Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

Yet as she unburdened her heart, Holly felt herself lighten. Her sorrow over her brother’s death had lasted all this time, even if it had lessened somewhat, but as she sat across from him she felt the last of it dissipate. She had not accepted the blame that her father had tried to inflict on her, the shame of participating in her brother’s death, but she had still been scarred. Now, as her scars peeled away, she felt well and strong where they had been. The fury she had felt since learning—that very morning—of her father’s lies was coupled with an equal measure of joy over having her brother back.

But he, who had known the same sorrow and shame, the same fury and joy, reacted differently as he sat with Holly and tried to articulate what they had suffered at their father’s hands.

As he told Holly about the night he had called their father and learned of her death, he remembered what kind of person he had been back then. He remembered what had made him leave home in the first place, the long and terrible story Holly had told him in the gazebo that morning, how their father had tried to rape her, the threat he had been to her for years. Joe remembered how he had doubted Holly, had even accused her of lying. He remembered defending his father, but he could not remember why.

As he told Holly about Ian, Angela, and Rusty, described the fire that was growing beneath Belle Haven and what the town had come to mean to him, he found himself wondering whether he had outgrown his deep-seated proclivity for looking the other way. And as he spoke about Rachel, he realized that he had always forgiven her habit of denying what she feared because he had for so long done the same.

“I wonder if I do that because it makes me feel better about my own faults,” he said absently, the food on his plate forgotten. He put his hands in his lap. Looked at his sister. “I thought I’d come a long way since I left home,” he said, “but now I feel like I’m right where I started.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Holly said, reaching across the table to touch her brother’s cheek. “I am a thousand times happier than I was back then, and that’s mostly because you helped me leave. Ultimately, you did believe what I told you. Even though I heaped on you in one morning what I’d spent years getting used to. None of what we’ve been through was easy, Kit. But what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

“You keep calling me Kit. I feel like I’m splitting down the middle.”

The look in his eyes frightened Holly. He was so obviously confused that she wanted to get him home quickly, send him off to bed. They had said too much, too soon.

“Let’s go home,” she said. “Everything will seem better in the morning.”

But it didn’t.

For the next three weeks Joe said very little. He appeared not to listen to what was said around him or even to him. Holly’s friends, after meeting him for the first time, avoided her eyes, for they sensed that her brother was not quite whole.

Holly suspected that her brother was simply trying to make sense of their father’s senseless lie. To do that, he would have to understand his father. And to do that, he would have to take a long and honest look at the kind of person he had been before leaving home, for it was in those days that he had been most like his father, had seemed content with following in his footsteps regardless of where they led. He had taken such a look immediately after leaving home, but since then he had put as much distance as possible between himself and the person he had been, which meant that he had tried not to look back, or at least not too closely.

Now, as he peered beneath his own scars, Joe saw his father and himself very clearly. Perhaps time had provided this clarity. Time and therefore some objectivity. Or perhaps living in Belle Haven had given him a different perspective so that, like a tourist abroad, he saw things the natives missed. What he saw did not surprise him, for he’d caught enough glimpses before. But it did frighten him, for he now admitted to himself that no matter how much he had changed, no matter how hard he had tried to better himself, he was still capable of repeating his worst mistakes.

He had once accepted things as they were, had done nothing to improve them, and had not been the only one to suffer the consequences. And he was doing it again in Belle Haven. The difference was that, under his father’s roof, he had been able to claim some ignorance, to hide somewhat behind his youth, to beg the excuse that it was natural—perhaps even commendable—for a boy to be loyal to his father. What excuse did he have now for looking the other way while the fire made its way closer? For taking part in a conspiracy—if only because he did so little to dispute it—that seemed sure to hurt those he loved? He still felt that he was a better man now than he had once been. But this only made his collaboration seem worse.

Holly watched her brother as he spent endless hours on her small balcony, looking out over San Francisco. She imagined that he was still straining, quietly, desperately, against his father’s stubborn grip. Even after all this time. Even after everything that had happened. And she was right.

But she remembered the night he had arrived on her doorstep, how much he seemed to have changed since they had last seen each other. And she was convinced that her brother’s silence was a good thing, a sign that he no longer