Love's Suicide (Love's Suicide #1)(15)

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and maybe I should have told you a long time ago, but I found your letter in the tree house. Before I make you hate me, I want you to know that your words touched my heart. I don’t hate you for being there for me. I was mad, but I didn’t hate you.

Look, I took the note to your room and put it under your pillow so you’d find it when you visited. I didn’t know someone else would go in there.

Now it’s missing and I’m freaking out. Someone knows your secret; our secret.

Please don’t hate me, Brooks.

Love, Kat



PS: Please come home for the wedding. Whatever happens we can explain that it was all in the past. We’re a family and we’ll work through it.



For the next couple of weeks I was a nervous wreck, trying to stay focused on finals and worry about everything else, including the ticking time bomb that could occur at any time. What made it worse was that Danica had a number to reach Brooks, but I was too afraid, at that point, to ask for it.

The hardest thing for me was knowing that all of this could blow up in my face and I hadn’t done anything except for kiss him goodbye, which I was pretty sure Branch would forgive me for. All of the sneaking in my room was something I never knew that happened, so it wouldn’t have been fair to hold me accountable for it.

Okay, I knew that wasn’t true. I had feelings for Brooks that had never gone away, but there are no rules for who you love. I felt the same way for his brother, whom I was marrying.

Although, a part of me was still very upset with Branch and the way he’d wedged himself into a relationship with me, knowing how his brother felt. It didn’t seem fair and I felt sorry for Brooks.

Except now, Branch and I had history. We’d been together for years and had a life that we’d planned together. No matter what my feelings about Brooks were, they couldn’t take away everything Branch and I had built.

I received a letter back from him sixteen days after I sent mine.



Dear Kat,

I can see how you’re freaking out right now. You don’t need to be. The person that found the letter isn’t going to say anything, I can assure you of that.

Maybe if you weren’t always going into my room when you visited, they wouldn’t have went looking.

Anyway, it doesn’t even matter now. All is good and you can calm down.

As far as me coming for the wedding, that may be a problem. I’m being deployed in January to Afghanistan and I’ve signed on to stay for two years.

By the time you get this letter Mom and Dad will already know and I will have made them promise to let me call Branch to tell him the bad news.

I’m really sorry I can’t be there to see you walk down the aisle. I know you’ll be the most beautiful woman that this world has ever seen.

Take care of my brother and yourself.

Love, Brooks




I sat there crying, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was in the clear, or that he wouldn’t be coming to the wedding. I missed him and the friendship that we used to have. Melissa was a great friend, but she’d never be the friend Brooks was to me. It was a bond that had grown since we were infants and it was irreplaceable.

It took Branch two days to realize something was wrong, and a week to tell me about his brother being deployed. I’d been testing him, waiting for him to tell me, and was sort of pissed that he’d kept it from me.

For the next month I went through the motions of life, knowing something was missing. Finally, I sat Branch down and told him that we couldn’t get married unless Brooks could be there too. It wasn’t fair to leave him out of such a big event that impacted our whole family. We’d done everything together our whole lives and I wasn’t about to start changing things because he was out there defending our country.

Branch wasn’t happy. In fact, he paced around the room, like life depended on him making a decision. “What do you suggest we do? You want to wait until he returns? I’m not putting our life on hold because of him.”

I could tell he was angry, albeit I refused to go there knowing it would escalate and be like living in Hell for days. “I say we move up the wedding. Who cares if we’re still in school? We’ll be married six months before we graduate college. It’s one semester, and it won’t kill us. Let’s just do it.”

Branch turned with a cocky smile on his face, like rushing to the aisle was the best decision that I’d ever had. For a second, I swear I wondered if he was afraid that if it didn’t happen soon, it wasn’t going to happen at all. I also got the vibe that he didn’t care if his brother was in attendance and it didn’t sit well with me.

He scooped me up in his arms and spun me around the room. “Do you know how happy you make me?”

I giggled and became caught up in the moment, kissing him lightly on his cheek. “Tell me.”

“Woman, we can get married tomorrow if you want.”

He sat me down and I continued laughing as I walked over to the desk and pointed to the mounds of planning that I’d done for our event. “I’ve put too much time into this for it to be at a court house. I want a real wedding.”

He walked up to me and looked deeply into my eyes. “Fine. Call my mom and get things going. I’ll call Brooks and let him know a date, so he can file for leave.”