When I Break

Chapter Five

Knox

How your life could change so drastically over the course of a few years was crazy. I could have never imagined that at age eighteen I’d be financially and legally responsible for my three younger brothers.

But when my dad left four years ago, there was no way in fuck I was letting us get split up and sent into the foster care system. We’d been through enough. After losing Mom, and then Dad turning out to be a selfish prick, we had to stick together. Tucker had only been four, and Luke and Jaxon just thirteen and fourteen at the time. I’d graduated early from high school and began working full-time to meet our rent, utilities, and grocery bills. That first year was a blur. We had peanut butter sandwiches for dinner when money was tight, and endured the heat and electricity getting turned off more than once that first year. Things had gotten a little better since then, but it was still hard.

I knew I used girls to forget pain, to mask my emotions, and of course to feel pleasure. That had begun when I was still in high school. I also knew I had no plans to change it. Just because I was in some ridiculous sex addicts group didn’t mean I need to go all holier-than-thou and reform myself. Fuck that. My lifestyle was the only thing keeping me sane at the moment. The only thing keeping me out of jail, most likely. I might tone it down for my brothers’ sake, but I wasn’t about to change who I was.

All week long I’d worked, hit the gym, hung out at home with my brothers, and looked forward to seeing McKenna again. I knew it was stupid. She was my sexual addiction counselor, for fuck’s sake. I was delusional thinking there could be something between us, yet I knew she felt the raw magnetism just like I had. I’d seen it in her eyes. Her curiosity had been unmistakable. The soft inhalation of breath, her fluttering pulse, calling me “Mr. Bauer.” Shit, I had liked that way too much.

After a late-afternoon jog where I’d let the smoggy heat of Chicago drench me in sweat, I showered, dressed, then made the boys a snack just as they were arriving home from school. It was one of the rules I enforced—straight home after school, homework and family dinner, and then friends or other social activities. The front door burst open and a pile of backpacks, shoes, and lunch boxes hit the foyer floor. Jaxon disappeared up the stairs as Luke and Tucker tore into the kitchen, stealing crackers and slices of cheese from the counter where I’d placed them.

“What’s wrong with Jaxon?” I asked.

“He has to poop.” Tucker giggled.

I smiled. Sometimes I felt pretty damn lucky to live with only guys. We said what was on our minds, took care of business, and didn’t overanalyze things. It was a pretty sweet deal.

Minutes later Jaxon appeared, looking sullen. Even though he was the oldest, I worried about him more than the other two. He was in his final year of high school with no clue what he wanted to do afterward.

I leaned against the counter, watching them munch on crackers and listening to stories about school. Tucker wandered away after having his fill, and I brushed the crumbs he left behind into the sink.

“Is everything okay, Knox? I heard screaming coming from your room the other night,” Jaxon asked.

Jaxon was the most like me, which meant he was also the most suspicious, especially after my arrest for a DUI. I could understand their concern. I was the only guardian they had—I couldn’t go off the deep end like that again. And I refused to let them down; that would make me no better than our father.

Embarrassed, I scrubbed a hand over my face. “No. But it will be. In fact, I wanted to tell you that I’ve begun attending a class Saturday mornings to put my life back on track.”

“Is it the anger management class the judge wanted you to take?” Luke, my seventeen-year-old brother asked. His watchful eyes waited for my response.

With Tucker in his bedroom, playing superheroes by the sound of it, I figured Luke and Jaxon were old enough to know the truth. I didn’t shield them from much. To me, that was no different than lying. My father was a liar, and I didn’t care to walk in his footsteps in any regard.

I took a deep breath. The first step was admitting you had a problem, right? “The counselor actually wants me to attend a group for people with sexual addiction. She thought my history with girls was…too much.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Jaxon asked, a hint of a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. He was way too much like me. And the several high school girls I’d found crying at our doorstep proved his track record was already eerily similar to mine.

I needed to find a way to get through to him. But I guess getting my own life on track was the first step.