Page 55 of Bittersweet Legacy

The dinner was filled with laughter, jokes and banter. It made me happy and sad at the same time. I’d asked Taylor one day how she dealt with the people talking behind her parents’ backs, mocking them and the choices her father made. She’d told me then that I would understand once I’d seen the way she lived, and boy did I understand. Her home was full of love and care – they all meant the world to each other and it was true happiness transpiring here, it was not cold and clinical like my home was or even Caleb’s. Of course she didn’t care what people could say or think, you never did when you were so blissfully happy.

It was a bittersweet moment to share, this glimpse of a real family, a love that defied all odds – people who met all their challenges head on and won.

It was something I would aspire to have but never would, at least not if I stayed here.

*******

Later in the evening as Taylor and I were watching reruns of Ru-Paul’s Drag Race in her bed both dressed in flannel pajamas – the set she lent me had pizza slices on it. I decided to open up. I had to talk to someone, I was literally banned from any communication but Taylor was herself, she was normal, she was loved. I could trust her, but I also knew she was keeping me at bay, she had some history with my brother and Caleb she kept so tightly under wraps.

“You know trust works both ways,” I offered, reaching into the popcorn bowl.

She paused the TV and sat straighter on the bed, turning toward me. “I know that.”

“Do you?”

She frowned. “What’s with the cryptic comments? Just tell me.”

I sighed. “You’re telling me there is no history between you and the Brentwood Kings but I know there is history between you and my brother and I’m a bit hurt you don’t trust me enough to talk about it and yet you expect me to open up.”

She sighed, looking at the ceiling for a second before concentrating on me again. “It’s because it doesn't matter, not really, not anymore, and also because it makes me sad sometimes to be reminded of –” she shook her head and the melancholy etched in her eyes somehow made me regret asking, just not enough to ask her to stop.

“You know how I told you the adjustment here was a bit tough at first, right?”

I nodded.

She grimaced. “Well, it was a little more than tough to be honest. I was the chubby poor kid, with poor kid habits. I was teased constantly by the little princesses at the all-girls primary school but I faked it for my mom. She was already feeling guilty for uprooting me to a life that, whilst dreamlike in so many aspects, was also quite a steep change.”

“Yes, I can relate.”

“Then, when I was nine, we got invited to your father’s engagement party, and this is when I really met Archie.” She smiled, it was a wistful smile, a longing smile. She missed him. “Caleb and a couple of stupid girls from school mocked me and Archie came out of nowhere and punched him square in the jaw. Caleb might be a terrifying sociopath now but Archie has always been bigger than him, even back then.”

“That was nice of him.” I agreed, somehow, I had a hard time picturing my brother as a defender of the innocents. I saw him more like the grave digger, ready to bury anyone Caleb felt like destroying – me included.

“We became fast friends after that, we spent a lot of time together - my father even made me change school so I could be with Archie.”

“What happened?” I was now hanging on every word. “How did you go from best friends to… this?”

She took a deep, shaky breath and the slight glint of tears in her eyes showed me that no matter how tough and sunny Taylor was, there was hurt in there, scars, pain – some due to my brother’s actions and it made me even angrier with him.

“I’m not sure what happened – I guess hormones hit and he became a teenager.” She shrugged dismissively, but I knew it was pretend - I was pretending too much all the time not to notice the signs in someone else. “All I know was that it was the summer just before we started high school, your father sent him to the stupid four-week summer camp that the elite boys have to attend. Archie didn’t want to go but I’m pretty sure you noticed by now that what we want or not has no bearing on your father’s decisions.”

I snorted, thinking about my stupid engagement and the party planned for the weekend, the party which was going to make that stupid mistake official. “Understatement of the year.”

“He promised to come see me when he came back but he didn’t.” She sighed again and stood up putting some order in her already spotless room, probably to give her something to do while opening up to me on the hardest part of it. “And then I saw him on the first day at school with Caleb and Antoine - even as freshmen they inspired respect. They became the kings of Brentwood and I was erased from his life as if our four years of friendship had been inconsequential.”

“But,” I shook my head. “It doesn’t make any sense. I’m sure you confronted him about it. I know you enough to know that.”

“Yes I did, and that will go right up there as the biggest mistake of my life. Things were said that could never, ever be taken back.”

“But-”

She shook her head. “No, I won’t share this, I won't relive it. I cried like I never cried before and I swore on everything that’s holy, on everything I loved, that it’d be the last time I’ll ever shed a tear for Archibald Forbes or for anything Brentwood-related. Can you just leave it at that, please?”

I nodded, I knew the pain of an open wound and I wouldn’t do that to her. “I hate this life,” I admitted. It somehow felt good to say it out loud.

“You do?” she asked, arching her eyebrows in surprise.

“Of course!” I sat up crossing my legs. “Which part did you think I was enjoying? The condescension of my family? The bullying of my peers? The forced engagement to a self-proclaimed sociopath?”

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