Broken and Screwed 2 (BS #2)

“You weren’t there.”


“Oh.” His welcoming smile fell. And he took a step back. “That’s right. I was…” His eyes widened as he remembered. It’d been the next morning when his girlfriend found her car had been keyed. She went to Malcolm, who stormed into Jesse’s bedroom. We’d still been sleeping. “Well.” He twisted and glanced at the new girlfriend, who stood with my parents. “Well then. It has been a while.”

I nodded. That’d gone exactly how I expected.

“What are you doing here?”

I glanced over, surprised at the hostility in Tiffany’s tone as she addressed her cousin. I spoke for her, “I asked her to come.”

“Why?”

Blinking at the scathing look she gave me, my eyes then narrowed and my chin tightened. “Because I wanted to.”

“Jesse said you were coming for dinner.” Malcolm’s smile resurfaced. His eyes twinkled as he nodded. “That’s wonderful. Have you two continued…your…um…you know?” He moved closer and lowered his voice so my parents wouldn’t hear.

“They found out before Christmas,” Jesse spoke for me. Unlike his father, he was tense and trying to drill holes into his father from across the room. He was dressed in a Grant West blazer over jeans. Freshly showered and tired from the game, his cheekbones were more striking than normal. He gave off an air of danger. It sizzled among everyone and they grew silent, watchful as Jesse jerked forward a step. His hand was clenched around his bag.

“Oh. Well.” Malcolm laughed at himself. “Cat’s out of the bag, hmm?”

Jesse narrowed his eyes and his mouth clamped shut. I watched as his jaw clenched and knew he was two seconds away from yelling at his father. Hurrying over to him, I glanced around and was surprised that no one else witnessed what I had. Everyone seemed unaware of the potential explosion, but as I touched his hand and moved him away from the group, Jesse seethed, “Don’t worry. I never lose it around my friends.”

“Yeah, well, you have around me.” The time when Malcolm found us had been the first explosion. I had heard others over the two years, even though his father never knew I had been in the other room and there’d been moments before Ethan’s death.

He forced out a breath, trying to calm himself, but he muttered, “I can’t f**king stand him.”

“Keep it together.” I skimmed a hand over his jaw, tapping it so it loosened. As it did and he tried to smile at me, I shook my head. It was a poor imitation. “Introduce me to your sister.”

I started for the girl, who had been keeping to herself in a back corner, but Jesse caught my arm and dragged me farther away. He took me in the opposite direction until we were out of earshot of the group. Then he caught my face in his hands and made me hold his gaze. “Stay with me tonight.”

“What? No.” I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t release me.

“Please. I’m going nuts. Stay with me.”

“You know the deal. Tell me the—”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell you the secret and what then? You’ll come back? You’ll stay with me?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. We never defined us. I had no idea. I finally moved my shoulders in a movement that I hoped looked like a shrug. “Tell me Ethan’s secret and we can figure it out.”

“I told your parents to f**k off.”

“What?”

“Your dad came to a game over the break. He tried to talk to me afterwards and I told him to f**k off. I didn’t want to hear anything.”

“Oh.” Now I was really spinning inside. Jesse had stood up for me. He’d been loyal and stood against my parents when so many hadn’t stood beside me. I had no idea what to do, or feel, or think, or…I had no idea.

He pulled me close and pressed a kiss to my lips. “Your parents were shit to Ethan and they were shit to you. They’ve been nice to me, but if they don’t make it right with you, I told him to take a hike. They’re trying to make things right with you.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Oh my god.” I couldn’t say anything more. I already knew what they were going to do. My parents were going to force themselves to be nice to me. They were going to ‘make things right’ so they could still have Jesse in their lives. The information about Ethan confused me. They’d been horrible to him as well? But I thought they wanted to replace their son with a new one? That had been Jesse’s purpose, hadn’t it? And now hearing this—I couldn’t formulate a single thought anymore. I was spinning out of control.

“Just come to dinner and hear them out.”