My little brother was forever the one I leaned on the most, and I relied on him to be brutally honest with me. He worried about me and tried to put himself between anything he thought might hurt me ever since the night he saved my life. Even when I was several states away and forgot to check in with him regularly, he still somehow knew when I needed him and would show up out of the blue like a white knight on an imported street bike instead of a white horse. It was like he was the older sibling and I had to run everything by him instead of the other way around.
My little brother knew good and well that not too long ago, the mere mention of Hyde Bishop-Fuller was enough to send me into an emotional tailspin. Sometimes it was depression and regret that clawed into me. Other times it was white-hot rage that exploded within me when I heard the name that haunted me.
I was an emotional creature by nature, but the fact that I’d been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder when I was in the hospital as a teenager explained why the things I felt were so intense and so over the top. My feelings about others and myself were in a constant state of hyperdrive, and they were often skewed through the lens of a chemical imbalance in my brain. So, while it had been years upon years since the fateful night that Hyde left without so much as a goodbye, it was only recently that I’d finally managed to get ahold of myself and my emotional reactions when I thought about him or when he was mentioned in passing. Hyde’s name no longer triggered me. He was no longer an open wound, but more of a sore spot that was only tender when deliberately poked. It was a pain I’d finally grown accustomed to living with.
I bent to pick up the tool Zowen dropped and straightened to put it back in its rightful space in his shiny chrome toolbox. I rolled my shoulders and forced a tight smile as he continued to look up at me with unvarnished concern in his two-toned eyes. The mismatched gaze was the only way one would be able to tell he was my mother’s son. Everything else was pure Archer genetics.
“It’s not a rumor. I ran into his cousin, Joss and her kids, at the grocery store last week. She mentioned he was more than likely moving back to Denver at the end of the month.” She’d tried to tell me more, but I’d cut the conversation short in an almost rude way because Hyde was far from my favorite topic to reminisce about, and all I wanted to do after hearing he was coming home was to get blackout drunk or eat my weight in ice cream. My way of thinking about difficult things might’ve matured and developed over the years, but my coping mechanisms still weren’t the greatest. I was a work in progress.
I left the store with three different pints and memories of Hyde hot on my heels.
I crossed my arms over my chest and lifted an eyebrow at him. Zowen wiped his greasy hands on the legs of his dirty and stained coveralls. I could tell that he was uncomfortable having this conversation, even though he was the one who brought up Hyde’s name.
“Don’t worry. It’s been a long time.” I tried to reassure him. It’d been nearly eight years since I last saw Hyde, to be exact. “I’ve had a lot of therapy and never miss my medication.” I was generally more aware that my brain and emotions didn’t work like other people’s. I made my mental health a top priority rather than letting the ups and downs I used to think I had no control over rule my every waking moment. “I’m not going to do anything dramatic just because my childhood crush is coming home. It doesn’t matter to me.”
At least, that was the mantra I repeated to myself over and over again since bumping into Joss. I was pretty close to having myself convinced it was actually true. However, I still couldn’t say, or even think, the phrase ‘he doesn’t matter to me.’
I poked Zowen’s shoulder with the toe of my sparkly tennis shoe. “You should be worrying about yourself. If Mom finds out you’ve been illegally racing on that death machine, she’s going to break both your legs so you can’t leave the house.”
My brother and I were as tight as two siblings could be. It was pretty hard to keep secrets when you shared a life-and-death situation, so I was the only one in our family who knew exactly what he was doing on the weekends when he came home from college. Neither of our parents would approve of him doing something so risky, especially since he was street racing without taking precautions, and he had zero safety measures in place beyond his helmet and leathers.
Zowen heaved a deep sigh and stared at me with obvious concern on his handsome face. “For real, Remy, if you aren’t okay being in the same city as Hyde, it’s okay for you to leave. If you have to get some space, do it. You need to do whatever is best for you. Forget about him.”
I copied his sound of frustration and reached out to pat the top of his head. His nearly black hair was thick and soft. I could only reach his head if he was sitting and I was standing. While Zowen inherited our father’s height and build, I was pretty much a clone of our petite mother, minus her odd-colored eyes. I wasn’t quite as short as she was, but that wasn’t saying much. My brother started towering over me before he hit his teens, and hadn’t stopped getting bigger until recently. But no matter his size or protective attitude, he was still my little brother, and I was supposed to be the one looking out for his well-being, not the other way around.
“I don’t want to forget about him. If I do, there’s a chance I’ll also forget how messed up I let myself get because of him, and that can never happen again. I have to remember the person I was before I hit rock bottom and got help. I can never be that girl again.” I couldn’t put Zowen through that kind of trauma or scare my parents that way ever again. I loved them too much. I’d also learned to love myself enough to know that I never wanted to be in such a low place for my own well-being.
I ruffled his hair and leaned back after he gave me an annoyed look I was all too familiar with. “Besides, I’ve seen Hyde when he’s home on leave since that night. Everything was fine. I’m immune to him now.”
Things were always tense, awkward, and slightly hostile, but still fine. We exchanged pleasantries and empty words, but there were no more longing looks or easy camaraderie. The few times he’d been back to Denver since that night and our paths had crossed because our parents were close, the world hadn’t caught fire. We were barely more than strangers. He’d gone off and transformed himself into a soldier, and I… I wasn’t the girl I used to be, but I hadn’t magically become someone else either.
I accepted that there would always be a pang deep in the center of my chest when I thought of the way he disappeared when I needed him the most. However, over the years, I’d learned how to ignore the twinges. Time worked wonders to heal old hurts, and so did outrunning all the memories and moments that chased after me. It wasn’t a surprise that Zowen told me to go without any qualms just now. I’d spent most of my early twenties on the move, never settling down in one place, never getting attached to anyone or anything. There was less chance of me going off the deep end again if wherever I was and whomever I was with didn’t matter to me at all. The more indifferent I remained, the safer I was, which was kind of a sad and pathetic way to live. The realization that my whole life felt empty, even if I managed to maintain an even-keel, was why I’d suddenly decided to come back home to Denver after years of putting as much space between me and the Mile High City as possible.