Page 48 of I Would Stay Forever (Parkhurst Prep #2)

thirty-one

“What the hell are you doing?” Sebastian’s voice was muffled through the glass but still sharp enough for me to feel it to my core.

I held a finger to tell him to wait a minute, as if that would help the awkwardness somehow, then rolled down the window as I used my free hand to smooth my hair.

I was sure I must have still looked like a mess, but I could at least try to help myself look a little more presentable.

I gave my brother a tight smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I was driving by and saw your car. I thought you had a flat tire or something.” His eyes flicked past me to Dean, and everything on his face hardened.

This was the exact opposite of how I wanted him to find out about this.

Not that I’d had a plan in mind or anything, but if I had, it would have involved us sitting down with Sebastian and explaining how we hadn’t meant for this to happen, but we were in love now and were hoping for his support.

It would not involve us being on the side of the highway or him witnessing us making out in my car.

“Maybe if I realized you were on a date with my best friend, I wouldn’t have bothered to pull over,” Sebastian said.

“We’re not on a date!” I said immediately, like that could undo what he clearly just saw. It was a dumb thing to say. No one would believe that. “Dean was just helping me out with something.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “What, teaching you how to kiss?”

Yeah, I probably should have expected that. I groaned and let my head fall back against the seat. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

“Well, you should have,” he snapped. He crossed his arms, looking angrier than I’d ever seen him.

It was almost laughable that this was what had broken the Cold War between us this week.

Dean leaned forward to speak, and even though I wasn’t sure if it was the best way to calm Sebastian down, I decided not to try to fight him.

Sebastian obviously wasn’t happy with either of us right now, but he’d already been upset with me before tonight, which was only going to worsen his feelings.

Maybe hearing from his best friend would help him see this in a better light.

Except Dean didn’t say anything. He leaned across me with his mouth open, but then he froze as his eyes locked on something on the street.

I followed his gaze and my own eyes widened as I saw that Sebastian wasn’t here alone.

Nora was standing a few paces behind him, wearing a nice dress and Sebastian’s letterman jacket.

“Like you should have told me you were out with my sister?” Dean asked flatly.

I studied his face, trying to figure out if he was surprised by the revelation.

I’d suspected something was going on, although the last I knew Sebastian was still with Tiffany.

Maybe they’d had one of their infamous breakups again and I just wasn’t well enough tapped into the gossip mill at school to realize.

Normally he would have told me, but I supposed with the argument we’d had, he wouldn’t want to admit that the relationship had fallen through yet again.

Dean didn’t seem surprised, but he didn’t look happy either.

“We were out driving,” Sebastian said as if that explained anything. “You know, since you’re too busy to ever pick up your sister’s calls.”

Before I could stop him, Dean climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He circled the car with stomping steps, coming to a stop just outside my door. His eyes raked over Nora and disgust was clear in his voice as he asked, “What happened to you?”

I leaned out my window to try to get a better look at her, but it was so dark that it was hard for me to see much.

“My waitress spilled Coke all over me,” Nora said as she picked at the dress slightly.

Dean’s gaze flicked to Sebastian and a muscle in his jaw twitched.

I wasn’t sure if he genuinely thought that was somehow Sebastian’s fault or if he was just angry enough about Sebastian’s reaction to finding us that he was willing to get in a fight over this too.

Either way, I wanted to keep the peace between them as much as possible, so I was quick to push open the car door, which forced Dean to step aside and break his gaze with Sebastian.

I thought it would be better, until he stepped in front of me again, raising his arms as if he thought I needed protection from my own brother.

Sebastian’s eyes darkened, so I was quick to nudge Dean’s arm out of the way and step forward as much as I could.

“I wanted to tell you, Seb,” I said. “I promise I wanted to tell you, but?—”

“But what?” Sebastian snapped. I recoiled at the sharpness of his voice, reminding me once again that we were still in a fight.

I wished this could all just be over. We’d found a tentative peace for the time that he was broken up with Tiffany—would we ever find it again?

“What could be so important that you couldn’t tell me about this? ”

“That!” I motioned at him. “You’ve been so angry and distant ever since Dad left. How was I supposed to tell you anything?”

“Excuse me for trying to keep our family together! Something you haven’t bothered trying to do at all.”

His words hit me like a slap, and from the look on his face, I’d wager they were meant to.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

But I was pretty sure I knew—Sebastian still hadn’t forgiven me for the summer.

I thought we’d come to a good place when I’d asked him not to get back together with Tiffany, but clearly I’d been deluding myself.

It had still just been a bandage over a bullet hole, a problem we acted like had been fixed even though it was still there simmering under the surface and waiting to explode.

And now, here came the explosion.

Nora stepped in then, voice careful. “Maybe we should talk about this at home.”

“No,” I said firmly, arms crossed as I stared my brother down. “Let’s talk about it now. If you think for one second that I don’t care about our family as much as you do?—”

“Well, you clearly don’t!” Sebastian yelled. His voice was too loud for the empty highway, like it was echoing off the pavement. “You tore it all apart! After everything I did, after all the work I put in to make sure that you guys would grow up with a father, then you just turn around and?—”

“The work you did?” I shot back. “You think this is all about you, Sebastian? You think you were the one holding them together? It was Mum who was fighting to keep them together. It was her marriage that she had to keep, not yours!”

“And why do you think she could do that?” His voice cracked with the effort it took to keep control.

“Why do you think she could focus on Dad and keeping it together and making sure that none of you knew? Do you have any idea how hard it is to be the one kid who knows it all? Who knows all the secrets and has to keep it from everyone else? You have no idea how hard I worked to make sure you three didn’t see it! ”

He stepped back, shaking, his fists clenched at his sides.

I stared at him, stunned into silence. All this time I thought his blame had just been misplaced on me because he hadn’t wanted Dad to leave.

I’d been willing to overlook it because I’d understood the pain, the hurt, the shock.

But it hadn’t been a shock to him, not in the way it was to me.

“You knew?” My voice came out barely above a whisper. “You knew the whole time and you didn’t say anything?”

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 run with 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 somehow my fault 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.”