Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
HER
Iwas thirteen years old when I realized you didn’t have to put a horse down after it broke a leg.
It was a choice. Because it cost too much money, time, energy to repair a break.
But that wasn’t all. A fractured limb left the poor beast susceptible to infection and the list of comorbidities that came with it.
Laminitis, abscesses, gastrointestinal issues…
Horses were bred to be agile, fast. Large torsos and thin, brittle legs meant they had difficulty moving around when you took one of those legs away.
They couldn’t rest the bone long enough to heal.
Then it became a matter of quality of life.
What kind of pain the creature would endure during that healing process and if it would be indefinite.
Mother nature was cruel. But sometimes she was kind too. Sometimes death was the kindest thing you could do for an animal you couldn’t fix.
Robbie was that animal.
I’d tried for years. Did everything I could think of to try to fix what wasn’t right with his brain. And I only succeeded in prolonging everyone’s suffering. Including my own. Because I’d failed him as much as he’d failed me.
I saw that now. I saw it that night I put a razor blade to my wrists. Except I’d taken the easy way out and attempted to put down the wrong beast.
The truth was, I would have been a horrible veterinarian.
I didn’t have it in me to make those hard choices doctors had to make on a daily basis, and my baby brother?
He was my weakness. He always had been and I couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.
The nothingness it turned into. But Cain didn’t have to be like Robbie.
He wasn’t broken in the same way. He still had a chance to heal and I wanted to be the one to help him do it.
The sex doll wasn’t the answer. I realized that too. But maybe incapacitating myself was. Maybe it could be…
I didn’t feel the jab of the injection tip, but I did feel the sudden jolt of epinephrine flood my system.
My heart beating faster as the beta blocker fought the artificial rush of adrenaline.
Like two steam engines colliding head-on.
It was enough of a shock to send me into cardiac arrest, except it didn’t.
Instead, I sucked in a gasp of air, my eyes fluttering open as sweat drenched my forehead.
I closed them again and took a few deep breaths, trying to block out the sensory overload that had my body feeling like it was under attack.
Until I sensed him standing over me and my nerve endings ignited in a different way.
My thighs clenching together and my pale skin turning flush.
I didn’t have to see it when I could feel my cheeks burning up.
I didn’t know what it was about him. But this man had this habit of making me feel alive even when I was dead…