"No one's stopping you from doing whatever you want. You created this rivalry in your head. Not me. You're the one living in a fucking fantasy world, pointing fingers when shit doesn't go your way. Welcome to reality, little brother." The words taste bitter on my tongue. "But while you're busy letting everyone else poison your mind, you're missing what's right in front of you. I'm not your enemy."

Maybe someday you'll understand why I did everything I did.

Maybe someday you'll know what it cost me to keep you safe.

He takes a step closer, his jaw set like stone. "And what you keep failing to see is I'm not a fucking child anymore. Something both you and Mom can't seem to understand."

Not a child anymore.

If you only knew what that means in this family.

I snap.

"This is what you've been keeping pent up inside all this time?"

His voice rises like a storm. "Dad never noticed anything I did because he was too busy watching you. The golden boy. Nate and his football career. Nate and his scholarships. Then you go and blow that up, and suddenly both Mom and Dad are focusing on trying to keep you out of jail and off the fucking streets."

Watching me.

Yeah, he was always watching me.

Waiting for me to slip up, to give him a reason.

My hands start to shake, and I shove them deeper into my pockets. "That's not⁠⁠—"

"What? Not fair?" He barks out a laugh that sounds like broken glass. "You wanna talk about 'fair'? Let's talk about how when you started losing your shit—quitting football, partying, spiraling—Mom stayed up all night worrying about you. You! Dad was pissed at the world because of you! And me? I'm the one getting shipped off to fucking camps for months at a time to stay out of the way. Because God forbid I add to their stress, right?"

Mom wasn't up worrying about me. She was worrying about you.

She was up hiding bruises, while I was planning escapes we'd never take.

And those camps… they were the only nights we could sleep knowing you were safe.

I clench my fists so hard my nails break skin, copper-scent mixing with the salt air. There's nothing I can say right now to make him see the bigger picture. Anything I do say, he won't believe anyway. I stay silent, letting him drain his poison.

"Doesn't matter anyway in the end," he snaps, voice raw. "Because just when I think maybe things can't get worse, you and Mom start keeping your own secrets. Did you ever think I deserved to know that our parents were getting a divorce? Or was that on a need-to-know basis, and I didn't fucking qualify?"

My breath catches like barbed wire in my throat.

Tell him.

Tell him why Mom finally left.