Breaking the Wrong (38 page)

Remy laughs. “Probably. Her name is Emilia and-”

My hands slam onto the table with a loud bang and I quickly get up from the table. “I have to get another beer,” I mutter. 

I take deep breaths as I yank open the fridge and blindly grab another beer. The thought of Emilia with Sebastian makes me crazy.

I can’t really get away from Emilia. Even when I’m in my own fucking home
, she still sneaks up on me. Snorting, I open up my beer and take a long drink before I turn and rest my elbows on the kitchen counter.

Out in the living room sits Severine. She has been silent the whole night, quietly watching all her stupid reality shows. But when she looks over at me, she gives
me a sympathetic gaze that speaks more than words ever can.

Last year, at this time, Severine and I were in a relations
hip that was crumbling. I crushed her with my actions and now she gets to watch me being trampled by Emilia. It should be vindication for her, but she reacts in a way I never expected.

She looks almost sorry for me.

I think I’d rather have her laughing behind my back than giving me all these sad looks. 

Walking back to the table, the conversation has turned to sports. The guys barely look at me as I sit back down and nurse my beer.

Thayer leans back in his chair and points his cigar at me. “What are you doing for your twenty-first?”

My birthday
is this Sunday. I almost forgot about it. Lifting my shoulders, I shrug. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? Don’t over
do it,” Chris says dryly.

“Throw him a party,” Thayer says with a grin.

“I’ll see your birthday bash and raise you one strip club with naked bodies everywhere.”

My brother laughs into his beer, while I shake my head. “No strip club,” I tell Chris firmly.

Chris slaps me loudly on the shoulder. “Trust your roommate. You’ll forget about everything in seconds flat.”

The three of us know what everything means: Emilia. Shifting in my seat, I look over at Remy who is smiling a goofy grin, before I look over at Chris skeptically.

“Trust your roommate. Did you really just say that? You think you’re going to make millions off your idea to create an app that locates the nearest Girl Scout Troop selling cookies.”

“Oh, God,” Severine mutters from the couch.

Chris turns around to glare at her before he looks back at me. “I will make millions off my idea. And the first thing I’ll do with my millions is buy a strip club and name it Mac. It’ll be named after the poor asshole that was once my friend but isn’t because he doubted my idea.”

“You think all my problems will disappear
with a lap dance?” I ask.

“You’re doubting the power
of a strip club, that shows me that you really need to go,” Chris says and blows more smoke in my face.

“Next idea,” I call out. 

“We’ll take you out,” Chris replies thoughtfully. “Find a few slutty chicks with whale tail and big, fake fun bags?”

My eyebrows lift over that one.

“Do not listen to him, Macsen!” Severine shouts from the couch.

“Hey,” Chris turn
s around and glares at Severine. “Private conversation.”

“Yeah, okay.” Severine hops up from the couch and walks over to the table, wrapping her arms around Thayer. She points at me and nudges her head in Chris’s direction. “Don’t listen to him. His little black book is a who’s
who of sluts with the most STDs.”

“Cheapshot,” Chris mutters. 

Severine gives him level stare. “It’s the truth.”

Chris wiggles his eyebrows at her and looks down at his cards.

She rolls her eyes and looks at me. “What I’m saying is that you don’t need to go and do something stupid that you’ll regret.”

“You’re talking to Macsen, Severine,” Thayer points out.
“The guy is so straitlaced he makes the Amish look like party animals.”

I flip him the bird and
frown at my beer. My brother’s right. I’m sitting here, trying to get drunk, trying to forget about Emilia. Clearly, I fucking suck at moving on.

“I should try to do something different,” I finally admit.

With a shout, Chris puts out his cigar and lifts his hands in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Thayer
… Macsen?” Severine grits out. “Can I talk to you guys … privately?”

My brother and I stare at each other across the table in confusion. I lay my cards down the same time as Thayer and reluctantly stand up.

When we’re all in my room, Severine shuts the door behind us and narrows her eyes at me. “What’s going on with you?”

Leaning against the wall, I frown. “Huh?”

“Thayer told me everything that happened in New York,” she confesses.

I’m not surprised. I sh
oot Thayer a glare and turn back to Severine. “Your point?”

“My point is that you don’t need to do something stupid. It’s clear yo
u’re still in love with Emilia-”

Thayer and I stare at her like she’s grown two heads. I quickly speak up. “Who said I love her?”

“You don’t?” Severine challenges. She crosses her arms and lifts a black brow.

I’ve realized a lot of things
in my time with Emilia; one of the biggest things is that Severine and I were nothing but a huge clusterfuck. My mistakes separated us early on, but I think our personalities would have done all the separating later on.

I avoid her question and start to pace the room. “We’re not together and if she can go fuck her new tutor then I can do whatever I want.”

Severine smiles slowly, as if she has everything figured out. “If you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t be going out of your mind with jealousy right now.”

“Wake up, Severine.” I tap my
head with my finger. “Not everything is about love.”

She bristles and I smile.
Severine pulls the ugly out of me. Emilia pulls everything out of me, and finds it all good—even the ugly side.

“
You should go talk to her,” Severine demands. There are never suggestions with her, always commands.

“And say what? I was nothing but revenge for her!”

“Are you really sure about that, Macsen? She’s still here! And I’m her roommate! I see everything and I’m telling you, she’s really torn up.”

I snort loudly. “Yeah, she’s really torn up.”

Severine shrugs and I know she’s getting ready to kill me with words. “You love her,” she says slowly. “You, Macsen Sloan, the guy who lets no one in, love her.”

