24. Rae
24
RAE
Tyke enters the room, the bitter tang of fresh smoke following in his wake when he strides past Digger and I seated on the foremost sofa, toward his desk.
"I want you to tell me what the fuck happened while I was gone," he orders, low and foreboding. "Starting with the second you walked away from me, Dig, and endin' with now."
He's mad, and I don't know why. Besides knowing I was with Digger without him, I don't understand what I've done. I draw my legs up, tucking them beneath the over-sized T-shirt of Digger's that I wear, and hug my knees to my chest.
Tyke tracks the movement out of the corner of his eye, fussing with papers on the edge of his desk as a distraction. Or maybe an outlet, given the menace that comes off him in waves.
"You need to fuckin' take a deep breath, brother." Digger scoots forward on his cushion, hands clasped and elbows on knees as he leans forward. "Don't know what's got you like a fuckin' bear with a sore head, but I promise it ain't worth it."
“You don’t know, huh?” He nods slowly, lips pressed into a flat line.
My breaths come quicker. I can’t handle this. Not more anger at something I’ve done without fucking meaning to. Another goddamn mistake I’ve made from sheer ignorance. Fuck.
"My beautiful, precious girl is in there," he says, voice hoarse with emotion as he gestures toward his room, "and neither of you is with her."
“Rae asked?—”
Tyke doesn’t let Digger finish. “Why you gotta ask?” He throws his arms wide. “Just do it.” The pain is laced through his pinched brow and narrowed eyes. “Just go be there with her. Be a friend, for fuck’s sake.”
“Brother,” Digger warns, rising to his feet. “Hear me out.”
“No!” Tyke hollers. “You hear me out, you fuckin’ selfish asshole!”
"I'm selfish?" Digger roars in return. "You fucking go off half-cocked and then have the audacity to say I’m selfish?”
"You don't care," Tyke yells over the top, barely letting Digger finish. "Everything you do comes back to what you want, what you need?—”
“You think I don’t care about Maddie!?”
“She’s fuckin’ broken in there, and you’re both too busy doing what? Fuckin’?”
The crack is sickening; Digger's knuckles find his older brother's jaw as the argument descends into violence. The assortment of pen cups and figurines atop Tyke's desk go crashing to the floor, the sofa closest screeching across the boards as Tyke's foot connects with it, Digger pushing the larger man backward over the desk's surface.
I jam the heels of my hands to my ears, gulp down a fortifying breath, and then yell. Every fucking muscle in my arm goes taut, tendons proud on my neck as I pour the frustration of the past weeks—shit, months, maybe years—into the expulsion of noise and energy as I plead for them to quit. My voice fades, cracking as I lose lung power, and it’s only when I stop that I realize they have too.
The brothers stare at me as though I've grown a second head, maybe shed my skin, and become unrecognizable.
“What the hell?” Tyke mutters, surprised by my outburst.
Digger pinches the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb and mutters, "I was trying to fuckin' tell you. They had Rae. They took her too."
"The fuck?" Tyke's head whips back and forth as he looks us both over. "Why the fuck you not tell me this?!"
"I'm sorry," I wail, fingers digging into the sides of my head, nails scraping my scalp. "I’m sorry, okay. I'm just sorry." My voice fails, cracks, and splinters as my resolve to do this—to do life—leaves.
“Hey.” Digger’s there, on his knees before me. “Ain’t anything to be sorry for.”
I don't want to look. I can't look at Tyke. Not when I know, without shifting my gaze from my knees before me, that he's standing stunned on the other side of the room.
Probably shocked at what he’s got himself in for. What he’s labeled as his own.
“You can have it back,” I whisper. “The patch. I don’t need it.”
Digger rocks back on his heels, a deep frown disrupting his handsome face. “The fuck?”
"I don't deserve it." I drop my hands to the tops of my feet, thumbs rubbing at the sides of my arches. "It was a mistake to accept it. I'm sorry. All I've brought to this place is trouble. All I've done is create chaos." I dare in that moment. I dare to search out Tyke's gaze, needing him to see how much I mean this. "All I've done is brought you both pain."
