Chapter 26: Chapter 26

Chapter 25: What the Heart Wants

“Umm… hi, dad!" I smiled awkwardly at his glaring face.

“I’d prefer if both of you explain yourselves now rather than after dinner,” he said calmly. Shit! It would have been better if he was mad. Now there was no telling what was going on inside his head.

“We—”

“We’re together,” Ethan cut in, wrapping an arm around my waist. “And I know you won’t believe me if I say that I’m in love with her, but that’s the truth.”

I looked up at him wide-eyed. Was he nuts? Dad was definitely going to shoot him now. But I had to admit, my man’s got guts.

“You are correct, I don’t believe you. Akira, go back to the dining table while I escort Mr. Whitmore out,” dad used his no-more-arguments-and-I’ll-deal-with-you-later-young-lady voice on me. I was aghast. This seriously could not be happening right now! Where was mom when you needed her?

“Honey, the guests are waiting…oh! Ethan, was it? Come on in, we just started dinner.” I just got the first sign that there is a God after all.

“Honey,” Dad called out to mom before she could head back to the dining room. “Did you know that our Akira was dating this man?” His emphasis on the word “man” was lost on mom as soon as she heard the “dating” part of it.

“Is she now?” Mom gave me an I-knew-it smirk before answering dad. “Well, isn’t that a good thing dear? I mean, we’re always busy with work and our Eva is just another woman no matter what her age. I’m pretty sure this man here can take much better care of her.” So that emphasis wasn’t lost on her after all. My father, however, looked hopelessly at her.

“But… but Tasha! He’s at least 10 years older than her!” Okay, now he was exaggerating.

“Actually, sir… it’s 6 years. I’m 24, started teaching as soon as I finished my Master’s,” Ethan corrected, but I could feel him shaking with suppressed laughter.

“See, Dmitri? No need to get mean. Now, let’s all head back to the dining table before we offend any more guests,” Mom’s voice sounded drowned in molasses but I was sure everyone heard the or else undertone to it.

So dad finally backed down a bit and walked behind my mom to the dining room, but not before giving Ethan a this-isn’t-over look. Ethan released a huge breath after they had left.

“Come on,” I tugged at his hand to follow me. “We better get back before dad decides to come back and torture you.”

“I’m more worried about you turning out to be like your mom,” he shuddered, but kept quiet and followed me back to the dining table after receiving a glare from me. “Geez! I’m going already, no need for the glare.”

Dinner was peaceful considering the fact that both Nick and Dad continued to glare at a squirming Ethan, who just so happened to sit beside me. But unlike dad’s stay-away-from-my-baby glare, Nick seemed to hold hatred in his eyes, almost like he wanted to harm Ethan. The look on his face when he thought I wasn’t looking was enough to confirm that this person wasn’t the boy I’d known my whole life. This wasn’t my Nick, the person who’d always stood beside me when I needed help, the person who could always make me laugh even at the gloomiest moments of my life. What was wrong with him? I knew he disliked Ethan but not to this extent.

But then I felt Ethan’s hand close over mine under the table, his reassuring smile when I looked at his face, and I knew that all was not lost… yet.

“Thank you for having us over, Mr. Sanders. Dinner was lovely!”

“I’m glad you liked it, Mr. Huge. I’ll be seeing you during Christmas.”

It was 10:30, dinner having ended a good forty minutes ago, and Nick hadn’t left my side ever since Ethan came, charming our guests and my parents with the two bottles of Esterlina 2002 Merlot that he had brought with him. Some of the guests were already beginning to leave.

“Aki, can you come to my house with me for a minute? I forgot to bring my gift,” a fairly innocent request, if you ignored that odd look in his eyes.

“Yeah…” I sneaked at look at Ethan to find him watching us carefully. “But you really don’t need that Nick, you’re already part of the family, like an older brother.”

The green of his eyes darkened even further. “Well… since I already bought it, I think it’ll be best if I bring it here. What say you, fair lady? Shall we?” He held out his hand for me to accept.

“Okay,” I held the inside of his elbow and slipped out with him with a few other guests who were ready to hit the road. I grabbed a coat while heading out. No need to freeze to death while bringing a gift.

It was chilly outside, my legs being bare from the knees down. Winter had set in firmly and the temperature continued to drop considerably every day. I wonder if we’d have a white Christmas. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were either empty or the inhabitants had already gone to sleep, the streetlights our only source of illumination. Since Nick’s house was only a block away, we reached his house within a few minutes. There was no place for the slight shiver that ran down my spine, this was my best friend after all, the same person who used to save me from those bullies, but I felt fear creep in anyway. That feeling heightened further when he closed the door to his house behind him without turning on the lights.

