by Sarah Bailey
Our
Darkest
Scar
OUR DARKEST SERIES
BOOK THREE
SARAH BAILEY
Our Darkest Scar Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Bailey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Please note the spelling throughout is British English.
Cover Art by Sarah Bailey
Photo from Adobe Stock
Published by Twisted Tree Publications
www.twistedtreepublications.com
[email protected]
Contents
Prologue
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part II
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Part III
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Part IV
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty One
Chapter Forty Two
Chapter Forty Three
Chapter Forty Four
Chapter Forty Five
Chapter Forty Six
Chapter Forty Seven
Chapter Forty Eight
Chapter Forty Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty One
Chapter Fifty Two
Chapter Fifty Three
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About The Author
To Ash and Eric,
You son put me through the wringer. He challenged me in ways I never expected. I’m grateful to you for bringing him into my world and giving him life.
Prologue
Nothing about the way I felt could be quantified in words. It was like some deep-seated self-hatred had taken up residence inside my soul and infected everything, but there was more to it than that. I didn’t know the right way to express what went on inside my head other than it being messy as fuck.
Life couldn’t be called simple or easy for me. When you grow up with five parents, the world doesn’t want to understand it. Instead, subjecting me and my siblings to ridicule. It wasn’t our fault. We hadn’t asked for this. Nor had we asked to find out what kind of darkness had forged our family either.
Things weren’t supposed to happen this way. I wasn’t meant to find someone who made me open up and divulge secrets long buried. Who understood me on a level I wasn’t prepared for. Who became my friend and gave me their ear as I needed someone to listen. I wasn’t supposed to give this person an insight into my complicated soul, nor allow them to care for me the way they did.
I was the one in the wrong here. I did something I couldn’t take back. And all I could do was spend the rest of my life paying the price for ruining everything.
You’re not meant to let your friend’s older sibling comfort you.
You’re not meant to tell them your parents did things they should’ve been locked up for in the not too distant past.
You’re not meant to kiss them.
You’re not meant to fall in love.
And you’re certainly not meant to lie about it.
What I did to Meredith’s brother was unforgivable. I can’t undo a single thing I said to him that day. The day I destroyed the only good thing I had in my life.
I had a few choice words to say to the teenage version of myself. I would have told him never to run into the arms of someone older than him. Especially not when he was already confused over his own sexuality and beating himself up over things he couldn’t control.
The past cannot be erased. All I want is to ask him to forgive me.
But I can’t.
Jonah Ethan Pope hates me for what I did to him.
And I don’t blame him for it.
Part I
mitigate
verb, mit·i·gat·ed, mit·i·gat·ing.
to make (a person, one’s state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
Chapter One
Thank fuck it was Friday. I could curl up in a ball and not deal with the world. No doubt my sister would be spending all her time with her best friend, Celia. Meredith and I were close as siblings could be, but I wanted to be alone without the world’s emotions crowding my head. The first week of school after the summer holidays had been unnecessarily long. I needed to fall into bed and sleep for a year.
Trudging into the toilets at the end of my last lesson, I stopped at one of the urinals and went about my business. Whoever decided to schedule maths as the last lesson on a Friday clearly wanted us sixth formers to suffer. I swear our teacher, Mr Kirk, got a kick out of the whole thing. He’d been smirking the whole time.
Dick.
As I washed my hands after I stepped up to the sinks, a weird choking sound came from the stalls. I shut off the tap and listened, wondering if I’d been hearing things.
It came again, except this time I recognised it as a sob.
A part of me knew I should ignore it, considering it was none of my business. Logical and rational Jonah didn’t give a shit about other people’s drama. He often got drowned out by compassionate Jonah. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t heard someone crying. Human suffering always got to me. Perhaps I was overly sensitive, but I had a need to soothe those I cared about. To make their pain go away. It was a burden. A part of me I hated because of how exhausted I got being around other people. But I’d learnt to live with it and its many pitfalls.
The muffled sobbing came again.
Fuck. I can’t leave whoever it is crying by themselves.
It didn’t sit right with me. I had to do something, but at the same time, I didn’t want to intrude. They’d think I was trying to interfere.
