"He’s in pieces?! What about me then? It was he who told me not to love me, it is he who does not want to be with me as a couple! “I had exploded with anger.
“ Easton has serious problems related to his past. Someone like him can never give you what other guys can! "
"I too have my problems! What do you think? That I didn’t suffer from the abandonment of my mother who preferred her career and her new partner to me? I know what it means to feel betrayed and thrown in the trash. "
“ And while you know, you are now doing the exact thing to Easton! You should be ashamed! I can understand that it is difficult to be near Easton, but I thought you were stronger and more mature, capable of facing your emotional blocks! Instead you are just a capricious little girl, too stubborn and proud to put herself aside and open her heart to the boy she loves. I'd say I just pity you, but that's not true! "
Nobody had ever insulted me in that way, but in her words, I felt that there was such a depth of truth that I could not react except to burst into unstoppable crying. I felt guilty, wrong, disappointed, and angry with Easton and myself.
We hadn't spoken to each other since that evening and it made me hurt. Kira was fantastic, special, and incredible. I admired and cared for her.
To hear that she disapproved of me was a stab from which I would never recover except with her forgiveness.
As if that wasn't enough, my offended mother had also phoned me that morning because I had not responded to her invitation for Christmas and worried about Easton, because the rector had warned Mitchell that Easton was behaving strangely and was missing the lessons. He had asked for explanations and I had made a silent scene.
"So?" Kira brought me back to reality.
"Easton threw Felicity's milkshake on us," I told her, noticing the sketches on her clothes and hair only then. I was so furious at her insults and so worried about the blood dripping from his hand that I hadn't even noticed anything else. "He ... he's hurt."
"What's wrong?"
"I don’t know. He was bleeding from one hand. I think he punched something or someone " I whispered, thinking about him.
"What are you waiting for?"
"To do what?"
"To help him," she replied, putting her first aid kit in my hand. “And to make up. It will soon be Christmas time and it would be nice if you managed to settle your differences before leaving for the holidays. "
"Thanks," I whispered, feeling my eyes burn from tears.
“ Sorry about what I said. It is not true that you are horrible. You're simply scared,” she said, rolling the boulder I carried on my shoulders from our first discussion from my back.
"I apologize. Please forgive me. You were right and I was wrong,” I understood, hugging her hard. "I just want to be brave like you."
“ You are, don't worry. You just have to believe it. You're the only one who can make someone like Easton love you."
"Like you with Lucas?"
"Yes," she smiled, blushing.
I took the kit and ran to Easton's room.
The feud between the two of us had dragged on for too long. It was time to end it and make peace.
Sure, it wouldn't be easy, but I had to try.
If I really loved him, I had to do everything I could to make his smile return to his lips, even if it meant leaping into the void with the risk that nobody would be at the bottom to catch me.
I just wish it were easier.
23
EASTON
Chris in Alice's room. The two of them on the bed kissing and caressing each other.
That was the only thought that kept hammering in my brain until it pierced me.
I tried to hit the wall again, but my hand hurt like a bitch.
Ryo had gone to call the others to convince me to go to the infirmary.
At one point I heard someone knock on the door.
I opened it, annoyed. I didn't want to go to any infirmary.
I staggered when I found Alice standing there.
"What do you want?" I managed to say, annoyed, covering up how disturbed I felt. She ignored the distance between us and took my aching hand between hers.
Feeling her fingers caress me and the warmth of her skin was a breath of oxygen. Until then I hadn't realized how much I missed all this.
"I came to take care of you," she replied simply, sketching a shy smile that did not, however, reach her shining eyes full of sadness.
She was suffering and I felt that I was the cause.
Oh, Alice, stay away from me! I'll just make you feel bad! I can’t make you happy.
"You don't need to," I murmured, sitting on the bed as she pulled ice, gauze, bandage, and disinfectant out of a portable kit.
"Does it hurt a lot?" she asked, brushing my wound with cotton wool soaked in disinfectant.
"No," I whispered, as she blew on the wound, causing chills to run over my back.
“ You should get yourself a splint. It could be broken," she worried, noticing the swelling that she tried to reduce with the ice, after bandaging me.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
Now that you're here with me, yes.
"I thought you had a date," I reminded her, trying to find a topic that didn't make me want to touch her, kiss her, and never let her out of this room again.
"I canceled it. Chris and I are just friends and colleagues at the newspaper. There isn't and there won’t be anything special between us," she confessed.
"Why?" I asked. I knew I was just hurting myself, but I wanted to stop her since she had finished medicating and was leaving.
"Chris isn't what I want."
"What do you want, Alice?" I asked her hoarsely.
