Blindsided (11 page)

“I need you to trust me.”

Her eyes closed. Even though her tears had slowed, she was taking in long breaths as if she was trying to stop herself from crying again. I realised Georgia was the more … outgoing twin, but what could she have done that would make her want to keep something this serious from the police? And why did she even tell Isabelle if she was going to force her to keep it a secret?

“Back in the summer, Georgia and Elliott had a massive argument about Mischa. Mischa always wanted Georgia to go out with her, and she kept trying to hook her up with random boys they met on nights out. She never did anything with any of them, but Elliott was really angry with her because they weren’t spending any time together. Georgia was just as pissed off because she felt like he was trying to control her. Naturally, she went out with Mischa that night, and-”

“Leon found out she hooked up with someone,” I finished.

“He more than found out,” Isabelle said, dryly. “He was the one she hooked up with.”

Everything that had happened since I woke up had been one weird ass thing after another. Hearing Isabelle say that Georgia had slept with Leon really took the cake.

Isabelle took advantage of my bewildered silence to say, “Please don’t think anything bad about her. She got really drunk, and I think he took advantage of that. I mean, he must have, there’s no other way she would have let him near her.”

“When you say ‘took advantage’ do you mean he forced her?”

“No,” Isabelle said, quickly. “She said he didn’t force her, but he must have … I don’t know … tricked her somehow.”

Tricked her? Georgia was just as smart as Isabelle, and even drunk, she was aware enough of what she was doing to say yes.

“Let me make sure I’m understanding this,” I said. “Leon slept with Georgia, and last night, he tried to drug her so he could do it again, this time without her consent. But I took her drink, and now I’m in hospital with no memory of last night, and a knee injury that might end my career. And you don’t want to tell the police because if anyone finds out she screwed Leon, they’ll be mad at her?”

“Yes,” Isabelle said, quietly. “I promised Georgia I wouldn’t tell anyone, but Jesse, I’m stuck in the middle and I don’t know what to do.”

“Izzy. You know the right thing to do.”

Isabelle looked at me with those big brown eyes, and my insides twisted with guilt. Right away, I realised that was stupid. I was the one lying in a hospital bed, the future of my career hanging by a thread. It was her choice. She could haul me up, or watch me plummet. I hated that she was put in this awkward position. But I didn’t put her there. Georgia did.

“Jesse,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, “I can’t do it.”

“Why?”

Stupid question.

“Because it’ll ruin everything for her. I can’t do that to her.”

She stood and turned away from me. She was going to walk out, let me crash and burn.

“That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not even going to think about what this is going to do to me?”

“I have thought about it!” she snapped, whirling around to look at me again. “I haven’t slept since it happened!”

Anger began to rise within me. I didn’t want to yell at her, I wanted to rewind a couple of days and not go to that stupid party so we could go back to how we were. How could she be so small-minded to think that her sister’s relationship would survive, to be more important than the one thing I’d worked for my whole life? This girl was not the girl I met when I first arrived in England. She’d been replaced by some cold-hearted lookalike.

Maybe it’s Georgia.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Isabelle said. “This isn’t easy for me either.”

“Oh really? Which part is difficult for you? The part where you get to go back to your happy, privileged life? The part where your sister and Elliott skip off together into the sunset? Or the part where you go back to being mummy and daddy’s little angel who stays at home on Saturday nights reading books and playing Scrabble?”

The words hurt my mouth as they flew out at her. I wanted to take them back. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I needed her to see what she was doing to me.

Isabelle’s eyes filled with angry tears. “The part where I give you up! The part where I let you go because I don’t want to be forced to choose between the two people I care about the most! You think this is so simple for me, that the right answer is obvious, but it’s not! It’s not obvious, and it’s not easy. It’s killing me.”

Angry as I was, I wanted to block out some of the pain she felt. Pain that wasn’t my fault, but that I’d somehow contributed to by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Izzy. This isn’t about choosing. It’s about doing what’s right.”

“No matter what I do, it’s wrong for someone.”

