Break Me (Brayshaw High) - Meagan Brandy Page 0,138
her and ran and she was miserable before us.”
He rushes me, pushing his bloody forehead to mine. “Watch it.”
“Nah, motherfucker.” I’m getting pissed over my own words, over what she went through. “You watch it. You might not be under our thumb no more, punk, but don’t forget where you’re at. I could run you over with that sweet little ride of yours, and there ain’t shit you could do about it.”
“I will—”
I meet his step forward with one of my own. “You’ll what?”
“Stop!” Brielle shouts, coming down the stairs and facing off with us both. She frowns from me to him. She looks ready to say something, to shout, but the longer she stands there, staring at him, reality slips back where it belongs, front and fucking center.
This is her brother, her family.
The one person in the world she felt she could—can—depend on. Her safe place.
And she’s missed him, she told me so.
What am I supposed to do? Make her choose between me and him? One or the other?
We’re no longer in the same place, so how can she have us both?
If she leaves, I’ll crumble.
It will break me.
Goddamn it, I might have to follow her.
But my family...
“Stop thinking about what you want, Brielle, and think about what’s best for you.” Bass glares at her.
I almost feel bad for the dickhead after that, because those are the wrong words to say to the girl who has only ever done what her big brother asked of her.
Brielle comes down the steps, her eyes tight, unease heavy within them, but she’s strong, and she’s ready to make him understand.
So I step back and let her take the lead.
Brielle
“Are you really going to stand here and pretend you know what’s best for me?” I ask, but not for a response. “You have no clue what my life has looked like since the day I was sent away, and now I know that all that time you lied to me about the one thing in my life I hated more than our parents.” My voice dies down, and my brother’s features grow taut. “Do you even know what that was?”
Royce is closer now, too far to touch, but close enough to feel.
My silent support.
My lungs expand. “Not being able to be with you, forced, or so I thought, to be separated from you.” A low laugh leaves me. “You were all I ever had, Bass. Did you not feel like half of you is missing when we were apart like I did? Are you really just happy living this lavish life somewhere else? A life I don’t even know about where you have a fancy car and drive around with Miss America in your front seat? I mean, am I nothing to you?”
He slips closer, his eyes pleading. “I have done all of this for us both. I came here alone, sent you there, left, found somewhere to create a brand-new fucking life for us.”
I shake my head. “You might tell yourself this when you’re forced to think about it, but it’s not true. If you understood me at all, you would have known I didn’t need all that. All I needed was my brother.”
Bass swallows, a barely audible ‘Needed’ escaping him.
My back burns with Royce’s presence.
He’s even closer now.
“Yeah. Needed.” I nod. “I don’t need you anymore,” I admit to myself and him. “I love you, and I want to see and talk to you more, like before, but I don’t need you like I need him.”
He licks his lips, a strangled look in his eye. “You’re leaving with me, Brielle.”
My muscles constrict as I stare at my brother. “No. I’m not.”
“And look what being here has gotten you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It never is, Brielle!” he stresses. “It never is. It never will be.”
Anger swims in my gut. I don’t shout, but I’m stern. “Maybe you should go back to whatever it is you found that became more important to you than me and I’ll do the same.”
My brother, his face falls flat, shocked and he draws back as if I’ve slapped him and maybe it’s wrong, but I’m glad. He should feel that.
“For once in my life, I have something I don’t have to let go of like I had to let go of you. I have the chance to stay and fight for what I want. Don’t ask me not to. You won’t like what follows.”
Bass glares heavy, and then he suddenly darts out, grabbing Royce by the collar, and getting