Promise Me This Read Online Free Page A

every passing year and it twisted my stomach inside out to witness it.
    Especially since it had always been me and Luke who had cowered together on the edge of our beds listening to the fights, the anger, the crying. Now, it was as if that experience had hardened him as much as it had softened me. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. But suddenly the two of us were as different as night and day.
    Luke pulled in behind me in his ridiculous mini-Hummer like he’d been off to war or something. Those cars were stupid as shit and only made him look like more of a meathead than he was. He was in his senior year at Rockwell University and was on the winning football team. He was a linebacker and huge as fuck. I thought I was built—but then I’d visit him in the weight room at his private Ivy League school and feel small in comparison.
    He walked through the garage behind me and mumbled, “Gotta make this quick, picking up Anna in a couple of hours.” Anna was his latest girlfriend and I’ll admit it, their relationship made me nervous. Every time he’d bring her around, I’d check for signs of intimidation or manhandling. Anything that would give a clue that he’d finally crossed that line. I had no proof, just a niggling feeling and a mind-numbing dread that plagued me regularly.
    My mother stood in the kitchen nursing a tall glass of wine. Her blond hair was up in a messy bun, so I knew she’d been working in the garden. She loved planting fresh herbs and root vegetables.
    “Hi, Mom.” I took two strides forward and kissed her cheek. “Whatever you’re cooking smells good.”
    “It’s chicken divan.” Mom was a fantastic cook and was always trying out new recipes. Before she married my father, she’d been a chef for a catering business. I figured if she ever left this marriage she’d have no problem finding a job again.
    “You know,” I said. “There was a sign in the window at this culinary school on Front Street. They were looking for someone to teach cooking lessons to a kids’ group.”
    My mother’s back became rigid. She had never been allowed to work outside of the home. Only to volunteer for charities or women’s groups.
    “What the fuck does she need a job for?” My brother’s voice boomed a little too similarly to my father’s. Luke always seemed angry when it came to my mother. I didn’t know what the hell that was about, though I had my suspicions. I knew he saw her as weak, and probably saw all women that way.
    But I thought my mother was strong to have survived all that she had. I just wish she had that final bit of strength it would take to ultimately walk away. The problem was that she still loved my father–-at least whatever fucked-up version of love she thought she felt.
    But fear was not love, that was for damn sure.
    “What the hell, Luke? Keep your voice down,” I growled and balled my hand into a fist. “Mom used to be a chef in another life, remember? Maybe she’d enjoy doing it again.”
    “C’mon man, a cooking school?” he said as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “That would be like taking a step down.”
    I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Listening to my brother speak was like a precursor to the way his life would lay out before him. How in the hell had he travelled so far off course?
    “Boys, that’s enough,” my mom said in an exasperated voice laced with anxiety.
    She was always afraid we’d get in a fistfight like we used to on many occasions growing up. Dad always encouraged it, said it would toughen us up.
    I grabbed the red wine off the counter, filled up a glass, and chugged some down. If I had to spend more time with Luke, I’d need it. “When does Dad get back in town?”
    “On Thursday,” my mother said quietly, almost reverently, and that made my stomach lurch.
    I studied my mother’s tight smile, pale skin, and her light brown irises, same as mine. The little lines that had begun to form around her eyes and