“Why are you awake?”
Emily rubbed her eyes.
After a quick call, she went back to the bed chambers. She sneaked a glance over at Alex. Her chest rose up and down evenly. She must have fallen asleep so Emily turned off the lights and joined her.
Later on, she had a brief sense of consciousness. She only meant to check if there was already light from the window but spotted her cousin wide awake.
Alex stared at the ceiling. More thoughts and worries strung together in her mind.
“Just thinking” she mumbled.
Emily raised her hand to support her head to gain a better view of her cousin.
“What is it about?”
Alex slowly shifted her head in her direction. She smiled sadly, “I saw Skye Winters today.”
“Skye? You mean the same bitch who holds the top spot of my hit list?” Emily seethed. That girl only left a mess wherever she walked. Even when the parental units had become aware of her schemes, they couldn’t bring themselves to punish her severely.
Only that she’d keep a distance.
Alex nodded her head, confirming her cousin’s thoughts.
“Did she say anything?”
Did that bitch do something again to keep her cousin up this late?
She received a shrugged in reply, “Nothing that other girls I’ve met wouldn’t say.”
Emily squinted. Something didn’t feel right, “No, something happened. Where did you even see her? Was it in this hotel? You and Jae were acting suspicious earlier.”
Alex chuckled. She played with her thumbs, “That’s because it turned out Jae knew her.”
“I knew that guy shouldn’t be trusted” Emily shook her head.
“Relax. If anything, I think you both feel the same way about Skye.”
At this, she cocked an eyebrow, “Oh? Did she ruin his life too?”
Her cousin took a deep breath. The earlier events of the day flooded her mind. Compared to after the game, these looked vivid.
===
Jae could hear Alex breathe while she waited for him to answer.
A story for a story, it sounded fair. He did feel curious about Alex’s past with Skye. Her situation also happened to be unique. Did it mean Skye had something to do with it?
“Alright” he breathed out, “But promise that you won’t let Logan know about this. You have to swear that you won’t tell him.”
Alex grew suspicious. If it involved his twin, that meant Logan already knew what happened, right? Or was it a matter of privacy? Since she was about to find out without the other party’s consent?
She slowly nodded her head, pushing regret to the back of her mind.
They intended to pick a sofa near the back of the lounge but most of them had already been preoccupied by businessmen. In the end, they chose the farthest available seats.
As soon as they sat down, Jae began his story. He scratched the back of his head and his eyes spaced out on the floor, “Skye…was a close friend of mine. We were around six when we met. She wanted to ride on the see-saw but she had no one to play with. I was going to play at the monkey bars but when I noticed her pouting on her seat while I passed by… I changed my mind.”
He smiled bitterly to himself at the memory.
“It was summer time back then. I asked her if she wanted to hang out at my house and I could still remember how excited she was” he chuckled and played with his hands, “I was more than ecstatic. My face was practically glued to the window since I woke up, waiting for her to come. Logan was there laughing at me but I didn’t mind.”
Alex could almost imagine a little Logan and a little Jae in her head at their living room..
“When she came through the gate…” Jae continued, “I was so happy that I was jumping around the house. When she came in the front door, I hugged her before she could say anything. She giggled and hugged me right back. When we finally let go…her eyes landed over my shoulder.”
Jae stayed quiet for a while before speaking again, “I remember her face as clear as day. Her eyes widened as she gasped. Her mouth was hanging open. I followed her gaze and saw Logan smiling at her from the bottom of the stairs. I looked back at her and saw that she was blushing.”
When Jae met my eyes, my heart ached for him, “That was the first time my heart broke.”
“You loved her, didn’t you?” The words were out of Alex’s mouth before she could blink.
He gave her a sad smile, “She was my first crush. We only saw her during the summer until she completely transferred halfway through the first year of middle school… you wouldn’t happen to know about that, would you?”
Alex bit her lip, a skeptical look on her face. It did happen to be around the time she started homeschool. It could be part of the reason.