“Shit.” Tyke turns away, hand rubbing the back of his head.
I can't take it anymore. I can't stand the attention on me—on us all. One after the other, I slide my legs out from beneath Digger's T-shirt and rise to my feet. "I'll be upstairs, packing my things." Hands wound in the hem of the shirt, I cringe and force the request through a thin throat. "I'd be grateful if you'd let me hang around until Maddie comes right. Then I'll go."
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Digger growls, gaze fixed on the floor beneath his knuckles. He leans on one hand, still on his knees, the other splayed wide on his thigh, fingers flexing. “Don’t you fucking get it?” Face contorted with his pain, he looks up at me. “Don’t you see it? We’re all as fucking broken as you are, Rae. You ain’t special for feelin’ this way.” His jaw steels, fucking eyes watering as he adds, “You ain’t different .”
I don’t know what to say. He’s done it again. He’s humbled me by pulling me out of my goddamn head and pointing out how self-absorbed I’ve been in my self-hatred.
He is broken—I know that. And I don’t care. I couldn't care less about the scars these men carry; at least, I couldn't give a shit that they have them. It doesn't affect my love for them. If anything, it makes me appreciate and respect them more. Knowing they shoulder the weight of past mistakes and trauma and manage to get through life anyway.
And yet, I see those same flaws in myself, and I fucking implode. I turn inward and claw and scratch at those fucking failures, those weaknesses and convince myself that I’m not worth loving because I dare to be human.
I dare to fucking be a goddamn mortal soul trying to get through this thing called life.
“Who taught you this?” Tyke finally asks, voice gentle as he moves toward where I stand, his brother at my feet, head bowed. “Who the fuck taught you to hate yourself so deeply?”
Fuck. I want to give him some spiel about abusive parents, a schoolyard bully—Greg. Some shit that would make sense. Yet all I can push through my choked throat is, “I did.”
“Why?” Tyke’s word cracks. His breath leaves on a whoosh from his nose, lips parted and eyes screaming his confusion. “Why do that to yourself?”
He doesn’t understand. Nobody ever does.
I shrug. “I guess…” Why do I hate myself so deeply? My ass hits the cushion as I collapse, searching the recesses of my mind for why the fuck I do this—over and over—even though I know it's wrong. "I want so damn bad to be perfect, to be flawless so people have no reason to be disappointed in me, that when I am flawed, I hate myself on their behalf. I get angry at myself for letting them down. For failing them." I frown, burying my face in my hands as Digger shifts to sit on his ass. "I feel like if I show that I hate myself for it first, they'll forgive me. Understand." I swallow hard and lift my face to look at them both. "When I haven’t acknowledged what I've done in the past before others pointed it out, I was called careless. Thoughtless. As though I chose to ignore my flaws."
“You self-sabotage your happiness,” Digger whispers. “You see that, right?”
I nod. “Because you do it too.”
He mimics my movement.
“Nobody thinks you’re careless,” Tyke says carefully, settling on the seat beside me. “Fuck. Nobody can blame you for being scared. For wanting reassurance. Safety,” he says, hands rubbing his knees as though he doesn’t know what to do with them. “You haven’t done a single selfish thing at all, Rae. Nothing.”
“Not even this?” I indicate to the three of us.
“You saying how we feel don’t matter?” Digger asks. “Because I hate to tell you, honey, but the three of us agreed to do this. The three of us have vested interests in this working.” He thumps a loose fist to his chest. “You saying you’re being selfish makes it sound as though we don’t want a part in this. That you made us do it.”
“Why would you want me?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. "After everything I've brought with me. The shit I've caused."
“You caused Terry to be a power-hungry asshole, did you?” Tyke lifts a brow.
Damn him.
“You cause my brother to use his niece as a bargaining chip?”
He’s too damn good at calling me out on my shit.
“You cause Connor to come from a family so fucked up that he goddamn stalks you to keep you safe from them?”
