Page 56 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

FOURTEEN

LENNON

I wasmad at Jake before August stepped out of his RV.

But watching Jake do the thing he’s done for the last nine years—except to his brother instead of me?

Oh my god. He completely decimated and stripped August down to a shell in three minutes flat.

I suddenly get it in a way that I couldn’t before.

He’s a fucking bully.

And I want to tear his throat out.

“August?” I ask desperately as I watch him go catatonic in front of me. “August?”

I rush over to him, tentatively putting a hand gently on his back.

He jumps at the touch so I pull back, but at the same time he angles towards me as if my nearness is a comfort.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s going to be okay.”

He blinks his eyes shut and holds them closed, eyebrows furrowed. “So. Embarrassed,” he manages to choke out.

“Can I touch you?” I whisper, meanwhile hearing the police arrive behind me.

He nods, eyes flying open as his hands reach forward and grip my forearm desperately. “Don’t let them take me.”

“Why would they take you? You didn’t do anything wrong?”

His jaw clenches tight, his head shaking back and forth. He doesn’t say anything else, and I get the feeling it’s because talking has suddenly become really, really difficult for him.

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with him. If this is a different form of a panic attack, or another type of mental episode.

I just know Jake is lucky he called the police, because it’s only the sirens in the distance and needing to soothe August with Raven and others around us for support that keeps me from running at that bastard and scratching his eyeballs out.

The rage inside me feels so big and all-consuming, I think I’ll need to scream for a thousand miles of highway before I’ll ever get rid of it.

“It’s going to be okay,” I repeat, holding August’s arm tight.

But his stare has gone even more vacant, like he’s just gone totally absent from his body and this scene with his brother threatening him.

They talk about fight or flight, and it’s like he took flight while his body is still here. Jesus, what hell was it for him growing up in that household with Kathy and… and Jake?

I feel like the proverbial scales are falling from my eyes with regards to Jake.

Has he really been like this the whole time? How could I be married to a man for nine years and never know him at all?

But then, he never knew you, either.

Not really. He only knew the smaller,not-too-muchversion of myself I forced myself to be to fit into his world.

Jake had a story in his head of the wife he wanted… so I became her. I performed the role ofJake’s Wifefor nine years, scripted by Jake, even though she bore no resemblance to the realme.

And it made me horrifically ill.

Maybe it made August ill, too, in a different way? What must it have been like to grow up in a house with family members who constantly denied your experience of reality and put you in mental hospitals when you wouldn’t go along with the lies they were telling you were the truth of your existence?