or the fact that he hasn’t showered or shaved this morning.
“You let her torture my brother?” I demand, my fists clenched so tight, I feel like all my finger bones might break. Dad looks up at me, surprise in his eyes, making me scoff. “Ah, bet you didn’t think I’d find out about your pathetic and dirty little secrets, huh?”
“Actually, I’m surprised it took you this long to ask that very question, considering that Aiden did tell you.”
“What the fuck?”
Aiden told me? When? Why can’t I remember that?
He sighs, then chugs the rest of whatever he’s drinking back.
“I don’t expect you to remember the vow you made when you were what, three or four years old, buddy, but you swore to protect your baby brother and your older brother.”
“I remember that.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“I…” I start, then clear my throat when my voice comes out hoarse. “I just assumed it was something I had to do.”
Guess I was right on point but did a fucking crap job all round.
“No,” he says. “Aiden told you that your mother was hurting him when I was away. Actually, you’re the one who then told me.”
“I did?” I question, stunned.
“Yes. Courtney had been starving and isolating Aiden alone for hours before I came back from work. You were always a well-advanced child, Julian and your first word was of course, Aiden,” he says, a distant look in his eyes as if remembering a nasty memory. “You came in here and tugged my hand, demanding that I follow you, muttering Aiden’s name. You were so agitated and angry when I didn’t move.”
Fuck this shit! How many times am I supposed to break before I sink into a hole I’ll never be able to crawl out of? First Mia, now all this shit with Aiden?
“I followed you of course, where we found my boy crouched in the dark, scared shitless, his pants soiled, his belly growling with hunger,” he grits out, his voice breaking with each horror revealed. “But you… it was you who noticed the damn whip in the corner.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah well, that was all I could say when we found him but fuck, I remember I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, how could I when your mother reduced me to a fucking boiling inferno of anger?”
There’s so much I want to say to that, so many accusations on the tip of my tongue but I don’t say a word, trying to hold on to my sanity as I stare at him, fighting off tears and pain.
“A better man could have done what you did, hugged your brother close and vow to always be there and protect him,” Dad goes on, his voice still low, the regret in it only fueling my barely repressed rage. “A better man could have put his fucking foot down, but as we both know, I’m not that better man.”
Anger courses through my veins. My fists are tightly clenched. The need to rip my father a new one so damn brazen, I almost haul him over his fucking desk by the fucking collar of his shirt, but I don’t. Instead, I just stand there staring down at him, the weight of my failures crashing into me.
“Liam was only just a toddler then but you…” he breaks off, then sighs heavily.. “You took it upon yourself to vow to care for them and that was after he told you who had hurt him.”
Stunned, I watch as a lone tear rolls down his left cheek. If he notices it, he doesn’t let it show.
It’s then that I take a closer look at my father.
His clothes are the same ones he wore yesterday, but now wrinkled. I can see crimson stains of blood on the rolled-up sleeves, scattered up and down the length of the sleeve. He isn’t wearing his tie—a feature that’s so apart of him when he’s in the office, as is breathing. His hair is messy as if he’s been running a hand through it and gripping it all night.
He didn’t bother to shave or put himself together. Instead, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m looking at the real man beneath the whole prominent John Fitzgerald mask.
And the real him is nothing more than a drunk, sad and heart broken asshole—a mirror image of myself.
He’s heartbroken because Nancy is gone. And I’m a volcanic, angry asshole because Mia ran. Like father, like son.
“You really did love her,” I mutter, his gaze now holding