“Because you’re better off,” Sebastian said, damn near sighing with relief when he spotted his brother heading their way.
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are!” Sebastian snapped, wondering why she always made things more difficult than they had to be.
“Give me one good reason why you think I would be better off without you!”
“Because I made you cry,” Sebastian bit out, feeling his stomach turn at the reminder only to end up rolling his eyes when she said, “I had something in my eye!”
“God, you really are a pain in my ass,” he sighed as he gave up trying to pull his legs free when his brother finally reached him. “Can you get her off me before she gets hurt?”
Sighing heavily, Jonathan leaned over to do just that when Mikey’s next words stopped him. “Sebastian was supposed to get the scholarship, not you.”
Frowning, Jonathan asked, “What are you talking about?”
“Mikey,” Sebastian bit out in warning, but the little brat refused to listen to him.
“The scholarship for Radcliffe was supposed to go to Sebastian but the stubborn jerk turned it down so that you could go to school instead,” Mikey rushed to explain and if he hadn’t already decided that their friendship was over, that would have done it.
“What is she talking about, Sebastian?”
“Nothing. Just get her off me,” Sebastian said as he tried to pull free only to growl in frustration when Jonathan joined her, pinning him down to the ground.
“What the hell are you doing? Get off!” Sebastian snapped, turning his head to glare at his brother only to find his brother glaring back at him.
“What the hell am I doing? What the hell were you thinking giving up that scholarship?” Jonathan demanded, refusing to budge.
“I was thinking that my brother wanted to go more!”
“Bullshit! You wanted to go to that school just as badly as I did. So, tell me the real reason you screwed yourself over.”
“Why don’t you ask Mikey?” Sebastian said, giving up on trying to be careful for Mikey’s sake and tried to pull his legs free, but his brother had his legs pinned down tightly beneath him and refused to budge.
“Good idea!” Mikey said with false cheer. “Well, it seems that your brother, the jerk, thinks that everything is his fault and truly believes that the only way to make things better is to screw himself over.”
“Because it was my fault,” Sebastian bit out as he gave up trying to pull his legs free and tried to roll over onto his back so that he could pull them off his legs and finally be done with this conversation.
“We both screwed up, Sebastian!” Jonathan said, sounding truly angry for the first time in their lives. “We did a lot of stupid things and it caught up to us. I was just as responsible as you were, so why were you the one that had to pay the price?”
“Just let it go, Jonathan,” Sebastian snapped, groaning in frustration when he realized that he couldn’t turn over onto his back.
“No, tell me why you let me take the scholarship?”
“Let it go!” Sebastian snapped as his hands fisted in the grass and he struggled not to lose it.
“No!”
“Fine! You want to know the truth? It’s because you wouldn’t have done any of those things if it wasn’t for me,” Sebastian bit out as he closed his eyes and pressed his head against the crisp grass.
“How do you figure that?” Jonathan asked, sounding curious.
“Because you’ve been at that school for three years and you’ve never gotten into the kind of trouble that we used to get in. I’m the problem, Jonathan. Me. I ruin everything that I touch,” Sebastian said, wondering why this was so damn difficult to understand.
There was a heavy sigh and then, “Did it ever occur to you that I learned my lesson? Or that the expulsion was the wakeup call that I needed to stop acting like an idiot? Or that I realized what I was putting our family through?”
“You don’t think that I know what I’ve done to this family? It’s all I ever think about! I put them through hell, but apparently that wasn’t enough and I had to screw up Mikey’s life too!” Sebastian shouted as he moved to pull his legs free and this time, they didn’t stop him.
Getting to his feet, Sebastian turned around and faced his brother only to find his parents and half his family standing there, watching him. Ramming his fingers through his hair, Sebastian said, “Everything will be better when I’m shipped off to military school.”