don’t care about anyone’s happiness but your own. You hand out your love to her in exchange for her obedience.”
Jane stiffened under my arm, and I gave her a reassuring squeeze.
“I don’t hand out love in exchange for anything,” I said, swallowing hard, my heart pounding. “I love Jane and …” I turned, looking down at her as she stared up at me in shock. I think it was a good shock, though. “I love you. And it isn’t dependent on you loving me back or doing what I want you to do. I just love you.”
It wasn’t how I wanted to tell her, but I needed her to know before she let Lorna mess with her head.
“Talk about manipulative,” Lorna scoffed, completely ruining the moment. “How many girls have you said that to?”
“None.”
“Liar. You’re such a nasty, dirty fucking liar. You’ll saying anything to get into a girl’s pants.”
Stupidly, I let her draw me into an immature yelling match, but it didn’t take me long to realize Jane was strangely silent. She just stood there, looking pale.
I petered off into silence as I stared down at her, feeling my heart sink.
Maybe I’d gotten it wrong.
Maybe I was the only one falling here.
Perhaps I couldn’t compete with years of Lorna telling Jane that only she would ever truly love her. It would’ve been easy for my sister to mess with Jane’s head like that. An orphan who had moved from foster home to foster home, and even when she ended up at a good one, her foster parents didn’t have time for her. Willa and Nick always seemed relieved that my family had enveloped Jane into ours.
A kid who’d had no one since she was seven until Lorna gave her someone.
Fuck.
“Jane?” I whispered.
She glanced up at me and then back to Lorna. “Since we were thirteen, I’ve spent days loving you and resenting you in equal measure. Being grateful to you and resenting you for trying to make me feel like no one could ever love me but you. If it hadn’t been for Skye and Jamie, our friendship might never have survived, Lorna.”
Holy. Shit.
Lorna’s eyes filled with genuine, hurt tears.
I felt that prickle of guilt and protectiveness that I’d always feel as a brother, but I knew Jane needed to say this. And Lorna needed to hear it.
“You think I didn’t know.” Jane’s eyes filled with tears, and I wanted to reach out and hold her, but I refrained. This was about them, not me. “That you used the fact that no one loved or needed me, against me?”
Just like that, any brotherly protectiveness I’d been feeling was decimated as I heard the pain in Jane’s voice.
Anger burned in my throat.
“I … I didn’t mean to do that,” Lorna sobbed. “If that’s the way it came across … I didn’t mean to do that. Not really.”
“Then stop.” Jane took a step toward her. “Please, Lorna. Despite everything, I do love you. But I’m in love with Jamie.” She glanced up at me, and I saw it. I saw all that love for me, and for the first time in my life, I knew what happiness felt like. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.” She gave me a shy smile as my heart grew so big, I thought it might explode every-fucking-where.
Then she addressed Lor again. “If you love me the way you say you do, you’ll want me to be happy. You won’t make me choose between my best friend and the guy I’m in love with. And we’ll move forward, treating each other with more respect than we have in the past.”
Silence fell among us, the clock above the mantel ticking so loudly, I wanted to rip it off the wall.
Finally, Lorna wiped the tears off her face and shook her head. Her anger and disappointment were palpable. “I can’t. If I do, I’m saying it’s okay. And it’s not. Because he will hurt you, and then you won’t want to be around us anymore. So, I might as well cut myself off from you now. It’s him or me, Jane. Choose me, and I promise I’ll be a better friend. I promise.”
My fucking sister.
“Lorna—”
Jane lifted a hand and I shut up. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to choose, but if you make me … I’ll choose Jamie.”
With a heartbreaking sob, my sister whirled around and rushed out of the house.