A knock at the door gave us a break from our fight, and Hunter walked in holding his iPad. His expression told me he would rather die than show me what he was looking at, and I prepared myself for the next piece of crappy news to come my way.

Turns out, there was no way I could have got myself ready. Hunter put the iPad in front of me and I read the words on the screen, posted on the website of one of the UK’s tabloid newspapers.

U.S Soccer Star in Drunken Brawl

A harmless Christmas party turned into a terrifying night for a group of London college students last night. 18-year-old soccer sensation Jesse Shaw who plays for the U.S team, Westberg Warriors, is visiting the U.K after a stellar first season, but the good guy of the football pitch turned into a monster after having too much to drink. In an unprovoked attack, Shaw lashed out at college student, Leon Baxter, 17, pinning him to the wall and showering him with violent punches before he was dragged away by friends. Baxter said, “I don’t usually back down from a fight, but he (Shaw) was mental. He wouldn’t stop hitting me, screaming at me. I didn’t know what to do.” Whether Shaw’s violent outburst will damage the wonder boy’s reputation remains to be seen. Do you think he deserves to pay for what he did?

When I was done reading, I was shaking. With fear, with anger, and with complete disgust that the story was allowed to be printed without so much as an attempt by the reporters to check the facts before publishing.

Nobody cared about me in the UK, but it wouldn’t be long before the story made it home, to my manager Richard Bailey. By the time he woke up, it would be too late to put a stop to the story.

“Did I really do that?” I asked.

Hunter shook his head. “You hit him once, and you had no idea what you were doing.”

I handed the iPad to Isabelle and said, “You still wanna stick to your story?”

Her eyes widened as she read it, but she still had that same look of resolve on her face. She was going to keep the story to herself.

“What’s going on?” Hunter asked.

Desperate as I was to tell Hunter everything, I couldn’t do it.

Everything I thought I knew about Isabelle seemed wrong. Like I’d misunderstood everything she ever said. I thought she’d always do the right thing, but instead, she was willing to let Leon walk around with Rohypnol in his pocket because she wasn’t brave enough to stand up to her sister.

“I want to be alone,” I said.

Isabelle’s lower lip wobbled. I had to look away because I didn’t want to see her cry again. But she made her choice, and I wouldn’t be the one to comfort her. Not this time.

Hunter looked from me to Isabelle but didn’t say a word. He put his arm around her shoulders, and they both left the room.

When I was finally alone, the whirlwind that had been my morning sped through my brain. Drugged, unconscious, hit a guy, wrecked my knee, found out Georgia’s dirty little secret, found my name in the paper for all the wrong reasons, lost Isabelle.

My chest tightened. I couldn’t decide which of all those things was hitting me the hardest, but all at once, they were killing me. I’d never felt more alone. There I was, in England, trying to show my parents that I wasn’t their little boy anymore by being strong and independent. Instead, I’d found myself in a hospital bed, crying and panicking about what Richard and my parents would say when everything came out.

Crap. I could already imagine Richard sternly telling me I was fired for bringing shame on the team. They’d only just been in England to promote themselves, and I’d ruined their reputation in a few short hours.

Leah. Talk to Leah.

The idea came to me out of nowhere, but it wasn’t such a bad one. Leah always knew the right thing to say to get my head straight again, and best of all, she was in the UK too. She’d helped me out so many times, but I had never needed her more than when my whole life was threatening to disappear before my eyes.

Just knowing I was going to connect with someone who would listen, someone who’d been with me at Westberg and knew what my career meant to me made the fear loosen its hold a little. The second I heard the ringtone, I said a silent prayer she would pick up.

“Jesse!” she said, “How are you? How are you enjoying England?”

I tried to get some words out, but the only thing that came out was a pathetic sob that I’d been trying to hold in.

“Jesse? What’s wrong?”

At the end of the line, Leah waited until I was ready, and I explained everything that had happened to her. She listened in stunned silence, only asking questions when I rushed ahead and got the story mixed up because my lips were moving faster than my brain. Her concern made me realise I’d called the right person.