“Anyway” Jae refocused on his side of the bargain, “During those years, I had been happy to have her around more but… it didn’t take long for her and Logan to become a couple. I want to set something straight here. I love Logan. I really do. As hard it is to believe, I used to be a target for bullies and Logan…Logan always stood up for me. He was basically my hero and I was proud to call him my brother. When Skye chose him—I didn’t put much of a fight though—I supported them every step of the way.”
Alex nodded for him to know that she believed him. His words were genuine. Each of them was filled with pure feelings.
Jae pressed his lips together and looked at his feet, “This is the tricky part.”
Alex took a deep breath and braced herself to the truth.
“The summer before freshman year, I had been in my room, playing video games. Skye knocked and came inside to watch. I sat at the couch I have at the foot of the bed while she sat on the bed. I was really into my game, I didn’t notice she came up behind me until I felt something rubbing against my back. She said that it was only a massage but I was skeptical. I kept playing and also kept an eye on her. I had no doubts that I felt her chest on my back.”
Jae watched as Alex’s eyes widened in alarm. Did she just hear what she thought she heard?
“I shrugged her off but she didn’t stop. She grabbed my game controller and tossed it to the floor. That’s also when I found out that she had taken off her shirt. When I tried to stand up, she pulled me back onto the bed and straddled me. She had me trapped. Mind you, this is my brother’s girlfriend and a friend of mine too. I couldn’t possibly sucker punch her but I couldn’t toss her either from my position so I rolled us over to gain the upper hand. And that was…”
“That was when Logan walked in” Alex finished.
Jae visibly winced, closing his eyes. He clenched his hands into fists. That memory had haunted him ever since. The look on Logan’s face when he opened that door left a mark on his heart.
“That’s not the last of it” he whispered, “Of course, when Logan came, Skye started to push me off. We also couldn’t stay in that position so I let her go. In that moment, the way Logan looked at us made me weak in the knees. Then, Skye started rambling about how I came onto her. He glanced at me then. He wanted to hear what I had to say. I couldn’t.”
Alex gasped,“You didn’t tell him what happened?”
This piece of news sounded more shocking than Skye naked in his room.
“I couldn’t,” Jae said again, “I had a feeling I knew why she did it. The only unusual thing that happened before that was the two of us overhearing my dad say he would appoint me as successor. It was when we passed by his office and I heard my name.”
Alex closed her eyes and wiped a hand down the side of her face. It sounded plausible. A sudden change? Seducing a boyfriend’s brother?
“Still, why didn’t you tell Logan?”
“I didn’t want my brother to think that his girlfriend didn’t really love him” he muttered, “It sounds stupid I know. But that day… they still broke up despite Skye’s claims. The situation already took something. That Skye might have fallen out of love for him. Imagine to find out, she never did? That’s a bigger blow that I didn’t want Logan to go through. That day was also the only time he ever punched me.”
Alex shook her head. Her blood began to boil, “It still doesn’t work that way, Jae. He might believe that Skye once loved him but he lost you too when you didn’t say anything. In the end, you didn’t save him from getting hurt. You just replaced it with something else. And the sad part? He would have forgiven you.”
Jae pressed his lips. He already heard similar words from Max. When Jae told him what happened, Max went ballistic. He quickly hunted for Logan and yelled at him. Before Max could say more, Jae dragged him back.
“I’d like to remind you that you made a promise not to tell Logan.”
“Wha—” Alex choked, “That’s not—ugh, I hate this.”
She bent forward and buried her hands in her hair. Her fingers curled into claws, digging into her skull. The frustration of an untold truth pierced deep into her soul. Every nerve in her body commanded her to go tell Logan and straighten it out.
She took calming breaths, letting go of her head and leaning back. Her mind still bursted with the same thoughts.
“Alex, please” Jae pleaded, “It’s been years. Logan would only go through even more hurt if he found out now. It’s like he would suffer twice. I don’t want that.”
===
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