I touch his arm. He blinks back at me.
“I could hear Joe choking on his own blood. I was screaming at my dad to help, but he just stood there, gun still in his hand, eyes vacant. Then, Joe”—Tom rubs his eyes—“died…right there with me kneeling beside him. My hands pressed to his chest.”
A tear runs from his eye, but he quickly wipes it away. Then, all I can see is a thirteen-year-old Tom dealing with something as horrific as that would have been. For everything I’ve suffered, finding my mom, I still can’t imagine what that did to him. My heart is hurting badly for him.
“Joe was dead,” he says in a broken voice. “And I was scared. I jumped to my feet, yelling at my dad, yelling that Joe was dead and that he’d killed his brother. But he wasn’t there. He was just empty. And I was fucking terrified. I knew he would never hurt me, but he was just standing with the gun in his hand. Then, suddenly he seemed to come to. He put the gun down on his desk. He looked at me and said, ‘Tommy, go get the phone from the kitchen. Dial nine-one-one. Tell them what’s happened.’ Then, he”—Tom takes a painful-sounding breath—“told me he was sorry.”
Tom’s face is agonized. Another tear runs down his cheek. He doesn’t bother to wipe it away. I watch it run a path to his top lip.
“I was just a kid, Ly, and he was my dad, so I did what he told me. It wasn’t until I was at the kitchen door that I realized something. Why would he send me to the kitchen for the phone when he had one in his office? And I knew, I just fucking knew. The whole way, running back to his office, my heart was beating so hard.” He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, like he’s trying to block out whatever he’s seeing right now. “I was steps away from his office when the second shot rang out.” He blows out a ragged breath. “My dad shot himself in the head…and I saw him there, face down on his desk. Blood…there was just so much fucking blood.”
“Jesus, Tom.” Tears are running down my face.
I wrap my arms around him, pulling him to me. I feel his chest shudder, and then he buries his face into my neck.
We sit like that for a long time. And I let him get out the pain that he’s kept buried for so long.
I go to the kitchen and get him another whiskey. I pour myself one even though I don’t like the stuff. After what I just heard, a drink is needed.
I bring the drinks back. Handing him his, I sit down beside him and take a sip of the disgusting whiskey.
He rests his glass on his thigh.
“So, what happened…with you and your family’s company?” I ask him, not sure what to ask.
He takes a sip of his drink. “With dad and Uncle Joe gone, the board took control of the company. I was to take over when I turned eighteen. But I couldn’t do it.” He shakes his head.
“Everything had changed for me. My life, as I knew it, was over. I blamed my mother for what happened, and she was no use to anyone. She was a basket case. Heather and I were left to fend for ourselves. I didn’t want anything to do with the company that was trying to tie me to it. I was grilled by the cops about what happened over and over. I was getting hassle at school from the kids. I was the rich kid who saw his dad murder his uncle and then kill himself. I was a pariah. Constantly getting into fights. People who were once my friends suddenly weren’t. The press was having a fucking field day. They were camped outside our house. I felt trapped.
“I’d lost my dad. I’d seen him murder my uncle and then kill himself. I just wanted to bury the pain, bury that night…forget it ever happened. But I couldn’t get away from it. Reminders were everywhere. So, I started drinking, smoking weed…having sex to block it out.” He meets my eyes.
“I was fourteen when I lost my virginity with some junior at a party. I was drunk and high, and I just wanted to feel normal. I couldn’t even remember her name afterward, and I’m pretty sure she never got mine. But what I did remember was that while it was happening, while I was having sex with her, I didn’t feel like shit. I didn’t have to think about everything that was wrong with me. In that moment, I wasn’t Tommy Segal, the heir to the whiskey fortune, and son of the man who shot his brother before committing suicide. I was nothing. Nobody but a warm body for her to fuck. She didn’t care about me, and I didn’t care about her. I liked the way it felt, and I wanted to keep on feeling that way. I guess that was when sex became a coping mechanism for me. I could just switch off and lose myself in another person, forget everything. It worked for a long time until it just became the norm. Having disconnected sex was just what I did…until you.
“And as for the company…” He laughs harshly. “I barely managed to graduate high school. I was partying hard, screwing around. I wouldn’t come home most nights. My mother couldn’t control me, and after a while, she stopped trying. I turned eighteen, and it was supposed to be all mine, the company—Segal fucking whiskey.”
He looks at me. “Even with the scandal of what happened, it didn’t affect the business. I was the hoping the disgrace would burn the company to the ground, but it didn’t. It made it bigger, popular. Sales increased. That first year after their deaths, sales went up by fifty percent. Apparently, people like a shot of scandal with their whiskey. Fucked up, right?”
He rubs his face, looking frustrated. “I was eighteen years old, and they were trying to get me to run Segal’s under the guidance of the board. I could barely tie my own fucking shoelaces most days. I was a mess. I just wanted out.” He lets out a heavy breath. “I was just a kid. A screwed-up kid. So, I took some money from my trust, enough to see me through. I packed a bag, got in my car, and drove to New York.”