The Love Code (BoyxBoy)

It's Okay

•Damien's POV•

What surprises me isn't the current situation at all. I always knew my brother was going to crack eventually. He held it all together pretty well. But honestly you can only hide a monster in a cave for so long.

Sooner or later, I knew all of his real emotions would come tumbling out like water from a pot that's boiling over.

He could've stood in front of me as many times as the sun has risen and set and told me that he didn't blame me or feel any hatred towards me for what he had to go through when I abandoned him in that house, and I still would've just nodded my head while secretly acknowledging it as a lie.

And I don't blame him.

Even though it is so easy to blame someone close for the pain that we feel and the trauma and unpleasant experiences we go through in life, I do not blame him for hating me for this.

Because if I was in his shoes...

I would hate me too.

''He went to the other side of the country for you! He couldn't even travel a couple of goddamn miles for me!'' Cody screams at the top of his lungs. His voice cracking at the end.

Not only does it take a lot to get this side of Cody out, the raw, emotionally honest, barring it all without a single care about how it will hurt the ones who love him, side of him, but it means that he's at his absolute rock bottom.

Because even though he puts on one hell of a convincing front that he doesn't care about anything and almost anyone, Cody cares more than anyone I've ever met.

And really that's one of the things that scares him the most.

Because the people who should've cared about him more than anything else didn't.

So, in his mind, even though he does, why should he extend that same courtesy to the people in his life now?

Why should he care?

Caring out of obligation has let him down. He had parents who had one job as the people who gave him life and they failed him.

Caring out of love has let him down. He has a brother who abandoned him and didn't return to save him from the hell whole he ran away from.

Caring out of hope has let him down. He had a best friend who couldn't stick by his side when he decided he'd finally put in the work to better himself.

Caring in general has just crushed him.

''I would've traveled across the fucking world for you Cody.'' I interject, coming down the hall as quickly as I can without breaking into an all-out sprint.

I heard him the moment he started yelling at Steven and I all but broke my neck trying hurry out of the shower and put some clothes on to make it down here.

Every fiber in my being was thankful that he was okay physically, but just as well every fiber in my being knew that something was wrong mentally.

And it's not like I didn't know he was struggling.

It's not like I didn't finally bite the bullet and take Javier's advice to finally get him some mental help.

I was just too late.

And that's on me.

Because I should've been a better brother to him. I shouldn't have failed him in the ways that I did.

I knew exactly what he was going through after having been in that house because I've been there myself. I should've immediately got him into therapy the moment I got him back.