"I want you," she replied seriously, nailing me with her green eyes. “I miss you, Easton. I miss you a lot. So much that I always feel alone, to the point of going out with people who don't even care about me just to make you jealous or hurt you like you did me. The truth is that I want to be with you," she confessed to me. Her tone was so desperate that it tore me to pieces, I felt her pain as if it were mine and I knew that I was the only one to blame.
I got up to go to her.
She said she wanted me.
I also wanted it. To go mad.
"But I don't know how to do it without feeling bad," she added, before my lips reached hers. “Please, Easton, I don't want to feel like this anymore. In a few days we have to leave for the Christmas holidays. We will stay with your father to celebrate Christmas and I would like to settle things between us before then. "
"Alice," I called, letting my hand run over her bent face, but when her eyes met mine again, she was in tears.
I was paralyzed and didn't have the courage to stop her when she opened the door and slipped away.
She had run away again.
I had lost her again.
I slumped to the ground with my fists clenched against the closed door.
Alice, please help me.
Help me love you.
***
ALICE
I arrived at Mitchell Carson's villa for a day and Easton had not shown up anywhere.
I had to thank Felicity for accompanying me, since I had also missed the bus and my half-brother had been gone since the evening I had helped him.
At the memory of what I had confessed to him, I still felt my legs tremble and my heartbeat.
I had been honest with him.
I had thrown myself into the void for him, but Easton had remained motionless, unable to say or do anything.
I had run away and only Kira had managed to console me, telling me that I had to give Easton time to work things out and that he would soon come to me. I was not so sure.
I was hoping to see him again at his house, but he still hadn't shown up and Mitchell had filled me with questions all day about his son's mood swings.
That evening my mother and her partner went to a charity gala and I was left alone to drown my sorrows in ice cream, sitting on a sto
ol at the kitchen counter.
It was Christmas the next day, and I felt alone.
I wish my two friends were with me, but Kira had left with Lucas for Princeton, Kentucky, to celebrate Christmas with her family, while Felicity had to babysit her little sisters, since her mother worked.
In the end I just phoned my father, Kira, Felicity and finally Chris to wish them happy holidays.
"So, I'll never see you again," Chris said discouraged.
"We'll meet again at the editorial office, but not outside."
"It's because of Easton, isn't it?"
"Yes," I admitted.
"You love him?"
"It's complicated."
"I understand. You love him,” he understood, making me laugh.
"Yeah, but I assure you that if it weren’t for him, I would have loved to be with you."
"Then I'll just have to wait for you to get tired of him," he joked.
"It won't happen, Chris," I chuckled because I knew it would never happen.
"Chris?!" thundered Easton's voice behind me, making me jump on the stool with fear.
"Chris, I have to go," I cut the call short, when I noticed that Easton was so drunk, he could barely stand.
I didn't even wait for an answer because Easton's screams completely absorbed me.
"Chris?! You’re doing it with him, aren't you?” he shouted ferociously, coming over to me.
I brushed him aside and he ended up against the counter.
“ You said it was over. You lied to me! You're a liar!” he yelled, hitting the ice cream container so that it crashed into the wall.
"Easton, calm down," I tried to stop him, even though I was frightened by his aggression. "Chris and I were just talking."
"Shut up!" he cried to my palm, pushing me almost to the point of making me fall. "How could I have believed you? You are like all the others!"
"Easton, please ..." I tried to get closer, but he grabbed me by the wrists until it hurt. "Ouch! Let me go!"
I wriggled but I could not push him away. He held me with one hand and with the other he pulled my ponytail until I lifted my face towards his.
He stank of alcohol and, when he forced me to kiss him, I almost withdrew.
"Leave her alone, Easton!" came a scratchy, hard voice.
In a moment, the newcomer took Easton and threw him away from me, throwing him to the ground.
Finally free, I looked at my savior.
My breath broke.
The boy in front of me was a copy of Easton but bigger, with slightly different cut eyes and lighter hair.
"Who are you?" I stammered in fear.
"His older brother," he replied with a seductive and arrogant smile on his face.
Same as Easton!
"Jake?" I tried to understand.
"Exactly, sweetie. Now tell me what the hell my brother the idiot was doing. "
I couldn't even explain to the newcomer that Easton had just up and attacked me.
"You're so drunk that you can't even hit me," he scolded, giving him a knee behind the knee, and making him bend over in two.
"Let's take him to his bathroom before he throws up on the floor or our father comes in," Jake ordered, lifting his brother roughly by the collar of his shirt. “And as for you, little brother, now we’ll work it out. First dad calls me and tells me you want to be like me and study law too, that's fine. But now, to see you copying the same bullshit that I did at your age, this is not it. I won't let you! "
We barely made it to the private bathroom in Easton's room, when he vomited all the alcohol he had ingested.
It was a gruesome sight, but I was too shocked to leave. I had never seen anyone who felt so bad.
I handed Jake a towel to clean Easton's face.
