Back To Our Roots, Book One

CV. ...Or Is It?

"Why'd you do that for me?"

Nick half-glanced at Aaron, looking back down at his arm. "I don't know what you mean."

"Come on. I've been awful to you your entire life, why'd you tell them to hurt you and not me?"

"I already said that. I'm ruined, they've already fucked me up. If they don't turn on you, you can get out of here and do something. Not have your past haunt you, be the first thing you see when you wake up and the last thing you see before you fall asleep." Nick was concentrating too much on his arm, avoiding looking at Aaron.

"You're not ruined, Nick."

He didn't say anything. They were quiet, Nick cleaning his wound in silence.

Then Aaron spoke up again.

"I can prove she was lying. She said I'd never hurt you, she knows clearly what I've done."

Nick looked over at him. "You'd do that for me? But they like you."

"I would have done it a hell of a lot longer ago if I knew they hurt you!"

Nick was bewildered. "You didn't know?"

"No! I thought all your injuries were from me and my friends, I told them to calm it down a bit because you were always so badly hurt. I never knew they hurt you. I would have done something if you told me."

"Well, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, considering you and your friends tormented me everyday of my miserable life," Nick spat, fed up with it. He walked over to Aaron. "Every fucking day, Aaron. I'm your brother, but I'm clearly not your friend. So please, fucking please tell me why you'd actually do this. You're a selfish brat, you're not going to suddenly have a change of heart."

Aaron shoved him backwards. "I'm trying to help you, dipshit!"

Nick didn't falter. "You're not trying to help me. You're trying to help yourself, aren't you? You're the reason anyone was ever suspicious about our family, you know they don't like you now. You don't want them to hit you again, do you?"

He looked so singled out, it quenched a bit of Nick's thirst for revenge. "I don't want them to hurt either of us!"

Nick scoffed. "What are you trying to do here, Aaron? Pretending you didn't know they hurt me, saying you'll tell the police about them, pretending you can stand being in the same room as me. I don't need your help."

"If you want to get rid of them you do!"

He looked down at himself and back up at Aaron, stretching his arms out to his sides. "I saunter down to the police station like this, especially after what just happened, they're done. Wait-" Nick pointed at him, a vindictive smile on his face. "That's it. You don't want to go to juvie for assault, do you? You're afraid you'll get in trouble."

Aaron looked desperate. "Please, Nick-"

"Oh, begging, are we? After all you've done, you're apologizing now because you don't want to get in trouble?"

"I'm your brother!"

Nick took a step toward him, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, Aaron, you are my brother. As your brother, I'm worried about your path in life. If you keep this up, you'll end up in jail until death. I don't want that for you. So, yes, it's hard, but you do need a juvenile correctional facility so that doesn't happen to you."

Aaron shoved Nick's hand off his shoulder. "Fine," he spat. "But I'm telling them you're trying to escape."

Nick watched as he left, waiting until he was gone before unlatching the window and sliding out.

Thank goodness for one-story houses, he thought to himself, bolting across the yard and down the street.