[ here. will prob be several days until the next update comes. maybe Wednesday or Thursday tbh. got a lot of commitments but I rushed to write this for some context ]
☆
I HAVE TO PROTECT HIM.
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☆︎ JUNE 16th, 1988 ☆︎
Luca Bridger was only twelve years old by the time he knew he hated his father, and his father felt exactly the same way about his son. Evan Bridger didn't like that his son preferred music over football and would rather look at boys than girls, a habit that had developed over the last year. He also didn't like how Laurie Marino babied him, giving him hugs when he failed a test or encouraging him every time he filled the house with racket.
And Luca didn't like how his father would shout at him and throw things his way whenever he was angry with him for something he couldn't really control at such a young age. He hated the man that came from Los Angeles and married his mother in New Mexico and made him. He hated the man so much that he asked everyone to use his mother's maiden name Marino when addressing him — Luca didn't want to be Evan Bridger's son.
At only twelve years old, Luca was already counting down the days until he could leave for college and never see the man again — he loved his mother but not enough to stick around should she still choose to love the horrible man.
As the years went on, Luca spent less and less time in his house, it not feeling like home anymore as he got older. He'd either spend his time with the friends he had at school or he'd walk around the neighborhood so that he could avoid Evan completely. Some nights he'd climb in through his window just so he wouldn't have to pass the man who was lounging in a recliner with a minimum of four beer bottles at his feet, yelling at athletes on the screen that couldn't hear him as he waited for Luca's mother to bring him something for dinner.
All the other kids in his class welcomed summer break with open arms, but Luca hated it. Evan didn't have a job because he was a fucking loser who couldn't make it in Hollywood, which meant while Elena was working at the gynecologist's office that she owned and operated, the boy and his father were forced to be around each other every day.
Because of that, the younger boy was sitting on the sidewalk outside his house, refusing to go inside. He was hoping someone he knew would walk by with plans he could invite himself to. But until then, he was flipping through a book of sheet music that his mother got him for his birthday, trying to hum the notes to the rock songs Evan hated so much in his head.
That was how Roman Bridger first met his half-brother, sitting on the ground and humming the notes to a Van Halen song with a bruise on his cheek that was courtesy of their father.
