I HELD MY breath as I digested his words. First off, his mom was a prostitute? And secondly, her pimp had killed Jamie’s sister right in front of him? He had been a fourteen-year-old boy and watched his sister get murdered? I didn’t know what to feel more, horror at the whole situation, or pity because no one should have to see anything like that. I tightened my arm on his waist, clamping him to me as his uneven breath blew across my face.

“Oh God, Jamie, I’m so sorry.” My chin trembled as I struggled not to burst into tears for him.

He nodded, pulling back, his eyes dropping to the floor. I’d never seen anyone look so sad and defeated in my life. It was gut-wrenching to see such a strong and beautiful person have so much pain etched across his face. “So there you go. Happy to be included now?” he asked acidly.

My mouth dropped open in shock as he pulled away quickly and turned away from me, his back stiff as he fisted both hands into his hair. I didn’t know how to answer. Yes, I was happy to be included because I wanted to be included in every part of his life, but in another way, hell no; I wished I didn’t know that information. I had a feeling that what he was going to tell me about his childhood was going to make me cry myself to sleep for days when I thought about what he’d been through.

Because I had no words, I did the only thing I could think of. I stepped closer to him and pressed my face into his shoulder blades, breathing him in, circling my arms around his waist. His stomach muscles tightened under my hands as he drew in a sharp breath.

“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked quietly, my voice muffled because my face was still pressed against his back.

“Ellie, what difference does it make? He killed her, so I killed him, that’s all there is to it.”

I shook my head and moved in front of him, not letting him out of the cage that I’d made with my arms. “That’s not all there is to it; there’s more, much more, I can tell. Please? I love you, Jamie, I want to help you. It’s not good for you to keep all that stuff bottled up inside you, you’ll go crazy,” I whispered, gripping the back of his shirt. “You can talk to me. You can tell me anything,” I encouraged him.

He gulped and closed his eyes. There was a tightness to his mouth that I longed to kiss away so he would smile again. “Fine,” he finally said with a sigh, his arms dropping to his sides as he gripped my wrists and unwrapped my arms from his waist. “Let’s go sit down then or something.” He didn’t wait for me but let go of my hands and stalked away into the living room.

I took a couple of deep breaths and looked at the ceiling, fighting my building horror. When my fried nerves seemed to be under control, I turned and followed after him. I just about had time to notice that the room was bare apart from a few things scattered here and there. He’d already put most of his stuff into storage; all he had left out were his clothes and what had come with the apartment when he rented it.

Jamie was sitting on the sofa, his shoulders slumped, his head in his hands. My weary legs carried me over to him and I plopped down in the space next to him. I didn’t know what to say or do to make him feel better, so I remained silent. It wasn’t long before he started talking.

“My dad died when I was two, so it was always just me and my mom on our own. Things were hard on her; she had no qualifications and couldn’t find a job, so she started sleeping with men for money. She’d bring them back to the house, and I’d get locked in my room so that I couldn’t interrupt or anything. I didn’t really know what was going on at the time, it was only as I got older that I realized what she was doing.” He cringed, fisting his hands in his hair. “She got pregnant. I don’t know who Sophie’s dad was; no one ever stuck around, so I assume it was one of her clients.”

His gaze flicked to me, so I tried to keep my expression neutral even though I was crying on the inside. His voice was so full of pain already that it hurt me to listen to it. I nodded encouragingly. I wanted to take his hand, but my body was frozen in place, just waiting for the rest of it. My eyes shot to one of the scars on his neck; you could only just see it under the collar of his T-shirt. Silently I wondered how it got there, and how he’d gotten all the marks that were on his body.

“I was seven when she was born, and from that day, I had to grow up quickly. My mom, she never bonded with Soph, she never held her for longer than necessary, never smiled at her. Even at the age of seven I knew something was wrong, so I tried to be the best brother in the world to make up for the fact that my mom never seemed to want to be in the same room as her.”

I gulped and tried not to hate his mom, but the more he spoke, the more I wondered how a person such as her could birth an amazing person like Jamie.