"Can you tell me what’s wrong with you?" Jake asked, hiding the worry in an authoritarian and furious tone.
"Alice," Easton managed to say before he threw up again.
"What did you do to him?" Jake attacked me instantly. "Did you start fucking with him and making fun of him by taking advantage of your new role as an acquired sister?"
"I ... no!" I answered shocked.
"Alice ..." Easton tried to speak again.
"Alice what?" Urged his brother, making him sit on the floor and taking his face in his hands to clean it. "Easton, you know you can tell me anything."
"She's going to leave me like mom did," Easton mumbled, too drunk to understand what he was saying.
"Mom?! What does she have to do with it?"
“ I ... I don't want to love her. Then she’ll go away ... I can't ... I can't love her ... she doesn't love me but I ... can't. I can't, Jake. "
"Easton," I called out to him. I knelt in front of him, next to Jake. I stroked his face until his misty gaze landed on mine. I love you, Easton. I won't abandon you. I swear it,” I confessed with tears in my eyes.
Seeing in front of me what I had caused with my hesitation, how my fears had created the distance between us, I finally understood what I had caused.
"Nobody can love someone like me," he replied, before going back to vomiting.
"Please help him," I pleaded Jake.
"Wait for us over there. I'll fix him up and put him to bed. "
I did as he said, and a quarter of an hour later I saw Jake arrive with Easton, looking half-dead.
We laid him on his bed. I stood next to him and Easton turned to me, resting his head on my legs.
Jake sat down next to us.
"You destroyed him," Jake said. I looked him in the eyes. There was no trace of resentment but only of displeasure.
"In order to not hit bottom, we pushed each other into the ravine, without considering that we were already tied up, and in the end, we fell together," I replied, gently stroking Easton's sleeping face.
"Do you really love him?" Jake asked point-blank.
"Yes," I confessed, holding Easton close to me.
“ He would like to love you too but he’s afraid of being abandoned. When our mother left, he was still small, and he suffered a lot. Unfortunately, nobody cared for him. My father was too preoccupied with burying the scandal which still came to the surface, albeit years later. Meanwhile I was too busy hating my mother and acting crazy or getting drunk. Many times, the scene you just watched was seen by Easton, except that in that case it was I who was vomiting including my soul in the toilet. "
"I'm sorry. I didn't understand until tonight how deep this abandonment was."
“ What struck us is like cancer that recurs every time we feel an ounce of happiness or love for someone. We have learned to be afraid of and keep away from anything that can hurt us like what happened before. That is why I ask you to love Easton only if you are truly convinced of it and are able to face the difficulties that will arise, because he has closed himself off too much to come to you and tell you that he loves you. With him there is no live happily ever after ... With him you will have to learn to fight his demons and wait patiently for him to take courage and to feel safe from what you give him day by day without receiving anything in return."
“ I would like to tell you that I feel ready, but the truth is that I too am afraid. Every time I feel how my love for him grows, the terror of never feeling repaid increases. "
“ Then leave my brother alone. You're not suitable for him. "
"I ... I need him, to love him, to be close to him," I revealed with my heart in my throat.
"Does Easton know?"
"It's complicated."
“ With him everything will always be complicated. If you want it, you'll have to be ready for that too. "
"It’s that so many things have happened and ..."
"Why don't you tell me everything? I'm really curious about how you made my brother go crazy in just a few months."
“ Do you want me to start from the day he kissed me in front of all his friends and then I took my revenge by smashing his feet with my heavy suitcase? Or since the day he showered with blood red water? Th
en there's also the time I made him believe I put laxative in his food."
Jake laughed. He had a laugh very similar to Easton's.
“ Start from the beginning. We have all night and I need to something good after what I saw in that bathroom. "
24
EASTON
I had the headache of all headaches.
It was as if a thousand hammers hit my skull simultaneously, making my brain bounce like a pinball ball.
I thought about the past night.
I hardly remembered anything.
I only remembered pieces of a disastrous evening, worse than the others, since Alice had confessed to me that she wanted me but didn't know how to be with me because I made her suffer.
It was I who made her feel bad. Just me.
Again, I felt the overwhelming desire to drown that thought in another shot of vodka, but when I focused on the room, I realized that I was no longer in Ryo's room but in mine.
How the hell did I get here?
I slowly got up and tried to remember what I had done after creating a colossal hangover by robbing my friend's father's minibar.
Maybe I had gone to a club. I did not remember that.
Then I got a new flashback: Alice!
I had attacked her for something…. But what?
I strained my brains to think and eventually Jake's image surfaced in my mind.
Had Jake come home?!
Confused and destroyed, I went downstairs where I heard Alice's laughter.
She had an irresistible laugh, but at that moment every sound was unbearable.
I stepped forward and eventually found her at breakfast with Jake.
Broken Rules (Love Storm series Book 2) Page 16
