Talon raked his fingers through his tousled hair. “Jesus Christ.”
“Take your best shot, little brother. I’m not getting back into the car until you do.”
“You’re fighting with yourself. Smack yourself around a little. Maybe that’ll help.”
I advanced on my brother, grabbed him by his shirt collar, and shoved him up against the car. “I’ve tried everything, you know. You want to know why I ended up in the hospital that time? It wasn’t because some thugs randomly jumped me in an alley. I had gone looking for it. I had instigated it.”
His mouth dropped open. “I wondered what happened. I know you, Joe. I know how tough you are, how mean you are. You could kick pretty much anybody’s ass.”
“And guess what? That wasn’t the first time. I’d gotten my ass kicked before, just never bad enough to end up in the hospital. So now you know about the pain that runs through me. And I’m afraid it won’t go away until you punch it out of me.”
“Why me?”
“You know why.”
“You didn’t fail me, goddamnit.”
“You can say that all day, Talon. You can say it until the end of time, and neither you nor I will believe it.”
“Joe…”
“You know I’m right. If I had been there for you, if I had gone with you like you asked me to, those guys never would’ve gotten you. You wouldn’t have been held captive for two months. You wouldn’t have been raped, Talon.”
His cheeks reddened, and his lips trembled. Within a minute, my brother had broken my hold and turned me around up against the car, gripping me as I had been gripping him a second before.
“Is this what you want, brother?” he said, gritting his teeth. “This is what you want? You want me to fuck you up?”
Please, I said inside my head. Yes, please, that’s what I want.
But even as I thought those words, I knew it wouldn’t help to have Talon take a shot at me.
It hadn’t helped the other times.
And even though this time, Talon would be doing the beating, it still wouldn’t help.
No one could beat the guilt out of me. Melanie had taught me that.
This was so ridiculous, so absurd. I began laughing despite myself.
The only one who could beat my guilt out of me was me.
“Now you’re laughing?” Talon released me. “Joe, you’re going to be the death of me.”
I cleared my throat. “You’ve got a good hold, Tal.”
“No more than you do. You can kick my ass, and you know it.”
I let out a small chuckle. “Maybe. Maybe not. We’re probably pretty evenly matched.”
“You were really going to let me kick your ass, weren’t you?”
“I sure thought I was.” I looked around at the gorgeous mountain scenery. “But I kind of had an epiphany. For some reason, I had the idea that getting my ass kicked would help my guilt. Funny thing though, the guilt never went away.”
“What made you think it might be different this time?”
“You’re the one I wronged. Maybe if you kicked the guilt out of me, it would take this time.”
He leaned back on the car. “Bro, it doesn’t work that way.”
“Yeah, I figured that out while you were choking me.” I looked at him seriously. “Was there ever any time when you did actually blame me? Be honest.”
Talon grabbed a handful of his hair. “I’ve actually thought about that a lot. And consciously, no, I didn’t blame you, but I did resent you.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t you so much as anybody but me. I always wondered, why me? Why hadn’t it been you or anyone else that day? Why did it have to be me?”
“Did you come up with any answers?”
“No. I was in the right place at the right time. Or rather, the wrong place at the wrong time.” He chuckled. “You know, I came pretty close to punching your lights out. You were pissing me off. If you hadn’t started laughing…”
“I wonder if I would’ve felt better if you had.”
“Maybe for a few minutes. But only a few minutes. The only one who can heal you is you, Joe. Your Dr. Carmichael taught me that.”
She wasn’t my Dr. Carmichael. She wasn’t mine at all.
“Look,” my brother said. “You’re the toughest guy I know. You always have been. You never took any shit from anyone. You’re a lot like Dad in that regard. More so than either Ryan or I are.”
I looked down at my feet. “Sometimes I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Yeah, Dad did a lot of things right, but he sure gave me a hell of a burden to bear. It was nothing compared to the burden you had to bear, though.”
“I won’t argue with you there, bro.” Talon swiped his forehead. “But maybe Wendy will have some answers. Maybe we can figure out why Dad put those burdens on both of us.”
“You want to get going?”
“Sure.” Talon adjusted his shirt. “You hungry? We missed dinner, you know.”
“Hell, I could sure use a drink. But we’re both driving.”
“One drink won’t hurt either of us,” Talon said. “Let’s get back on the highway, and the next place we see that has a bar and grill, we’ll stop.”