’s statutory—”

Will had hung up then, severing his ability to talk about what happened just as he’d severed it when James was fourteen. Conversation closed.

He stood in his kitchen for a long time, clutching his phone and thinking about the ways people saw what they wanted to see, told the lies they had to tell to get by. He didn’t cry, didn’t call Charlotte or Kelsey or anyone. He pulled on his running shoes and went to the gym. That was, as they said, that.

“What did he say to you when you told him you weren’t comin’ to Christmas?” Kelsey asked him from a million miles away.

You don’t have a faithful bone in your body, Jimmy-Boy, you never did.

“The usual bullshit.” James drained his second Millers and crushed the can, relishing the way it dented beneath his fingers.

“And that is?”

He shrugged.

Kelsey sighed. “If it was anything like what he told me at Christmas, it was that you’re a big baby and you’re probably runnin’ around on Charlotte.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I told him he didn’t have the brains got gave a cow and to leave you and your girl the fuck alone.”

“Thanks,” James said curtly. “I still don’t see why this is helpful, though. Will’s just Will and I told you I saw a shrink about Meg—”

“Goddamit, open your eyes!” Now Kelsey looked angry. She was holding her beer so tightly it looked like she was going to crush it ahead of schedule. “It’s not just about that! Maybe you dealt with bein’ assaulted but did you ever deal with the rest of it? No one knowing? No one helping? Hell, I saw the way you started acting afterward and even though I knew you were actin’ out but I never tried to talk to you about it. Even found the nerve to get pissed off at you for bein’ so fuckin’ obnoxious.”

The quaver in his sister’s voice made him look up and he was shocked to see tears shining in her. “Kelsey…”

“We suck, Jamie. We all do. We let you think you were trash. I’m sorry, that’s what I wanted to say. That I’m here for you and I do think you deserve Charlotte and you’re not fuckin’ trash.”

The backs of James’ eyes began to burn. How long had it been since he’d cried? Years. Longer than he could remember, but the smallest sign of hurt from his sister and he was going to pieces like a paper hat in the rain. He got up, stood behind Kelsey’s chair and wrapped his arms around her. For a second he sensed strain, but then she slumped back into his embrace. He hugged her tight. “Meghan aside, I was always gonna be trash. Too good looking not to be.”

Kelsey gave a watery chuckle. “I mean it, I should have helped you more.”

“I should have helpedyoumore,” he countered. “I never showed my support about you bein’ gay. Not when it would have meant the most.”

“You didn’t know I was in the closet.”

James was silent, wondering how to tell her that he’d always known. That one of his earliest memories had been her making her Barbies’ kiss. Then they looked at one another and burst out laughing, the feel of it such a relief that it hurt.

“Okay, I was a pretty obvious dyke and we both could have helped each other more.” Kelsey swiped a hand across her eyes. “But how do we fix this? I don’t mean the family, that shit’ll take care of itself. How do we make it so you can let go of all this shit and just be with Charlotte?”

That one word with its two syllables hit him like a punch to the stomach. Charlotte. Her deep blue eyes and soft pink mouth. The tears burned in his ducts again because he saw it so clearly, how he held her away from the ugliness. Not just of his assault, but the mess that was his family. The fights and stories and lies. He stared out at Kelsey’s property, seeing without seeing. “I thought if I kept her away from it all, we’d never have to deal with it. No Christmases, no Thanksgivings, no comin’ to America for anything but you and our friends. Far as I was concerned, I wasn’t a Hunter, anymore. I thought I could make it work like that.”

“I admire your dedication, but you were forgottin’ something.” Kelsey reached back, and tapped the tattoo he’d had inked on his right pectoral. Their family crest.

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