Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,81

explains away who I am and what I did. Zach and Lily grew up that way, too—and like I said, for Zach, it was worse than it was for me—yet they were good, and I was me. I was a carbon fucking copy of my father. Genetics are a real bitch. Still, none of these are valid reasons why I am the way I am, in fact they are just sorry-ass excuses.

“Anyway, there I was, this typical rebellious middle child, growing up urban Lord of the Flies style, and it wasn’t pretty. I was angry, self-centered and out of control. Drink, drugs, sex, you name it—if it was inappropriate, I was into it. And before you say what I know you’re thinking, no, nothing much has changed.” She was holding back a smile, but her dimple still showed up.

“So, on this particular day, during the school vacation, the three of us were basically home alone, which by this point didn’t really represent negligence as Zach was eighteen, I was seventeen, and Lily was a shade before her fifteenth birthday. We were all home—to this day, I don’t even know where my parents were, but it wasn’t at home, so it was business as usual.

“Holidays for me, meant hanging with my boys, and doing whatever the fuck I wanted—mostly drinking, smoking, and fucking. Often all three at the same time. I guessed that was one good thing about having negligently absent parents—in many ways, I was living my best life—no grounding, no restrictions, no rules. My place was always party central, also. My friends, whose parents gave a fuck, used my pad as the club house and the place they’d say they were staying if they needed an alibi with their ‘rents. I had friends who were jealous of my freedom, while I would have been happy with a mother who cared if I was home by midnight or not.

“Not that I saw it at the time, but Zach was all of that to us—father, mother and friend. Of course, instead of respecting or appreciating him, I resented him. I rebelled every which way I could, and told him to mind his own, he wasn’t my father… all of that clichéd shit.”

“Oh, I hear you on that one. That sibling rivalry thing is real as real can be.” I knew she was just trying to make me feel better about the fact that I was, and still am, a hideous human being, but there was no way she’d ever been anywhere near as heinous to her siblings as I had to mine.

“It is, though it was never like that with Lily. Maybe because she was a girl, maybe because she was younger, but mostly, I think it was because she was just so... Lily. Everyone loved her, but more than that, she brought out the best in people. She also saw the best in people. She made me want to be a better person.

“That day, I wasn’t a better person, though. I was the same old shitty me. Not giving a fuck about anything or anyone other than myself, getting high, getting lit, and getting my dick wet—again. I’d been out all night, I can’t even recall where now, and when I got home, Zach told me Lily was going to the movies with a friend later that day, and needed to be picked up and brought home afterward. He couldn’t do it because he had a meeting, or some shit, so he asked me to.

“I was furious, because how dare he tell me what to do? How the fuck dare he try to control me and ruin my day? Of course, that was not what he was doing. He was asking me a favor, and looking out for our kid sister, just like he always did. I agreed reluctantly, only because it was for Lily, and I would have walked barefoot to the moon for her.”

“That’s beautiful. Big brothers are”—She had a wistful look on her face, and seemed to be swallowing back tears. What was with that?—“everything.”

“Except that’s not even true. When it came to it, I let her down in the worst possible way. I’d already planned another party at my place, and damned if I was going to lose face by calling it off because Zach couldn’t handle what I considered to be his business. That in itself was ridiculous—he was no more Lily’s parent than I was, and he shouldn’t have been saddled with the responsibility