“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?” she said when I was done, and I laughed for the first time all day.

“I don’t know what to do, Leah. I … I think I’m gonna lose everything.”

“You won’t lose everything. You just need some time to take in what’s happened and then you can figure out what to do next.”

“You make that sound easy.”

“It’s not, I know. But you need to deal with one thing at a time.”

“Where do I start?”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know, but I’ll help any way I can.”

“Leah can you … can you come up here? I know it’s a lot to ask but I-”

“Believe me, it was my first thought when you told me what was going on. But my brother and sister in law have taken my parents away to some Christmas fayre in Bristol and I’m at my brother’s house looking after the kids. They don’t get back until Tuesday, but … Jesse, can you hold on for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.”

The disappointment that she couldn’t come hit me hard. I needed someone around who could support me, and the fact that she was a physiotherapist meant that she might be able to hurry the doctors along to see how much damage there was to my knee. I’d never been big on wallowing in self-pity, but everything seemed to be against me.

“Jesse, you still there?”

“Yup.”

“Good. I can’t come up, but Radleigh’s here, and … well, who is better at dealing with scandal than him? He says he’ll be on his way within the hour if you need him.”

I’d worked with McCoy for months, but there was still a part of me that was intimidated as hell by him. He’d been my hero since I was ten years old, and it blew my mind that I was playing on the same team as him.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you sure he’s cool with it?”

Leah laughed. “He’s more than cool with it. He’s upstairs throwing some things into a bag so he can be there as soon as possible.”

“Wow. That’s … I really appreciate this.”

“This is what team mates do for each other, isn’t it?”

“Yeah but … he’s in the UK to be with you, not me.”

“Don’t worry about that. He’s going to be here for a while. I can spare him for a few days. Or as long as it takes to sort everything out.”

“Leah. Thank you.”

“Anytime, kiddo. Just get better soon.”

Chapter
Twelve – A Different Story

Isabelle

After Jesse threw me out of his room, I didn’t want to hang around at the hospital any more. I’d been there less than an hour, but what was the point of staying? He didn’t understand my choice, and I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t fully understand it either. I left the hospital, hopped on the tube, and didn’t allow myself to think until I was safely in my room.

With Mum, Dad and Hunter at the hospital, and Georgia who knows where, there was no need for me to shut my bedroom door, but I needed to feel safe and secure.

From the moment Jesse collapsed at the party, a sense of uneasiness settled inside me, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it.

Jesse was the only person who truly made me feel safe and losing him made me feel exposed, vulnerable.

Telling him my choice was the hardest thing I’d ever done. He looked at me as if I’d automatically jumped in to save Georgia, and that I didn’t care about him at all. In reality, I’d done everything I could to persuade her to go to the police. And I cared about Jesse more than I’d ever cared for anyone.

I didn’t have to tell him the truth. Part of me knew it was selfishness that made me do it because I didn’t want to carry the weight of it alone. All I’d done was place an extra burden on him, and he already had enough to deal with.

He was so fragile. He wanted to be seen as a big, tough footballer, but he was sweet, sensitive. I could see in his gorgeous green eyes how much I’d hurt him. Less than twenty-four hours before, those eyes had looked at me with adoration.

I wished Georgia hadn’t confided in me. I wished she had kept it all to herself, but just like I needed to unload it on Jesse, she needed to unload it on me. She was my sister. My twin sister. My relationship with her was bound to last longer than my thing with Jesse. Maybe if he lived in the UK, I would have chosen differently, but he was going away again soon.

Keep telling yourself that.

My time with Jesse had felt like more than a holiday fling. My logical side told me a long term relationship with him was impossible, but my enormous romantic streak said something different.

“Izzy?”

Georgia opened the door, looking just as tired and bedraggled as me. “Mum phoned me and said you’d left the hospital. What happened?”

I glanced up at her from beneath my eyelashes, and she said, “You told him?”

“Yeah. I told him.”

