That Summer (Part One)

by Lauren Crossley

  “Cole…”

  “You are not my sister and you never have been. We weren’t raised in the same house, we didn’t know each other as children and you’re certainly not my sister up here.” He pauses before pointing to his head. “Or here.” He says, resting his hand against his heart before he takes hold of mine and places it on top of it so I can feel his heartbeat racing.

  “But neither one of us can ignore biology. You can’t rewrite history, no matter how much we want to.”

  “So you’re really prepared to ruin both of our lives? You’re willing to destroy our future for the sake of what? Something neither one of could control?”

  “We don’t have a choice!” I declare vehemently. “How can we go back? How can we forget this?”

  “I’m not asking you to forget. I’m just asking you to give me a chance and give us some time to process this. We… we don’t have to have sex if you don’t feel comfortable.”

  He lowers his gaze to the ground, resembling someone who has had time to come to terms with this. Someone who is absolutely determined to get what he wants, no matter what.

  “Ever?” I prompt him, surprised by his suggestion.

  “If that’s what it takes to keep you, then yes.” He sighs wearily, slumping his shoulders as he rubs the centre of his forehead.

  “What about other things?”

  “Like…?”

  “You know.”

  I really don’t want him to make me say it but we both know what I’m referring to.

  “Serena, I’m not going to lie to you. I want everything with you. I’ve already fallen in love with you and the fact that we’ve now found out we share dome DNA doesn’t change how I feel or how much I want you. I’m prepared to do anything and everything in my power to help you feel better about this and accept it. What we now know is life-changing. It’s fucked up, it’s heart-breaking and it could ruin both of our lives… but only if we let it. Believe me, I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours falling apart about this but seeing you again tonight, I now realise I don’t have the strength to live without you. I don’t want you to be my friend or my acquaintance. I want all of you and I don’t want any other man to have what is mine.”

  He lets his finger trail down the side of my face and along my jawline, causing me to tremble. I close my eyes but I can still feel him watching me, his mesmerising brown eyes observing every single feature of my face.

  “You don’t own me, Cole.” I whisper, hoping I’ll be able to find the strength to resist him once I open my eyes.

  “I do.” He insists, stroking his thumb against my bottom lip. “You belong to me and you know it. Mind, body and soul… your mine.”

  “But we have no future! We can’t ever get married or have children. We’re going to be stuck. Frozen in time and living our lives in secret, terrified that someone will find out the truth. That’s no way to live and it’s not a life I will choose for myself.”

  “Why can’t we have all of those things? Who says we can’t?” He challenges me.

  “You know why it’s impossible. How could we become parents?”

  “Green, you’re not even eighteen yet but I already know you will make an incredible mother.”

  “Stop it.” I chastise him, deliberately putting some much needed space between us. “The complications for any child of ours would be horrific. There could be something wrong with it.”

  “A baby of ours would be perfect, no matter what.” He maintains calmly.

  “Now you’re just being foolish. You’re not even thinking clearly and you’ve also been drinking. You have the nerve to turn up at my house in the middle of the night and drop this bombshell on me, wanting me to tell you that it’s all going to be ok and that things can carry on as normal between us. Well, they can’t. Not ever.”

  I make sure my voice sounds cold, hoping I can sustain my distance from him. For this to work, I have to be convincing.

  “You don’t mean that.” He murmurs, following me across the room with his saddened eyes.

  “I do mean it and I want you to leave right now. I need some time alone.”

  “I can’t leave you.” He whispers, showing his desolation and despair at the thought of me telling him to go.

  “You already did leave me, Cole. You left me as soon as you found out the truth and refused to give me any answers. You confess you’ve been to strip clubs since you found out and then you enjoyed telling me all about it. What sort of person does that make you?”

  “I know, I know, ok?! I know how screwed up that makes me and I’m sorry. I already told you how messed up I am. I told you from the very start that you should stay away from me and not get involved with someone like me.”

  “I now see that you were right.” I reply callously. “I should have listened to you then.”

  “You don’t mean that. You can’t mean it.”

  “Goodbye, Cole. I want you to stay away from me from now on.”

  “I can’t do that.” He groans, tugging on his hair in torment.

  “If you don’t so as I ask then I’ll tell someone. I’ll tell Lisa or my mum and then you won’t have a choice. You’ll be forced to keep away.”

  “Why are you doing this?! Why do you want to hurt me?” He asks, begging me to explain the reason behind my glacial exterior.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, I just want you to go. I’ve heard enough.”

  “I told Jonathan to stay away from school today and he won’t be back until I can be there with you. Despite everything I had to deal with, you were still my number one priority. No matter what’s going on inside my head, you will always come first.”

  “Just go.”

  He exhales slowly and nods his head in reluctant defeat.

  “I love you, Green. I’ve always loved you and I won’t stop. I just can’t. I’ll leave you alone for now but I can’t stay away from you forever.” He says it gently, approaching me with caution before he reaches out to place a kiss against my forehead.