“I used to play with her all the time, feed her and change her and stuff. I made it into a kind of game, and we got through it. When Soph was about one, things got worse. My mom started taking drugs.” He blew out a big breath and shook his head. “That was about the time that she forgot she even had two kids. She was barely home at night or on weekends. I was eight, and I’d be left home alone with Sophie. My mom would forget to buy food, or she wouldn’t have the money for it because she’d wasted the food money on drugs. During the week I used to get Sophie dressed and give her breakfast, then I’d put her in her crib and go to school. When I’d come home she’d still be in there, her diaper dirty because I hadn’t been there to change it. Sometimes she’d get such bad diaper rash that it’d bleed. Know what, though? She didn’t even cry when she was left in there all day. It was kind of like she knew that no one would come and get her, so she never bothered. The whole time my mom would just be passed out on the sofa or working.”

“Oh God, Jamie,” I mumbled. My eyes prickled with tears as I imagined an eight-year-old boy trying to be a dad to a one-year-old baby while his mom spent their money on drugs. It was horrifying.

He smiled weakly, still not meeting my eyes. “I was eight and a half when I first broke the law,” he stated. “I went to the local store, and I stole a loaf of bread and a pack of ham so I could feed my baby sister.” He hung his head as if he was ashamed to admit that.

The lump in my throat seemed to get bigger as I struggled to swallow. Suddenly my body seemed to thaw out, and I could move. I scooted closer to him on the sofa and put my hand on the back of his head, resting my chin on his shoulder, looking at the ceiling so that the tears wouldn’t fall. His body was trembling against mine, and I realized that I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated his mother for letting him go through all of that. He’d never even had a childhood. Most eight-year-olds would probably pitch a fit because they wanted the latest G.I. Joe, but the starving eight-year-old Jamie was stealing food to feed himself and his sister.

“Sophie was an amazing kid. She was so happy, so loving and adorable. I did everything I could to keep her safe and smiling. I’d steal practically everything she needed: food, clothes, medicine. My mom was barely around, so it was just us, really.” His voice broke and I could hear the agony in his tone.

“Why didn’t you tell someone? A teacher or something?” I asked quietly.

He snorted and shook his head. “I couldn’t. I knew that we’d be taken and put into foster care or something, and I didn’t want to lose my sister. They would have split us up and I never would have seen her. I couldn’t have that. I was scared to be alone; I guess I was selfish in that respect. I should have thought about what was best for her in the long run, but I selfishly thought that I was what was best for her. Now I wish I’d told someone, though. Maybe if I had, then she’d be alive. Hindsight can sometimes give you nightmares,” he replied sadly.

I gripped the back of his head and pressed myself to him tighter. “You aren’t selfish, Jamie. Jeez, don’t ever think that!” I said fiercely as a lone tear escaped down my cheek.

He turned his head, and his eyes finally met mine for the first time since this whole revelation began. “Ellie, don’t try to make me feel better. I don’t need your pity looks.”

My fingers twisted in the back of his hair as I pressed my forehead to his and squeezed my eyes shut. “Jamie, you can’t stop me from feeling these things. I love you, so of course it’s going to upset me that you went through all that. If I told you these things about my childhood, would you be able to stop yourself from feeling sorry for me?” I asked incredulously.

He sighed, his warm breath caressing my cheek and ruffling the hair at my neck. “I guess not.”

I sniffed and nodded, pulling back and resting my chin on his shoulder again. We were almost at the worst part now; I just needed to brace myself for the impact. “Who was the guy who killed her?”

His body tightened when I asked that; his jaw snapped shut with an audible click as his hands clenched into fists where they rested on his knees. “My mom got with Ralf when I was ten. They kind of dated, but he used to pimp her out, too. She loved him more than anything, more than me and Soph. He moved in with us and things got better in some ways and worse in others.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know the answer.

He shrugged. “At least there was food in the house once he moved in.”

I narrowed my eyes at his detached tone. “What got worse?” I asked. He groaned and looked at me pleadingly, as if he didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “Jamie, please? What got worse?” I repeated.

“Ralf was a sick asshole. He … he got off on hurting people. Me especially,” he answered.

“He was the one that—” I couldn’t say it, so I traced my finger on a small round burn mark at the base of his neck.

