I threw open the door to my apartment, cringing as it slammed against the wall.
“Jesus Chri-“
“Hey,” I stopped my brother before he could finish the words. “What did I tell you about saying that?” I warned the handsome blonde in front of me.
“Don’t say it or you’ll kick my ass,” he answered, mechanically as he reached for my bag. “What the hell are you doing here, Ryder?”
Twenty-seven-year-old Michael Taggert was my only brother and wonderful roommate of two years. He was also a pain in the ass.
“I live here, Mike. That’s what I am doing here,” I answered, collapsing onto to my sofa.
“I thought you were living with the new job,” he said, sitting at my feet on the floor like he always did.
“Didn’t work out,” was all I would say, closing my eyes. I didn’t want to think of the mistake I had made.
“Don’t want to talk about it? I can take a hint, but could you keep it down next time you stagger in at one in the morning?”
I looked down to see him close his eyes with his head against my knee. We had slept like that many a time as children. I think there was a dent in my knee from Mike’s head, but I didn’t mind. He might have been older and taller but he was my baby brother at heart. I had a natural instinct to protect him and watch out for him. Much like the one I had to watch out for my sisters Willow and Reese. It was in my DNA I suppose, but whatever the cause was it was in me.
Running my fingers through the soft blonde hair on his head so much like my own, I wondered if he would be disappointed in me after what I had done that night.
“Your sister is on a path to pain, Mikey,” I whispered to the sleeping man below me. “I have seen your face and walked alone, held your hand but you’ve never known. I have loved you well and walked through hell. I watch you love at bay through far too many a day. I keep my distance from your heart so that you and your love will never part.”
The words of the long forgotten poem slipped free before I could place them in my mind. A poem my mother had written years before even Michael was born, a poem she had written my father when he was dating another woman.
“Seems we walk the same path,” I whispered to the memory of my mother who had passed away three years earlier. “I don’t see the same ending in store for us though, Mom.”
I closed my eyes against the darkness of the apartment to let sleep take me over, my fingers still in Mike’s hair.
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