Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (17 page)

We
cannot live like this anymore. You and Shawn have ruined our family and for
that, right now, it is even hard to look at you.

I
will always love you, but you need to leave. I have to think of myself and my
marriage and so, I am sorry.

Please
be gone by the time Paul and I return home from work, or we will have to take
more adult action.

Mom

By the time my eyes had reached the end of
the letter, I knew I was going to throw up. As I looked up, the world began to
spin and I felt my lunch winding its way back up my throat.

I tried to breathe deeply, but after a few
gasps, I knew it was no use. I ran outside and barely made it off the porch
before I hurled into the flower garden.

I was too sick to even be embarrassed. I
wasn’t sure if anyone could see me, but I didn’t care.

Apparently, I didn’t matter anymore. According
to this note, my mother’s marriage was far more important to her than trying to
help me, her daughter, through a tough time. I couldn’t believe that mistake
could cause such an awful reaction.

I figured that at worst, I would be
grounded indefinitely and unable to even date until I was able to move out. But
as mad as they were at me, I would have never imagined they would kick me out.
That just didn’t make any sense.

However, I had the proof to show that was
what they wanted, what my mother wanted. Once I was finished being sick, I went
back inside to a home that really was no longer my home and rinsed my mouth,
before I started to angrily load the bags into my car.

I didn’t even care what they had to say
anymore. I was taking my car.

If I wasn’t so furious, I would have
probably been proud of myself at the speed that I was able to pack. I felt as
though I was going to be sick again at any moment.

Despite all of that though, besides all of
the anger and all of the hurt that I had bubbling up inside of me, I did not
allow myself to think all that much. I couldn’t allow it, or I knew life would
not go well for me at all. I was already depressed and this had made me feel
worthless. I almost wished that I felt shame as I hauled the bags up to my car,
but I didn’t even feel that. I was past feeling that and therefore, I just felt
worthless.

I figured there was absolutely nothing
that I could possibly do that would make me feel any worse then I felt at this
moment. I felt so alone. Literally everything that I had was completely gone
and I had nothing at all to show for it.

Shawn
and I aren’t even together!
I thought as I hauled one of the
last bags into the back of my car. There were so many different raging emotions
flying around inside of me now, I ended up feeling absolutely nothing.
Overloaded with whatever it was that was going on inside of me, I felt numb and
sick.

However, it wasn’t the kind of numbness
where there was no pain; it was that thick and heavy numbness that made my
limbs almost burn with the effort of having to carry their weight.

With every bag I carried out to the car, I
felt as though another hundred pounds of weights were chained to my body,
dragging it down and making me feel completely useless.

If this didn’t stop, I was sure that I
would eventually just sink into the ground and disappear.

However,
that is essentially what they want, isn’t it?
I thought as I
finally finished with the bags. When I heaved the last one into the car, I
turned around and looked at the house that I had grown up in one last time and
shook my head. There were so many memories in this house, but right now, all I
could think of was the negative.
Wasn’t
that what my mother’s note said? Instead of dealing with the problem and
uniting, like a family should do, they just severed the weakest link.

First
Shawn…now me,
I thought and sighed as I shook my head,
tried not to freak out and made my way to the driver’s side of this stupid car.

I had no idea where I was going to go, but
by this point, I not only needed, but also wanted to be anywhere but here when
my mother and her stupid husband returned.

Chapter
28

Shawn

On my way home from school, I was fuming.
I couldn’t believe that Dalilah would sink so low.

“What a bitch,” I muttered as I thought
about what I could do. I didn’t know what was going on, exactly, but I knew
that the more time I sat here and did nothing, the more she felt as though she
was in control. I had to fix this.

However, after learning what happened and
who it was that had told the school, I found that I wasn’t angry for myself. I
didn’t care one way or the other what people said about me. Hell, my friends
were proud of me.

Therefore, I certainly wasn’t going to
lose much from this. If I had to deal with a few whispers for a little while
until the next big social tragedy rocked the halls of the school then so be it.

However, the person I was concerned about
was Valerie.

I felt awful for what I had done to her. I
didn’t particularly care that I had spilled the secret to my father and his
wife. I also couldn’t care less whether either one of them ever wanted to see
me again; but Valerie, she didn’t deserve this.

With the whole situation mounting in my
mind, I slammed the steering wheel and screamed, “I told her to leave Valerie
alone!”

I grasped the wheel tightly, squeezing it.
. I narrowed my eyes and glowered at the road ahead of me, increasing my speed
and envisioning Dalilah in front of me.

At this time, in this state of mind, if
she really was in front of me, it scared me slightly about how sure I was that I
would have been able to hit her and actually feel relief.

I had never loved her. I lusted her for
sure and I still found her extremely beautiful, but she was a lotus flower that
poisoned everything in her path and I was no longer going to stand for her spell
of seduction or her wrath. Somehow, I was going to fix this.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but
I knew that I needed to figure something out, or I would go insane.

I sped around corners and blew through
stop signs, but I had no idea where I was going. I was trying my best not to go
to Dalilah’s house, because I was fairly certain, inside the only rational part
of me that I deemed to be left, that if I showed up there, I would probably end
up in jail within the hour.

