AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 5
‘Don’t blame me, love made me crazy
If it doesn’t, you ain’t doing it right’
Don’t Blame Me – Taylor Swift
Jamie
Rose has perfected the art of rhetoric. It’s the only reason I’m at the Murrays with them right now. Jake didn’t want me here, and she had to whip out her convincing skills. He wasn’t even looking at me when they were discussing, talking about me like I wasn’t in the room.
In the end, here I am sitting on their sofa in the pool house, my head in-between my hands and my elbows on my knees, because apparently, there is nothing Jake refuses his sister. Even when it comes to the girl that chose his brother over him.
I’m still trying to process everything. Nathan, Jake, Rose, their relationship. Samuel. They all know each other. They’re all related to Bianco somehow. Mateo Bianco. I’d never heard of him and suddenly he’s part of my life. Because I’m dating…was dating his right-hand man, apparently. I’m trying to swallow this while simultaneously learning that Nathan, my sweet, funny, lighthearted, and protective boyfriend, used to make the twins’ lives hell. That everything dark in Jake, Nathan put it there. Him and Bianco.
I can’t look at Jake, his cut lip and swelling cheek are just a reminder that this is all my fault.
Rose and Jake are having a heated discussion in the kitchen, but I’m not listening anymore. I’m just about realizing that this morning, Nathan was telling me he was in love with me. In the afternoon he cuffed me to my own kitchen and turned out to be a gang member. My heart aches at the unbelievable betrayal.
“Jamie, can you hear me?” Chris’ voice leaks through my thoughts and I look up.
“I’m sorry, what?” I have no idea how long he’s been trying to get my attention. He’s sitting next to me on the sofa, I don’t know when that happened either.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice.
When everything has gone wrong, there’s always a moment when someone will ask if you’re okay. And it’s usually at that moment that you realize how not okay you are.
I try to reply to Chris. Instead, I burst into tears. I do everything I can to hold them back, but it turns into shaking sobs and I bury my face in my hands in shame. I have no right to feel like this. Nathan betrayed my trust but it’s not like my evil brother just came back from the dead. I feel horrible breaking down in front of Jake and Rose, who obviously have more reasons to be distressed than me and haven’t shed a tear.
Chris places a hand behind my back, rubbing between my shoulder blades.
“I’m so sorry,” I sob. I get up in a sudden movement and hurry out of the pool house. I’m so ashamed to break down in front of all of them.
A second later, I hear the door close behind me and Chris comes to a stand next to me.
“Jamie, you don’t have to be sorry for anything,” he assures me. I can’t reply because my tears won’t stop, and my voice isn’t working anymore.
“This…” he waves a hand towards the pool house behind us. “This is complicated on levels you couldn’t have possibly known. No one could have predicted this to happen.”
“Except Nathan,” I reply as another sob racks through me. “He knew. He knew and he lied to me.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “That guy, Jamie, he’s…he’s–”
“A liar? A psychopath? Yes, I heard Rose say it all. But he was different to me, Chris, I swear to you. I would have never dated someone that would get anyone in trouble. You know me!”
He lets me try to catch my breath and gather for a minute before talking again.
“I know. It’ll be alright, I promise you.”
“So you knew, right? That the twins had an older brother?”
“I knew they had a brother that passed away, yes.”
“And…” I hesitate. “About Rose?”
He nods at me. “She had a hard time dealing with what she did. She told me not too long after moving in here. I think she was trying to scare me away from her, so I wouldn’t get attached. It only drew me closer.”
“The twins…they’re broken,” I whisper.
