TWENTY-ONE—THE UGLY PAST
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"MY BROTHER'S DEAD. And it's my fault."

Bucky's hand drops from my arm and I can hear his breath hitch in his throat. As he takes a step back, his eyes widening and jaw slackening, my heart sinks. For someone with such a long and messy past, I'd assumed he would be the person to look at me no different, to understand and want to help me. But he only put distance between us.

Shaking my head, I stared at him with my eyes flicking between each of his own and my mouth hanging open. "I shouldn't have told you," I whispered, "I never should have--I'm sorry," I rushed, turning around and aiming for the front door.

He reached out and grabbed my wrist before I could get too far away, though, and pulled me back. I admit it was more difficult than before, trying to forget the way his calloused hand rubbed against my soft skin, heating it faster than I'd ever realized possible. And when he pulled it back, breaking the connection, I could still feel it. Every pressure point was a fire on my skin. 

For a second, he didn't say anything, and it occurred to me that he didn't know what to say. "I shouldn't have assumed you'd be any different than them," I spat, angrily wiping my eyes. 

"Who?" He said, furrowing his brows.

I scoffed coldly. "My god-awful parents. They blame me for everything." I chuckled darkly and continued, "And it turns out, they're right." 

"I'm sure that's not the whole story, doll," he said gently. "I refuse to believe that you're a murderer...not like me," his voice quieted and he looked far away. 

Sniffing, I sighed. "What am I doing to myself?" I spoke aloud. "I'm twenty-six fucking years old and my parents are still guilt-tripping me into being just like their perfect Cade."

He raised an eyebrow in question, to which I beckoned him with one hand. "Have you taken a step outside this house since you got here, Buck?"

Bucky nodded, "Yeah, that one time I--"

"Never mind. Let's go for a walk. I don't know if I can talk about this while sitting still." Without looking back to see if he was following, I opened the front door and headed for the edge of the forest. It was due time I shed light on the ugly past.

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I'd meant to start talking right when we were under the cover of the trees, but I found that the words wouldn't come. My mouth kept opening, but I couldn't be paid enough to make my vocal cords work. So for the first ten minutes, we just walked further into the forest, the shadows growing longer, the path back to the house becoming less clear. 

"You're sure you know where you're going, doll?" Bucky interrupted the silence. "I've got no problem with a little adventure, but I know that getting lost wasn't exactly the main goal of this experience."

Sighing, I nodded. "Yeah, I know where I am. I've spent my entire life walking through these woods. I just...don't know where to start." Turning to look at him, I grimaced. "There's a lot of history in that house. With my brother, I mean."

He nods in response. "I can understand that," he says, a solemn expression on his face, "seventy years is a lot of history to have to hold on to."

A grateful smile graces my face as I step over a gnarled tree root in the ground. As it turned out, we understood each other more than we'd ever thought we would. It just took time. How poetic, I smirked in the back of my mind.

"Start at the beginning," he suggested softly, "and take your time."

I nodded, clearing my throat. "Okay, here goes."

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Cade was always the perfect child. He cleaned up after himself, always kept his room tidy, and rarely fought with our parents. He was the poster child for easy parenting. And ever since I can remember, I'd always been trying to catch up to him. 

"Go hang out with friends like your brother," my parents always said, "do what he's doing."

If they hadn't added the "like your brother" part, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe he'd still be here.

We spent every waking second together. Only a few years apart, I was eternally grateful that we liked the same things. We hung out around town on the weekends, climbing trees in the forest around our house on school nights. But no matter how much time we were together, I was never like him. My parents felt the need to keep pointing it out everytime they got the chance. 

Whether it was my grades in school or my lack of organization, I was always the kid who could try as hard as I could to be like my big brother but would never be the same. I was second best, I was less than. And it hurt my self-esteem, to say the least.

Because what kind of parents tell their daughter they can't do it? What kind of parents worship one child and spit on the other? It wasn't right, but I couldn't do anything about it. 

Until the time came for Cade to go off to college. I was only a few years behind, so I was extra emotional when he made his choice to go out of state. Of course, that what when I found out that while Cade was good at being honest, I could manipulate like no other.

"Why do you have to go hours away?" I'd asked, tears swimming in my eyes. "We'll barely be able to visit you."

Seeing my obvious hurt, Cade had enveloped me in his arms like the big brother that he was, whispering in my hair, "It'll be okay, El. I'll call you every week. You're my little sister. I'm not just going to forget about you. Contrary to what you may believe, that's not possible." 

I'd hiccuped on my tears, beginning to smile as he comforted me. "Still," I'd continued after pulling away and wiping my eyes, "why can't you do something cooler than just more school? Didn't you want to get into the CIA or something?" I held his gaze as the gears in his head moved around, considering my words.

He shrugged. "You know Mom and Dad won't let me. They want me to go to school before getting a career." Shaking his head, he mumbled, "something about having a backup plan."

But I didn't give up. "You don't have to follow everything that Mom and Dad say, you know," I'd said. "I certainly haven't."

Cade had winked at me, "Yeah, and look how you turned out."

Rolling my eyes, I kept going. "It's your future. They pretty much chose the college you've committed to, anyway. If you want to go to college, go for it. But don't let them control your life. It's unhealthy, really."

My brother cocked an eyebrow. "That's pretty insightful for a sophomore in high school, Elda," he'd smirked.

"Yeah, well..." I shrugged. "Just promise me you'll give it a thought."

He'd nodded. "Yeah, okay."

It didn't take much longer after that for everything to fall apart.

Within the week, Cade had told our parents that he was going to pursue his biggest dream of applying to be a CIA agent, and they couldn't do anything about it. Of course, he'd also included that I was the one to "open his eyes" to this brilliant idea. 

After that moment, my parents never looked at me the same. Always calculating, wondering if it truly was my fault that their favorite child had betrayed them. 

So for months on end, Cade was gone. Training to be an agent in the CIA. Even though he wasn't home, I knew he was doing what he loved. And that was all that I needed to sleep at night. But nothing would stay like that. It was bound to fall apart. 

We got the visit almost two years after he'd joined the agency. Two men in black suits standing outside of our front door, a crisp white envelope in one of their hands.

I hated that envelope. It held the information that caused my parents to look at me with a distant fury for the rest of my life. The envelope, opened carefully by the man who'd held it, was read aloud to my parents, with me hiding behind the wall and listening in.

It was hard to hear the whole conversation; they kept talking in muffled tones. But my mother's wail of grief was unmistakable. My brother was dead. Killed on an assignment gone awry. 

Standing behind the wall, I'd clamped a hand over my mouth to keep the strangled sound from escaping my mouth. The blood in my veins had turned to an icy slush, a loud disturbance rushing in my ears. It's your fault, it's your fault, you told him to go, you suggested it to him, they'll never forget, they'll never forgive you was all I could hear in my head. I never let myself forget. 

Because the day my brother died was the day I became my parents' worst nightmare. They never looked at me the same way ever again. For good reason, of course.

Maybe if I hadn't wanted to defy my parents so much, if I had just let things be, maybe he'd still be alive. Maybe he'd call me every week like he was going to promise, maybe he'd still be my big brother. But he was gone, never going to age another day. And it was all by my doing. 

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i kind of hate this flashback/backstory because i wanted to really articulate how close cade and elda were but i mean...that's what editing is for when i'm done with the whole story.

also can we talk about two updates in two days! and such looooong chapters! the one before this was well over 2000 words, and this one's around 1700, so woop!

so yeah the cat's out of the bag when it comes to cade and elda! what do you think?

published on: september 3, 2018