Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Victoria’s eyes are big and sad when she looks up at me. She wears all her pain on her face, like every other expression, and normally, it would kill me to see her sad, but right now, this is just how it is because I’m telling a story that was painful for me, and I know she feels that pain too. I don’t mind sharing it with her. I’m not mad at her for being sympathetic like a few of my brothers would be if people showed them some pity for their much rougher backgrounds.
“Do you ever think about finding her now?”
I shake my head. “Not really. I guess that when Granny adopted us, it gave us closure. We just hope she’s well. I don’t really want to find out. I suppose that this way, I can imagine her doing good, getting clean, and living a good life. If she’s not, or if she overdosed and didn’t make it, I guess maybe one day I’ll find out, but I’m not ready yet. Does that make me a coward?”
“No!” Her indrawn breath is as painful as the expression on her face. It makes my chest well up with emotions so overwhelming that I can’t even begin to contain them.
It might not be overly macho to get wet in the eyes, but damn it, I’m getting there, and I’m okay with it. That’s one thing this family—Granny and my brothers—has always been to me. They’ve always been supportive. Here, it’s safe to laugh, and it’s safe to cry, whether you’re a man or a boy, male or female.
“How did you end up with your granny?”
I have to clear my throat, and I don’t care that it sounds soft and wet, like some small animal is lodged there and needs to be released immediately. “Oh, well, when we got wind that Orion was going to get put in a different home, I fought three kids at school and got expelled instantly.”
A sharp burst of laughter fills up the basement. “Oh my god,” Victoria whispers. “Seriously?”
“Yup. Seriously. So we ended up going together. The new home was shit. The dad worked all the time, and the mom was, um, I hate to say it, but a functioning alcoholic. She didn’t care about us either, but it was a new level of not caring. She never abused us or anything, so we were lucky that way, but she never made any of the other kids in the house—there were four others—take any responsibility for anything. She wanted to watch TV and drink all day and usually all evening, then pass out on the couch for the night. She didn’t care if we’d eaten, or the rooms were a pigsty, or someone was playing with fire in the backyard, or someone had found the gun that the dad kept hidden under the mattress in their room. Yeah, it was that kind of house. Anyway, Orion and I were pretty much running wild. After a year of that, we turned into the worst pack of fourteen-year-old twin brats you can imagine.”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen some pretty shitty teenagers.”
That reminds me that I need to find the kid with the wild-colored hair who helped me with the pizzas the other night. That’s going to be the first thing on my hacker to-do list when I get back into the office. Okay, fine, the repair shop. Same difference.
“We’d always loved computers, and the house didn’t have one. But we did steal enough shit to sell, and Orion finally managed to buy this piece of crap laptop. We messed around on that and learned way too much shit, but then it died, and we were hooked on…well, I’m going to say amateur hacking kind of stuff, so we resorted to going to the downtown library and using their computers.”
Victoria shoves a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.
I just shrug because it is pretty funny now that I say it. “Granny likes to say we were two dolts who thought using a public computer for nefarious deeds was super smart. We got caught, the cops were called, and we entered the very fine world of the justice system. Granny had a friend working there who kept an eye out for exceptionally and potentially gifted youth—those were her words—so she got us out and took on our case in a way that only Granny could. She made promises, and when she offered to officially adopt and take responsibility for us, she worked her magic, and that was that. We suddenly had a real home with someone who cared about us. And brothers. That was the best part.”
“But not your real brothers. I get that now. That’s why Lennox looks so different.”
I’m not affronted by that. I know what she means. “They’re about as real as any blood brother could ever be. I love them like they’re my blood. Family is definitely thicker than all that ‘biological’ stuff.”