Logan
My brain rejected what I was seeing. Jace was dead; he couldn’t be standing in the fucking kitchen. Only he was, and I didn’t know what to say or what to think. I could hear my heart thumping.
Jace peeled Mum off him and Dad took over. He stepped closer and smiled that full smile I would’ve sold my soul to see.
“Fuck,” I breathed, stumbling forwards and enveloping him in my arms.
What the fucking fuck is going on?
I didn’t care that it was impossible or it didn’t make sense. My brother was back – somehow – and that was all that mattered.
Jace clung to me as hard as I clung to him. He was smaller. For someone that sat around playing computer games he still had muscle but that had mostly disappeared. What the hell had happened to him? “Jace?”
Was I dreaming?
“Yeah, man,” he said, pulling back. “God, you have no idea how good it is to see you.”
I fucking did.
Every day I wished I could see him again, even if it was just for a second so I could tell him how sorry I was and that I didn’t mean the words I’d said. Now he was here and I had a chance to make it up to him, to be his brother again.
“How? I don’t…” I rubbed my eyes, checking I wasn’t asleep or seeing things that weren’t there. I wasn’t. Thank God.
I blew out a deep breath to control the urge to cry like a little girl. My brother was back.
“I survived the bombing. Me and another girl, she was with another school but we all walked together. We were taken to a hospital after the explosion. When the police learned that we’d seen the bastards that had done it we suddenly had other people around us, people in suits that looked like James bloody Bond. I’ve been in Witness Protection ever since.”
Shit.
“I wanted to come back the second the sentences were given but we had to stay and make sure there was no backlash, no one wanting revenge. We couldn’t risk it.”
Three fucking years and we’d thought he was dead and he was hiding out somewhere. I wanted to be angry. I was angry but it was completely eclipsed by the fact that my little brother was alive. I would get my chance to put things right.
“I can’t believe this,” I said, my smile stretching. I hugged him again because I was so grateful he was here. “Never thought I’d see you again.”
“Don’t get all sappy on me,” he said, fighting tears too. “I pissed you off more than anyone else in the world.”
“Yeah, you did and I’m so fucking happy you’re back to do it all over again. You’re not going anywhere again, right?” Screw Witness Protection, he was my bloody brother and they weren’t getting him back.
“I’m here to stay.”
Mum sniffed from while being in Dad’s arms and said, “I need a strong cup of tea.”
Me and Jace laughed. She was a Brit through and through.
“I’ll put the kettle on and we can all sit down,” Dad said, still unable to take his eyes off his returning son.
“I could do with something a bit stronger,” I said and instantly regretted it as Mum looked to the floor. Right, no drinking. I looked back at Jace to make sure he was still really there. He was. I gulped. “Tea is good, Dad.”
I heard a gasp behind me and knew it was Chloe. Shit. Turning around, I watched her face drop and her mouth fall open. She looked terrified, as if she’d just seen a ghost. I guess she kind of had.
“Hi, Chloe,” Jace said.
She took a step back and it was then I noticed that her hands were shaking. “No. What is…?” she whispered, taking a few ragged breaths as she continued to stare at Jace in complete shock.
I couldn’t speak and the longer her eyes stayed attached to his I started to feel sick. What did that mean? I was so glad, happy, and relieved that Jace was back, I would never want the alternative, but where did that leave me and her?
“W-What?” she whispered again and gulped.
“Chloe, honey,” my mum said, holding her hands out for her. Chlo looked at her and then back to Jace. “It’s okay. The bombings… Jace saw who it was. He’s been in Witness Protection this whole time, until the trials were over.”
Her eyes widened and then flicked to me. I felt like she had just stabbed a knife into my chest. If she knew that would she have waited for him? Did she now regret us? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jace look her up and down. She was wearing my t-shirt from yesterday with her leggings. She looked guilty as she stared at me through tear stained eyes.
I didn’t need to see my brother to know he was looking between us, figuring out what had happened.
“What’s going on?” Jace asked and turned to me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She looked like she had stopped breathing. I stepped forward. A part of me needed to explain to Jace right this second but a bigger part needed to make sure the woman I was hopelessly in love with was alright. She certainly didn’t look alright.
“Chlo,” I whispered “Hey, you okay?”
