Men in Control: Special pack: The Smith Brothers Series

by Brenda Ford

  But Rosie brings out the more fun side of me, she always has done that. I barely even noticed that my feelings for her were shifting from pure friendship to something deeper. I never acted on it because she has been with Tristan forever, but my feelings for her have always been there, haunting me like a torture. It’s that very reason why my friendship has only ever been with Rosie. I don’t know Tristan at all, and I don’t want to. It would kill me to see them together.

  Last year, it all got worse because I thought that she might feel the same way as well. She invited me to an event with her because she and Tristan had broken up again and she wanted me to help make him jealous, and it was wonderful. We danced, we spent time together, it was all very romantic… and then we kissed. I really assumed that it was the moment that she noticed her feelings for me as well. I held on to the fantasy that everything was going to change, and it would finally be the start of the rest of our lives together… until Tristan grabbed her and basically begged her to get back with him, which she did. Clearly, she didn’t feel the same way about the kiss that I did, which was devastating. It whipped the foundation of my life out from underneath me and I wasn’t sure if I could ever recover again. I didn’t think that I would be able to be back here with Rosie again.

  But I am, and it’s okay. I still think that there might be a little bit of tension between us, it isn’t exactly as it was but it’s okay. I don’t even really know how I feel about her anymore. If I examine it too closely, I don’t think I’m still into her in the same way. Over the last twelve months I have accepted that it isn’t ever going to happen. We had our shot and it vanished into nothingness. It didn’t come to anything. I don’t think I want her like that anymore, I just feel strange and a little bit numb. Of course, I still don’t like thinking that much about her and Tristan, but I’m sure that’s more because it’s awkward than anything else.

  “Who is that character now?” Rosie suddenly demands, dragging me from my thoughts. “She hasn’t been in the movie before. I don’t understand. Now she just pops up and is integral? I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, Rosie, you are reading too much into it,” I try to deflect because I don’t want to admit that I haven’t got a clue what’s going on either. If I do, I lose my right to choose the movie again. “It will soon become obvious exactly who she is and what she’s doing. You just need to wait, that’s all.”

  She shoots me an untrusting look. “I don’t think you know. You’re lost as well, and you are just trying to torture me by making me watch this. You know, I might just kick your ass, Oliver.”

  “I would like to see you try!” I roll my eyes and snort. “You know that I do karate, right?”

  “You did two classes when you were about seventeen years old. You don’t know a shit about karate.”

  Just as this is about to launch into one of our hilarious arguments that I know I would love but the magic of the moment is interrupted by Rosie’s cell phone blasting out. We both instantly know that it’s going to be Tristan and I’m pretty sure I catch a glimpse of what looks like guilt in her eyes. It’s almost like she knows this is weird.

  “I just have to…” She picks up the phone and furrows her brows. “Oh, who is this?”

  As she picks up, I see her back instantly stiffen which makes my blood run cold. I have known Rosie for long enough now to see when she’s being told something that she doesn’t like, and this is definitely it. All of the color drains from her face and she bolts to her feet causing me to do the same thing.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper to her. “Do you need me to do anything?”

  She turns away from me, the stress flooding her face. As her fingers rake through her hair, a sense of hopelessness overcomes me. All I want to do is hold her, but her body language screams that I should not touch her, that she doesn’t need my support and reassurance. It kills me not to be able to help her.

  “Oh my God,” she gasps out, her words shaky with sadness. “Oh my God, is this for real?”

  She hangs up the phone and turns to look at me for just a second, panic absolutely flooding her face, but before she can even begin to tell me what is going on, her feet take off and she bolts down the stairs, running through the front door and slamming it behind her before I can even think of following her.

  “What the fuck?” I murmur, shocked to the core. “What just happened?”

  Tristan isn’t the most faithful person as far as I am aware, so this could be rumors of him cheating on her again, but there was a real shock in her face which wouldn’t be there if it was just that news. I have the horrible feeling that it’s something else, something more intense, which is why I can’t just leave it. As her best friend, I need to help her as much as I can. Even if she tells me to get lost, I need to give it my best shot.

  “What’s going on?” Brad yells after me as I run. “Is Rosie okay?”

  But all I can do is shrug back. If I had any idea, then my head wouldn’t be all over the place. I buck it through my yard and to the house next door where I really hope she is. I don’t imagine she’s gone anywhere else. Luckily, me and Rosie are so close that her mom won’t mind me running through the house like a loon.

  “Rosie!” I yell once inside. “Rosie, what’s going on? What happened?”

  After running through the house, peering in every single room, I finally find Rosie rolled up like a ball on the bathroom floor with vomit all around her lips. Her cheeks are tear stained and her eyes bright red from all the tears. She’s a mess, bless her. It absolutely breaks my heart to see her like this.

  “What happened?” I bend down beside her and wrap an arm around her. “Oh God, Rosie, what is it?”

  “My auntie,” she sobs. “My aunt. She has been… been in an accident. She got run over on the side walk by a speeding car and… and the doctors couldn’t save her. She died. She passed away this morning.”