“Nick?" I asked, moving my hands around so I can touch anything to anchor myself to. Trying to keep from panicking, Nick knew very well how I felt about being in a dark room. It’s the reason why I still use a night lamp when sleeping. “Nick! Turn on the lights! You know I hate dark rooms.”

The back of my knee hit the large coffee table in their living room and I sat down on it, my hands instantly searching for the crystal ashtray that was a decoration rather than a necessity. And that was when Nick started to speak.

“Really, Aki? You want me to turn on the lights?” He asked almost innocently. “But you didn’t seem to need any when you were fucking Ethan Whitmore.”

Shit! How did he know what Ethan and I do in my room? “What are you talking about?” I decided to play innocent. Right now, my goal was to keep his distracted and speaking in order to know what the hell was going on with him all of a sudden. If only I could find that damn ashtray!

Telling you might bring you more trouble.

My eyes widened as I remembered what Ethan had said only a few hours ago. Was it… could it be?

“Now, now love. No need to be shy. I knew about you and Ethan from the day I got back.” He said slyly, his voice coming from somewhere behind me.

From the first… oh shit!

“Oh, my god! Nick? How did you get in? When did you get back?” I asked, wide awake all of a sudden.

“Whoa! Slow down horsy!” Answered my bestest friend in the whole wide world. “I got back last night. It was really late so I didn’t call you. I came over directly to surprise you!”

Now I remember exactly what had happened. He had visited that night, had seen Ethan and me getting intimate in my room through my bedroom window. And that’s when he’d gotten the wrong idea. Unfortunately, he wasn’t too far from the truth now.

“Nick, turn on the lights, we can talk about this calmly,” I told him calmly even as sweat rolled down the side of my face and my back. The room too hot for me to be wearing a coat.

But that was what made him blow up. “Talk? Now you want to talk? After stringing me along for so long and then fucking that bastard, now you want to talk?”

A crashing sound behind me made me flinch, but then my back slammed down hard on the coffee table, the impact making it crack, and then Nick was there, on top of me, holding down both my hands beside my head. His face inches away from mine as he yelled at me. “I tried so hard to get that rascal out of your mind. Stuck that note in the bulletin so you wouldn’t trust him, paid those men to scare you so I could come and rescue you from them, be your hero again. But those fucking bastards screwed up my well-placed plan and the Principal showed up with those two fuckers! God knows why you won’t get that son of a bitch out of your head when you had me! But no worries, no one knows about you being here right now… so don’t worry, I’ll help you forget him.”

He tried to kiss me on the lips, but I was prepared this time, my eyes having adjusted to the faint light of the street lamps coming through the window, and I moved my head to the side so he kissed my cheek. But that only encouraged him to kiss down my neck.

“This is wrong. This isn’t like you Nick! Please stop! I never strung you along, I never gave any indication that I liked you! Please stop!” I screamed at him, tears falling from my eyes as I tried my hardest to wiggle out of Nick’s death grip. Where was Ethan? Please someone tell me that he was coming. What was wrong with Nick? Where was my best friend? “Ethan!”

“Shut up!” Nick roared and slapped me hard across my face, making me see blind spots in my vision and the slight taste of copper in my mouth, the cracks on the glass table spreading. But in doing so he let go of one of hands and I used that to find the ashtray at the edge of the table.

“How dare you call his name when I’m with you! Ho—” Slam!

I threw the ashtray at him blindly, the sound the impact made told me that it had hit his head. I winced, I didn’t wanted to hurt him, his scream made me feel like a traitor. This was my best friend, I wasn’t supposed to hurt him, but he wasn’t supposed to try to rape me either.

On that thought, I shoved him out of my way, taking advantage of the fact that he was clutching his head with both hands and tried to escape. But Nick was quick to recover and he kicked out his feet, hitting me straight on the back of my knee, making me tumble to the floor. It was a good thing that my ribs were healed or this would have made it a lot worse.

“After all that I did to have you, you’re not getting away so easily, my dearest Akira.” There was pure menace in his voice, but before he could do anything, the lights turned on.

“Says who, my dearest Nicolas?” Came the voice I've been waiting to hear and then I was lifted off the ground and into his embrace.

“How did you…”

“I saw both of you leave the party, I knew you’d do something nasty, I was only waiting for you to confess everything on your own,” Ethan told him, holding me tight to his side.

