by Brenda Ford
“Okay, well I hope that you do.” Sheri rises to her feet. “I’m going to leave now. Let you and Rachel have some time together. I’ll go to the kitchen to say goodbye to my friend. Just… make sure you look after her.”
“I will. I have no intention of doing anything but looking after her.”
As Sheri walks out, I move across to where she was sitting only moments before to see the TV screen better. I just want to lose myself in some mindless program for a while. But instantly, I sit on something. As I pull it out from underneath my ass and I recognize it as a cell phone, I take a step towards the kitchen. If this is Sheri’s then I don’t want her to leave without it. I’m sure her life is on her phone just like everyone else…
“Wait.” I stop dead as an all too familiar picture flickers on the screen. One that I might have only seen for a short time but that I have fully committed to memory. A picture that I allowed Mandy to convince me I wasn’t seeing right, that it wasn’t her. But now I know for sure that it is her and Alex too. I mean, it’s obvious. If I had been given longer with the image, I would have been able to work it out. “Sheri sent this?”
I try to find a motive as my heart pounds in my mouth, aching and pounding violently, but there isn’t one. It takes me a few moments longer than I am proud of to realize that’s because Sheri never had a motive. This isn’t her cell phone. It belongs to the only person I thought I could trust.
“Rachel.” I fall back on to the couch, my mind spinning desperately. “Rachel, why? Why would you do this?”
I can’t imagine her betraying me, sending me this picture, knowing about the affair for all this time leaving me with absolutely nothing. She could have told me, so many times she could have told me, but she didn’t. She knew and she said nothing. She does have a motive as well, because she has already told me that she liked me for a very long time. She sent this picture to try and split me and Mandy up.
I shake my head, shocked to the core. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that I am in this position again. After everything that I have been through with my family, now the woman that I thought I was in love with turns out to be someone different as well. Nothing I thought I knew is right. Everything, everyone is a lie.
What do I do now? Where the hell do we go from here? I don’t know what will become of me. Of anyone. I feel more alone than ever before. I don’t have a damn soul that I can trust. What sort of life is that?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rachel
“Sorry, Sheri,” I whisper to my friend as I say goodbye to her at the door. “I know that this isn’t exactly the best introduction to Angelo. He isn’t like this normally, it’s just a bad time, that’s all.”
“I know, I get it.” She touches my arm softly. “Just remember what I said, okay? Take care of yourself.”
I bite down on my bottom lip knowing that I might be lying as I nod, but it’s all that I can do right now. I need to keep everyone as happy as I can in this challenging situation. It’s like I’m treading water, continually kicking as much as I can so I don’t sink under the waves and drown. So, the ocean doesn’t flood my lungs.
“I will see you soon, okay? I’ll message you later on to let you know how I get on.”
As she walks away, I feel a deep heaviness in my soul. I wanted Angelo back because it means that I don’t need to worry about him while he’s at work. But him back here in this mood isn’t great either. He’s still hurting, still struggling painfully, and I don’t know what I can do to make this better for him.
I sigh and turn slowly, unsure what I will face when I see Angelo again. I just wish that I could take this weight off of him so he can move around a lot lighter again. I guess it will only be time that helps.
“Right, I will just finish off the coffee,” I call out brightly. “Did you want to find something to watch on TV?”
Angelo doesn’t answer me, but I continue on into the kitchen and pour a drink for me and him with my mind spinning rapidly the whole time. I’m searching deep in my heart for the right combination of words to say to make this alright again, but they aren’t there. There just isn’t anything to make this any easier. It actually takes a lot more strength than it should to grab the mugs and to take them into the other room.
What’s going on? Immediately, I’m struck by the fear that something new has happened. I can just see it on Angelo’s ashen face. He looks even more freaked out than he did when he was fighting Alex. What is it?
My eyes dart around, I try to find the source of this new mood without having to ask, and soon I see what it is. My cell phone next to Angelo. The picture that Sheri was looking at before. The one I said Angelo wouldn’t see because he isn’t ever with my phone. Until now. What a fucking idiot I am.
I guess I don’t need to start our relationship on a lie now, and I don’t need to find a way to tell him either, because he already knows. He knows that I know. He knows that I have known for a long time.
“Angelo, I…” I start, but he holds up his hands to stop me from saying any more.
“No, Rachel. I don’t want to hear any excuses. I have been listening to excuses ever since I saw Alex fucking Mandy. Again, there is no excuse for this. You can’t explain what you did.”
“I tried to warn you.” A desperation is already flying out with my tone. “I tried to let you know.”
“You sent me an anonymous picture. Too fuzzy to even see it. It was impossible to tell anything from it.”
“I was in a hard position. I didn’t want Alex to hate me either…”
“Why the fuck are you defending Alex now as well?” His voice grows shrill with anger. “No one can defend what he’s done, yet everyone is doing all that they can to protect him. Why won’t anyone protect me?”
“I want to! I wanted to. I tried. I thought that I was doing the right thing by letting you know. Anonymously was the only way that I could do it. I would have chosen another way if I could…”
“But it didn’t work. You know that it didn’t work. Mandy managed to talk me around. You should have come to me and told me in person. Aren’t we close enough for you to do that for me?”
