Page 54 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

Something moves through her face fast—relief and alarm in the same moment. Which tells me she doesn’t want to be alone with my brother but is aware that me being out here with him might not be a good idea. Well, I’m glad we both know it.

Because the fact she feels any relief at my presence means I’m staying right where I am.

Jake turns and his eyes narrow with accusation. Like I’m exactly the disaster and disappointment he always expects me to be. Like here I am right on schedule, proving him right again.

“August.” The single word is so full of judgment and self-righteous contempt.

Like I’ve victimized him just by existing.Again.

I hear the story he’ll be telling everyone come Sunday. That delinquent, troubled brother of mine seduced my poor, easily deluded wife, can you believe it? Tempted her to the dark side.

It’s hard to hold back the boiling rage of my fifteen-year-old self and the wilderness camp and every psychiatric hold.

Every time I overheard Jake tell someone about his troubled brother with that particular mournful dignity, his eyes going ever so slightly misty as he explained the hardship of a man burdened by circumstance. It moves through me like current and I feel every inch of it.

But by god, I will not prove him right by allowing him to provoke me. Especially when this is not about me. I breathe in for a count of four, and then out for six.

“I think you should go,” I say, and my voice comes out level.

“I’m talking to my wife,” he says. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“I’m not your wife anymore.” Lennon says in exasperation. “I’m divorcing you.”

He ignores her, his eye on me with a look that might be curiosity if it weren’t so cold underneath. “You know what I find interesting? I came here to talk to Lennon and here you are. Suddenly you’re her protector.”

He tilts his head. “You always were so jealous of everything I had. So tell me, brother. How long have you been fucking my wife?”

“You’re a pig who clearly doesn’t know the woman you married.” Fuck. I’m taking the bait when I swore I wouldn’t take the bait.

“And you do? Intimately, I suppose.” His insinuation is disgusting.

Do not take the bait.

This is all he and Mom ever do.

Bait me, and I took it every time because I had no idea how to self-regulate. At least in the past. But I have tools now.

The doc and I suspect my mood disorder is a combination of genetics, the environment I grew up in, everything that went down with my dad and the trauma that came after. But either way, these are the cards I was dealt and self-regulating does not come naturally to me.

But it’s a skill I have done my damndest to learn, and this motherfucker willnotset me on my back foot, much less knock me down.

So I take a step back.

“I’ll let you discuss whatever you need to discuss with Lennon, and then, again, brother, I invite you to leave.”

“What exactly has she told you about herself?” Jake keeps digging at me. “About her episodes? About the way she gets when she’s not well?”

“Jake—” Lennon starts.

“I’m asking my brother a question.” He doesn’t look at her. “August. Genuinely. Because I’m worried about her. The Lennon I know—when she gets into a state like this… She can seem very together, right up until she isn’t. I’m not saying that to be cruel. I’m saying it because I’ve been with her for nine years and I know what not-well looks like.”

The rage is a live thing in my chest.

I breathe through it.

Is this motherfucker seriously trying to do to hiswifewhat he and Mom did to me all those years?—

“She seems fine to me,” I say.