  These words affect me probably more than they would to anyone else because I understand what it’s like to lose parents in an accident. It feels needless, like someone has been ripped away for nothing. I might have been a lot younger when I got that news, but I can still remember that horrible emptiness that comes with it.

  “I’m so sorry, Rosie, that’s really awful. You must be so upset.”

  “I haven’t even seen her since we moved here. We… we’ve talked but we haven’t really seen one another. I always just assumed that we had time, but I was wrong. Now, she’s gone. Ellie and Seth are alone.”

  “Who… who are Ellie and Seth?” I ask quietly, only hearing these names for the first time now.

  “My cousins. I used to be close to them as well, but now… well now I keep thinking about them being alone. They are so young; I don’t know what they will do. This is all so…”

  She doesn’t know what to say and I don’t know how I can help her either. All I can really do is to lean her head against my shoulder and comfort her while thinking about these poor kids with no mother now. It will be killing them, I’m sure. Rosie hasn’t said anything about a father in the picture, so he must not be which only makes it worse. Having no parents can be real trouble as I know that better than anyone else.

  “How can I help, Oliver? What can I do?” Rosie whines. “Should I go there and help?”

  I understand the need to help, I feel it myself and I don’t even know Ellie and Seth. But without knowing the full story, it’s hard for us to do anything. This helpless sensation is horrible.

  “You need to speak to your mom,” I say which isn’t the best advice I can give but it’s all that I have right now. “She will know what to do. She will have what’s best for your cousins.”

  “Thank you,” she murmurs quietly against me. “Thank you for being around and supporting me, calming me down and looking after me. I know not many people would do that.”

  She means Tristan, I’m sure of it, but she isn’t saying that. She knows as well as everyone else that he isn’t supportive when he needs to be and that he isn’t
right for her, but she has made the decision to be with him and unfortunately that’s a bed she has chosen for herself to lie in until she chooses to do something brave. I’ve commented on her relationship in the past and it never goes well, so instead I just hug her tight.

  Chapter 2 - Ellie

  “Are we ever going to come back here?” Seth asks me sadly as we look up at our house. It’s the building that we have always lived in, the home that we were supposed to have our whole childhoods in, but now it’s gone. It’s just over. With Mom dying, we have to go and now… well now, everything is going to change.

  “We aren’t, Seth,” I reply honestly, while wrapping my arm around him. Maybe I should try and sugarcoat things for him, but I haven’t ever been that person and my younger brother knows that. He’s had nine years to get used to me, so he’s used to it. “The house will be sold now, and we can’t come back. We’re going to live with Auntie Amelia for a while until it’s my eighteenth birthday. Then, it will be just me and you.”

  “We aren’t going to stay with her?” He tilts his head around to look at me. “No adults?”

  “Well, when I’m eighteen, I will be an adult, and I can look after you. It’ll be fine.”

  I am very grateful to Amelia and my cousin Rosie for taking us in during our hour of need, I don’t know what we would do without them, but we don’t really know them anymore. Sure, a long time ago, yes, but not these days. I’m not a kid anymore, I’m seventeen years old, verging on adulthood and I’m growing up quickly. Mom was always working, so I have raised Seth pretty much alone anyway. I can cope for sure.

  Plus, if it’s just me and Seth, I will have a lot to focus on, so I won’t be able to worry about continually missing Mom and wondering why she was snatched from me in the cruel way that she was. I don’t want to think about that anymore. I have spent the last couple of weeks sobbing over her and now I need a fresh start. Tears won’t bring her back, nothing will, so all I can do is try and get my life back in order.

  “I’m going to miss it here, Ellie. All my friends and everything. I don’t know if I want to go.”

  “We can’t stay.” I rub his hair, trying to comfort me. “They won’t let us stay. But there is a nice school where we are going, and you will make some new friends. I promise you that.”

  “Will you find some new friends, Ellie? I would like you to have some nice friends too.”

  I don’t answer that, but his words do get me thinking. The fact that I don’t really have any friends here is exactly why I haven’t promised Seth that we will come back as soon as we can, because I don’t want to. Aside from my childhood home, which will soon be sold, there isn’t anything here for me to come back to. Not since the incident. That’s what my mom used to call it. The ‘incident’. Like it was something to be ashamed of, like it was my fault and not those horrible bitchy girls who decided to ruin my life for no good reason.

  It all started just after my fifteenth birthday when for some reason my breasts decided to make a new appearance. They were growing before, but almost overnight they popped right out, which unfortunately brought with it a lot of attention that I really didn’t want. I didn’t ask for it, nor did I entertain it, but that didn’t matter to Tammy and her gang of nasty friends. She decided to hate me because her idiot boyfriend made a comment about me and my body changes like it was his right to. Not only did she decide to hate me, but she decided to torture me. At first with words, then with pushing and shoving, until finally the day of the ‘incident’.

  It happened before gym class, just as I was innocently getting changed, not really thinking about anything in particular. Tammy and her friends circled me when I was only in my underwear and they began to taunt me. I was already crying before it got physical, so by the time they got me on the floor and they pulled my bra off to snatch a picture of my breasts to share in the school, I was a wreck. Too sad to even begin fighting back.

