He laughed. “No, not typical at all. In my case, apparently that’s what happens when your parents fight all the time and have to find a way to make up. Alyssa was an accident.”
Something she’d been reminded of by his mother. Often.
He glanced at Kendall, who watched him, the understanding in her gaze giving him the strength to continue. “After Dad left, my mother turned to alcohol to numb the pain, but she was really good at hiding it, working and raising us through her addiction.”
He didn’t recall the small apartment he’d grown up in fondly. They were tight quarters, and Alyssa, a colicky, crying baby, stayed in his mother’s room while Julian slept on a pullout sofa in the den. With his grandparents’ help, they’d moved to a place where he had his own room, which he’d eventually given up for his sister, returning to the sofa. But he knew there were people worse off, and he’d worked his ass off to get a scholarship so he could go away to school.
“My mother wasn’t neglectful. She kept a roof over our heads and food on the table. And her parents helped raise us, so I guess, all in all, things weren’t awful.”
“Really?” Kendall asked, sounding angry, he guessed on his behalf. “Because it doesn’t sound wonderful to me. That’s like me saying my childhood was just fine because my father made sure we had a home and food to eat, regardless of the fact that my mother spent her entire life in a dark bedroom suffering from depression.”
“I didn’t realize that,” he said, turning to face her. She was stronger than he’d ever been. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes softened. “Thank you, and we’ll talk about it one day, but let’s stay on you.”
He smiled wryly. “Not letting me off the hook, are you?”
She shook her head. “Nope. You’re giving me the facts but not the feelings behind them. And if we’re going to get anywhere, I need both.”
He blew out a deep breath, allowing the feelings he used to numb with drugs to come back. “It sucked, okay? I always smelled the alcohol on her breath. She had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. I would catch her pouring vodka into her coffee for a jump start. So I got used to looking out for my sister, first when she was a baby and then as she got older. I felt responsible for her. She was such a tiny thing.” He smiled at the memory. “And despite the age difference, we were close.”
He leaned an arm against the window, glancing down at the lights and moving cars below. “I went to college when she was ten, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, leaving her with my mother.” He’d felt so damned guilty, as if him being there could have prevented what happened.
“Kids grow up, right? I’m sure your mom wanted you to go to school, get your degree?” Kendall asked.
He shook his head. “She didn’t give a shit. But my grandparents did. They encouraged me, promised they’d be there for Alyssa. So I went.”
“And you met Kade, Lucas, and Derek?”
He couldn’t help but grin at the recollection. “We came up with this idea for a social media app while we were drunk one night and started to hash it out for real the next day, and the day after… and the day after. We knew we had something real.”
He still remembered the high of those days, the comradery with the guys. How awesome he’d felt, how much he’d looked forward to the future.
“What happened?” Kendall asked.
He didn’t meet her gaze. He knew he had to just keep talking and get it all out. “One night I got a call. It was my junior year, right before Christmas. We were due to go home for break soon. My mother was driving drunk and she had an accident. She hit a tree head on. She was killed instantly.”
“Oh, Julian.” Kendall came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him tight.
He didn’t realize how much he needed her close—the warm, fragrant scent he associated with her and the strength she gave him now. “Alyssa was in the car. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt. She was thrown from the seat, in a coma for a month, and suffered from a traumatic brain injury.”
Kendall sucked in a startled breath. “I had no idea.”
He swallowed hard. “No one did. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Not Kade or any of the guys?”
“Nope. I was too mortified by what my mother had done. Too worried to share. I went home for Christmas, and I didn’t want to go back. My grandparents convinced me. They said I needed the college diploma to get a job, to support myself and my sister, and they were right.”
He swallowed over the lump in his throat. “And they stepped up even more, took on Alyssa’s care when I wasn’t home, and drained their bank accounts because my mother, it turns out, had let her health insurance lapse. And the bills were enormous.”
“Wow.”
Kendall wrapped her arms tighter, and suddenly the past didn’t seem so daunting to tell. “I went back to school, but I couldn’t deal with the pain and the worry. About Alyssa, her recovery, what her future would hold.”
“So you started partying. And doing drugs.” Her hand slipped up his back and began circling in gentle, supportive strokes.
“Guess it’s not such big a leap to make.”