Lifting his arm, he squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger as he closed his eyes and reminded himself of what Brynn had said about emotional maturity. His baby sister might be brilliant, but she was still thirteen.
Each day he’d tried a different tactic. Sympathy. Reason. Bargaining. Joking. Dismissing. Relating.
Today he was going to go the tough love route.
“Look, Iz, life is hard. The real world isn’t easy. Things aren’t always exactly how you want them to be. And how you deal with things when they aren’t rainbows and unicorns is what defines who you are. If you bail every time you’re in a situation that you don’t like, what does that say about you?” He took a breath and continued on his roll. “Do you think every person in the world likes their job and everyone is nice to everyone all the time? No. But they still show up for work. Do you think I wanted to be at boot camp? Do you think I liked having drill sergeants call me names and scream so close to my face that spit flew at it? Do you think it was fun to be kicked out of bed at the asscrack of dawn while a horn was blown in my face every morning? No. It wasn’t. But I made it. And I was stronger after. It built character. So suck it up and stop acting like a spoiled princess.”
It was silent for several beats before his sister spoke in a deadly calm tone. “Are you finished?”
Hearing the icy, detached quality had him feeling something he hadn’t even felt on his most dangerous black ops mission. Abject terror. He was scared shitless because he knew he’d fucked up.
“Yes.”
“First of all,” she began, “I am not a spoiled princess.”
“I know,” he lamely conceded. “That’s why I said don’t act like one.”
“Do you remember when Ryan Lassen asked me to go to the dance last year and I turned him down and he told me to ‘stop acting like a bitch’?”
Shit. He knew where she was going with this.
“When I got home, I called you because I was upset and I told you what he said. You said that you wanted to kick his ass because that was the same thing as calling me a bitch.”
“I’m sorry—” he tried to apologize.
“I’m not done. I didn’t interrupt you when you were speaking and I would appreciate the same consideration.”
Even though he knew that she was only this composed because she was in a state of controlled anger, it was nice to hear her sounding more like herself.
“Furthermore, boot camp has nothing to do with the situation that I’m in. When you joined the Marines you legally signed your life away and were gone for four years. You didn’t have a choice to leave. This is high school, not the military. And the reason I wanted to go to this school was because I wanted the best education possible so I wouldn’t get stuck in a job that I hated. But that was before I got here and realized that there was no possible way I could learn in this environment. The girls here are cruel and unrelenting. The no-bullying policy is a joke when the parents of the perpetrators are the largest financial contributors to the privately funded school.
“And I am painfully aware that life isn’t always unicorns and rainbows. If that’s what you think my life has been like, then you haven’t been paying attention. I’ve had three stepdads and was dragged across the country without any notice when I was ten to live with a man my mother hadn’t even met in person. That same mother just left the country so she could go live with a different man she barely knows. And this time she didn’t take me. She signed over her rights so she wouldn’t have to and she was relieved.
“And I admit, I was relieved, too, because I would get to live with you.” She let out a forced laugh. “You’re the only real family I’ve ever had. Mom barely acknowledged me and when she did she always dismissed me! Telling me things like ‘I might be book smart but she was street smart.’ But not you. You’ve always been there for me, loved me, and listened to me. You were the one person that I could always rely on. Until now.”
Hearing her sound so cold and unemotional felt like a punch in the gut, but hearing what she actually had to say was a kick in the balls. He felt like he wanted to throw up.
When she was quiet for a few minutes, he asked, “Can I talk now?”
There was no answer.
“Izzy? Can I say something?”
Nothing.
“Izzy?” He lowered his phone and saw that the call had been disconnected.
He cursed under his breath as he tried to call his sister back. It went to her voicemail after two rings. So he tried again. This time it only rang once before his call was forwarded to her voicemail.
Axel ran his hand through his hair as he left a message. “Iz, call me back. I love you.”
The sick feeling in his stomach had worsened as he put his phone back in his pocket with the knowledge that his sister wasn’t going to call him back anytime soon.
Part of him wanted to leave Whisper Lake and drive to the city and make her talk to him, but he wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. The truth was, he had no idea what the right thing to do was.
All of his life, he’d handled everything alone. He’d never asked anyone for anything. Duke had offered him unsolicited advice, but he sure as hell had never talked to anyone about a problem he was having. Right now though, he wanted to talk to someone. He wanted to ask for advice from the only person that had ever made the emptiness inside of him go away.
Brynn Daniels was more than just a job to him. In the short time he’d known her he’d developed real feelings for her. He felt like he needed her.
And that was another reason why he needed to stay away.