Going cold turkey sucks, but I’m feeling better this week, so I hope the worst of that part is behind me.
Now the real torture starts—facing up to my trauma and finding a way to move forward in a nondestructive manner. Once I return home, I will be continuing my therapy with Denise, Selena’s therapist. Nancy has already been in touch with her, and they are working out a treatment plan. She has a couple of other suggestions, for complementary tools to aid the healing process, but the most important thing is I can go back to Harvard Law, with them none the wiser, and work on my recovery while I’m continuing my studies.
The door opens, and my parents step inside the room. Nancy rises, walking toward them with a smile on her face. Nausea swims up my throat, and my knee jiggles at a greater pace. I’m still a mess of conflicting emotions, veering from anger to shame, between fear and remorse.
I didn’t ask Presley to come here today—although I’m dying to speak to her—because I want to meet with her separately. My feelings for the woman I love are a clusterfuck of epic proportions thanks to that sick bastard she grew up with. It’s all so fucked up.
The only things I know for sure is I love her, what we shared was the real deal, and I hate the shit I said to her at the hospital. I was wrong to vent my pain in her direction, but I can’t help how I feel. She’s had a ton of horrific revelations dropped on her, which can’t be easy to handle. I know she loves me too, but I don’t know if love is enough to overcome the mountain of obstacles in our path.
“Our other sons are waiting outside,” Mom says, looking between me and the doctor. I asked my brothers to come without their spouses. I couldn’t handle a room with that many people. Saying what I need to say to my parents and my six brothers will be challenging enough without adding their partners to the mix. There will be time to meet with them when I return home.
“You can ask them to come in,” Nancy says, helping Mom into the seat beside me as Dad goes out to get the others. The room is rectangular in size, and there are ten chairs in a half-circle on this side of the space, all facing the white board in front. Nancy asked me who I wanted to sit beside me, and I couldn’t even decide that. She suggested I sit at the end and let Mom sit beside me, so I’m doing that.
I’m still processing my anger and my hurt, and I have no idea how this session is going to go down.
One by one, my brothers walk into the room. My lips tilt at the edges as I watch the good doctor try not to react unprofessionally, but it’s a struggle. And I get it. My brothers are all tall, good-looking, and famous. A lethal combination where women are concerned. The wedding bands on their fingers don’t deter the die-hard fans who are convinced the marriages aren’t real. It’s ridiculous. You only have to look at any of my brothers with their partners to know they are in love and very happy.
My brothers glance at me and then the doctor, hesitant on whether to approach me, unsure of the protocol. Nancy regains her composure, asking them to take a seat. Keats enters the room last, and he walks straight toward me, leaning down and hugging me. Tears prick my eyes, and my arms tentatively go around him. He’s the only one who wasn’t at the hospital to witness my meltdown because he and Austen were still on a plane. By the time they landed, I was already en route here.
“I love you,” he says when he pulls back, his eyes clouded with tears.
I nod, swallowing roughly, wondering how the fuck I’m going to get through this with any semblance of sanity intact.
Nancy introduces herself, gives them a quick audience-friendly summary of what I’ve been doing since I got here, and explains how this session will work. Then she gives me the floor.
And I clam up.
My tongue darts out, wetting my dry lips, and my heart is pounding so hard it feels like I’m dying. My brothers all look at me, and the weight of their expectation presses down on me.
“Kent. Take a deep breath,” Nancy says, reassuring me with her kind eyes and her soft smile.
I inhale and exhale, and gradually, the panicky feeling in my chest settles down. Mom takes my hand in hers carefully, like I might break. It’s too much. I know she means well, but I just can’t right now. Extracting my hand from hers, I wrap my arms around my body as I try to form words.
“Kent.” Nancy looks directly at me. “Why don’t you tell your family how you are feeling right now, and we can take it from there?”
“I’m on edge,” I admit, looking at no one in particular. “And I’m scared. Ashamed too.” I drop my eyes to the carpet. “But mostly I’m angry.” I lift my chin, looking at my family. They all look nervous too, which should help, but all it does is make me angrier. “At those assholes who did this to me. At myself for letting it happen. At Presley for not seeing that bastard Clay for the monster he was. At all of you for not ever seeing me.”
“Kent, we tried. We—”
“No, you fucking didn’t, Mom!” I shake my head, looking at both of my parents. “You shipped me off to one useless therapist after another, never stopping to ask why it wasn’t working. You blamed me for not opening up to them instead of asking me why I was behaving like that in the first place. You cried over where you went wrong with me, but neither of you ever asked me what happened to change my behavior. It was always why can’t you be good like Keanu and Keaton? You are disgracing the family with your reckless behavior. You’re such an embarrassment. We have given you everything you need and this is how you repay us?” Those statements, repeated to me so many times, are imprinted in my brain. “It was always about you. Never about me.”
Mom pales, but she doesn’t try to defend herself. Neither does Dad.
“You’re right, son,” Dad says, a couple of seconds later. “We didn’t handle it correctly, and we are deeply sorry for failing you.”