  Once Cole leaves, I remain downstairs for the next few hours. I can’t bring myself to go to bed because I’m scared that when I do, all I will dream about is him. I’m frightened I will see his face when I close my eyes and regret the words I just spoke to him.

  I’m afraid of everything.

  I’m afraid about my future and I’m scared about tomorrow. How will I carry on now that I know the truth? How am I supposed to recover from this? How can I be expected to spend a single hour without Cole by my side, let alone a whole lifetime?

  I don’t know anything expect this that my love for him has not changed. What I said to him isn’t true and the most tragic part about all of this is I still want him more than ever.

  Chapter Ten

  I spend the next few days in agony. Absolute agony. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I can’t even function properly. I’m consumed by my dark thoughts and the instinctual need that I have to be with him. He’s all I can think about and just putting one foot in front of the other is now difficult.

  My strength has gone. It’s vanished. I’m a shell of the person I used to be and I don’t know how to bring her back to life.

  She’s gone.

  Lisa knows that something is extremely wrong. She’s spent hours trying to convince me to confide in her but none of it has worked. Cole swore me to secrecy that night and I know it will jeopardize everything if I tell her.

  I’ve still managed to drag myself into school every day, refusing to stay at home by myself and cry about what I’ve lost. During the day I can maintain a façade and focus on my schoolwork as I pretend that everything is normal. I’m sure my teachers and the mindless students who pass by me in the corridors have no idea that my heart is breaking. They have no idea about the searing, agonising, unbearable pain which is tearing me apart.

  I only saw my father once and that was the night Cole spotted him outside my house and he took me out for coffee. He’s tried to see me again but I turned him down, refusing to converse with
the man I now blame for all of my heartache. Of course I didn’t tell him the reason why I no longer wanted to rebuild my relationship with him, I just told him I was busy with school and I would see him again in a few months.

  Of course I have no intention of seeing him. I despise him now and want nothing more to do with him. If my dad had told me he had a son and introduced us as children then none of this would have happened. He walked out on Cole when he was just a baby and then walked out on me a few years later. I’m only a couple of months younger than Cole which means my irresponsible and thoughtless father must have made two women pregnant at the same time. He abandoned Cole’s mum as soon as she gave birth and then kept our identities a secret from one another. I now see that I was a fool to think we could rebuild our relationship and let him back into my life once more. He’s ruined so many lives by his deceit.

  Cole is also in school and I can’t help noticing how terrible he looks when I catch sight of him. The dark circles underneath his eyes make it obvious to me that he’s not been sleeping and his dark, messed-up hair proves he’s been raking his fingers through it time and time again. He hasn’t been shaving so his strong jawline is now covered in stubble, highlighting his masculine appearance and physique even further.

  I know it’s unintentional but it’s almost like his misery is somehow making him even more attractive to the girls at school. I see them watching him, wondering if he will throw a glance in their direction or even give them a chance to be his next rebound. They clearly think we’ve broken up and are now sniffing around him, eager for their own chance to capture his attention.

  He is perfect and there’s not a single part of me that has managed to stop wanting him. I yearn for him and ache to feel his arms around me like I once used to and despise every girl I see who smiles at him. Jealousy consumes my soul and I battle against it day and night, willing myself to move forward from the man I can never have.

  I now realise that I took it all for granted. I thought it was our given right to be together, failing to understand that every piece of happiness that we shared was a blessing. I spend hours remembering, trying to recreate every single detail in my mind so I can relive it. Knowing that I will never get to be with him is again is torture. I’m in physical discomfort, tossing and turning in bed as I try to extinguish the gaping hole he left inside of me.

  Seeing him every day and walking by him in the hallway makes it even worse. My fingers twitch because I long to reach out for him and my stomach churns when I see him in close proximity to any other girls. They’re all over him now they think that we’ve split up and I have to witness so many of them throwing themselves at him on a daily basis.

  The worst one is Louise. She makes sure I see it all and seems to enjoy witnessing my pain whenever I see her anywhere near him. It’s not as though he’s responding to their advances but I wouldn’t say he’s ignoring them either.

  I can feel his eyes on me when I leave the cafeteria and I can feel them on me when we share one of our classes together. He observes me all the time and it makes it even harder for me to ignore him when I know those magnificent brown eyes of his are on me.

  I removed my belongings from his locker as soon as I could and now share one with Lisa, hoping it would put some distance between us.

  Of course it didn’t.

  “Talk to me.” He begged, leaning against Lisa’s locker once I finished placing my books in there.

  No one else was about and I was already late for one of my lessons. The hallway was empty and there was nowhere to run to and escape him. I was trapped.

  “Leave me alone.” I said, speaking sharply.

  “I can’t.” He whispered painfully, gazing at me with longing.

  “You have to.”

  “But I can’t stay away from you. I can’t even fucking sleep without you. I’ve become an insomniac over the past couple of days and my whole body hurts. I can’t eat, I can’t even think straight.” He pleaded with me, grabbing hold of my wrist so he could spin me around to face him.

