The Bet: A Bully Romance(15)

I fight back the tears, trying to hold them in. This entire day has been shit, and now I come home to this.

“Okay, I’ll pack up my stuff,” I tell her just so she will stop talking to me. I close my bedroom door in her face, and sag down onto the bed, placing a pillow over my face. The tears fall, and they just keep coming with no end in sight.

How can one person have so many tears?

“Jules!” Remington called my name. I could hear the laughter in his voice. “Come out.” My heart was racing out of my chest. I had never remained hidden this long.

“Did you find her yet?” I heard my brother ask.

“Nope...she’s switched up her hiding spots.” His words made me smile. At the end of each day, I went home with my cheeks hurting from smiling so much. The sound of branches breaking off in the distance told me my brother was walking away to look elsewhere.

I nibbled on my bottom lip and waited with bated breath for Remington’s footsteps to follow. My brow furrowed after a few minutes, and I popped my head out from behind the tree I had been hiding behind for the last ten minutes.

As soon as I did, I spotted Remington, his big green eyes dazzling in the summer sun.

“Found you!” he yelled, and a pout formed against my lips.

“I would’ve won if you just walked away.” I knew I shouldn’t be mad, it wasn’t like they never let me win, but I was so close to doing it on my own this time. If only I had more patience.

Remington crossed the ten feet that separated us, his hands reaching for me out of instinct. He always protected me, cherished me, and I would consider him to be like another brother if I didn’t always picture myself kissing him.

“If it helps any, I had no idea where you were hiding, Jules. I just knew I couldn’t leave you out here alone.” And just like that, I wasn’t upset over losing anymore. I licked my lips and peered up in Remington’s eyes.

“Looks like you lost again.” Jackson’s teasing voice filled my ears, and Remington pulled away as if he knew that my brother would kick his butt for touching me. It had happened before, they fought a couple of times over boy stuff, stuff they always told me was none of my business.

“Shut up, J,” Remington growled, and I merely snickered.

I was pretty sure I loved Remington Miller more than ever that day.

The memory from that day and all the other happy memories seem as if they’re from a distant world, a different life, one that is fading away with each passing day. I lean over the edge of the bed and grab the box from underneath it. Setting it on the bed in front of me, I take a minute to ready myself to open the lid. I already feel broken, Remington, taking the last of my whole pieces and shattering them with his assault on me yesterday.

I open the box and stare at the picture laying on top. I take a moment to stare at it, to feel the memory from that day. It’s Jackson on his most recent birthday, he is smiling at the camera, not a worry in the world. His smile is infectious, bright, and he looks happy, beyond happy.

His blue eyes gleam, and I’ll never forget what he said to me that night. He hugged me, kissed me on top of the head like he always did. Had I known it would be my last hug, my last conversation with him, I would’ve hung on a little longer. I tell myself over and over again that there was no way we could have possibly known that this was the last picture we would ever take of him? Or the last time we would ever see him alive.

With shaking hands, I grab the stack of pictures and spread them out on the bed. Most of them are of Jackson and me, but there are a few of all three of us and some of just Remmy and I. One picture is of us laying in the grass, we are both looking at each other with nothing but love. I remember the way I felt that day, the emotions coursing through my veins.

I thought I would be with him forever. I thought he would be my first, my last, my everything. We look like different people in those pictures and not just because we have grown up since they were taken. It’s more like the things that have happened to us changed us. Changed the way we feel and think…changed how we look at the world.

I don’t know how long I stare at those pictures, wishing with everything inside of me that I could go back to those days, and that they weren’t just a memory.

I wish I could see my brother again, see Remmy again…the Remmy I know…the one that loved me and cared for me. God, do I wish he was the same person. I don’t want to admit it, but I need him. I need him so badly right now.

A knock on the door pulls me from my fantasy world. This isn’t going to be good. I look up, just as the door comes swinging open and Cally walks in. I wipe the tears staining my cheeks with the back of my hands as if that would make them disappear. Anybody with eyes can see I’ve been crying from a mile away and that I’m on the verge of a mental break down.

“I thought you were packing not looking at pic…” Her words catch in her throat when she looks down at the pictures spread out across my bed. Her green eyes go wide with shock and maybe even a little confusion and for a moment she just stares with her mouth gaping open.

“Is that…?” She closes her mouth and blinks as if she can’t really believe what she was just about to ask, or what she’s seeing.

“Cally…I never meant to hurt you. I know you like him…it’s hard not to, believe me, I know, but I’ve loved Remmy since we were kids… since before I knew what love even was.”