Chapter 34 #2
“You know those ancestry-whatever kits? I bought one a couple months ago,” I answer, pulling my phone from my pocket to scroll through my email.
“I got the email today with all the results I asked for. Dad’s side is pretty unremarkable, but on my mom’s side, I’m predisposed to cancer, high cholesterol and mental illness.
” I drop the phone in front of him and pick up my glass instead, bringing it to my lips.
“I guess you already know you are, too.”
“What?”
I don’t take my eyes off of the wall of liquor behind the bar. I can’t look at him. I don’t even want to be near him. Swallowing down another swig of my drink, I ask him, “How long have you known you’re my brother?”
Logan – the kid that I’ve known for years, the guy that I’ve called one of my best fucking friends and would have trusted with my life – goes a ghostly shade of pale. He stammers as he speaks, as if he’s starting to panic. “Em, I didn’t—”
“Do me a favor and don’t lie to me. You were already in the system. You took the same test I did, and I’m willing to bet it was for the same reason. How long?”
“Since you told me your name was Fowler,” he admits. “I should have told you.”
“Remember the text I sent you a few weeks after I met her?” I scroll through the messages in our chat thread, all the way back to the day I sent it, until I land on the one that I’m looking for. “’She had another kid. I have a brother somewhere, dude.’ Fucking right, you should have told me.”
I should have seen it sooner. I should have seen it, period.
We’ve been told we look alike, but we always laughed about it.
Looking at him now, I can see Anna in him.
Where I have my dad’s eyes, he has hers.
He has her mouth and her cheekbones, and I bet if she would have smiled at me, that would match, too.
I throw the rest of my drink down my throat and slam the glass back down on the bar, knocking it over.
“Em, I think you’ve had enough.”
“Did you meet her, too?” I demand while I scoop the spilled ice back into my glass and wave the bartender over for a refill. “Did you already know our mom didn’t want anything to do with us before I had the fucking pleasure?”
“No,” he says with a shake of his head. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Don’t talk to me again,” I say, stumbling over my words as I pull the glass to my mouth. “Delete my number. Tear up your contract with Fowler Enterprise. And leave.”
“Em.” He’s almost pleading with me. “Let me drive you home, dude. We’ll laugh about this tomorrow.”
“Go home, Logan.” When he just sits there, fucking staring at me with his hand on my shoulder, I repeat myself with a shove to his shoulder. “Go. Fuck off. Seriously.”
He sits there for a few moments longer, his eyes flicking between me and the bartender before he finally places his hand near his throat, shaking it to signal ‘no more’ to the old guy behind the bar.
It isn’t until the guy gives him a nod that Logan finally claps me on the shoulder and steps off of his stool, heading for the door.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he says over his shoulder before he exits.
No, we won’t.
Once he’s gone, I raise two fingers toward the old guy, silently ordering a refill of my drink.
“I think you’ve had enough, pal,” the bartender tells me, throwing a patronizing tone to his voice. “Let me call you a cab.”
“No,” I slur. I’ve seen this trick work for Davis a few times, so I pull a check from my wallet and reach forward to grab a pen from behind the bar, scribbling a few thousand bucks out onto it.
“I think I just got here, and I need my first drink.” He takes the check, staring at it for a long while as he worries his lip.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” I assure him, “I’m just a guy having a really shitty night. ”
His eyes flit between me and the check a few more times before he finally folds it, stuffing it into his breast pocket with a sigh.
Grabbing the bottle in front of him, he turns it over into my glass, telling me, “If you throw up or you get belligerent, you’re out.
Puke on my bar, you pay to have it cleaned. ”
I nod my head to him in understanding as I pull the glass to my lips and take a drink, swaying a little in my seat as I tip the glass back.
While I sip on the drink that I can’t taste anymore, as my fingers and my nose start to go numb, I run through the same thoughts that have plagued me for the past three weeks.
It wasn’t just Anna who hated me; Nash couldn’t stand me, either.
I was a toy to him. I was the weak little boy that let him walk all over me again and again – and if he asked me to right now, I’d probably still let it happen.
Logan obviously didn’t give enough of a shit about me to tell me the truth that he’s known for years.
And if I look back on my other failed relationships…
There’s only one common denominator here, and it isn’t them; it’s me. I am the shared weak link among all of them. For my entire life, it’s been me. There is something so fundamentally wrong with me that I repel the people I want closest to me.
I’m supposed to be a role model for my sisters, but all they’ll see when they look at me is a failure. Someone they never want to be like. I don’t want them to be like me, either. They’re both so bright and vibrant, and I’m…
I’m tired of being stuck in a vicious cycle of up and down, feeling like a normal person one day and being slammed into the ground the next.
Seeing the look on my dad’s face every time he gets just a little more worried about me.
Knowing that Anna is fine with the fact that I’ve wondered about her for twenty-five goddamn years; she hasn’t lost any sleep at night over leaving me behind.
Nothing has been missing from her life, but something irreplaceable has been missing from mine.
I know where this ends for me.
I throw back another drink.
Another.
Another.
Until I can’t keep my eyes open and I feel like I’m stuck on a Tilt-A-Whirl, with a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. Until I feel something inside of me slow and the peace that I had all week finally comes back home to me, forcing a smile across my face.
“Sorry, pal,” the bartender tells me, pointing toward the door. “I told you: you throw up, you’re out of here.”
Huh. I guess I did.
I slip off of the stool and onto the floor as I vomit again, using the bar top to pull myself back up, and I head out of the front door.
Stumbling down the sidewalk, I try to force my eyes to open more, but they won’t budge; even after I smack into the wall of the building and bounce off of it, falling backward over the edge of the sidewalk.
I hit the ground.
And then everything goes black.