She flinched and took a step back, shaking her head. I clenched my jaw as she stabbed me for the second time in as many minutes.
“I… I can’t.” She turned around and ran from the room.
Shit!
I bolted after her. “No! Chloe, wait.”
The daily workouts had really done their job; Chloe was back to running like Usain Bolt. She was up the stairs in two seconds flat.
“Chloe, stop!” I said, grabbing her hand as I finally caught up with her in my room. “Please, don’t leave. We need to sort this out.”
Her horror and shock filled tears tore me apart. “He’s back,” she whispered. Her hand tightened around mine. “How? Why didn’t he tell us? I can’t… I don’t…”
“Shh, calm down. I know.” I closed my bedroom door, giving us some privacy. Stepping closer, I looked into her eyes for permission. When she didn’t push me away, I wrapped my arms around her. “It’s a huge shock for all of us but please, don’t run. We need to deal with this. You need to talk to him and understand.” She shook her head. “You know we do. Jace is here, Chloe.” This wasn’t going away. I didn’t want this to go away. “He’s alive.”
She pressed her fingers to her temple as if she was getting a headache. “Is this real? I don’t get…”
My bedroom door burst open, making us both jump. “Alright, what the hell is going on?” Jace said. “What is this? Why is she in here?”
Shit.
“Oh, Jesus. You’re together? While I was away missing my family and girlfriend, waiting for the fucking trial of terrorists who murdered my classmates to be over, my brother and girlfriend were screwing each other.”
“It wasn’t like that, Jace, and you know it,” I said calmly.
Chloe stepped away from me, closer to him. “Why didn’t you tell me, Jace?”
“That’s not the fucking point!”
“Yes, it is! Three years, Jace! We all thought you were dead. We buried you! Shit!” She ran her hand through her hair roughly. “You have any idea how hard it was to watch your coffin being lowered into the ground? The whole time you were alive. You must have known what it would do to us but you still didn’t say a bloody thing.”
She still loves him.
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Yes, you could.”
“How long did it take to fall into my brother’s bed? Have you been seeing each other behind my back before I left or did you at least wait a week after?”
“Screw you!” she snapped and shoved past him, sprinting down the stairs. I let her go because I knew she needed some time alone to process everything. If I followed her I would push her away and she already had a thing for running from me, I didn’t want to give her an excuse to bolt for good. And her car was at her house so she wouldn’t be driving in a state.
Jace knew she needed time too; he didn’t try following her. He turned to me. “How could you?”
“Neither of us planned it, Jace.”
“How long?”
“We’ve been together a couple months.”
And last night was the first time she said I love you.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again I could see how much he hated me. “Why her?”
“I didn’t plan it to be her.”
“And everyone knows?” he asked. I nodded. “Wow, that’s just…”
“I’m sorry. Shit, we had no idea this was going to happen. How could we?”
“Seeing my family and my girlfriend again kept me going. You have no idea how lonely it is living a lie and being cut off from the people you love. I thought about my reunion with Chloe a thousand times and not once was she ever with my fucking brother!”
“Did you ever consider that she would’ve moved on? Three years is a long time.”
“I know how long it is, Logan. Of course, I thought about it, but I was confident I could win her back.”
Was confident or is confident?
I didn’t want to hurt Jace. He was my brother for Christ sake; he was one of the last people in the world I wanted to hurt but he couldn’t expect me to hand her over like she was a toy. What happened between me and Chlo was real and as long as she wasn’t letting go I wasn’t.
“You thought you could come strolling back into her life and expect her to drop everything? Do you have any idea how hard she’s fought to get back on track? You didn’t see how cut up she was, you didn’t have to watch her cry every single day or hold her hair while she threw up after sobbing for hours straight. You didn’t hold her up through your funeral and pray that the light would come back in her eyes. You didn’t worry about her because she stopped leaving the house or coming over. You didn’t pick her up and force her to get out of bed again. You didn’t start to see her breathing easier again and hearing her laugh. You have no right to expect anything from her.”
Jace wanted to punch me, that much was obvious but my words hit him hard. It was the truth. One phone call could have ended all of our suffering and I got that he couldn’t but that didn’t mean we weren’t damaged by it. We’d all been through something that changed us and as much as I was over the fucking moon that he was back he couldn’t expect things to magically go back to how they were before.