“How could you do that?” she demanded, stomping into the room and slamming the door behind her. “I asked you not to tell anyone, and the first thing you do is tell the person who is most likely to go to the police!”

Panic, and probably sleep deprivation, were making her edgy but after not calling the police myself like I wanted to, I’d hoped for a bit more gratitude.

“You don’t think he deserved to know how he ended up in hospital?” I asked.

“I think that I trusted you not to tell anyone, and you told anyway!”

From my spot on the bed, I glared at her. “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

“Well, so do I now!”

She let out a sigh of frustration, running her hands through her hair. I wanted so much to be angry with her. I
was
angry with her, but she was dealing with a lot too. Hearing some creep that she’d once slept with telling her he had planned to drug her was the stuff of nightmares, and having to keep it bottled up to save her relationship – and pride – had to be killing her.

The whole situation was one gigantic mess.

“Is he going to tell the police?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? You’ve been inseparable since he got here, and I thought you told each other
everything
.”

I did
not
appreciate her sarcasm.

“Georgia, look at me!” I snapped. “I’m here, at home on my own, not at the hospital. What does that tell you?”

She flinched at my tone. “Well … I … I just thought-”

“What? That he’d be okay about lying for you? He’s not, and I don’t know if he’ll do it.”

“If you hadn’t told him, he wouldn’t have to lie!”

“You might be okay with keeping secrets from Elliott, but I didn’t want that with Jesse.”

Georgia’s cheeks flushed with rage and she yelled, “Do you think I like lying to him? Do you think that I wouldn’t take it back if I could? Izzy, that night with Leon is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and even the thought of it makes me want to throw up! But I don’t think I deserve to lose Elliott because of one drunken mistake.”

“Does Jesse deserve to lose everything because of
your
mistake?” I asked, softly.

She shook her head. “He doesn’t. And I’m sorry he got caught up in this. But I can’t risk losing Elliott for him.”

Georgia wasn’t usually selfish, and I knew it was because she was scared but her attitude towards Jesse annoyed me. Twenty-four hours ago, they were friends and she was as worried about him as I was when he collapsed. With her relationship on the line, it was a different story.

“Who
would
you risk it for?” I asked. “What if it had been me?”

From an angry glow, her face slowly paled as she considered the very real prospect that I could have been the one to take the spiked drink.

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m actually asking,” I told her. I sat up straight, staring at her but she lowered her gaze so I couldn’t see her eyes. That was all the answer I needed.

“Get out,” I said. “Get out of my room. Now.”

Her bottom lip trembled, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at me before she walked out.

I threw myself backwards, my head thudding onto my pillow. Tears streamed down my face, sobs vibrating my body while I thought about everything that had happened.

I’d put my sister’s happiness ahead of my own, and she – albeit silently - admitted that she probably wouldn’t have done the same for me. Maybe in reality, she would have made a different choice, but just the fact that she didn’t immediately tell me she’d have been there for me made my stomach clench.

If she hadn’t been such an idiot and slept with Leon, none of this would have happened. He’d been getting away with following her home, making disgusting suggestions, and even backing her into corners whenever he had the chance. It was stupid of him to confess to spiking Jesse’s drink, but I suppose knowing Georgia would never tell the police for fear of her secret getting out had heightened his arrogance.

Isabelle Mills, you are ridiculous. Get up from this bed and do the right thing.

When I told Jesse that the right thing to do wasn’t obvious, I meant it. I had walked into his hospital room with the image of Georgia’s crying face, and the sound of her voice begging me not to tell anyone echoing in my ears. But then I saw him. I saw the state he was in, and his fears about his knee and I got confused all over again.

With neither of them around me, the haze began to clear. Screw saving Georgia’s relationship. As special as Elliott was, boyfriends could be replaced. Georgia could not. Maybe she would hate me for it, maybe my parents would be angry that I upset her, maybe Jesse would never forgive me for not backing him up from the start. But if reporting Leon was what it took to keep my sister safe, and to help Jesse, I had to do it.

