Page 98 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“For what it’s worth, I still love you and accept you for who you are,” I say, then I look up at Julian and give him a small smile. “I’m… uh, going through something similar, and I’m not just talking about my recent bi-awakening.”

There’s a beat of silence on the other end, so sharp I can almost hear Brendon’s brain tripping over itself before he says, “I’m sorry, your what awakening?” And despite everything, despite the ache in my chest and the sick weight of what my parents did to me, a laugh slips out of me.

I rub a hand over my face, cheeks heating because apparently telling my cousin I might be in love with my best friend is easier when I bury it under emotional wreckage and then immediately regret having a mouth.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “That part’s new.”

“Well, welcome to the rainbow side of life, I guess,” he says with a low chuckle, then his voice softens into something careful and stunned. “What happened with your parents?”

I swallow hard, looking down at my hands again while Julian’s palm settles warm between my shoulder blades, steadying me without taking over.

The room goes quiet except for Mila’s continued war against the cloth book.

“They did the same thing to me, sort of. Different reason, same structure.” I laugh once, bitter as hell. “Apparently our generation’s big family tradition is conditional love and financial threats.”

I tell him about Mila coming into my life four months ago, the DNA test, my parents telling me to marry Celeste, and refusing to hear anything I said about being manipulated or assaulted. About my father calling her a bastard child, and them standing on my steps today and acting like disowning me was some kind of burden I’d laid on them instead of a choice they were making with both eyes open.

When I finish, Brendon is silent for a long second after giving angry little comments while I spoke. Then he says, voice low and heartbreakingly close to understanding, “Fuck, I’m really sorry, Eli. I wish I could say I’m surprised.”

“I know, Bren. I knew it would happen, but I… I at least had some hope for my mother, you know?”

He exhales again, and this time there’s a different note in it. Something steadier. “For what it’s worth, it gets easier to breathe after a while.”

We sit there with that for a second, two cousins connected by a thread of shared damage nobody told us we were both carrying. It’s awful. It’s also, strangely, the first time I’ve ever felt less alone in this particular kind of wound.

I glance at Julian then. His eyes are on me and softer than they have any right to be after the month he’s had, too. “That sounds fake,” I mutter, finally responding to him.

Brendon gives a tiny huff of laughter. “I know. I hated hearing it too.”

That gets a real smile out of me for a brief second, and I’m about to ask him what he’s been doing without his parents’ help. But there’s a rustle on his end of the line, and then that same deep male voice from before drifts nearer, not directly to me this time. “You still on with your cousin?”

Brendon lowers his voice immediately. “Yes.”

“Tell him I said hi.”

My brows shoot up before I can stop them. “Okay, hold on. Who the fuck is that?”

Brendon goes quiet. That, more than anything, is suspicious. “It’s… the guy who answered the phone.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I say slowly. “You sound weird about it, though.”

Brendon groans. “That’s because… I live with him now and he kind of…” Another pause. Another muttered something I don’t catch. “Ugh, it’s… complicated.”

Julian lifts one brow at me and Luca’s mouth starts doing that dangerous little twitch it gets when he’s trying not to laugh at someone else’s suffering.

“Brendon,” I say slowly, “what are you not saying?”

“I hate this.” I wait him out, though, and it only takes about four seconds. Then he says, very quickly, “I’m…sortofhissugarbaby.”

Mila, because she has no respect for timing, chooses that exact second to let out a delighted squeal.

“You’re sort of a what?” I ask.

Brendon makes a sound of pure humiliation. “Can we move on now?”

“No,” I say immediately. “Absolutely not. We cannot just move on from that.”

“I knew you were going to do this.”