I turned to look at Nick now, was horrified at the sight of blood streaming down the left side of his face. But the Nick I knew still wasn’t back yet. He proved it further when he spoke. “And what proof do you have that I said anything of the sort?”

I was about to ask Ethan the same thing when…

I tried so hard to get that rascal out of your mind. Stuck that note in the bulletin so you wouldn’t trust him, paid those men to scare you so I could come and rescue you from them, be your hero again. But those fucking bastards screwed up my well-placed plan and the Principal showed up with those two fuckers! God knows why you won’t get that son of a bitch out of your head when you had me! But no worries, no one knows about you being here right now… so don’t worry, I’ll help you forget him.

“You wanted proof, Nicky?” This time it was Dylan who walked through the open door, a recorder in hand… followed by Nick’s mother, Silvia D’Sena.

“Mom… Dylan?” Nick didn’t sound cocky anymore, in fact his face had drained of color. He looked nervously… at Dylan?

“Why did you do this, Nick? I never expected this from you. Tell me why son,” Silvia told him gently, walking to stand beside him.

“You shouldn’t have hurt me like this Nick. I never said I liked you in any other way than a friend. Why did you do this to me? To your mother?” I asked gently while everything in me revolted against it.

“Because you were all I had left!” he yelled at me and then burst into tears, clutching his head in his hands.

“What do you mean—” I started to say but Dylan came to stand beside me, nodding his head at me to not ask that question.

“You all thought mom and dad had such a nice life, that their divorce was because they had fallen out of love… but that wasn’t how it was. The only reason they got married was because mom had gotten pregnant with me during their affair and mom’s family was influential. For everyone, they were the perfect couple, so much in love, but dad hated mom for tying him down. They fought every single second that they were alone! He even hated me for being born!” Silvia was crying now, too, sitting beside her son on the coffee table. “But then, one day, dad met another one of his past girlfriends and found out that he had another son, from an affair long before he met mom and he used that excuse to divorce her and move out. Mom wasn’t the same anymore, she became too busy with her work to have any time for me, she even forced me to go see the man who was nothing more than a name my whole life, and when you started liking Ethan… I just… snapped. I couldn’t let you go. You were all I had left! I couldn’t let you go, couldn’t bear losing you too…”

Things finally started to make sense now, why Nick had been doing all this. “But… what does this have to do with Dylan?”

“Because I’m his half-brother,” Dylan answered for him, making my eyes widen in shock. Say what? “I’m the son of the woman our father had an affair with before he met Silvia.”

Wait… don’t tell me…“You’re the son of Mr. Lindsey’s present wife!” That’s why Nick looked so devastated! He was so heartbroken to see them so happy, and for Dylan to have followed him here, it must be killing him.

In truth, Nick had never been at fault, his circumstances had made him desperate. So I got out of Ethan’s embrace, despite his protest and walked over to Nick, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He stiffened instantly and it pained me to see my best friend suffer for reasons he wasn’t responsible for, but in turn, he’d made us all suffer. “Nick, I know that what your parents did to you was wrong, but what you did was wrong too.” I took a step back, still unsure of what I thought about the situation, but he needed to hear this. “You don’t love me Nick, not the way you think you do. You love me the same way I love you, as a sibling, as a friend. And I don’t want to lose that friend. I’ll always be in your life, but the one who would cherish you more than anyone else, she hasn’t come yet, because you never let yourself see that person. I’m here, your mom’s here, even Dylan doesn’t want to see you hurt, that’s why he’s here. So let go of all that’s happened these past few days… and let’s move forward. I won’t take any action against you… I can’t, because for me, you’re still my best friend of twelve years… but you have to know…that I’m not ready to forget or forgive yet.”

“You’re right, I can see now why you’re so into that SOB,” he smiled at me, the Nick I knew, my best friend finally breaking through the hold of a nightmare. “The heart wants what it wants, right?”

“Yes,” I smiled back at him and shrugged. “The heart wants what it wants.” And then I turned away and walked out with Ethan.

*

*

“How did you find out it was Nick?” I asked, tucked in his arms safely as we walked back home.

“I followed the four boys that night, saw them meeting up with Nick. Those four were quite talkative when I told them about admitting them back in the school if they told the truth.”

“You admitted them back into the school?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes. For next year. Till then you’d be halfway through your first semester.” Ethan squeezed my shoulders. “Did you really forgive him?”

My answer was instant. “No. Maybe someday I will, but I need time.”

“Take all the time you need. I’ll be right here.”

And this time, I knew that there won’t be any snakes lurking in the grass fields, because the sun had finally come up, with the promise of brand new day.