Why did I always face this dilemma?
Why did I care so much?
I should walk out of here and forget about it.
“Um, hello?”
The sobbing abruptly stopped.
Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything. No going back now.
“Okay, look, I’m sorry. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. I just couldn’t help overhearing and well… I wanted to know if you’re okay.”<
br />
I waited for a long minute, but no other sounds came. Rubbing my face, I decided I’d tried and now I had to leave even if it made me sick to my stomach.
Trust me to be the idiot who asks a complete stranger if he’s okay and it ends up backfiring.
I took a step towards the door.
“No… I’m not.”
His voice was soft and full of emotion. My chest ached intolerably within moments. I felt their agony in those few words. It made me want to shelter whoever it was from everything they were experiencing.
What the fuck?
I’d never felt this way for anyone except Meredith, my little sister. Why would I feel this way about someone I’d not even seen?
You must’ve temporarily lost the plot. No other explanation for it.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
The question fell out of my mouth without me thinking about it.
“No.”
“Do you want me to go?”
I took another step towards the door.
“No!”
It sounded like the word was torn from his lips.
Who is this boy and what the hell is going on with him?
I knew I should’ve left this well alone. It wasn’t any of my business. Except now I’d made it so. Why the fuck did I do this to myself again and again? I needed to quit being nice to people. It only got me in trouble.
The sound of the door unlocking behind me had me turning around. Out walked the last person I expected to see. He stood staring at me with wide bloodshot verdant eyes, his chestnut hair ruffled and his glasses slightly askew. I couldn’t help noticing how tall he’d become over the summer holidays. And how those wide-framed glasses suited him a little too much.
Raphael Nelson was my little sister’s friend and two-and-a-half years younger than me. There were two years between me and Meredith. We’d both turn sixteen and eighteen respectively at the end of this year. Raphael’s older sister, Aurora Knox, and I were in our last year of school together, but she and I didn’t hang out or anything. To be honest, she was probably the most intimidating girl I’d ever met in my life. I tended to avoid her if I could help it.
“Oh,” he said, his voice still soft. “It’s you.”
I’d only ever shared brief conversations with Raphael. Whilst he and Meredith were friends, they rarely spent time together outside of school. I got the feeling it had a lot to do with his family being a little unorthodox. Raphael and his siblings caught a lot of shit off people for having five parents. It’d never mattered to me. What other people got up to was none of my business. Besides, why would I want to cause harm to anyone else? I got enough stick for being who I was. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.
“This is embarrassing,” he muttered when I said nothing.
“You needn’t be embarrassed. I won’t tell anyone, but maybe I should…”
The way he looked so defeated made me want to stay and find out exactly why he was crying in the toilets. It’s not like it should matter to me… but it did.
“Yeah… um…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, you’re probably busy.”
“I’m not really. I mean, like, if you wanted some company or something.”
What the fuck are you saying?
He adjusted his glasses before levelling his gaze on me. Something in those green depths made me very aware of how miserable he felt right then.
“You don’t have to, not like you owe me anything.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.”
He didn’t say anything straight away, only stared at me with confusion. Like he couldn’t understand why I was offering him help. I couldn’t quite understand it myself.
“Well, okay.”
Turning away, he went over to the sinks and set his glasses down. I couldn’t help watching him clean up his face even though I shouldn’t.
What are you doing right now, Jonah?
Nothing I should be. I always did as I should, so what was it about Raphael which made me want to help him?
When he put his glasses back on and walked over to me, my spine stiffened. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do or where we should go. Probably not a good idea to spend any more time at school.
“Um, come on then.”
I didn’t wait to see if he was following as I left the toilets. We walked out of the building together a few minutes later. There were still kids milling around, but no one looked our way. Raphael said nothing when I guided him out of the school gates. It made me wonder why he was so trusting of me right now. I was Meredith’s brother. He probably thought I was safe. I only wanted to make sure he was okay. Perhaps he needed someone to be there for him.
A few streets over was a small, independent café I liked to take Meredith on the weekends when she wasn’t hanging out with her best friend, Celia. I walked up to the counter with Raphael trailing along behind me.
“Afternoon, what can I get you?” said the girl who looked to be in her early twenties behind the till.