“I’ve felt like an outsider in this family for so long because you were all so dismissive of me. Even in the way I was introduced to your friends and your partners. Like, oh that’s Kent, the black sheep of the family.” I sniff, chewing on the inside of my mouth. “Yet none of you took the time to understand why I was like that.”
“Would you have told us if we asked?” Keanu asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know, but none of you even tried. Not in any real, meaningful way.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kalvin says, leaning forward, placing his elbows on his knees.
“Could you have fessed up if this happened to you when you were fifteen?” I ask, and the expression on his face tells me all I need to know. I doubt any of my brothers could’ve spoken out if this happened to them at that age. But I need to try to explain it in a way they will understand. This is a hard truth to admit. “At first, I was too scared. They recorded it and threatened to stream it on the web.”
“I could’ve gone after them and gotten rid of it,” Kev says. “I was already hacking government systems by then.”
“I know you could have, and you think I didn’t want to ask you for help? I did, but then I’d have to admit everything, and I just couldn’t do it.” I glance at Mom and Dad. “They threatened to kill my family if I said anything, and I was terrified they would kill you or my brothers.”
“Oh, honey.” Mom’s fingers twitch, and I know she’s longing to touch me, hold me, but I can’t say what I need to say with her clinging to me. Dad tightens his arm around her shoulder, comforting her with his touch. “We had the resources to ensure they never got anywhere near us, and we would’ve gone after them with the full extent of the law.”
“Would you? You were all so fucked up back then. So involved in other drama. There wasn’t time for me.” Not to mention I didn’t want cops and lawyers knowing about it. And I knew if I reported it, it would make the news. How the fuck could I have faced the kids in school if that got out?
“Honey, that’s just not true,” Mom says. “If you had only told us.”
Is she not fucking listening? I grip the edge of my chair, digging my nails into the wood. “Mom, I was fifteen, and I was terrified they
were going to come after me and my family! I knew they were in some gang because they were wearing identical leather cuts. And I was so ashamed.”
I gulp over the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. “I felt so stupid, so weak that I had let them do that to me. I tried to fight them off, but I was drunk.” A bitter laugh escapes my lips. “It was the very first night I drank alcohol. I was staying over at Vincent Channing’s house that night, and I told you his parents were there, but they were in The Hamptons for the weekend. A few of us went into Boston using fake IDs, and we got smashed. I got separated from the guys when we left to go to a club, and I wandered into the wrong part of town. The Vipers saw me, recognized who I was, and decided they were going to teach the ‘rich prick’ a lesson.”
Kyler stares at me, his face twisted in pain. He understands some of what I’m feeling. “I was in so much pain. Physical and emotional. After a few weeks passed and they hadn’t come for me, my fear gave way to rage, and I needed to lash out. That’s when I started partying and drinking and doing drugs. I was having flashbacks and nightmares, and I just wanted it to stop. Getting high and drunk cured that issue. And I fucked around a lot because I needed to prove I was a man. To know I was into women and that they hadn’t ruined sex for me.” I glance at Keats, and we stare at one another. “I needed to prove I wasn’t gay,” I add. “They messed me up in the head. I’m not proud to admit it, but they created a hatred within me for gay men.”
“It’s okay,” Keats says. “It’s understandable.”
“No, it fucking isn’t! It’s just something else those sick fucks did to me. Something else they took from me.” I owe my brother an apology. He’s the only one in this room I plan on apologizing to, but I want to do it in private. “I need to speak to you alone when we’re done here.”
Keats nods. “I’d like that.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when I fessed up about what happened to me?” Kyler asks.
I exhale heavily. “That fucked me up, Ky. Knowing you had been through something like that and even you hadn’t noticed anything wrong with me. I’m sorry for what you went through, but I was so fucking pissed after you came clean because everyone rallied around you and it was all poor Kyler, and once again, I was relegated to the sidelines. No one noticed I was sinking to the bottom of the pool.”
“We’re not mind readers, Kent,” Kaden says, speaking for the first time. His tone is softer than the hardened voice he usually uses with me, but it still irritates the fuck out of me.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Doesn’t matter if you were though, Kade, right? You’d still hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Kent. I’ve misunderstood you, and I am really fucking sorry about that.”
I scoff. “Whatever.”
“I am truly sorry, Kent. I’m ashamed to admit I’d written you off as an attention-seeking troublemaker. Even when Eva was telling me you were hiding deep-seated pain, I refused to believe it.” He hangs his head. “I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you. I’m your older brother, and I should have protected you instead of pushing you away and ignoring what was right in front of my eyes.”
“You didn’t try to find me,” I croak, my anger giving way to hurt. “The others were there with Presley the night The Vipers tried to murder me. But you were absent. You didn’t care whether I lived or died.”
“That’s not true.” He shakes his head, swiping at tears. “Of course, I don’t want you to die!”
“So why the fuck weren’t you there?” I shout.
“Because I thought it was another attention-seeking move on your part and I believed we should try a tough love approach this time, but I was wrong!” He stands, pacing the room. “I was fucking wrong, okay, and I have to live with the fact I turned my back on you that night.”