He nodded, seeming to look anywhere but at me. “Yeah. He used to like it. You understand what I mean by that?” he asked.

Like it …

“Oh God,” I muttered as I realized what he was talking about.

Jamie nodded again, shrugging me off him as he stood, rubbing one hand on his arm as if he were cold. “Yeah, he’d get drunk, and she’d be off earning him cash, so he’d have a little fun by kicking the shit out of me. Afterward, he’d tell me to clean up my wounds and stuff. He’d watch me do it and … touch himself.”

Images of that seemed to flood my brain. I had been right earlier; this information was definitely going to make me cry myself to sleep for weeks.

“Did he ever”—I took a deep breath—“touch you?” My voice came out too high pitched as horror and anger seemed to build up inside. Bile rose in my throat as I wondered how much worse this conversation was going to get.

Jamie shook his head quickly, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “No. He was a sadist, so he just used to like it when I was in pain. Thankfully, he never paid much attention to Sophie. Well, not until the day she died anyway.” He practically growled the last part. “I hated him so fucking much, Ellie. I used to dream about fighting back, about taking the knife that he always had clipped on his belt and ramming it through his heart. But I couldn’t because things were better for Sophie with him there, so I just let it go on.”

“You let it happen so that your sister could eat? That’s, that’s—” I shook my head, not having the words.

He shrugged as if it were nothing. “She was the most important thing, and when he was there things were better for her. I coped with it.”

“Jamie, I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Sorry you ever met me, huh? Yeah, you probably should be. You don’t need someone like me in your life,” he stated flatly.

I stood up and walked the four paces to him, gripping his hand, pulling gently to try to get him to look at me. He turned, but his eyes were firmly fixed on the floor again now. I’d never realized how insecure he was; he was like some sort of little lost boy thinking that everything was above him and he didn’t deserve things.

“You’re wrong. I do need you in my life,” I corrected him. I went up on tiptoes and pressed a kiss on the edge of his jaw. He made a sort of whimpering noise as his hands went to my hips, pulling me to him so tightly that my body was almost crushed against his. He bent and buried his face in my hair as I snaked my arms around his waist, hugging him fiercely.

“I need you, too. I love you, Ellie, so, so much,” he mumbled into my hair.

We stood there holding each other until I could stand the silence no longer. “What happened?” I asked, meaning with Sophie.

He sighed and guided me over to the sofa again. He sat and pulled me close to his side. My ribs were starting to ache because he’d clamped me to him so tightly, but I didn’t say anything about it. He obviously felt like he needed to keep hold of me, so I wasn’t going to ruin that feeling of security for him.

“I decided to leave. I came up with a plan for me and Sophie to leave, and for me to take care of her on my own. I was already doing that anyway, but I thought that if we left it’d be better for both of us. Trouble was, I had no money. I started asking around to see if anyone wanted to give me a job, but I was only eleven, and no one wanted a schoolkid working for them. Then one day this guy came to the house and had this huge blowout with Ralf about something. I’d hidden at the top of the stairs and listened to them argue. Apparently Ralf had promised to do some robbery job for this guy, but he’d backed out last minute. I followed the guy out and asked if I could do the job instead. He said no because I was a kid, but he did offer me something else. A delivery job. I didn’t ask what I was delivering, I didn’t need to know. All I needed to know was that he paid me a hundred bucks for it. I went back the next day and did another delivery after school and got more money, and then the guy asked if I wanted to do more jobs,” he explained.

Understanding washed over me. “This was how you got tangled up with Brett.”

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded. “It started out easy; a delivery job here and there. Then things got more involved, and I got paid more. Money seemed to be all I could think about. The more jobs I did, the more money I got and the closer I came to having enough for me and Soph to start over on our own. I started skipping school all the time, and I’d hang out at Brett’s workshop with the guys who worked for him. I started training with them all too, doing weights and fighting and stuff, so I learned a lot about self-defense, but I continued to let Ralf do what he wanted so that he wouldn’t know that I was planning on leaving with Sophie. Ray, the head mechanic, he would let me help him with the cars, showing me how to fix them and stuff. By the time I’d been there for six months, I could strip an engine and put it back together again. Ray also showed me how to steal them. Turns out I was pretty good at it,” he said, laughing quietly.

