Crown of Thorns

3

Favorite brother?

Jasper is my only brother—my only sibling, period.

I haven’t seen him since Nina was hospitalized. When he refused to take any responsibility, leaving all medical and financial decisions in the hands of a court-appointed guardian. Fortunately, the court chose my grandmother’s cousin, but Jasper’s response has kept me awake many, many nights.

Nina helped raise us. And he just doesn’t give a fuck.

Growing up, I idolized him. I’m sure just about every girl says that about her older brother, but for the longest time, he could do no wrong in my eyes. Even though he was five years older than me, he never called me a nuisance when I wanted to be included. Never made me feel like a mistake, a word our dad tossed around like confetti whenever he was drunk and wanted to make excuses for our living situation—rough neighborhood after rough neighborhood. Jasper protected me from that, too. I was soft, but I always knew that with my brother around, nobody would treat me like an open target.

Even before Mom was killed when I was ten, Jasper had started to pull away. After she died, my brother completed his 180. He stopped coming around. And when he was home, he was either in trouble or at Dad’s throat.

“I can take care of myself,” he used to remind our father whenever that word—mistake—came up. I told myself he wasn’t talking about me. That he was saying that to remind Dad that his mistake, landing us in another shit neighborhood, had cost Mom her life.

Still, Jasper’s words always left me feeling vulnerable and exposed.

When Dad finally took off for good, Jasper did, too. Nina, our mom’s mother, stepped in to take care of me and worked it out for me to attend Ravenwood, where she had worked for years. Ravenwood was nothing like my old school—there were no gangs. No drug deals in the bathrooms. No teachers quitting in the middle of class with a, “Fuck this, I’m out.”

Still, despite its elite history and impressive alumni, my new school was … ugly.

I was an open target, everything wealthy girls hated—poor, chubby, and overeager to prove that I deserved my spot. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that if I stayed quiet, they remained uninterested.

And Jasper? We only ever saw him a few times a year, whenever he needed money or a place to hide.

Since he’s been sending money for months, his reason for coming home is pretty damn clear. Not to mention the way he looks.

My brother’s half a foot taller than me and has a lean build, but it’s usually obvious that we’re brother and sister. We both have chocolate brown eyes, olive skin, and black hair. But now, Jasper looks … off.

Like the grim reaper.

There are dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his brown eyes, and he’s so pale that I swear the skeletal fingers tattooed around his throat really are choking the life out of him. His jet-black hair, that he usually wears close-cropped, is longer than I’ve ever seen it. Just like his facial hair. And then there’s the way his T-shirt and jeans fit. Loose, like he hasn’t eaten in weeks.

“The fuck you staring at like that?” he snaps, breaking the silence.

“I… you scared me is all.” I take a cautious step toward the table. “Jas, where’s your car?”

His Dodge Charger is his pride and fucking joy.

“You left the porch light off, I turned it on.” He avoids my question about the car, so I tell him that I didn’t notice the light. He just shrugs. “Pay better attention. That’s how motherfucker’s die.”

Such sage advice coming from the guy who leaves his seventeen-year-old sister to fend for herself. I won’t say that out loud because doing so will inevitably start an argument. It doesn’t take much to set Jasper off.

Like when his phone shudders on the table, and he shoots it with a look that could make the damn thing explode.

“Jas … is everything al—” I start in a voice that doesn’t sound like my own, but he immediately shuts me down, slapping his hands flat on the table.

“I’m tired.” He fakes a yawn and shoves to his feet. “Think I’ll go to bed.”

Even though I know it’s coming, the sound of his bedroom door slamming shut a moment after he brushes past me launches my heart into my throat.

Drawing in a deep breath, I close my eyes. Jasper never sticks around for long—a few days, tops—but he’ll probably take off fast this time since I’ve pissed him off. No doubt, I’ll wake up for work tomorrow, and he’ll have slipped out in the middle of the night.

Except, that doesn’t happen.

In fact, when I drag my ass in the house after a shift at the music store and visiting our grandmother the next afternoon, I find him stretched out on the couch. He’s watching a documentary on some serial killer.

“He’s in San Quentin,” I mutter as I toss my purse on the worn recliner, silently adding, I hope you never meet the evil bastard.

“So?” He jabs the pause button and pins me with a long, unblinking stare. “Where the fuck were you?”

“Work and visiting Nina. Where the fuck were you all these months?”

Flashing a cold smile, he starts his show again, blasting the volume until our cheap surround sound rattles the Crucifix on the wall behind the couch.

He’s not gone on Sunday either. We share a handful of words before I sprint out the front door for my morning run. He asks if I’m still “on that exercise shit to fit in with that redhead slut,” and I snap at him for attacking Margaret. I don’t bother telling him the only reason I started ru

Of course, that’s how the day ends. With me wanting to strangle him because he answers all my questions with a sneer or a shrug or an infuriating combination of both.

“Where’ve you been the last couple months, Jas?”

Sneer. Shrug.

“Where’s your car?”

Sneer.

“How long are you staying?”

Shrug.

“Are you still working for that woman?” I don’t even know her name, just that he has an almost cult-like fascination with her and that she was rude to me the one time she answered his phone.

He sneers. This time, he even sprinkles in a few words: “Mind your own fucking business.”

The next morning, two whole days after the expiration date I gave Jasper’s latest visit, he’s at the breakfast table, a bowl of cereal in front of him. It almost seems normal. That is, if he weren’t furiously jabbing at the screen of his phone, growling that he wished he’d “never fucked with the stupid bitch.”

“You’re still here,” I blurt out.

He glances up at me with an arched brow. “Yeah, so? That a problem? Do I need your permission to stay here or something?”

Trudging into the kitchen, I toss my backpack on the counter closest to the doorway and lay my folded sweater vest on top of it. As I fasten the tiny buttons on my blouse cuffs, I say, “I’m just … surprised, I guess.”

He grunts a response and focuses on his breakfast and whoever it is that he’s texting. “That’s the same uniform from before,” he points out, his dark eyes never leaving his phone. “Thought they were doing some new shit this year.”

“They decided to stick with Ravenwood’s colors.” Which is good since I bought new uniforms last school year. The only thing that changed for the girls is the crest, an easy fix I handled with needle and thread one night while watching TV. Leaning my shoulder against the fridge, I smooth the hem of my plaid skirt and stare at him a moment longer, then grab my favorite bowl from the cupboard.