It was a while before I calmed myself down enough to get up. It seemed like my body hadn’t stopped shaking for nearly twenty-four hours, and I pulled on an extra jumper to warm me up before heading to the bathroom to splash some water on my face.

A few minutes later, I was wrapped up in my coat, scarf and gloves, and I stepped out of my front door, ready to tell the police what I knew. No sooner had I reached the end of my driveway, I heard a car door slam. Turning, my heart began to pound as Leon approached me.

Has he really taken to sitting outside our house now?

I reminded myself that he was hardly going to do anything to me in the middle of the street in broad daylight, but it didn’t stop me shuddering when he reached my side. Just looking at him filled me with anger. Not content with attempting to drug my sister, his attack on Jesse by telling his “story” to the tabloids was a whole other level of evil. Even seeing the cut on his lip where Jesse had hit him wasn’t enough to lift my spirits. I wanted to pummel him myself.

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, sarcastically. “Getting into cars with perverts is something I do all the time.”

He eyed me for a moment, like he was trying to read my mind or something, then his lips twisted into a slightly creepy smile. I didn’t give him the pleasure of watching me squirm for something to say. Instead, I waited for him to tell me why he was parked outside my house.

“Your new found confidence is very sexy, Isabelle. The more I see you, the more I think I’ve been chasing the wrong sister. That footballer must be giving you something you’ve never had. Lucky him.”

Genuinely worried I might swing for him, I turned away and walked on, willing my legs to move faster. I couldn’t stand to hear him talking about Jesse after what he did. The sooner I got to the bus stop, and on the bus, the better.

“So you don’t mind telling the police what you know? Even if it destroys Georgia?”

I stopped in my tracks.

“What makes you think I’m going to the police?”

“Because you always want to do what’s right.”

“You don’t know me, Leon. Stalking Georgia doesn’t give you an insight into how my mind works.”

“Yes it does,” he told me, coming closer until he was right behind me, speaking directly into my ear. “I see the way she reacts to me, and the way you react to me. I’ve heard you saying she should tell someone about me.”

I stepped away from him. “And it hasn’t stopped you.”

“She likes it, Isabelle. Your sister is an attention whore, and as much as she says she hates it, she loves it really. Why else would she have slept with me?”

“How about because she was pissed on cheap cider?”

He laughed out loud. “She wasn’t that drunk.”

“She’d never have let you touch her if she wasn’t.”

He shrugged, as if to say, ‘
Think what you like, you weren’t there so you’ll never know the truth
.’ I shouldn’t have let even a hint of a doubt enter my head but I couldn’t stop it.

“What do you want?” I asked, finally giving in.

“I want you to talk to your sister before you run along to the police station and implicate me for something I didn’t do.”

“Are you out of your mind? You already told Georgia you did it, and now you’re saying you didn’t?”

“I’m saying that Georgia told you I said I did it. Doesn’t mean it’s true.”

It had been a long day which had followed a sleepless night, and I didn’t have the patience for playing games. I’d just spoken to Georgia and there didn’t seem to be any doubt that Leon had been the one to spike Jesse’s drink.

“If it wasn’t you, why did you go to the effort of humiliating Jesse further by talking to the newspapers?”

Leon gave me that smile again, the one that made me shudder. “I’m a poor college student, I have to take my opportunities as they come to me.”

“Rubbish! From what I can tell, your parents give you everything you need, and probably a load of stuff you don’t. You sold your story because you’re a nasty, disgusting, evil-”

“Stop,” he said, holding up his hands. “I get the picture. Clearly we’re never going to be friends, but the fact remains, you need to go back into that house and talk to your sister again. If you still believe what she tells you, by all means, do what you have to do.”

He was obviously trying to buy himself some time, but for what reason, I didn’t know. If I walked away from him and went to the police, he’d make my life even more hellish. If I went inside, I could
call
the police and he wouldn’t have time to wriggle out of it.

“Fine,” I told him. “I’ll talk to her.”