“Maybe we should sit down and have a group session. Me, you, and your brother. Perhaps, the only way to sort out your past is to face it head on. Do you think he would be open to that?”

I glared at the doctor. “I don’t want to put Shane through that.”

The doctor let it go, and I spent the rest of the session just staring out the window again…

When I walked into Kent’s office the next morning, after a nurse had informed me that I was to have a session with the doctor again, I wasn’t pleased to find my brother sitting on the long sofa in front of the doctor’s usual chair.

“What the fuck?” I exploded and faced the doctor, who was sitting calmly behind his desk. “I told you I didn’t want to do this!”

“Dray, I want to be here,” Shane said, and I turned around to look at him. He looked pale, and I could see that his hands were fisted at his sides, but there was determination in his blue-gray eyes.

“I don’t want to put you through this,” I told my little brother, the urge to protect him still eating at me. “You don’t have to…”

Shane was already shaking his head. “I think it will be good for both of us, bro. Just give it a chance.”

I frowned at him for a long moment. It went against everything that was inside of me, but I finally sat down beside him. The doctor stood and moved to his chair across from us, his iPad in hand. “I agree with you, Shane. I think this will be a good thing for you both.”

“Emmie thinks so too, or I wouldn’t be here,” Shane assured the man who grinned at the mention of Em.

“Well, I’m sure if she agrees then we can’t go wrong.” He typed something into the iPad and then put it on the table between us. “Let’s start off simply by talking about your mother.”

Even as my whole body tensed, I could sense Shane’s doing the same. “Our mom was one of the best women I have ever known,” Shane began after a static filled minute. “I always like to remember her as the saving grace to everything else that was bad in the world.”

It hurt to hear Shane talking about the woman that had been everything to us both. She had been a great mom, working hard to support my brother and me to make sure that we never wanted for anything. Our dad had been a decent enough guy, when he was around, but once he had gotten married again, and that marriage had produced a few more kids, we might as well not have existed for all the attention he showed us.

“How did your mother die?” Kent asked after Shane had told him all about the wonderful woman that had given us both life.

I watched Shane’s throat work a few times before he whispered out the answer. “She killed herself… It was all my fault.”

I jumped to my feet, already fighting tears but also angry. “What?” I exploded. “How can you say that? It wasn’t your fault, Shane. It was mine.”

My brother scrubbed a hand over his damp eyes and got to his feet to face me. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. You saved Emmie. You avenged me and yourself. I’m the one who told Mom what Rusty did. I’m the one who stood by and did nothing while she grabbed the cop’s gun and killed him. I didn’t stop her when she turned the gun on herself!”

The tears poured down both our faces now, but I didn’t care. It was tearing me apart inside to hear those words coming from Shane. That he had blamed himself all these years was just wrong on so many levels. “No one knew she was going to do that, Shane. She…She just…” My voice broke when Shane started sobbing. “No, Shane. Please.” I pulled him into my arms, holding onto the man that was still the boy trapped in the past. “I’m sorry, little brother. It was all my fault. If I had just told someone, then none of it would ever have happened.”

“You were just trying to protect me, Dray,” Shane managed through his sobs, “like you always do, and I love you for that.” He pulled back a little to meet my gaze. “You have to stop blaming yourself, brother. Let it all go, man. Let it go.”

Chapter 10

July

Lana

My cellphone was buzzing from my back pocket with Jesse’s text tone that I had assigned months ago. It was an annoying sound that I had thought was appropriate because he only ever texted me with annoying news. Still, I loved him and I knew that he loved me, so I fished the cell from my hip pocket and opened the text.

Picking you up @ 6. Be ready.

I frowned. What was he doing in New York? I knew for a fact that Demon’s Wings didn’t have a concert. The band only did small tours, and they didn’t have an East Coast tour scheduled until next spring. My brother-in-law being in New York out of the blue startled me and made me wonder if everything was okay back home.

Is everything ok? I rushed to ask.

Need to see you. Be ready.

“Fuck,” I muttered, stepping into my apartment building. Normally, I would have greeted the doorman, but I was just too preoccupied to even notice him. The ride up to the twelfth floor felt like it took forever, and by the time I stepped through the door of the three bedroom corner apartment, I was biting my nails to the quick.

I tossed my shoulder bag on the sofa and flopped down, glaring at the TV that was already on some sports show. Looked like Linc was already home from the gym. “Are you in the kitchen?” I called out.

“Yeah. You want something?” my deep voiced roommate called back.

“Got anything harder than beer? I need a drink.” He knew that I was kidding. I had only gotten drunk once since moving to New York. That night had been bad, and I didn’t want to relive it.

“How about a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and some hot fudge?” He appeared at the end of the couch with the ice cream in one hand and the hot fudge in the other. One look at my face and the hulky man dropped down beside me. “What’s up?”

“My brother-in-law is picking me up at six.”

“Jesse Thornton, right?” I nodded. “So what’s the problem?”

“It’s a surprise visit. I don’t know why he’s here, and all he said when I asked was that he needed to see me.” I pushed my hair away from my face. “He never does things like this, and I’m worried something is wrong.”

Linc cracked his neck, making me grimace. It was what he always did when he was thinking. After spending the last seven months under the same roof with him, and my two other roommates, I knew all his little quirks. “I guess you will just have to wait and see,” he finally said.