I watch a swallow tumble through his throat but a disturbing placidity takes over as he leans back, rushing a hand through his hair. “I’m the reason my kid brother went missing.”
“What?” I breathe, shocked, completely confused. “You said you had an older sister. Jesus, Brock, you told me you never had anyone close to you die.”
“She’s the only sibling I have left, Amber, and we don’t know if he’s . . .” He pauses, a muscle working in his jaw as he stares straight ahead.
Silent, I wait for him to continue, my heart pounding.
“They never found his body, so we’re trying to hold on to that.” He pauses again, almost as if summoning up the courage to keep talking. “His name was Brandon, and he was ten years old when he was taken from our front porch while he waited for me to get there to let him in.” He clutches the steering wheel and looks at me, pain and anger melting across his face. “Even though my mother had reminded me all goddamn week, I forgot. While the kid was going through who knows what, the piece of shit I was—that I still fucking am—was getting my cock sucked in the back of my car behind the high school.”
He lets out a scornful laugh, the air electrocuting with the sound of his fist hitting the dashboard. I jump, my body shaking as much as his. My heart’s bleeding out for him. I bring my hand to his cheek, hoping my touch can calm him.
Brock grabs my wrist, holding my quivering hand against his face. “I was a seventeen-year-old asshole who was blowing a nut in some chick’s mouth while my brother was probably wondering if he was going to die.” He releases my wrist and lifts his hands to my face, cupping my cheeks. “After that, my family lost control over everything. If my father isn’t fucking his newest secretary, my mother hasn’t consumed a fifth of gin before breakfast, or anyone’s said a word to each other all month, something’s off.
“But Debby and John Cunningham are monster lawyers, so we all have to look and act perfect. What the world sees is nothing but a mirage, one huge fucking lie. They see a family whose younger son was kidnapped but stayed strong despite it. They don’t see the breakdown. It doesn’t exist to them.”
Still holding my face, Brock continues, his voice a low hum of anguish. “They see a daughter who followed in their parents’ footsteps, becoming a Harvard-bred prosecutor. They don’t see that she’s addicted to trying to fix everyone around her. That when she can’t, she slips into a depression that lasts for weeks, sometimes months. They see the remaining son, the one responsible for the whole fucking thing, who went to college on a football scholarship most would kill for. They see him as the university’s captain. They don’t see that his parents forced him to play football since he was a kid or that he sells drugs because it’s the only thing he’s been able to control since the day his brother was taken.
“It’s my control, Ber,” he whispers, lightly touching his lips to mine. “I have to do it. It keeps my world in check. It makes me feel normal, successful. I feel needed, like there’s more to me than my fuckups.” He tilts my head and moves his mouth to my jaw. “People want what I supply them. It gives me a sense of control and a purpose. It might be fucked up, but my need for control is a part of me. A huge part.”
I slowly pull back and stare at Brock’s pained face, my thoughts whiplashed as I try to process everything. I feel as if I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer, and to be honest, I’m not sure how to handle it. I’ve always been at the receiving end of help, never the one giving it. Though I’m in school to assist others with their problems, here and now, I’m not mentally equipped to aid Brock through this nightmare, nor do I think I’ll be any time soon.
Yet, as I gaze into the mossy eyes of this beautiful black-winged angel, I can’t ignore a pull so overbearingly strong within my soul telling me otherwise. It’s screaming out to me that the emptiness in my heart can only be filled by him and vice versa. That we need each other to complete some kind of turbulent cycle of coming together broken, ultimately ending it by becoming whole as one.
I know these disjointed thoughts go against my better judgment, against everything I’ve known to be messed up in my life, but I think I’m about to blindly jump into the depths of hell. I just hope the flames surrounding Brock Cunningham don’t burn me.
“Do I scare you, Ber?” Brock moves a piece of hair away from my shoulder. “If I do, that wasn’t my intention.”
“No,” I whisper, realizing I’m not experiencing fear. I know fear. Touched its poisonous thorns, heard its wicked screams, seen its malicious face. “You don’t scare me. You . . . intrigue me.”
“Intrigue?” He gives a weak chuckle, resting his lips against my forehead. “That’s a new one.”
I nod, my breathing spiking as Brock slides his lips to my temple, down the curve of my face, and to the corner of my mouth. “You know I’m not gonna hurt you, right? Nothing I’m involved in will ever hurt you.”
“But you can get hurt, and if I wind up . . .” I trail off, getting way ahead of myself. Other than my parents, I’ve never loved anyone. Love is the mighty evil fall, and I refuse to willingly jump off its ledge of destruction into a cesspool of nothing but hurt and pain. For in that cesspool are vultures lying in wait to eat me alive.
“If you what?” Brock probes, his hands finding the back of my neck.
“Nothing.”
“Say it. If you wind up falling in love with me.” A grin softens his face as he dusts his lips against mine. “Let me correct that. When you fall in love with me.”