“Not at the time, no. We barely spoke and you know it. I had a lot going on when it came to considering it. I didn’t want to be the person who hurt you and Alex, I also didn’t want to face the wrath of Mandy… also, I had to think about my motive. I liked you, I didn’t want that to be the reason that I told you. I also didn’t want you to associate me with that pain. I assumed it would ruin any chance I had with you…”
“Selfish excuses. All of it. All of you. It’s all selfish excuses.”
I hang my head low, knowing that he’s right. I was selfish. As I say it aloud, it’s clear that I was only thinking about the way the outcome would affect me. Now, I feel utterly terrible about all of it. I should have been braver and pushed my own fears to one side. I should have thought about him alone. I’m a bad person.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “If I could take it back now then I would. I would tell you straight away to make this easier for you. I mean, if that’s even possible. I don’t know if there’s a good way to know this.”
“Not by surprise, I can tell you that much,” he snaps. “Not with everyone else knowing and not you. Not only am I dealing with all of this, I feel like a fucking idiot as well. Can anything else come my way? Am I about to find out anything else? I honestly have no idea anymore. My life is just a God damn mess.”
I part my lips, desperate to say something to defend myself, but I don’t want to be selfish anymore. Angelo deserves so much more than that. He deserves someone to be a better person than I have been.
“And anyway,” Angelo continues, getting a second wind of a rant. “Even if you didn’t tell me then, why didn’t you tell me now? You can’t use the excuse that we don’t know one another anymore because we do. All the time that we have spent together, the ways that we have gotten closer… why not then?”
I don’t have an excuse
and he knows it. Certainly not one that I’m willing to give anyway. Again, everything that I did was selfish. I hid what I knew because I was afraid of losing what I have. Sheri was right yet again. My feelings and love for this man, all the time that I have spent waiting to be with him, have clouded my judgement. I haven’t acted in any moral way, nothing like I should have done, all because I didn’t want to lose him.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat myself. “I know that I have done wrong. I wish I could change it.”
“You can’t change it though, can you? You can’t change any of it. No one can. Alex can’t change what he’s done, Mandy can’t change her shitty behavior, and you can’t either.” He runs his eyes up and down me, looking at me like I’m a stranger. He doesn’t seem to know me anymore. “I guess you will all have to live with what you have done, won’t you? Because I sure as shit have to live with all of your shitty decisions.”
I gasp, a sadness over coming me in a wave. All I want to do is collapse on the ground and sob hard. The only reason I don’t cave into that sensation is because I don’t deserve it. Angelo is the only person with the right to feel anything. I’m just another person who let him down. This isn’t where I want to be.
I can’t stop myself from thinking back to all the times I imagined what our lives would be like if we could just be together. It was all loving and romantic, full of fucking sun shine and roses. I didn’t imagine that it would be so raw and real, so full of agony. I assumed we would skip in to the sun set and everything would be wonderful. It isn’t that way at all. It’s more of a nightmare than anything else. If it was anyone else in the world, I would walk away from this relationship, but it’s him and I can’t turn my back on Angelo Smith.
I’m a mess. An absolute state. Everything that I have ever wanted has slipped through my fingers and I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. My own fear and stupidity. What I wanted to avoid has happened anyway.
“I have been wrong,” I admit to Angelo. “I have. But I didn’t want to hurt you, I hope you know that…”
“That’s exactly what Alex has said to me. He didn’t want to hurt me, but he did.”
“But I love you, Angelo.” It doesn’t feel as good as it should to finally admit those words aloud, but then again it shouldn’t be under these circumstances, should it? “I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”
His eyes pop wide with shock, but only for a moment before he steels himself once more. “I thought that I loved you too, but I realize now that I don’t know you at all. I haven’t ever really known you.”
“You do!” Shit, I feel myself crumbling and falling apart, losing myself desperately as Angelo says words that fill me with sheer terror. It seems like he’s saying that he can’t ever feel that way about me again. “You do know me. You have known me. You can’t say that you don’t because I made one mistake.”
“It wasn’t just one little mistake, was it? It was something huge. Something massive. Something overwhelming. It’s so big that I don’t know if I can ever really forgive it.”
My breath catches in my throat, I don’t think I can breathe through this. This is definitely going south fast and I need to find a way to bring him back to me. I try and reach out for him, to physically grab him so he can’t leave but he snatches himself away before I can really touch him. He’s literally out of reach right now.
“Angelo, no.” The tears are free flowing but there’s nothing I can do to stop them. “Don’t do this, Angelo. Let’s talk. We can… we can sort this out. It will just take a bit of talking, that’s all.”
“Oh, all of you are the same! You want to talk now. Talk, talk, talk, like that can undo what you have done. But you didn’t want to talk when the time was right. Alex didn’t tell me about his supposed love for Mandy before he started fucking her. You didn’t talk to me before I found out in a shocking horrible way. But now you have all sorts to say. Like it can fix things? Well, it can’t. There isn’t anything to say now.”