“I was saving up. I decided to wait until I was sixteen so that I could rent a place legally. A couple of years passed that way, then one day I spent too long at the warehouse. Ray and I got caught up cooing over some sports car. Funny how I can’t even remember what the car looked like now.” He frowned, obviously trying to recall that insignificant detail. “I was fourteen, and Sophie was seven. I was late getting home. Ralf had been drinking, and I guess because I wasn’t there to—” He stopped talking and squeezed his eyes shut as he shook his head.

“Jamie?” I prompted when he didn’t carry on.

“It was my fault,” he whispered suddenly.

“What? No.” I shook my head fiercely.

He nodded. “Yeah. I should have gone home right away; if I had then he wouldn’t have laid his dirty pervert hands on her.” He choked on a sob. “He … hurt her. When I walked in the living room she was sobbing in the corner while he sat there and—” He groaned, and I dug my fingers into his thigh as I finished his sentence in my head. I’d never heard of anything so sick in my life. What kind of despicable person got off on seeing a child in pain? I felt dirty even thinking about it.

“Where was your mom?” I asked, the tears flowing down my face freely now.

He gulped. “Just sitting there,” he said disbelievingly. “She didn’t care. She loved Ralf, he gave her what she needed, she let him do what he wanted.” His chin trembled, and I saw a tear fall down his face and drop onto his jeans.

I covered my mouth as I whimpered. She’d done nothing while her boyfriend had physically abused her daughter and was getting himself off because of it? That made her just as guilty as if she’d done it herself.

“Sophie was cowering in the corner, crying, her nose bleeding, her lip split. He’d used the knife that he always used to use on me, and sliced a big gash on her forearm. She was so little, and he was sitting there, jacking off while he watched her cry. I totally lost it. I knew we couldn’t stay there anymore, so I told them we were leaving. I shouted at Sophie to get up and pack a bag, but he got between us. He said we weren’t going anywhere, that he owned us all and that Sophie was going to earn him money too, when she was old enough.” Jamie’s face was red from anger.

“Ralf and I started fighting. The whole time my mom just sat there, watching with her glassy eyes, like she wasn’t even aware of what was going on,” he ranted. “Sophie got in the way, she was trying to stop us from fighting, I think. He … he grabbed her, and he slammed her head against the wall.” His voice broke and his fingers dug into my forearm unconsciously as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I can still see it, Ellie. When I close my eyes I can see it, clear as day. I can still hear the crack that her skull made as it smashed against the plaster. I can still picture the smear of blood on the wall as Soph crumpled to the floor.”

I whimpered as I looped my arms around his neck, probably squeezing too tightly to be comforting, trying to save him from the memory of it. I prayed with every bone in my body that I could erase it, that I could somehow make it better or take it away. But there was nothing I could do.

“I shoved him off me, and he crashed into the sideboard and was drunkenly trying to get himself up from the floor. I ran to Sophie, screaming at my mom to call for help, but she didn’t. She just fucking sat there!” he cried, wrapping his arm around me tightly. “I tried to help her, but it was no good. There was blood everywhere, the smell of it made me gag. Sophie was so still, so still …”

I gulped, desperately trying not to picture it because I was attempting to be strong, but my mind was wandering there, grieving for the little girl I’d never met, the little girl from the photo. I pictured a young Jamie holding her in his arms, screaming at his spaced-out, drugged-up mother for help that never came.

“When she stopped breathing, I just lost it. I totally lost it. My reason for living was gone, and it was all his fault. I … I killed him with my bare hands, but I just couldn’t stop. I have no idea how long I was hitting him for, but apparently one of the neighbors heard screaming and shouting and called the police. They busted the door down and dragged me off. I was arrested for murder, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was that there was no point to my life anymore. The entire reason for me being alive was to be a big brother, but he took that away from me.” His voice broke with emotion as he buried his face into the side of my neck, his body trembling against mine.

I tightened my arms when I felt his warm tears wetting my shoulder. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I stroked his back soothingly while he cried. My chest was tight with grief, my stomach was churning and twisting because the love of my life was in pieces in my arms, and I had no idea how to help him, or even if I could.