Reid pov:

The silence was loud.

It wasn't the comfortable silence I'd found with Adam. It was the type of silence that wasn't supposed to be there. The kind that had my skin itching and my body twitching with discomfort.

I glanced up from the denim covering my thighs to see the women sitting across from me. She sat with a patient smile on her face her eyes traveling from me to the spot next to me.

I could feel his presence, the echoing of his silence. When I turned to look at my brother he slouched into his chair, his fingers drumming against his leg.

When he'd asked me to come with him to his therapy session I hadn't known what to expect but I had figured that part of therapy would be actually talking.

"Reid what are you hoping to get out of coming here today with your brother?" The woman asked turning her attention fully over to me.

I didn't know exactly what I wanted. I wanted to finally get the whole truth, I wanted Ronan to be able to trust me with that. I wanted to be able to talk to my brother. I wanted this silence to stop suffocating me.

"I just want my brother back." I shrugged refusing to let my eyes shift to the chair next to mine.

I focused on the woman talking softly.

"What do you mean by that?" She pushed.

"I don't know, I feel like I lost him and I don't know how to talk to Ro anymore."

"Ronan do you have anything to want to say to that?" Her attention turned to my brother.

His silence was crushing. He asked me to come here. He wanted to try to work on it. I had taken that step expecting him to be right there next to me taking the steps with me.

"See this is the issue, I try and work on us. I do what I can but he gives me nothing." I sighed feeling that frustration coming back at full force.

"Can you just let me think for a minute," Ronan said softly his voice tight.

"Give Ronan the time to get his words together. Sometimes communication is patience and giving the other the space they need." The doctor's voice soothed the tension with ease and I watched Ronan relax slightly.

"I am trying, I don't want to keep arguing. I'm not good at talking about this shit and most of the time I don't have the words but I am trying. I've kept so much to myself over the years trying to protect you and I think it's hard to unlearn that."

"I'm not a kid anymore Ro, you don't need to keep protecting me from everything bad in the world. I can handle more than you think I can."

"I do know that but you're always going to be my little brother and I'm always going to want to try to protect you from everything."

"But right now the only thing hurting me is you."

I watched the words land like a blow. He flinched back and turned his head away from me. I regretted saying anything the second I saw the effect of my words land.

"Alright, we will work on some more effective ways of communication later but I appreciate the way you are both opening up and trying to be honest with each other. This isn't going to be an easy process and we have to know that sometimes our truths might hurt." The doctor did her best to diffuse some of the tension.

"Ronan, you came in here today wanting to share some truths of your own. I'm not going to be the one to decide when you are ready for that but know that this is a space you can do that."

Ro refused to look back in my direction but he did turn to look at the doctor finding some way to ground himself again. I hated seeing him like this, knowing that I was the cause for at least some of it.

"Our dad was a piece of shit, he cared more about drugs than he ever cared about either of us. I was the older sibling and I took on the responsibility of keeping all that away from Reid. I happily spent my time growing up with fights and pain just so Reid could have it better than I did." He confessed.

"I didn't ask you to do that." I said softly.

"I'm your brother, you didn't have to. There was one night I was coming home from work and walked in to my dad getting mad and yelling at Reid. I didn't even know what it was about but I didn't have enough time to divert my father's attention over to me and he just shoved him. I'd managed to get him distracted enough that the shove was all he did but I knew it was just the beginning. It would get worse so I reported him to the police for drugs."

I tried to rack my brain for the memory of that night. To remember when my own father had put hands on me. I couldn't, all the memories of my years with my dad seemed like a big blur. It was yelling and fighting and nights in my room. Nothing matched what Ronan was telling. I knew it was the truth and I knew I'd pushed that back in the depths of my brain so I didn't have to think about it. Just like I did with most of my problems.

"I don't even remember that."

"Good I never wanted you to have to go through the shit that I did. That's why I kept it all to myself. I wanted you to have the childhood I didn't get to have." The words carved through me like a knife.

Ronan had suffered so much and for so long. He was on his own dealing with everything our father put him through. He had scars and I felt like most of them were ones you couldn't see.

"I could've helped, you didn't have to take that all on by yourself." I said wanting Ronan to see that he had someone by his side.

I wasn't that little kid anymore. He could share some of the burden with me.

"You couldn't have helped. There was nothing you could have done because I didn't want help. I was living for you, I was doing my best to be there for you. And when I got dad away from you and set you up with a good life with someone that cared for you the way that I did I-," Ro stopped himself looking down at his hands which were shaking slightly in his lap.

I didn't want to push. I knew if I did it would be over. Ronan would push back and that's how an argument would start. I let myself just sit and wait giving him the time he needed.

"I thought it would be better, I thought no one would care if I just wasn't around. I'm working on trying to remind myself that's not true."

I'd known Ronan had struggled. I'd watched him pull away and lock himself in his room. I'd seen him walk around with that hallow look in his eyes. But that had been after the Tiffany break up. When I reasoned it all away to heartbreak. But this was deeper. This was much worse than what I thought.

I let my thoughts spin out going through everything that had happened. All the injuries over the years cycling through my mind trying to dissect them to find out the truth. Ro had wanted to hurt himself, he hadn't wanted to be here anymore. And the more I spun out the more I saw.

The way Tiffany had always been concerned about him, wanting to know how he was doing and checking if he was still going to his therapy sessions. There was a month my freshman year of college that the two of them had been acting strange. Tiffany was clung to him like glue and wouldn't even let him go to the bathroom without the door open.

It was all in a new light. Realizing just how much I'd reasoned away or ignored over the years.

Finally my brain seemed to slow and land on the one thing I didn't want to be true. The one moment of our past I wanted to be an accident. I needed it to be an accident.

"Your bike." I couldn't even put the sentence together scared to know the truth.

"I didn't lose control of the bike, it wasn't an accident." That last truth hit the hardest.

He'd crashed his bike on purpose hoping it'd kill him. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't process it all. My brother had tried to kill himself.

It was like a wave hitting me, drowning me. Somehow one of the worst moments of my life had just gotten that much worse.

A/n:

I miss my babies...... I was having some withdrawals so I sat and wrote something for you all. You might get another chapter sooner than I've been updating just because I want to write this two. I've been kinda blocked for awhile when it came to this story but I missed my boys too much and here I am.

I've been planning some things for my next works during my break. I have something fun planned and then also will be working on outlining for Cass's book.

I've been working on ideas for something totally new. It's going to be mm sports romance back in college with some new characters I'm very excited about. But it's going to be a forbidden romance between a sunshine main character and his girlfriend's older brother. I wanted something to work on that's more of a fun silly goofy time without any sadness.

Anyways I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and hopefully I'll see you all soon with my next update which will have my boys back on page together 😁

Love you all

-Cora Leigh