5.

I dreamed.

About things that happened a long time ago.

The truth was, I'd liked Adrian.

No one had ever taught me what liking someone was supposed to look like.

Certainly not my mother.

An accidental son mattered less to her than deciding which nail polish to wear that day.

So I watched her and taught myself how to grow up.

Obviously, I hadn't learned much worth knowing.

I followed my instincts.

At first, I'd treated him like a brother.

I'd forced him to attend the parent-teacher conferences my mother had never once bothered with. Forced him to pick me up after school.

Introduced him to everyone as my older brother.

Whether he accepted it or not.

I'd held my chin high as people offered their insincere congratulations.

It had been a happy time for me.

I thought I had a family. Someone to lean on.

Then I finally understood why he always brushed my hand away.

Understood the impatience and disgust in his eyes.

Once again, I had no one.

So I took another path.

I locked him up.

The collar around his neck had a tracker and a lock only I could open.

I held his hand and begged softly.

"Please, big brother. Be good. Don't go too far from me."

But Adrian wouldn't be good.

He would scrape his wrists bloody trying to get the thing off his neck.

I didn't know what else to do.

So I chained his hands and feet too.

He missed an important exam. The anniversary of his mother's death. A job offer he'd fought hard to get.

He hated me more and more.

There was always a curse waiting in his eyes when he looked at me.

I panicked.

I didn't know how to get my good older brother back.

So I became worse.

I invented unreasonable demands to prove I still mattered to him.

If the cake had a six-hour line, he had to buy it for me.

If I dropped a ring in the car, he had to find it.

If I wanted an ice pop in the rain or snow, he had to get me one.

I'd even deliberately get drunk and wait for him to come pick me up.

Privately, I chose to interpret his anger as jealousy.

I never tired of it.

In that twisted relationship, I'd found a sick sort of happiness.

I thought it didn't matter what happened, as long as Adrian stayed.

It took me a long time to understand.

I liked him.

And I'd ruined everything.

After I went broke, I finally got a taste of what it had been like for him.

It wasn't pleasant.

At the end of the dream, Adrian stood over me, gripped the chain at my neck, and said, "You're fucking pathetic, Julian."

6. 

Adrian hadn't driven far.

He sent his driver away and sat by the road, smoking alone.

The image of Julian kept circling in his head.

He'd noticed him as soon as Julian came out of the club.

He'd watched in silence.

Watched Julian sit there, filthy and laughing to himself, with a thin wad of cash in his hands.

Watched him fall before he could even get his balance.

Adrian had laughed.

But the smile disappeared almost immediately.

He frowned and crushed the cigarette pack restlessly in his hand.

Seeing Julian suffer, he was startled to discover, wasn't nearly as satisfying as he'd imagined.

Thinking about him stumbling out of that club made something uglier flare inside him.

He wanted to swallow the bastard whole.

Why could other people have him when he couldn't?

If Julian was willing to ask anyone for help, why wouldn't he come to Adrian?

Adrian was furious.

He didn't understand where any of that fury came from.

With nowhere for it to go, he turned it on himself.

He slapped himself hard across the face.

The taste of blood at the corner of his mouth cleared his head a little.

He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and closed his eyes.

Again, that thin figure overlapped with the blurred shape of a person he kept seeing in his dreams.

By the time he realized what he was doing, he was already standing in front of Julian.

His hand had lifted the umbrella over Julian's head without his permission.

Then he'd seen Julian's red eyes.

His breath caught.

An ache spread out from somewhere deep inside his chest and curled through his whole body.

How had that spoiled little prince ended up like this?

Oh.

He'd done it himself.

He hadn't been merciful when he destroyed the Ashfords.

Adrian thought he must be losing his mind.

For years, he'd buried himself in work so he wouldn't have to think about how Julian was doing.

At night, though, that face would come back. Smiling. Showing off.

Every time he reached out to touch it, the expression turned frightened and miserable.

Once again, Adrian decided he was insane.

He'd said vicious things.

He didn't know whether he'd meant to hurt Julian or cover up the fact that his heart was beating too fast.

In the end, he'd run away.

Neither of them slept well that night.