"I'M DONE"

A/N: Hi everyone! Glad to be back for new exciting updates. This one made me a wreck, but hopefully by the end of the chapter you can understand Brendan's character a little better ❤️ Don't forget to vote and to comment! 🥰

BRENDAN's POV

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"IT MAKES NO SENSE. But if you're the only one who wants to fight for Colber just as much as I want to, then I have no choice but to bet on you. This is me trying to be fair."

Her dumb words kept tingling me, nervously making my fingers rush to the nape of my neck.

How am I supposed to answer this? Crack a raw laugh so I can embarrass me further? Hide my eyes from the paradoxal, intense clouded gaze permanently holds, while I attempt to change the subject? Or just ran away, pretend that we fucking never had conversation in the first place? Certainly the last option seems more appealing to me.

Thing is, I know she won't let this slide away. Evren is too much of a irritating, stubborn persona. I've been around her for a week, which had been enough time to recognize her immediate triggers, flaws and the edgy parts of her rather unique charisma.

Not to exaggerate or something, but I know if I pretended to have an heart attack right here, even then she wouldn't stop questioning me, ticking me, hell, torturing me while my barely lifeless body convulsed on the floor.

I guess you can say she is a natural challenge herself. And for some reason, that alone does not sit well with me.

I believe I've been silent for a while, though my immediate reaction was to turn my back on her silhouette and dump my head.

What else can I do now? I won't create an excuse, lie to my limits or put the blame on someone else's. I'm a coward, yes, but I still did not hit such level of cowardliness. I'm aware of my past and I do not hold grudges over it, I just wish I could have met another destiny.

"Does it bother you?" I let it slip, almost venomously. My teeth craved on my upper lip, my eyes close to shut. "Does it change anything? To know I've led those kids into a rotten rigged path? That I left them to die?"

I let the words flow away rapidly and with a newly awakened straightforwardness I am able to achieve, even though I'd give anything not to talk about any of this. It's caging, the only definition of a feeling I can properly find right now. It got me caged for a long time...

Back where I lived before I came to Highland Bricklane, the days didn't simply pass. They were just chains holding us down so we couldn't think about any future plans.

Honestly, when I think about what I had been through as an irresponsible troublemaker running around errands on those cold vicious nights, the pointy nauseous gut on my belly reminds me of much of a lost kid I was, convinced I had a shot at being someone people could look up to one day. I was, and four years later am so far from that.

I was sixteen, but my height fooled everyone around me. I knew how to play with a ball, so making buddies wasn't nothing special. On the block where my house was, I could see just from entering the main street, how people would gather themselves next to the shelter building, asking for food or a blanket to warm them up.

I watched how my older friends who kept winning me on the games, were also the very ones standing in front of the line, making an attempt to help their parents to pay the bills at the end of the month.

I was a lucky fucker. My adoptive mother always worked her ass off as a maid to pay for my school, to pay for herself, to pay the food on our table.

Mom smiled at me when I confidently told her I was going to help the juniors to participate on a local competition, since I'd watch some of them play every Monday before 7pm. Most of them were between the ages of 13-14 and they really were crazy little machines, dreaming about becoming pros.

I laughed at the younger ones, because I only saw myself playing for fun, never wondering about what it was to make a life out of it, whereas they had everything planned out on their minds, a bunch of kids who had already the guts to dream further than I could.

So, for a few weeks, training with them gave me some purpose again, I felt responsible for them for myself included - my grades in school went higher, I got into less trouble and fights, my focus was restored and my mom yelled less at me too. Fuck, I had great memories.

However, memories vanish too, just as great times do. I was a fraud of a hero. I couldn't help them at all, neither could I for Colber. History repeated itself as I watched and did nothing.

"No." She says with an act of a prompting clear voice. "It does not bother me."

It should bother you then. "Uh.. wrong." I shake my head as I sigh. "That's the wrong answer."

My sudden move is to readjust my body position, turning around so I can try to read her features. I'm sure I look distressed, my brain is accelerated, my palms sweaty.

Maddox's eyebrows are showing off a confuse pattern while her serpent eyes gaze over me. She acts as if she is offended as usual.

"Are you saying I should be afraid of you now? Leave this house before you toss a knife at me or something" She jokes, closing her arms beneath her chest.