“I guess not,” I mutter, head down.
“Damn straight, you didn’t.” Tyke’s firm fingers find my chin, startling me a little as he forces me to look at him. “It’s my heart that chose you, baby girl. My heart that saw you and said, yeah, she’s the girl for me. You tellin’ me I’m a fool?”
Fuck. “No. I just… I don’t think you fully understand what you agreed to here.”
“Then tell us,” Digger pleads, arms slung around his bent knees. “Tell us what the fuck it is that you think has the power to scare us off. Us . And then get that shit off your conscience so you can be with Maddie without this bullshit guilt that has no reason to be.”
Fuck it. I did not want to cry again. What I do want is a giant fucking rewind button so I can go back in time and smother my fucking mouth before I say any of this shit. So, I could shake the hell out of myself for spiraling yet again.
Every. Goddamn. Time.
I collapse against the back of the sofa with a sigh, the hem of the T-shirt between my fingers as I fidget with the fabric to deflect from just how much it damn hurts to admit all this. "Every month, I tell myself I'll be better," I say. "Every month, I think to myself, 'You know what? I've learned from it all this time. Next time, I won't be so irrational. Moody. I'll catch the signs.' And every fucking month I do it. All. Over. Again."
“Do what?” Tyke asks.
Head back, I close my eyes and sigh. “You guys are old enough to know what PMS is, right?”
Digger chuckles. “Tyke would hit the road two days every month just to avoid it with the witch.”
“True,” his brother affirms. “Yeah, Rae. We know what that is.”
“You know what PMDD is, then?” I roll my head toward him and seek out his comforting gaze.
Even now, with the undivided attention of these men and the comfort they bring, my head screams at me that it's not enough, that I don't deserve it, that I drag everyone down, that I find no joy in life, that I have no purpose.
That I should just die.
I continue when neither of them speaks. “PMDD is PMS times ten.” A bitter laugh erupts from deep in my throat. “Fuck. Maybe one hundred, depending on the month.”
"Like more painful cramps and shit?" Digger asks.
Bless his soul.
"Like deeper mood shifts." I close my eyes and press the heels of my hands into them. I always hate voicing this bullshit when I'm in the thick of it. "For a week or so each month, my brain convinces me it'd be easier to die."
The silence is telling.
Regret sluices through my veins, the insatiable need to disappear.
To not burden people with the truth.
The trickle crests my cheekbones, and I let the fucking silent tears run until my ears fill with the salty moisture. Until it slows and dries as fast as it started.
Until I numb out once more.
“Rae.” Tyke’s gentle use of my name sets a weight in my chest that I can’t explain. “Look at us, please.”
Nostrils flaring, I fight down the surge of despair. Of hate and regret. Of grief.
For the girl, I could have been.
For the future that I'll never have because of this.
"Why?" If I lift my hands and remove the pressure, I can't guarantee I can stop what comes next.
The breakdown. And the inevitable recovery.
“Because I need you to.” His voice has shifted. Closer. In front of me.
I draw a deep breath and drop my hands, brushing the left against a leg that wasn’t there before. Digger?
With a swallow, I crack my eyes open and nearly fall apart at what I find.
Tyke stands over me, legs wide to straddle mine. His hands are braced on the sofa back on either side of me, but it's not the fact I never noticed him shift that spears me in the heart. It's the softness in his gaze, the tenderness and warmth that shines in those brown hues as he slowly lifts one side of his mouth in a lazy smile.
"I care about you, baby girl," he states. "Fuck. Think it makes more sense to say I love you. We love you.”
“As you are,” Digger adds, sweeping the loose strands of hair behind my ear. “No other way.”
“Whatever shit you gotta go through with this thing,” Tyke says, imploring me with his dipped chin and wide eyes. “We’ll walk it with you.”
“I don’t fucking deserve you,” I choke. “Either of you.”
Digger’s fingers weave through the hair at the back of my head as he pulls me closer to press a kiss against my temple. “Tell myself the same damn thing every day.”