Heartbreak Lover (Broken Hearts Academy #2) - C.R. Jane Page 0,26
of his seat…metaphorically speaking.
“I wanted to make sure that she was all right. The only other option she had was that blue and pink haired chick’s dorm room floor. Didn’t sound comfortable after you were pushed down the stairs.”
“Pushed down the stairs? She said she was pushed?”
I finally picked a soda from the fridge and turned around to study my twin.
It was amazing really…how fast one could recover from a years-long coma. Caiden looked like the epitome of health. He had been working hard to get ready for next year’s football season, and I had a suspicion he was already getting lucky with the ladies.
What if he’s gotten lucky with Everly?
The words twisted inside of me, weaving their way insidiously through my brain, even though I knew the idea was next to impossible. I was always watching Everly, couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I would have known if Caiden had moved in.
Right?
Just like I’d known back then?
“Yep, she’s had some really weird things happen to her since starting at the academy,” I told him. I’d only played a part in the snake incident. It was supposed to be a “get the fuck out of here” prank, since I knew she was terrified of snakes, but she’d held on.
The other stuff though…the stuff that I’d dragged from Lane once I’d heard whisperings of it from the football team…that was someone else. And I wasn’t happy about it.
And now someone had pushed her.
“Did anything happen when she was over here?” Caiden asked, studying me just as hard back as I was studying him. I reared back at the question, since I felt like it seemed a little odd that he had moved on from the fact that Everly had been intentionally pushed down a flight of stairs so quickly.
Did anything happen…
“Because I really don’t think either of us should go there again,” he continued, still staring at me.
My heart dropped.
He pushed his hair out of his face. I still wasn’t used to how long he wore it now. “I loved her, man. I fucking loved her more than anything. I think it would kill me if something started up between you guys now, after everything that’s happened. I’m trying to move on. But it’s hard, ya know? She won’t even talk to me. She won’t give me any kind of fucking closure. It’s like I don’t exist.”
Her face as she looked at him with terror last night flashed through my mind. My stomach was in knots as guilt threatened to eat all of my internal organs while I listened to what my twin brother was saying.
How was I supposed to tell him that giving up Everly wasn’t an option for me anymore? That despite what she’d done, she was inside of me? A vital part of me just like my lungs or my heart. Except there wasn’t a surgery that could get her out. She couldn’t be transplanted.
Fuck…was he crying?
“Caid…” My words drifted off. What could I say? I was a terrible person, the worst in fact.
“Let’s both skip and hang out today. I have the new Madden game,” I told him, clapping him on the shoulder before he did something terrible like make me promise not to get close to Everly. I didn’t want to have to lie outright.
I was hoping the journals would help kill whatever had taken root inside of me.
“Sounds good,” he told me as he took a deep breath, shooting me that trademark Caiden grin.
We headed into my living room, where I turned on my Playstation and away we went.
Hours passed, and for once, it was like nothing had happened. We played videogames, ordered pizza, even had a few of our teammates over to hang out.
And I didn’t think once about those journals.
Everly
I had been tempted to skip classes again, but creative writing was today and it was my favorite.
Professor Brady was the best professor at this school. I would fight anyone about it. The passion he had for his subject and his students…it couldn’t be matched. I’d become ten times the writer I’d been when I started the class because of him.
It also helped that he was really nice to look at.
Really nice.
It was also thankfully Jackson-free now because of him not wanting intense classes while he was helping Caiden recover…or at least that’s what I’d heard his reason was for dropping the class.
Professor Brady looked up in alarm when I walked through the classroom door, right at the bell, hobbling in on my crutches.