“You came home eventually,” Quinn continues. “But it wasn’t long before you joined security, and then you might as well have left all over again. Eu sempre vou te proteger. Fucking bullshit.” He sucks in a harsh breath. “I was fifteen.” He chokes. “Fifteen. You were twenty-fucking-five and you couldn’t protect me!”
He just gave me an age…a timeline.
For the first moment in my life, I know when our relationship shattered. This news pulverizes me to the very core. “Fifteen?” I breathe, knowing this was before. Before he started training to box.
“High school was hard. Every day, I went there knowing I’d be shoved into a locker or railed on. Stupid shit that you’d think only happens in the movies,” Quinn says, teeth clenching, “but I was the loser who landed into every fucking cliché.”
“I don’t understand. You were popular in high school,” I say, desperate to make sense of this. “You were co-captain of the field hockey team.” Though I know that sport got dropped as soon as he took up boxing.
“But you never saw the other co-captain slam me against the locker room walls. Never saw my teammates shove my face into the grass.” He blinks. “You just assumed that I was popular because I played sports? My team hated me. They hated me for no fucking reason other than I cried when I got knocked down. Same reason dad spit-screamed into my face the first month of training.” He shrugs but it’s stiff like his whole body is made of iron. “And maybe I deserved it. I was just counting on my big brother to come save me or something.” His eyes sink into mine. “But that never happened.”
Eu sempre vou te proteger.
I will always protect you.
“If you would’ve called me—”
“You’d what? Drop everything to run home and help me? You never came home! These guys were fucking with me every goddamn day. Over and over. You couldn’t stop what they already knew. I was weak. I had no one.”
I’m hung up on the word guys. My stomach churns. “How many?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything.
“How many guys, Quinn?!” I scream, eyes burning.
His voice cracks into a cry. “I told you. The whole fucking team.”
He didn’t even have a chance. My brother…my baby brother was getting beat to shit, and I never knew. Never helped him. I was too busy protecting someone else. Someone who was paying for my protection, and I’d promised it to Quinn. Because he’s my brother. He’s my blood.
Dizziness sets in, and I squat down. Hands on my head.
Quinn takes a large breath, chest rising. “I don’t need you anymore. I don’t need anyone, bro. I got stronger than everyone in the family, so that I could finally protect myself.” He jabs a finger at his chest.
I slowly rise. Colorful lights spinning around us are banging in my head. “Then why’d you quit boxing?” I always assumed he quit to follow me into security. But I know I’m wrong.
He wipes a hand across his jaw. “I couldn’t stand it.” He drops his hand, and he squeezes his fingers in a fist like he’s trying to force something back. “Oscar, I don’t just hate boxing. I fucking loathe it. People all around me cheering to hit him. Kill him. Harm another person. For what? Applause? A fucking trophy?”
The ring is violent. More than once have I been the recipient of those cries to murder. But we’ve grown up around the combat sport, it’s just…normal to me.
Quinn grimaces into a shake of his head. “No. I’m not doing that.”
“Then you could have gone to college,” I tell him. “You could have made a different life for yourself.”
“I want this!” Quinn points at the ground. “I want to defend people. Protect people. To be a force of good. You know why I go off comms like Farrow? Why I replicate his style of bodyguarding? Because he needs no one. Not any of the team. He can rely on himself, and that’s all I’ve ever fucking wanted.”
This need for self-reliance stems deep. All the way back to being bullied in high school. Bullied. Fuck, my baby brother was bullied. I want to cry or hug him. I fucking hate myself. Because never in a million years did I think Quinn—my brother who could knock me out—was once tormented every day by his peers. And he’s right, if I’d been there for him, I would have put an end to every last fucker who laid a hand on him.
But I was barely around.
“Quinn—”
He cuts me off, “I realize now that I never would’ve been this good of a fighter, if you didn’t fail at protecting me.” Just like that, heat extinguishes from his gaze. “I guess I can thank you for that.”
It’s a final blow.
A knockout.
He is all that he is because of me. All that rage. All that pain.
“Quinn,” I breathe. I have to try to mend this, and maybe I finally can now that I know what’s broken. “I’m so fucking sorry. For the rest of my life, I’ll always be sorry.” I step closer. “I didn’t protect you then, and I know it’s too late now.” We’re near enough that I put a hand to the back of his head. He tries to shove me away, but it’s not as hard or forceful as he’s done before. I barely sway.
And I keep my hand rooted tight onto his head.
Tears stream down his cheeks.
“I love you,” I tell him. “I should have never made you that promise, if I wasn’t going to keep it.” He claws at my shirt, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to push me away or hold on. “You don’t have to stop hating me, but I’m not going anywhere.”
He splinters into a sob and collapses in my arms. His forehead on my shoulder, he full-body heaves into tears. “I want to stop hating