He breaks down, and I haven’t seen my brother like this since the night he found out James wasn’t his bio dad. “You could have died, and I wasn’t there. I let you down, again, and I can never forgive myself for the way I’ve treated you.” Tears stream down his face, and I’m struggling to breathe over the strangled ball of emotion clogging my throat. “I am so fucking sorry, Kent. More than I can express.”
I can see he’s genuine, but he doesn’t understand he has damaged our relationship in a way we might never recover from. I don’t know if I can ever trust Kade. Maybe with time, but I just don’t know. I shrug, averting my eyes.
“If I could go back and rewrite history, I would do everything different,” Mom says, and I lift my chin up.
“But you can’t,” I say through gritted teeth because it’s not helpful.
“No, we can’t, but we’re here now, and we want to help,” she says.
“What can we do, son?” Dad asks. “How can we help you now?”
I force myself to calm down, and it’s a little easier because some of the tightness in my chest has lifted. “I need you to wipe the slate clean. To let me start over. To not hold my mistakes against me because I’m sick of everyone in this family judging me.”
They all nod, and air whooshes out of my mouth in grateful relief. “And I need you to be patient with me,” I add. “Because I’ve got a lot of shit still to process, and I’ve gone cold turkey, and I’ve most likely lost the only woman I have ever loved. I’m not going to be easy to live with, but I need you to understand.” I cast my gaze around the room. “It’s not me being an asshole; it’s me trying to pick up the pieces of my life and glue them back together.”
“We can do that,” Dad says, and everyone else nods again, murmuring their agreement.
“I think we’ll leave it there for today,” Nancy says. “And maybe in the next session, we can discuss how your family feels after hearing all of this today.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Kent
“I reserved a table for all of you in the dining hall for seven,” Nancy explains. “And you are welcome to avail of the other facilities. All I ask is that you keep the conversation casual. Kent has been making amazing progress, and just getting to hang out with his family, with no pressure or expectations, will help him enormously.”
My parents shake her hand as Keven approaches me. He pulls me into a hug. “I’m glad you are getting better. I do need to talk to you, but it can wait until later. I know you need to speak to Keats.” He must have an update for me on the FBI situation, and it’s been on my mind. I still don’t know if they plan to pin an assault charge on me. I can kiss Harvard Law goodbye if that happens.
Mom, Dad, Kalvin, and Kyler take turns hugging me, and I arrange to meet my brothers in an hour for a game of basketball. Kade lingers, looking unsure. I jerk my head in acknowledgment, folding my arms across my chest, because I don’t want him touching me. He can’t just throw out words, no matter how heartfelt they are, and expect everything to be peachy. He has hurt me a lot. More than my other brothers. He has been so cold and ignorant at times, especially in recent years, and it’s not something I can get over just like that.
“Can you stay too?” I ask Keanu because I think he needs to hear this as well.
“Of course.” He squeezes my shoulder before dropping onto a chair.
Nancy stays in the room with me, Keanu, and Keats, but she tucks herself away in the corner, pulling her notepad out and jotting more notes down.
“I want to try to explain,” I tell Keats when he sits down beside me. “I know I hurt you and Austen, and I feel bad about it. I’ve always felt bad about it, but you coming out was a trigger for me. I have hated gay men since I was raped. Anytime I saw two guys together, it reminded me of the attack and it enraged me. It sounds silly, and it’s so fucking unfair, but they became synonymous in my mind.”
“Did you ever question your sexuality?” Keats quietly asks, his face radiating compassion.
My stomach twists into knots as I nod. “Did they tell you what Clay did to me?” I’m too emotionally drained right now to say it out loud, and it’s the part I’m most ashamed of.
Tears
flood his eyes as he seethes. “I want to gut that fucking bastard and hang him by his entrails from the roof.”
Keanu nods in agreement, his nostrils flaring as anger shines in his eyes.
Nancy lifts her head, her brow puckering in concern.
“Careful or Nancy will book you a room in here beside me,” I tease Keats.
Keanu’s lips twitch, and Keats swats his tears away.
“I was very confused for a while, and I was terrified it meant I was gay. Fucking lots of women helped, because I loved sex—with girls—and it helped me feel more in control, but there was always this niggling doubt at the back of my mind.”
“Did you ever experiment with any guys?” Keanu asks, his face curious.
“Hell no. I might’ve been confused, but the thoughts of letting any guy touch me made my skin crawl.” Too late, I remember my other brother. I wince a little as I eyeball Keaton. “No offense meant.”
“None taken,” Keats says, offering me a reassuring smile. “Did me coming out bring it to the surface again?” He chews on the corner of his lip.
I shake my head. “Not in that way, no. It brought everything else about the attack to the surface at a time when I had felt like I was finally getting a grip on it.” I look at Keanu. “Selena moving in with us helped me a lot. I saw how brave and strong she was, and she inspired me to clean up my act and try harder. I almost confided in her so many times.”
“Why didn’t you?” Keanu asks.
I shrug. “I convinced myself it was too late. Too much time had passed and I was doing better. Not drinking or smoking or popping pills as much. I graduated and got into Harvard Law. I told myself dredging up the past would do no one any good after this long.”
Reforming Kent: A Stand-Alone Angsty Bad Boy Romance (The Kennedy Boys Book 10) Page 32