  The constant comments that came after were almost as bad as the actual incident. It was the teasing and the knowledge that everyone had seen me half naked which brought on the panic attacks. I didn’t intend to tell anyone until my mother nearly sent me to hospital one night because she thought that I was having heart problems… then it all came out. The whole sorry embarrassing mess. She even found some of the pictures online and created hell up. There were issues at the school, the police were involved, it got totally crazy, and I was in the middle of it all just hating my body for allowing people to treat me like that. I didn’t realize then that none of it was my fault and that it was all theirs. They were responsible for what they did to me.

  I left school after that and started online classes so I could focus on my education instead of the bullying which was good for me actually. It helped me to get over it and to rebuild my confidence. Now, I feel so much better in myself, so much happier. I don’t care what they did to me, it was just a blip, it doesn’t matter, but I am still glad to go and get away from it all. I don’t know about Seth’s suggestion of getting friends though because it will take a lot for me to trust anyone again, to let anyone in. And that’s just friendship, never mind anything else. Romance isn’t even in the cards for me, I don’t think. I do like the idea of romance, but the reality is too much. I might get over with what happened, but I’m still very careful with my body and I won’t let just anyone have it.

  Who knows though? Maybe we will move and me and Rosie will get on like a house on fire. Perhaps I will make a whole bunch of friends and I will also fall in love as well. It doesn’t seem likely, but it isn’t impossible either. Plenty of damaged people end up meeting someone and living out a happy ever after…

  Oh God, you idiot. I shake my head at myself. Who the fuck are you, Ellie? Love? Happy ever after?

  I don’t even know if I believe in all of that crap. I certainly haven’t had any role models in that department. My father hasn’t been around much in my life at all. He was in and out of it before Mom got pregnant with Seth, and unfortunately, she continued to let him until he disappeared for good after Seth’s birth.

  As far as I know, they even tried to find him for us to live with him after they learned about her death, but he is untraceable. Thank goodness. Because that would be the worst choice ever. He isn’t a good man at all. Even during the short periods in which he has been around, he’s been dreadful, and it would kill me to live with him. He’s just nothing and nowhere which is for the best. Me and Seth will be better off alone. Especially if the rumors about him being a massive junkie are true. None of us need that in our lives.

  “We should get packed up; don’t you think?” I finally say to Seth. “Get everything ready to head to the train station because we don’t want to miss our ride. It’s going to be a long day.”

  “Are we going to be okay?” Seth asks me, a question that’s far too deep for a nine year old really. Luckily, I’m totally fine with him leaning on me and needing me to be there for him.

  “Oh, we’ll be fine,” I reassure him. “I will make sure of it. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  He will worry though. Seth is a bit of a worrier, that’s within his nature. The only thing that I can do is show him when we get there. When he’s settled in at our auntie’s home and he has started at his school, he will finally be okay. I just hope that he finds the school as nice as I have promised him that it will be and that he gets some good friends. There might be people like Tammy there because they are at every school, but I hope that he manages to avoid them and keep his head down. I want him to get through his education just like he has been doing here. Of course, his mom dying like that is going to affect him, there’s no way that it can’t, but I would love to make it minimal. I would love for him to carry on just normally as much as he can.

  I will do this for you, Mom, I think with my eyes darting towards the sky. I will…

  God, I hate that she’s gone. It makes me so sad to lose her in such a sudden way, but I am just getting on with it. Putting my head down and carrying on
like she would need me to. Keeping strong for Seth.

  We head inside and gather up the rest of our belongings, silently saying our goodbyes to the house as we do, and we head back outside just in time for the cab to arrive to pick us up. Rosie did offer to come and pick us up. She also offered to stay and help us after the funeral, but I can’t stop myself from being proud and wanting to do everything all by myself. I told her no which is why we’re getting the train, but that’s okay. It’s better this way because soon we will be doing everything alone. I’m starting as I mean to go on.

  “Is there anyone you want to say goodbye to?” Seth asks as we drive away, almost as if he doesn’t realize that it’s too late now. “I said goodbye to everyone at school the other day.”

  “I’m good.” I lean my head back against the head rest. “I’m looking forward to the adventure.”

  But as we drive along, my blood runs ice cold as I recognize which way we’re going. I forgot to tell the taxi driver not to pass Fall Lane which means I’m going to have to see the area of the accident. I haven’t done that yet, even when it was recommended for me to do so, and I really don’t want to do that now… but I’m going to have to.

  “Fuck,” I whisper as I see the bundles of flowers on the side walk. “Oh my God.”

  I see the scene coming to life in front of my eyes, which is why I never wanted to see it. Mom with her bags of groceries and her head down, just walking home from work, tired after a long shift, and the speeding car veering off the road to hit her and crush her against the wall, splattering too much blood everywhere, causing everyone around her who witnessed it to scream out in sheer horror. I suppose the only good thing was that she died instantly so she didn’t suffer, but it still destroys me to think about it. She was alone. She shouldn’t have been alone. No one should have to die alone.