“Could I get an Americano and…”
I looked over at Raphael.
“Tea, please.”
“A pot of tea.” My eyes flicked to the selection of cakes. “And two slices of the Victoria sponge, please.”
She gave me a smile and a nod. I didn’t know what type of cake he liked but figured he needed something sugary.
There you go again, Jonah, doing everything in your power to take care of someone. You don’t even really know Raphael. Why are you doing this?
I told my brain to do one. He needed help. I couldn’t walk away.
“I’ll bring it over to you.”
I paid and led Raphael over to a table in the corner, away from all the other customers. He put his school bag on one of the spare chairs and sat down, eying the place warily. I sat across from him, folding my hands on the table.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he mumbled, pushing his glasses up his nose. “But thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He tapped his fingers on the wooden table, eyes darting around like he wanted to look at anyone else but me.
“Look, I realise this must be weird for you with me being your friend’s older brother, but if you need to talk about anything, I don’t mind lending an ear.”
Raphael set his gaze on me. I noticed his eyes were a slightly darker shade of green to mine, reminding me of pine trees. It’s not a detail I’d ever picked up on before. Then again, I hadn’t taken the time to really look at him nor take in his finer features.
“I don’t know if I can talk about this.”
Waves of unhappiness radiated off him, battering me with their intensity like knives against my skin. I dropped one of my hands under the table and closed it over my thigh, fingers digging into my flesh to stop myself from reacting to his emotions. He didn’t need to know how much other people’s feelings affected me, even when I didn’t want them to.
“We could talk about something else… as a distraction.”
“I guess so.”
The waitress interrupted us, placing a tray down before emptying it of its contents onto the table. Raphael tugged the pot of tea towards him as I thanked her. He opened the lid and stirred the water with a spoon before closing it again. I watched him eye the plates of cake.
“How’s school?” I asked before sipping my coffee.
“Fine, mostly.”
“So that’s not why you were upset?”
He shook his head as he picked up a fork and dug into one of the cakes.
“Some stuff at home,” he told me before he stuck the cake in his mouth.
I watched him chew and swallow. His eyes fell on his hands.
“You’re not like weirded out by my family or anything? Everyone else seems to be.”
“No. Meredith has told me a little, but to be honest, even if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have thought anything o
f it anyway.”
My motto in life was each to their own. People should be allowed to go about their daily lives and live the way they wanted. It’s not like they were harming anyone. So what if it wasn’t the norm? Nothing in life really ever was.
“Oh.”
He looked stumped. Who knew why, since Meredith had never hassled him over it as far as I knew. She never judged people for those types of things. The things you have no control over. When I’d come out to her a few years ago, she barely batted an eyelid and asked me if I had the same taste in boys as she did. I didn’t, but it was nice to have someone to talk about it to. That’s if I ever actually found someone I liked. No one I knew had piqued my interest, but I guess I might be a little picky. I’d always been careful who I gave my time to.
“I’m the last person to judge anyone for their relationships or whatever else.”
He looked at me, his eyes narrowing.
“No?”
I shrugged.
“Why would I? I get enough shit for who I am. I’d rather not put that out in the world myself.”
A furrow appeared between his brows.
“Why would you get shit for who you are?”
I wondered why Meredith hadn’t told him, but then again, she didn’t view the world by people’s sexual preferences.
“People are pretty open-minded and tolerant these days but it doesn’t stop idiots giving me shit for being openly gay. The world can be black and white when it comes to being different. Not that I really care what anyone else thinks.”
Raphael’s eyes widened a fraction as if he hadn’t been expecting my answer. Then he looked away, picking up the teapot and pouring some out into a cup. He set it down and poured some milk in before stirring the hot liquid.
I wondered what he thought about my admission. Not like I hid it. I doubted it would be an issue for him considering the environment he’d grown up in. Those who were different tended to be more understanding in my experience. They weren’t quick to judge.
“I like to think the world is varying shades of grey and instead of trying to understand things, people lash out with anger when their view of the world is threatened. That’s the reason they give you shit for it. Just like they give me shit about my parents… but you’re right. Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It only matters how we feel inside.”