But he keeps talking before I can come up with anything. “What I think is I get it, and you don't. Because I'm okay with my anger. I'm okay with my crazy. It works for me. But you….”

He turns his body to face me on the steps. “You're still scared of yours. You felt that thunderbolt too. You felt it just like me. I know you did. But it scares you because you’re scared of yourself. At least, that’s what your brother told me.”

The mention of my brother only introduces more confusion into my overwhelm. “Ant? When did you talk to him?”

“I paid a visit—right before your wedding day,” Waylon answers.

“You're the one,” I realize out loud, finally solving a mystery I haven’t thought about since I left Delaware. “You're the one who told him I was getting married.”

“I thought he knew,” Waylon admits. “Didn't know he wasn't invited until he acted surprised about you getting married. I was just there to clear our beef up since I was taking you back to Iowa with me. I got him back in with the cartels and made a few introductions to keep us simpatico—that was Hades’ idea. He’s better at being nice to people than me.”

I think of poor Persy and can’t quite agree. But I focus on the most important part of this new information. “You talk to Ant about me the day before the wedding? What did he say?”

“Not to bother,” Waylon answers with a wry look. “He said that you had changed everything about yourself after what happened in that foster home you guys shared. He didn't tell me what that thing was. But he said you blamed yourself for him going to juvie afterward, and you’ve been trying to be somebody else ever since. Fighting yourself and the person you really are.”

“It was my fault,” I whisper.

And I don’t talk about it. Ever. Not even with Ant.

But Waylon—tough as nails Waylon gave me his story. And somehow, it only seems fair that I share mine. “There was this older brother in the home where we stayed. The foster parents’ biological son. He said if I didn't let him do things to me, then he’d do them to Ant. So, I let him. For months I just laid there and let him come in my room and do stuff I didn’t want. And I tried to stay quiet. For Ant. He was so small back then. Just a little kid.”

“So were you,” Waylon reminds me, his voice gruff.

I understand why he didn’t let me comfort him when he was telling me what happened to him now.