Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,89
fall for me.”
“I just don’t—”
“Understand it? There’s nothing to understand, except to know that as bad as I am, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My parents knew there was something ‘off’ with Zach’s account of what happened—he let the world believe he was high on pain meds at the time—and they also knew that a lawyer with even modest ability and a moderate number of fucks to give, could have, and would have, gotten him out of those charges, because they were basically trash. But they chose my life over his, and I went along with it.”
“I don’t understand why they did that.” I propped myself up on my elbow, so that I could see Raine’s face, but he avoided making eye contact.
“Neither did I until a few years ago, but like I said before, the short version, of what is a very long and twisted story, is that I was the favorite son, and neither parent cared much for Zachary. I loved him. I mean, I love him, but I loved myself more, and I didn’t want to throw away my future, and neither did my parents. So they sacrificed one kid to save the other. Nothing warped and twisted about that, huh?”
“I don’t know what to think, except that it’s a lot. I know that much.”
“Yeah. I bet you thought that this level of dysfunction only existed in books and on TV or in movies. Yet here I am—my history is like one super-extended episode of Days of Our Lives.”
“Nobody’s life is perfect.” God knew, mine was just about the furthest thing from it, but having encouraged Raine to talk to me about what was going on with him, I didn’t feel ready to reveal any of my own story as yet.
“Yeah, well some lives are a lot less perfect than others.” He sounded so defeated.
“Maybe. So, what happened to your brother? I mean, I know he went to jail, but what happened after that? Where is he now? What does he do?”
“Well, being the psychopaths that are my parents, they let my brother take the rap for me, then left him to rot in jail, without so much as a ‘thank you, here’s some money for your commissary account,’ a Christmas card, or a visit, the entire time he was there. And being their demonic spawn, I went along with it. We never even said his name aloud.”
Wow. Raine wasn’t wrong when he said that their family was dysfunctional.
“We hadn’t seen each other for years—we were basically estranged—until our paths crossed in a chance meeting a few months ago.”
“Oh? How did that go?”
“Are you for fucking real right now? Did you hear the part where I told you I killed our sister, then let him do jail time for me, didn’t even thank him, then pretty much acted like he was dead as well as Lily? It went exactly as you’d expect that kind of conversation to go. In a nutshell, it was a goddamned shit show.”
“Sorry, it was a stupid question, but I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that even knowing what I know, I think you need to cut yourself a little slack.”
“I ended my sister’s life and ruined my brother’s—he’d had a bright future ahead of him, he was about to go to art school in England—and you think I deserve slack? I deserve to be strung up with the rope wound tight around my neck.”
I knew it was only a figure of speech, but it was one that made me nauseous just thinking about it. The blood drained from my face, and I felt suddenly clammy. Get it together Noa, this is about him, not you. I swallowed hard, and brought my focus back to Raine.
“I get that you feel guilty. Anyone who isn’t a sociopath would. But seeing it from the outside in, it’s clear to me that your parents are the ones culpable here, not you. You were a kid being brought up by another kid and a team of employees. That wasn’t right—for either of you. You loved your sister. I mean, you love her, that much is plainly obvious. You wouldn’t have intentionally done anything to hurt her, and I’m sure Zachary wouldn’t have either. Neither of you should ever have been put in a situation where this could even have happened.”
“Maybe not, but the truth is, I hated Zach at times when we were growing up. When I boil it