“What are you saying?” I gasp. “What are you talking about, Angelo? Please, tell me…”
“I’m saying that we’re done here. This is over.” I swear my heart stops beating the moment I hear these words. “I don’t ever want to see you again, Rachel. You betrayed me and I can’t forgive that. So, don’t call me, don’t try to see me, nothing. Just let me go. Allow me to recover from this properly.”
And then he leaves and my body caves and collapses. I fall into a heap on the floor and sob hard. I had him and I lost him, I know what it’s like to have Angelo Smith, and now he’s gone. My life feels over.
Chapter Thirty
Angelo
I don’t know if I have done the right thing by walking away from Rachel, but I do know that right now I can’t even look at her. She spells almost as much betrayal to me as Alex does, and it sickens me. I just can’t overcome the fact that she knew everything for a very long time and didn’t tell me.
“Fucking hell.” My head seriously hurts. I mean, it aches so painfully I could scream. There is so much pressure inside of me that I don’t know how I haven’t exploded yet. “Fucking hell. Everyone.”
I don’t have anywhere else to go at the moment; I need to at least collect some of my belongings before I head to a hotel or whatever, so I will have to face home. I don’t think that Brad will be back yet, but some of my other brothers might be, and there’s no telling how strongly they will try and fight me on my refusal to speak to Alex. Mind you, it doesn’t matter. They can say whatever the hell they want, it doesn’t make any damn difference. I have made my decision and I’m going to stick to it no matter what. I’m not talking to Alex ever again.
I shove the front door open so hard it bangs loudly against the wall, causing an echo to burst through the house. If anyone is in, they will know I’m here now, so let the bullshit begin. I have my metaphorical armor on. I’m ready to fight my corner, to let all of my brothers know that nothing will happen.
“Angelo!” It’s Wesley who gets to me first. “Thank God you’re here.”
I turn to face him, everything that has happened rushing over me. He was the one who looked into Mandy and he found out that she was having an affair but he wouldn’t tell me who with. He told me that he didn’t know who it was, but I can’t believe that. A computer whiz like him who can hack devices will surely be able to find out anything. He knew, and just like everyone else, he wanted to protect precious fucking Alex.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I fold my arms over my chest defensively. “Huh? You knew, didn’t you? You knew that the person Mandy was fucking around with was Alex and you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t know that! Of course, I didn’t. I told you what I knew.”
“Oh sure, just like everyone else. Honestly, what bullshit. All of you. The people that I’m supposed to be able to trust have all turned their back on me. It will be a God damn miracle if I can ever trust anyone again after this. I mean, I have been a good person, haven’t I? I have been a good brother to all of you. I have been a good person to everyone else. A good boyfriend. Yet all of you… all of you treat me like shit.”
I stalk away from Wesley, unable to keep up this conversation, and I stomp right in to the kitchen. Of course, as I should have fucking suspected since the way this day is going, there I find Alex sitting at the table with Nelson. They are clearly in the middle of an earnest conversation. Probably about me.
“Oh, how fucking wonderful!” I yell. “You get to have everyone to talk to even though you’re the one in the wrong, yet I have no one. This is just marvelous, isn’t it? It just shows that you can’t expect to have anyone when the shit hits the fan. It doesn’t matter how many times I have been there for all of you, no one can do the same for me. Well, now I know that I actually don’t have a damn soul in the world.”
“I have been calling you,” Nelson argues back. “I didn’t know where you were, and you haven’t picked up the phone to me. I want to be there for you as well as Alex, but you won�
��t let me.”
“As well as Alex.” I can’t even look at my twin. “Why exactly does he need someone to be there for him? Huh? Oh, is he upset because he has done everything that he can to ruin my life?”
“Angelo, please,” Alex tries, almost rising from his feet. “Let’s just talk about this. Please.”
“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to any of you. This is done for me.”
“What are you talking about?” Nelson almost yells. “You can’t just say that you’re done. We’re…”
“A family.” I roll my eyes angrily. “I know. So, everyone has told me but no one has been acting like my family recently. Not at all. Maybe there’s no point in pretending that we’re a family anymore. I mean, what is all of this? We all still live in this house that our parents left us because we’re too afraid to move on despite the fact that we’re all pretty much adults now. This house belongs to Brad, he should stay here. We need to all stop relying so much on one another. We seem to think that because we needed each other growing up that we still need each other. Well, we don’t. It’s fucking toxic here and I am doe. You hear me? Done!”
“Angelo, no!” Nelson chases after me as I stomp towards my bedroom. “Don’t do this. Don’t walk away like this. Just stop it, will you? Things don’t need to be this way, do they?”
I ignore my youngest brother and practically run to my bedroom. Once in there, I grab the biggest bag I can get my hands on and I start throwing things in there. I don’t even know what I’m getting really, probably not essentials, but I just need something to take with me when I go. Something to get me started.
“Angelo, I know that you’re upset right now, but that’s why you shouldn’t make any decisions. Choices made in highly emotional states don’t ever work out well. You need to take time and think.”
