25

Adeline

I spent the worst night of my life. Impossible to sleep for more than a few hours without horrible images poisoning my mind. Those images? My best friend in the arms of the guy I fell in love with.

This morning I didn't have the courage to get up for breakfast, far too reluctant to cross paths with the object of my insomnia. I'm not even sure if he remembers anything from last night, but I can't pretend. Pretend we didn't kiss. Pretend he didn't confess to me what happened with my best friend. Pretend I have no feelings for him. Pretend that... He slept with Esther. My Esther. Lying on my bed, I've been brooding since morning, letting the hours pass before I decide to call Holly. I don't know if this affair was supposed to be a secret, but I think it concerns all of us, knowing that she's a close friend.

"You'll never guess what I just found out," I blurt out to her.

"Tell me, you've got me curious," I hear her sweet voice crackle, all excited at the idea of having something juicy to chew on.

"Esther slept with Jayden," I choke out.

The bomb is dropped and a deathly silence follows my confession. Short of breath, I struggle to catch my breath after what I've said.

The kiss we exchanged will have to wait...

"Holly?"

"You're not serious? How... I mean... Are you sure?" Her voice becomes distant, as if she's having trouble swallowing the news.

"Yes, Jayden told me."

"Jayden?" she repeats a little doubtfully.

"Yes. He came home drunk last night. So much so that he ended up incriminating himself."

"Oh my God."

Holly is obviously as surprised as I am and doesn't dare say a word. I can hear her breathing in the phone until she speaks again in a weak voice:

"Why didn't she tell us?"

"I don't know. I was going to see her today to talk to her."

And to have the most complicated conversation I've had since my breakup with Tyler...

I don't know why, but right now I feel the same thing: betrayal. This is the second time my heart has been trampled by someone I felt closest to. Twice for the same reason: a sex story.

"Are you okay?"

Let's see... I just kissed the last guy in the world I was supposed to kiss, right before learning that the same guy slept with the last person in the world I would have suspected... so no.

A lump in my throat, I swallow hard and try to catch my breath to calm the raging of my heart.

"I'm just disappointed that she never told us," I answer sincerely.

"I know," Holly reassures me. "It's really messed up."

***

"What did you do yesterday?" Esther asks after we have been sitting in her room for a good quarter of an hour and I still have not managed to speak.

"I spent some time on the internet looking for apartments," Holly says. "A quiet Saturday night. And you, Adeline?"

With a quick glance, she gives me the opportunity to start and gently nudges me to do so. With the eyes of my two friends fixed on me, I take a deep breath before speaking.

"I was lounging in front of the TV and..." I pause, then carefully continue, "On my way to bed, I ran into Jayden."

Saying his name made me look at Esther, who remained unmoved. My teeth are clenched and I try to relax and get some distance from the situation. Not to rush her, not to attack her, not to scold her.

"He was completely stoned. I helped him lie down."

"Since when do you take care of him?" Esther seems surprised, her eyes widen and she stares at me with pursed lips.

"He seemed quite incapable of climbing the stairs alone," I admit with a shrug, but without kissing me, hugging me, holding me...

I shake my head, banishing the images before they cloud my senses.

"Did he talk to you?" Holly asks innocently.

"Yes," I answer flatly, turning my gaze back to Esther. Her gaze then quickly shifts from Holly to me before her eyebrows furrow, leaving a crease across her forehead.

"What did he say to you?" Her voice is shaky, but she does not lose her composure.

"I don't know," I answer calmly. "Don't you have something to confess?"

The room falls into a deafening silence, and Esther begins to fidget on the squeaky desk chair, shifting her legs.

"Should I?" she asks almost detachedly.

"I thought we were your best friends," I almost beg her to confess what happened with my stepbrother, preferring the words to come out of her mouth.

"You are," she replies hastily.

"Then why didn't you ever tell us you slept with Jayden?" Holly takes over and accuses Esther in no uncertain terms without giving her a moment's respite. A sad grimace crosses our friend's face. With drooping eyebrows, averted gaze and clenched fingers, she clears her throat, apparently trying to swallow the lump that has formed in it.