A knock interrupts our conversation. We all turn
and find Chris peeking his head in the doorway. “Hey. I don’t mean to bother you guys but … can you guys speak up? It’s really hard to hear what you all are saying in the hallway.”

“Get out of here!” Severine groans.

“Chris, how quick can you plan a party?” I ask.

He taps the door and points
at me. “I can have fifty people here within the hour.”

That’s exactly what I need right now. I need a dose of Chris’s life.
“We’re celebrating my birthday this weekend,” I announce firmly. 

Severine shakes her head at me. Complete disappointme
nt is in her eyes but my mind is already set. If Emilia can have fun, so can I.

“That’s what I want to hea
r!” Chris walks out of the room and shouts out, “I’m getting your motherfucking ass wasted, Macsen!”

Feeling cocky, I cross my arms and smile at Severine.

EMILIA

“Stop reading it.”

I frown at the journal in front of me and quickly close it. “How do you know I’m reading it?” I ask Aniston.

He’s quiet for a second before he sighs over the phone. “Because you’re quiet again.”

“I just can’t stop reading it,” I confess. “How did we miss this?”

My fingers dig into my comforter as I fight the urge to open up the journal and read it once again. The longer Aniston’s qui
et, the more tempted I am to reread Elizabeth’s thoughts.

“Julian tricked us, he tricked everyone.”

Our entire family is blindsided by the discovery that it was Julian who led Elizabeth on. It’s a deception that none of us expected. It feels like someone has just poured rubbing alcohol into the gaping hole left open by Elizabeth’s death. It festers and burns now, but there will be healing relief later on.

But the shock remains. It’
s easy to accept that someone else, a stranger, willingly betrayed you. But when it’s someone that is a close, personal friend, it makes the ache ten times more painful.

Aniston and I have been talking more than usual. We’ve talked Julian’s dec
eption through, trying to piece together what happened. My brother is hurt. I can hear it in his voice. But I think the two of us are also frustrated that we never saw what was underneath our noses the whole time.

“How are M
om and Dad?” I ask.

“Dad’s cutti
ng ties with Julian’s dad. And Mom just cries a lot.”

Edward and Charlotte
didn’t know what Julian had done, but for my parents, it’s impossible to move past everything. “Did you tell them about the journals?”

“Yes, Eden and I told them a few days ago.”

“What did they do?”

“What do you think they did? They’re pissed off. They want to know why we never showed them.”

“We never told them because we thought we knew everything,” I point out. 

“And how did that end up for us?” Aniston says bitterly. I open my mouth but he clearly has more to say. “We put the blame on some other guy, while the fuc
king perpetrator went off scot-free!”

But Julian i
sn’t free now. Now that everything is out in the open, he’s been cut off from our family and his own. I thought it would be more enjoyable to watch the person that humiliated Elizabeth be crushed by the truth. But it isn’t. Something strange unfurls in my belly when I think about the entire situation. It’s close to pity. That he could trick us all, and do something to someone so innocent and feel no remorse.

It takes a heartless person to do that and he’ll never see it that way.

The doorknob turns and I quickly shove E’s journal underneath my pillow just as Severine walks into the room. She has shopping bags in her hands and looks happy. I want her happiness.

“I gotta go,” I quickly tell Aniston before I hang up.

Her smile fades as she walks toward her bed. She doesn’t ignore me. Instead, she looks at me with a guarded expression and takes off her winter hat before she shakes the snow off her dark hair.

I wipe the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand, and she sits heavily on her bed like she is forcefully pushed down.

“How are you?” she asks quietly.

We don’t talk. Ever. The fact that she is openly speaking makes me lift my face and stare at her. Her green eyes are sharp as she crosses jean-clad legs and waits for me to answer.

I tuck my hands underneath my thighs and lift a shoulder. “I’ve been better.”

“Emilia...” She shakes her head and looks out the window. Everything is covered in white. It’s easy for me to forget that a new season is upon us. Severine sighs and looks away from the frosted glass. “You knew that it was going to end bad.”

I’m not surprised that she found out what happened between Macsen and me. But I do want to know who told her. “Did Macsen tell you everything?”

“I hardly talk to Macsen. Thayer told me,” she explains.

Everything is out in the open. There’s nothing for me to hide. My nod is short and blunt. I look at the material of my comforter, the color of the walls. I look everywhere but at Severine because I don’t want to see sympathy or pity in her eyes.

“Did Thayer say how he is?”I ask.

I rarely see Macsen at the library anymore, and when I do, he immediately leaves.

A strange expression runs across Severine’s face. She tilts her head to the side and watches me carefully. “He’s mad,” she admits slowly. “Really mad. But I think that’s a cover-up. He’s hurt and is acting like nothing is wrong.”

“I’m trying to make this right,” I confess. Divulging any information to Severine makes me hesitate for a second, but I want to tell her. She only has one side of the story; she deserves the second half. “He told me to leave him alone in New York. He told me that we shouldn’t talk. I changed tutors because I thought that was what he wanted!”

“But he’s pissed,” she says slowly. 

My head bobs up and down anxiously. “Yeah.” 

Her shoulders sag as she sighs deeply and looks down at the floor. “You wanna know something?”

With Severine, I feel like that’s a trick question. “I guess…” I say cautiously.

“Now that I know your story, I don’t hate you.” She looks up at me bluntly and shrugs. “I get you now. I grew up with a half-brother that I barely saw, but I can understand why you did what you did. You loved your sister.”