Love's Suicide (Love's Suicide #1)(5)

Except Brooks never asked to be with me, like Branch had. He acted like being in a relationship with me was like dating his own sister. It hurt.

I’d depended on both of them and shared every emotion possible with them, only to be pushed aside when I was ready to take thing to the next level.

Branch was there to pick up the pieces and be my boyfriend. He wasn’t like a consolation prize or anything. I loved him too, just in a different way.

Being with him started out difficult.

Besides the fact that it pushed Brooks away from our friendship, we also had to attend to the fear that us being involved while living in the same house was going to cause major issues. By the time we told his parents we were seventeen, so close to turning eighteen. After a nice dinner, we sat across from them and let them know that we were in love and together as a couple.

They took it as well as could be expected. For a while they tried to keep us from being alone. Brooks was also involved in that, by wedging himself in everything Branch and I wanted to do together, but never having a good time hanging out with us. Then finally, after about two months, they gave up.

Branch and I had mutual goals. We were going to attend college together the following year. Once we’d graduated, we’d start planning our wedding, and the rest would fall into place.

If only my parents were around to see the future that we had planned out. They’d have been so proud.

I felt Branch’s loving arms holding me close. “Mom said dinner’s at six. If you want to go see that movie, we better get going.”

Every year, since the first anniversary of their deaths, Danica Valentine would slave in the kitchen for an entire day making my mother’s family recipe of sour beef and dumplings. It had become a tradition that was more dear to her heart than any other normal holiday. Since she and my mother had been friends since college, she took pride in doing it. In fact, that friendship was the reason we lived next door in the first place. My parents and their parents had been close friends and built the houses at the same time.

We spent all of our time with them, so transitioning to their house wasn’t hard because of that. I think the hardest part was watching my house go up for sale and new people with children moving in. Every time I saw the little girl come outside I thought about my family, or lack thereof.

I had to be thankful for what I had left, which included Branch, Brooks and their loving parents. Without them I don’t know where I’d be.

“I’m ready whenever you are.” Branch looked over and winked at me.

Brooks jumped in front of us. “What movie are you going to see?”

“Nothing you’d like,” Branch answered abruptly.

I felt bad immediately at the way Branch was acting. Brooks was just trying to be my friend, and his own brother was wedging himself between us.

We left Brooks standing at my parent’s graves, and I had to admit that I felt bad about it even though I probably shouldn’t have. Even though Branch was my choice, and probably the right choice, Brooks was still dear to me. He’d always been there when I needed him in a way that Branch never was.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop loving him and remembering back to that moment of our first kiss.

To stick to our plans, I’d decided to bury those secret feelings for Brooks. Branch and I were going to be happy together, and Brooks would just be my brother-in-law. He’d always been in my life and that gave me comfort, somehow knowing that I’d never have to let either of them go.

It was how it had to be.

It was how he wanted it to be.





Chapter 2


Our annual dinner of sour beef and dumplings was something that we all looked forward to. The five of us would sit there, eating my mother’s specialty meal and reminiscing about the good times with my parents.

It would get emotional, but never uncomfortable. This was my second family, and any sadness that I had they shared as well.

After seeing the movie, Branch and I headed back to the house. We were running late, but Danica had called and said that they were going to wait for us.

Nothing could have prepared me for the shocked feelings that overwhelmed me when I walked into the house and saw Brooks sitting next to a beautiful girl from our school. He smiled as I walked in and hung my jacket on the back of the chair. Sitting across from him was probably a bad idea, but there were only two seats available, and both were directly facing them.

“Sorry we’re late. The movie had twenty minutes of previews that we didn’t anticipate,” Branch explained.

Danica started passing the salad bowl and I couldn’t help but take in the delicious scent of the sour beef and dumplings. “It smells wonderful.”

She smiled. “I wish one year I could make it as good as she did. That woman had a niche for making it perfect, didn’t she?”

I nodded and accidentally looked up at Brooks. He was watching me, not the girl, who was named Natalie Chambers. I avoided making eye contact with her for the sole purpose of not giving a damn if she was the Queen of England. Any girl that Brooks was interested in would always be my enemy.

I wouldn’t call it jealousy. It was the fact that for so long both of the boys had always been mine, in some weird convoluted way. We’d always had each other’s backs and I hated that my relationship with Branch was causing that bond between Brooks and me to sever.