"I'm sorry," she confesses in a low voice.

"When was it?" Holly takes over the interrogation, seemingly in a better position than I am.

Esther's eyes look up to the ceiling, a sign that she is thinking or even counting the days that separate her from that moment.

"It was a little over eight months ago, at the Halloween party Cameron went to," she answers.

"Are you serious?" The memories of that night come back to me with clarity. We had been planning for several weeks to celebrate Halloween at the house of a man we only knew by sight. But Esther had ditched us at the last minute to follow Cameron, which I took rather badly at the time. She had never told us much about her evening, remaining very evasive, and when I asked my brother for details, he had almost never crossed paths with her. We had a great time with Holly and really regretted not being together. I was dating Tyler at the time, and it was pretty unthinkable that I would ditch my boyfriend to go to a party with Jayden when he was home for a few days.

"I'm sorry," she moans. "I didn't want to party with Tyler's friends. When I found out Cameron was going with guys from the university, I didn't ask any questions. I followed him."

"Why didn't you ever tell us what happened there?" Holly takes a soft tone so as not to upset our friend, and I admire her restraint as I am incapable of being conciliatory after all these confessions. She never should have kept all this from us. We would have understood. Well... we would have tried to understand and, above all, we would have supported her.

"You hated him," Esther explodes. " Adeline, you didn't go a day without complaining about him. How could I confess that I liked him? You both would have killed me."

Of all the information she has given us, one feels like a punch in the stomach. Gasping for air, I manage to say in a hoarse voice:

"You liked him?"

Embarrassed, she lowers her face to her hands, which she fidgets nervously against her legs.

"And I still like him," she finally admits.

Tell me I was dreaming her confession...or just put an end to me.

"I tried not to dwell on it. I didn't want to hurt you by developing feelings for him. I knew it was pointless anyway because he is, well, related to you." She pauses for a second as I struggle to absorb the familial ties she's implying between Jayden and me.

"The night it happened, he was completely drunk and I was too happy that he didn't reject me to think about the consequences. I knew he would never want anything again, and if you found out, you would be furious." She pauses and finally looks up at us, on the verge of tears. Right now I am mostly sad. For her. For me. For Jayden.

"I tried to remind him of what happened, but he kept avoiding me after that." She swallows hard, her voice shaking, and a few sobs escape her throat.

"When he went to Seattle, I thought it was time to forget everything. Move on, like all girls do after a one-night stand. But he came back," Holly speaks for her.

"Yeah, and it blew up in my face. I couldn't hold anything back, he was more handsome than ever, colder and more distant. He was like a magnet to me and I couldn't get him out of my head." My heart tightens as she utters these last words because I know exactly how she feels. I know the feeling he sparked in her from the moment he walked through the door.

"When I found out you kissed him, it drove me crazy," she admits, her face frozen with sadness. "Because you had the right to his attention, his comments, his looks, and I didn't understand why."

"Esther..." I begin with a sigh. "I need to tell you something." I turn to Holly before I continue.

"He kissed me last night," I admit in a whisper. "When he came back." I look at Esther and the pain I read in her eyes makes it impossible for me to continue, but I don't want to lie to her anymore.

"I'm in love with him, just like you," I finally confess.

Esther doesn't react, just lowers her head to her hands, which she gently fidgets with.

"I'm sorry, Esther. I didn't see it coming and... Anyway, even if he kissed me, he was drunk. He doesn't remember anything and he wasn't himself when it happened. He didn't even know what he was doing". A somewhat grave laugh rises from her throat, causing her eyes to crinkle and a tear to fall from the barrier of her eyelids. She quickly wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand before answering me.

"I love your naivete." Her lips curve into a small smile and she gives me a tender look.

"I hope you open your eyes one day, because it's pretty obvious."

"That he's an asshole playing with our emotions? Of course it's obvious," I try to lighten the mood.

"Yeah," she finally says with a smile.

We stare at each other in silence for a second before all three of us start laughing, lightly at first, then unable to hold back our nervous laughter. The situation is really messed up: my best friend is in love with my half-brother, who I am also head over heels in love with. Jayden White, you're gonna drive us all crazy.