Page 174 of Small Town, Big Storm

Fuck, I hate it.

And part of me is glad I didn’t come back when our father was still alive, that I don’t have to reconcile taking care of a frail old man with the bastard who raised us.

“You okay?”I ask softly.

“Not really,” he admits.“You?”

I sigh, shake my head.“He left money for Holly.”

Rain’s eyes go wide.“He did?Why?”

“To”—I hold up the paper—“because:the girl seems smart enough and it would be a shame if she never got a chance because the adults around her couldn’t get their shit together.”

“Jesus,” he mutters.

“What’s your favorite?”

“What?”

I nod at his letter.“What’s your favorite idiocy from your letter?Mine is”—I scan then scoff—“And don’t go reading into this—I’m not asking for forgiveness.I’m dead.What fucking use would that be to me?”

Rain chuckles.“Fucking asshole.”

“Yup.”A beat.“Now yours.”

He looks down, reading for a minute then, “You spent your whole life fixing broken things.Shame you never figured out how to fix yourself.”

I choke.“What the actual fuck?”

“Cute, right?”

“Check outthisgem,” I say, quoting another line that burned when I read it, but now just sounds like a sad old man trying to score a punch.

We keep reading, sharing lines, keep…laughing.

We’re actuallylaughingabout this shit.

And maybe it’s dark.Maybe it’s fucked up.

But my brother and I are standing in our childhood home laughing.Not fighting.Not angry.Not locked in the painful past.

We’re together.

“He was wrong you know,” I say as we take our letters over to the stove and test it and the hood out, setting the pages alight and then dropping them into an old pot to watch them burn.

To watch them turn into ash.

“About what?”

“You fixing broken things.”

Rain’s expression clouds over.

“But he was sure as fuck wrong aboutyou.You’re not broken, Rain.You never were.”

He’s quiet for a long time, his gaze locked onto the ashes in the pot.“I don’t know about that.”

I clamp a hand onto his shoulder, hold his gaze.“I know.”