Page 65 of I Would Stay Forever
How could he do that? How could he sit by and watch Mum get cheated on again and again and never once think that he should tell her the way others always told him about Tiffany? But then… maybe that was it. He always went back to Tiffany in the end, so maybe he thought Mum would always go back to Dad too. He’d just taken the choice away from her, deciding it himself.
“Of course I knew,” Sebastian muttered. He backed away another step, dragging his hands down his face. I glanced toward the road, half-expecting a car to show up and cut through the tension, but the night stayed still and quiet. It was like the whole world around us had paused, waiting for this argument to play out.
“But how could you not say anything?”
“Because we needed the family to stay together! Because you and Ainsley and Imogen needed your dad—your family.”
“Family?” I echoed, my voice hollow. “You think that was a family? Everybody hiding around and keeping secrets for each other, nobody saying what they actually mean? That wasn’t a family. It was a prison.”
I meant it about our house. About our lives. But when I saw the way Dean flinched, I realized it hit more than just Sebastian. He looked as shaken as I felt. Of course it was all the same for us both. It was why I’d been so sure he would have wanted to runwith me and why he was the one person I would listen to when he told me running was a bad idea.
“Nobody’s family is perfect,” Sebastian said, “but it doesn’t matter how you and I felt about it—Ainsley and Imogen need their dad. They deserve to have him there. Have you talked to Ainsley lately? Have you seen the way his leaving hurt her?”
“She’ll be better off for it in the end,” I said, but I was too busy thinking of Imogen and how she was keeping secrets from Ainsley too. Was she the only one who didn’t know anything about this? How would she react when she found out?
“I wish you’d never gone out that night,” Sebastian said. His voice was full of malice that stung so much it made my eyes burn. As if this was all somehowmyfault for wanting Dad to own up to what he did. It was even worse knowing that he blamed me when it wasn’t even my fault. “I wish you never saw him and ruined it all.”
“Oh, for the love of everything, just stop!” Dean shouted. I jumped in surprise, having almost forgotten he was there. Dean was breathing hard. He looked at me first—and I knew what he was about to do. The one thing I had been working hard all these weeks to keep from Sebastian and now Dean was going to come in and ruin it all. Couldn’t he see that it was already bad enough that Sebastian knew we were together? If he found out about this too…
“Lavender wasn’t the one who confronted your dad,” Dean said. I reached out to grab him, to stop him from saying the full truth, but before I could even begin to beg him not to, Dean finished with, “I was.”
It was like ice had been dumped through my veins. I expected my heart to speed up, but instead, it seemed to slow down, like my body was afraid that if it pumped too hard, I wouldn’t be able to hear what was going on.Sebastian looked like someonehad knocked the air out of him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your dad,” Dean said. “I’m the one who saw him. He was out on a date with some woman at a restaurant. I saw him and I confronted him. Lavender was out with her friends and she saw us in the parking lot of the restaurant. She heard the yelling and—” Dean’s voice broke. He dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I thought I was doing the right thing by making him tell your mom. I didn’t know that you...”
Sebastian looked at me, and there was some deep emotion in his eyes that made me look away. I wasn’t sure if it was remorse or anger or whatever else, but I couldn’t stand to see it.
“You let us all think it was you,” he said, his voice almost broken,
“I thought that was easier,” I admitted. I didn’t want to tell him this, any of it, but the secret was out whether I liked it or not. What else could I do? “I thought it was easier for you to blame me than…” I slipped my hand into Dean’s and took a deep breath. “I’m your sister. You have to live with me. I knew you would have to forgive me one day, but... After the way you reacted, I was scared that if you knew it was Dean, then you would cut him off. You would cut off your best friend just because of what happened. I knew it would all be just misdirected anger at Dad. So, I let you blame me.”
Sebastian looked like he might be sick. He stumbled back, covering his mouth with one hand.
“It was easier!” I insisted. “You all thought it was me anyway. It was for the best.”
I wasn’t sure if I was telling him or begging for him to understand. Perhaps a tad of both. But after everything we’d been through the last couple of months, I couldn’t let him blame Dean anyway. I couldn’t let my whole plan fall apart.
“You two love each other,” Sebastian said suddenly, pointing between us. “You’re in love, right? Because you wouldn’t have done that for somebody you didn’t.”
For what felt like the millionth time tonight, tears began streaming down my face. Had I ever cried so much in my life? I didn’t think so.
“Well, it wasn’t about him. Yes, I do love him, but I didn’t do it for him, Sebastian—I did it for you. I didn’t want you to have to lose one of the most important people in your life. Especially after you already lost Dad.”
He looked like he couldn’t breathe. Honestly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“I never meant to blame you,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to blame you but…”
“But Dad wasn’t there,” I said, finishing it for him. “How can you blame someone who’s gone?”
And that was what this all boiled down to, wasn’t it? It always had been. Nora stepped away silently and Dean followed suit a moment after, once I nodded at him to tell him I would be okay. It was just Sebastian and me now, staring at each other with tears in our eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking. “For keeping it all a secret. I thought I was doing the right thing, I swear.”
Sebastian dropped his chin and took a deep breath. “You were. I… Thank you.”
I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed to hear those words until he said them. I crossed the space between us in only a couple of running steps, throwing my arms around my brother’s neck. He stumbled from the sudden weight but wrapped his arms around me too, tucking his face into my shoulder and murmuring, “I love you.”
We stayed like that for a long time, as if this might all fall apart again if I stepped away. It felt like that was what had beenhappening for the last two months, that every time we took a step forward, we took another two back. But today was different, or at least I was telling myself it would be. I wouldn’t let this fall apart.
