Misunderstood (A Neighbor from Hell YA #1) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,109
his lips pull up into a smile. Feeling like he was in a dream, he headed outside to find Hunter’s blankie as he stared down at the letter in his hands.
God, this couldn’t be real, he thought as he grabbed Hunter’s blankie before he turned around and quickly made his way back to the door so that he could show Mikey when he heard it.
Curious, Sebastian walked around the house only to come to a stop when he saw Mr. Taylor moving closer to Braxton, who was…trembling?
“You’ve wasted my time with this!” Mr. Taylor snapped.
“I’m sorry,” Braxton said, staring down at the ground.
“You’re sorry?” Braxton’s father asked in disbelief. “Do you know how much time I’ve wasted on you? You had one job, Braxton! One job! You were supposed to spend more time with your great-grandmother and make her like you! But instead, you got into a pissing contest with some charity case. Do you think that’s why I let you come home? To waste my time?”
“No,” Braxton said hollowly, but Mr. Taylor wasn’t done yet.
“You’re nothing but a disappointment. If you can’t get the job done, then I’ll find someone else who can and send you back to that boarding school and get you out of my hair.”
“I’m sorry,” Braxton said again only to flinch when Mr. Taylor moved closer.
“If you don’t get this done, then I promise you that you will be very sorry,” Mr. Taylor said coldly before he turned around and Sebastian found himself stepping behind a large hedge before he spotted him.
Sebastian waited until Mr. Taylor went inside before he stepped out from behind the hedge. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Mr. Taylor wasn’t coming back before he looked around the corner and realized why Braxton seemed so damn miserable all the time.
“I hate him,” Braxton bit out as tears rolled down his face and his hands clenched into fists.
“I don’t blame you,” Sebastian said, throwing Hunter’s blankie over his shoulder and shoved the letter from Latin Scribe into his back pocket as he moved closer.
“Did you know that they only had me because of Cole?” Braxton asked, wiping the back of his arm across his eyes.
“What?” Sebastian asked, wondering if he’d heard him right.
Nodding, Braxton said, “They knew that Aunt Haley was Great-Grandmother’s favorite, but they figured that Aunt Haley’s marriage wasn’t going to last and she’d come running back only she never did. Instead, she got pregnant with Cole and they panicked.”
“And that’s where you came in?” Sebastian guessed, wondering what the hell was wrong with these people.
“Great-Grandmother loves children so they were hoping that another baby would be enough to make her forget about Aunt Haley. So, after a lot of arguing, they decided that my mother would have to make the sacrifice for the greater good and had me, but the problem was that a new baby wasn’t enough to make Great-Grandmother forget how they’d treated Aunt Haley.”
“What happened?” Sebastian asked.
“What normally happens to kids in my family as soon they lose interest. They hired a nanny to raise me until it was time to go off to boarding school and that’s where I would have stayed except, they found out about Hunter. They’d hoped that a new baby would be enough to soften Great-Grandmother, but the problem was that my mother and aunts were apparently too old to get pregnant again. They considered adoption but didn’t think that would be enough to earn Great Grandmother’s forgiveness, so they decided that they had a use for me after all. They pulled me out of boarding school, enrolled me in a local private school, and decided that it was time that I spent more time with Great-Grandmother.”
“And that’s why they suddenly wanted Aunt Haley back in their lives,” Sebastian said, feeling sick to his stomach.
“They hate you,” Braxton said with a humorless laugh. “You should have heard my grandfather when he saw you at that board meeting. They ended up pulling me out of school early just so that they could scream at me.”
“That’s why you threw my iPad,” Sebastian said as everything slowly started to make sense.
Nodding, Braxton said, “I’m sorry about that. I tried to give you mine, but they wouldn’t let me. They were hoping that the black eye you gave me would be enough to make Great-Grandmother discard you, but–”
“They clearly don’t know her very well. She doesn’t give up on people easily,” Sebastian said absently as he thought about the day that Mrs.