She had already threatened to call the
police and lie about me. I had no doubt that she was capable of it, but if I
gave her a reason to fear me, I would probably be incarcerated for murder
before the day was done.

Therefore, I tried my best to resist the
urge to go there. After all, she had already done her damage. There was nothing
left that she could do to fix it. That was the funny thing about rumors. Once
they were said and believed, even the person who started them could not take
back what they did.

However, I had a feeling that the rumor
was only the beginning for Dalilah and that scared me more than anything. Knowing
her, this was her warning shot. I hated to see what her main event would end up
being.

Still, I knew that I couldn’t go there and
so, after driving around, erratically and aimlessly for a long while, I
realized that I recognized the street that I was on.

After careful consideration though, I knew
that I didn’t really want to be here either. I didn’t want to show up there at
all, much less feeling as crazy as I did right now.

Even still, I kept driving and as I
rounded the corner, I saw something strange in the driveway of the house where
I grew up.

Curious and for the moment, forgetting my
anger slightly, I leaned forward and squinted my eyes, but I couldn’t quite
figure out what was going on.

I sped up and continued down the road
until I could make out Valerie’s car filled with black bags. She was just
sitting in the driveway though, with the motor running, as though she was about
to leave.

Is
she moving out?
I thought as I parked the car in front of
the house and suddenly, I was overcome with fear.
If she moved, I might not know where she went. I could lose her
forever!

With that, I jumped out of the car and ran
up to her.

I put my hands on the side of the car, sure
that she would not move it away like she did before without running over my
feet. That probably wasn’t the best plan, because like Dalilah was for me, I
was pretty certain that if Valerie was going to run over anyone today, I would
be her first choice.

“What is going on?” I asked her.

When she stared at me, she had tears
streaming down her face. “Go away!” she screamed. “This is your fault!”

I narrowed my eyes with concern as I stuck
my head into her car. “What is my fault? What happened?”

“Go away!” She glowered at me with hateful
eyes.

“No!” I exclaimed, slamming my hand down
on her door. “Tell me what happened. I need to know! I need to fix this!”

“What does it look like, genius?” Mom
kicked me out!”

“What?” I felt my heart sink deep and
defeated in my chest. I never thought, even for a second that I would have to
worry about what my father and my step-mom would do to Valerie. I knew that
they might be mad at her, but I never expected that they would do something so
cold; especially considering that they didn’t even kick me out when I was
having my plethora of problems with them.

I left on my own.

“Are you serious?” I asked, trying to find
some way that I could make everything disappear for her. I wanted her to have a
good life and she was right, this was all my fault. She might have wanted it,
just as much as I did, but she was the one who was suffering the most, while I
was had caused the problem by telling literally the worst people on the planet
for me to have told. I felt awful.

As an answer, she shoved a letter at me
and my eyes skimmed over it, but I didn’t need to read it. The important
attributes that I found was that while it mentioned my father, it was from
Valerie’s mother, just like she had said. “This doesn’t make any sense,” I
breathed impatiently.

“Like I said, this is all your fault. But
I have to be out of here by the time they get home, so I have to go…” With that
she snatched the letter back from me and made a motion like she was going to
drive away, no matter what.

I panicked and grasped her car harder.
“Wait! Please! I don’t know what to do, but please…I want to fix this.”

“You can’t fix this…” she spat harshly.

“Well, then at least let me try to make it
better. Meet me at our spot…now.” When it looked like fuck you was going to be
the next thing that came tumbling out of her mouth, I allowed myself to show
the anguish and the desperation I was feeling as I added, “Please…I want to
help you.”

“I think you’ve done enough,” she answered
and moved as though she was going to leave again.

“Please!” I yelled, feeling myself grow
emotional. I didn’t want to be showing this unstable, crazy side to her, but
right now, I couldn’t help it. Learning what happened to her made me feel an
intense sense of pain. I wondered, probably selfishly, if my father and
stepmother had done this specifically to hurt me, since they knew they couldn’t
do anything else that would have near as much of an effect.

When she stared at me, almost as though
she was angered by my outburst, I swallowed hard. “Please…I can’t…I can’t let
you go without having a plan. I owe you that, at least.”

She thought about this for a moment and
stared deeply into my eyes before finally she shook her head. “Fine. I’ll be
there in ten minutes.”

I nodded, trying to find some assurance of
sincerity in her voice. Normally, she was a very honest person, but considering
what I had put her through, I wouldn’t blame her in the least if she had
decided to lie to me, just so she wouldn’t have to look at me any longer. I
wouldn’t blame her, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, especially since
she had nowhere to go and it was all my fault.

Still, when she turned now, I had a
sneaking suspicion that she was going to leave this time without worrying if I
was in the way or not. I backed up quickly. “Thank you,” I said as I gave her
space, hoping that the genuineness that I felt would come across to her.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes as she
pulled out of the driveway.

As she pulled away, I wondered exactly
what the chances were of her actually coming to meet me at the park. I figured,
as I made it back to my car that they were probably slim to none, but that
didn’t matter.

I had to try my best to be there for her.
I had to try.

After all, with the way things seemed to
be going, she and I were really the only people on the planet that the two of
us had left and in my mind, we had to make the best of it.

Chapter
29