Chapter 5 - The Ledger of the Past
I dragged myself across the floorboards, pulling my useless legs behind me like heavy anchors, until I reached the base of an old wooden bookcase. I braced my back against it, panting, looking up at my brother across the narrow gap of the loft floor.
"You look terrible," Julian said, his voice dripping with a cold, jagged irony as he maneuvered his wheelchair slightly closer. "All those billions of dollars, all those high-rise towers in Chicago, and you end up parked on the floor of a drafty old carriage house just like me."
"You knew I was here," I rasped, wiping sweat from my eyes. "You've been here for weeks, watching me."
"Watching you?" Julian scoffed, a flash of genuine anger finally breaking through his stoic facade. "Ethan, I didn't come here to spy on you like some pathetic ghost looking for vengeance. I came here because Rebecca needed work, her son needed a stable place to live, and this estate happened to have an empty roof over its head. I had no intention of ever letting you know I was alive. It was your precious little prodigy—Sammy—who couldn't keep his mouth shut."
"He prayed for me," I said quietly.
Julian’s expression flickered, a complex wave of emotions crossing his weathered features—frustration, fondness, and sorrow. "The boy has a big heart. Too big for his own good. He saw you crying behind the garden hedge. He didn't know who you were; he just saw a man drowning in his own misery, and he wanted to help the only way a six-year-old knows how."
"He whispered your name, Julian," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. "He looked me in the eye and gave me back the ghost I've been running from my entire adult life."
Julian went quiet. He looked down at his own hands—hands that were calloused and scarred from years of pushing wheelchair rims and working on intricate mechanical drafts to earn a modest living.
"I didn't tell him to say it," Julian muttered, looking back up at me. "I talk in my sleep sometimes. When the pain in my spine flares up, I dream about that night in Boston. I dream about the fire escape. I dream about screaming your name while the floor fell away beneath me."
The words hit me like physical hammer blows.
"I didn't know you were behind that wall, Julian," I choked out, tears finally breaking free, burning hot down my cheeks. "The smoke was blinding. The heat was melting my skin. I panicked. I was nineteen years old, and I was terrified of dying. When the ceiling collapsed, I thought... I thought you had already made it out the front."
"You lied to yourself to sleep at night," Julian said, his voice remarkably devoid of malice, which somehow made it hurt worse. "You needed to believe I was gone so you could build your empire without looking over your shoulder. And you did it. You built a palace. But look at you now, Ethan. You're trapped in the exact same cage."
"Is that why you're here?" I asked, my voice breaking. "To watch me suffer?"
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Julian stopped his wheelchair just inches from where I sat against the bookcase. He leaned forward, looking down at me with eyes that held no hatred—only a profound, sorrowful exhaustion.
"No, Ethan," Julian whispered. "I'm here because I'm tired of hating you. And I'm tired of hating myself."