  “You have no choice.” I argued, rubbing my own forehead wearily. “You’re going to have to try and keep your distance.”

  “I just told you I can’t!” He exclaimed loudly, slamming me back against the row of lockers behind me. “Tell me what you need because I’m willing to do anything, absolutely anything to be near you. Let me come over tonight, just so we can sleep. I swear to God I won’t try anything. I just want to sleep beside you and… and hold you.”

  I closed my eyes, praying for the strength to resist him. I had to fight against the inexplicable pull I felt towards him and say no to the painful longing in my heart to say yes.

  “This is the final time I’m going to say this to you.” I whispered, opening my eyes slowly. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

  He seemed to try a different tactic after that day. At first he seemed to respect my wishes and gave me some much needed space but then he started flaunting some of the girls at school in front of me. I know it was his attempt at making me jealous. At least, I hope it was a devious ploy of his to make me angry and not a sign that he has moved on already.

  I walked into the dining hall one lunchtime to find him at his usual table, surrounded by the friends he first made when he came here. A pretty girl with dark hair was perched on his lap, stroking her fingers through the back of his hair as I watched his hand touch her thigh.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether I should turn and run or pretend I hadn’t noticed. I froze, fighting against the harrowing pain inside my chest.

  “Come on, you’ll be ok.”

  I turned around to find Lisa behind me. She placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a weak smile.

  “I can’t do this.” I whimpered, covering my face with my hands.

  “Put one foot in front of the other and don’t let him see your pain. You can do this.”

  She took me by the hand and led me over to our table, refusing to leave my side for the remainder of lunch.

  She’s been such an incredible friend to me, I really don’t deserve it. I’m aching to tell her the truth and trust in my friend’s judgement. I know she will speak the truth to me and tell me what to do next. The only thing is… once I trust her, I can’t take it back.

  Cole was right. The second we tell anyone about this, it will all be over. I know that Cole and I can’t be together but as soon as I tell Lisa, it will make it final. It’s illegal for us to be together and once people know that we’re related, they will do anything and everything in their power to keep us apart.

  Cole’s already got a criminal record and who knows if the police would press charges against him? I have no idea about the legal side of things and don’t have the courage to find out. I feel like I’ve been sentenced to a lifetime in hell with no release date.

  This is my fate forever.

  I’m one of the first students out of school on Friday and I’m waiting outside the main entrance for Lisa when I spot Cole. He’s with the small brunette who was sitting on his lap in the cafeteria a couple of days ago. He has her pressed against the wall at the side of the building and her arms are wrapped around his neck. One of his hands is up her skirt and the other is inside her top.

  The sickening image brings instant tears to my eyes as my mind attempts to process what I’ve just seen. How could he do this? How could he do this right in front of me? Why is he doing this?

  I turn away and cover my mouth with my hand to prevent a violent sob escaping my throat. My whole body is trembling and I can’t control it. I feel like my legs are about to give way beneath me and the only thing that keeps me standing is the sight of my best friend walking towards me with a smile on her face.

  She quickly notices my dismay and follows my gaze over towards Cole. He’s still got the girl pressed up against the building and she’s moaning loudly. Neither one of them seem to care that they’re performance is being observed and I find myself clenching my fists to stop myself from marching over there
and hurting them both.

  “Serena, come on. You don’t have to see this.”

  Lisa takes hold of my arm and leads the way to her car. I don’t know how I manage to make it across the car park but I somehow do it, using my friend’s arm to support the majority of my weight.

  I feel so weak. I haven’t been able to sleep since I found out the truth and that was exactly one week ago today. My stomach is empty and my body has lost weight. I barely have any energy and now that I’ve just been forced to witness Cole with someone else… it’s like I’ve broken down.

  Lisa unlocks the car door for me and opens it, gently easing me inside. She then makes her way around the back of the vehicle so she can get in the driver’s side.

  “I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt you.” She says, speaking gently. “But you have to realise that was done on purpose. He did it to get a reaction out of you. He was trying to hurt you and make you jealous.”

  “Please just drive.” I whisper, staring straight ahead of me.

  Lisa puts her key in the ignition and is about to pull out of her parking space when my passenger door is yanked open.

  Cole.

  He’s standing right there with a ferocious scowl on his face and his fists clenched at his sides. He’s glowering at me in fury and I even notice the flickering muscle in his jaw beating rapidly.

  “Get out.” He orders brusquely, widening the car door for me to step outside.

  “Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?!” Lisa yells, slamming her hands against the steering wheel.

  “I’m not talking to you.” He retaliates dismissively, directing his entire focus onto me again. “Serena, get out of the car.”

  “Go away.” I murmur dispassionately, refusing to look in his direction.

  “If you don’t get out in five seconds, I’ll drag you out of there myself.” He threatens me, placing one hand on the roof of Lisa’s car.

  “Don’t even think about it, Cole.” My friend cautions him, scrambling out of her car so she can go to where he’s standing. “You have no right to touch her and I won’t let you.”