"I won't put you on a pedestal. But what makes you think I'm qualified to judge you because you didn't stop some kids from drugging themselves?"

Evren makes a point, crashing the paper with both of her hands before tossing it to the floor. "I might be a bitch, but I'm not an hypocrite."

"And what makes you think you fucking understand me?" I cut her off, gulping hard as my eyes furiously fall on every corner of the living room, but her.

"You don't and I'm not going to make you understand it either." I shout. She's making me lose control and I can't take it.

She knows shit, for fucks sake. All she knows is what is typed on that stupid fucking wrinkled paper: a testimony made in court against me for being a danger in my town's community.

There is no other interpretation for it. I'm fucking ashamed and embarrassed until this day, as much as I was when the police interrogated my mom to know where I was. I don't think she has forgiven me even.

A scar penetrated on my skin, burning my jacket on the way, the moment I looked at the look of disappointment she gave me. I couldn't even be a good of an adopted son, that's how shitty I am.

I had been taking drugs the older dudes had given me so I could get some sleep at night, sometimes I took too much but attempted to fold it away by saying I was just tired, sliding the pills inside my training bag. One day the effect it gave me went the opposite though, the adrenaline rush contaminated the cells of my system, and I guess I could say I was proud for scoring 5 goals.

Now imagine the excitement reduced by 100% percent, guilt on my heart and trust broken once mom looked at me from the door, cracking a simple "just take him" to the police man.

I had been the reason three of the juniors went to the hospital after they found some pills on my bag, virally experiencing it, while I was bragging about my ego on the way home.

I left the bag there, an atitude which costed me hell, I destroyed many parents lives because of my negligent behavior, including my mother's, having to see her cry in front of me in court - having to hear say "Brendan, I'm done.", just done being my mother.

I would have to take so much more sacrifice than the words of an inpatient girl to make me forgive myself for what I had done.

"I don't fucking want to understand! God, you're so infuriating!" She shouted too, visibly angry with me. I wanted to intervene, when I got prepared to open my mouth and say some less friendly words, Evren cut me off.

"If you want me to judge you, well that's easy. I've done nothing more than to judge others all my life. But I didn't come to fight you over your mess."

I attentively look at her body movements, how she likes to use her arms in form of protest to resemble irritation, biting her lip once in a while to control herself from exploding.

If she's paying any attention to me this very moment, I'm sure she believes I'm a lunatic. I keep observing in despair her figure plotting fiercely against me, letting my self pride being crushed over a voice that has all my full attention.

"If you would just listen to me and stop being so defensive you would get my point!"

She finishes, putting her hands on her jacket pockets as if she has given up on reasoning with me. As for me, I'm impressively blocked. I can't utter a single word. I mean, fuck, why?

She looks at my face waiting for some sort of reaction, and later makes a sound of disgust once I don't respond. "You know what Rhys, forget I even came here in the first place. I'm done."

The time stops. Did she just...? I can hear the sound of an airplane passing through the sky over my house, the floor trembles a little. As far as my view-sight, I can only identify Evren's body movements bringing her close to the door.

What was one your mind, son?
What were you thinking?
Is that how you promised me to help those boys?
If you don't answer me, I-
I tried to help you. I really did.
Brendan, I'm done.

I can feel my blood boiling in my veins, the tips of my hair falling on my forehead, my heart racing like someone had just stabbed me. I can't rationalize properly, or find any strength to adjust my impulses. For such a long time, ache and pain wash over me like never before.

Mom. Colber. What's my path? What am I doing? What can I do?

My eyes close rapidly, I keep them shut. A warm feeling tugs the skin of my hand as I touch a rather different surface, smelling the taste of raspy burning tires with a mix of coconut shampoo.

I can't figure out if my breath is unleavened, or if I'm trembling on my toes, the only thing I know is that I acted out of pure instinct and drive.

"I hear you." My fingers embrace the unfamiliar soft skin of her pulse, pushing it toward me so I can make her stop on her tracks.

Whatever her answer is, though I'm inclined for a more stormy response, my hand keeps being glued to her arm, noticing it feels like blazing fire. "What if we keep our mistakes to ourselves, how about that?"

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