My Fiancé's Brother (The Guilty Series Book 1)

by Odette Stone

  The doctor that I talked to earlier came into the room. He was carrying a file.

  “Matt made it through the surgery with flying colours,” he said, sitting down across from us.

  “Oh thank God,” Irene clutched her chest.

  “He sustained a significant head injury. We managed to successfully remove the mass in his frontal lobe. There is a small amount of swelling which we are monitoring so we currently have him in a medically induced coma. This is so he remains out of pain and it gives his body the best chance to heal.”

  We all sat there in stunned silence.

  “He’s being moved to the ICU. We won’t know the extent of his injuries until he wakes up, but we are doing everything we can to keep him comfortable.”

  “When can I see him?” Irene asked.

  “Give the nurses in the ICU a few hours to get him settled. After that we will be allowing family to go in and see him for five minutes at a time. At this point, the best course of action for Matt is rest.”

  Tears were streaming down her face. “We don’t know how this happened. The police say that he was drinking and driving. That doesn’t sound like my son.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “Did any of you notice any significant changes in Matt’s behavior over the last few weeks or months leading up to his accident?”

  “What kind of changes?” Jackson asked.

  “Irritability or aggression? Mood swings. A lack of inhibitions, perhaps?”

  I swallowed. Thinking about how Matt had been a complete mad man in the last two months. “Yes.”

  Irene swung around and looked at me. Her eyes searched my face.

  The doctor continued. “The benign mass that we found in Matt’s head was putting significant pressure on the surrounding tissues of his frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that’s responsible for reasoning, language, impulse control, emotions, judgement, social or sexual behaviour. The fact that he was engaged in such high-risk behavior with drinking and driving could very well be a result of the tumour pressing in his brain. It took away his ability to reasonably monitor his own actions.”

  It felt like the entire room was shrinking. I felt my entire body run cold. This explained so much. How Matt had changed from a high strung lawyer to a completely crazy person who drank too much, never called, engaged in promiscuous behavior and acted out with violence when he got upset.

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  “But you think he will make a complete recovery?” Irene pressed.

  “I don’t want to undermine the extend of Matt’s brain injury. He could experience motor or speech issues, memory issues…there is a grocery list of things that he could struggle with, but before I scare you, we just won’t know until he wakes up. Right now we are working to ensure he doesn’t develop an infection or undue swelling in his brain. After he wakes up we will be better able to assess further complications.”

  The three of us just sat there.

  He gave us a tired smile. “Matt is a fit young man. His body is strong. His heart rate and blood pressure are good. We are cautiously optimistic for his recovery.”

  He left the room and the three of us tried to process what he had just told us.

  Irene looked at me. “What kind of changes did you see in Matt?”

  “What?” my voice sounded small.

  She looked angry. “You told the doctor that you witness behavior changes in Matt. I want to know what exactly.”

  I huddled in my chair. “Matt was always busy at his job, but the last couple of months, he was never home. Usually he would text or call, but lately, he wasn’t even doing that.”

  “What else?”

  I swallowed hard avoiding Jackson’s gaze, “When he was around, he was often angry or moody, but I thought that was just because he was so stressed out at work. I noticed that he was drinking more too.”

  “You should have done something about it,” her voice accused.

  My head jerked up. Her arms were crossed and her face was white and pinched. “Why didn’t you make him see a doctor. This could have all been avoided.”

  “Irene,” Jackson said gently.

  She stood up. “No. I wasn’t there, but Emily was. She should have noticed these big personality changes in Matt and then made him go see a doctor. This accident could have been avoided if we had found the tumour earlier. But she didn’t.”

  “Irene, that isn’t really fair to Emily,” Jackson said with a sympathetic look on his face. “I was there too.”

  She pointed a finger at me. “You could have prevented this. This is your fault.”

  Then she burst into tears and walked out of the room.

  I covered my face with my hands.

  “She’s just upset,” Jackson said. “She is afraid and she is taking it out on you. This isn’t your fault.”

  I shook my head. “I noticed the changes. She’s right. I should have done something. Instead of addressing it or even talking to him about it, I stuck my head in the sand like the coward I am.”

  “You aren’t a coward. You are the farthest thing from being a coward. We all saw Matt change. His Mom, me, everyone was baffled by his behavior but not one of us thought he was sick.”

  “Instead of helping him, instead of addressing it with him, I let it escalate to the point that I cheated on him,” I cried.

  His jaw clenched. “I was there and if I recall, he cheated on you first and then dumped you. You can’t own this. This isn’t your fault.”

  “I wasn’t there for him. I should have been there for him. I abandoned him.”

  “You didn’t abandon Matt. He was lashing out and hurting you. You hung in there as his partner a lot longer than most people would have. You were there for him.”

  My eyes lifted to meet his green ones. How could I absolve myself from this? I had loved Matt until he had gotten sick and been a bad partner. Then I had just let him go off and be destructive and harmful to himself and others so that I could pursue his brother. I had allowed myself to fall in love with Jackson and flung that in Matt’s face so that he dumped me in a fit of rage and not an hour later, I was in bed with Jackson. I was a terrible person and a terrible partner and there was no coming back from that. I didn’t deserve Matt or Jackson. I deserved to be alone for the rest of my life because I was an unfit partner for anyone.

  I shook my head. “Irene is right. I could have prevented this.”

  “Emily,” Jackson said in a sympathetic voice.

  I dropped my eyes from his beautiful face. I felt nothing but self loathing at this point. I didn’t deserve Jackson’s support or sympathy.

  ***

  Days slowly ticked by. We were allowed in to see Matt for five minutes at a time. We alternated between sitting beside his bed and waiting in the waiting room. I didn’t speak. To anyone. I sat either beside Matt’s bed or alone in the waiting room. Jackson forced Irene and I to take turns going home to rest, eat and shower. Other than that, one of us was at the hospital, with Matt around the clock.

  Irene and I made up. She apologized for her outburst. I apologized for not doing more to help Matt. We were on speaking terms but instead of turning to each there for support, we just endured our own feelings of fear and pain by ourselves.

  My entire body was wracked with guilt which translated into a tight chest and an upset stomach. My throat felt like it was going to close in on me. I wasn’t hungry but I was exhausted all the time. All I wanted to do was sleep a hundred years but instead we spent all our time sitting, trying to stay awake in that awful little waiting room. Even if Irene had apologized she was right. I had been there watching Matt morph into someone I didn’t recognize seemingly over night. And his rash and outrageous behaviour had caused the accident. I think we all felt guilty about missing the symptoms. But there was no excuse for what I did with Jackson. I had allowed myself to develop monstrous feelings for Jackson and the first chance I got, I had slept with him. If that didn’t make me a horrible person, I d
on’t know what did.

  Chapter 37

  Jackson was driving me back to the hospital. I had managed to get a couple hours of rest. That with my shower and a fresh change of clothes, I almost felt human. We pulled into the hospital parking lot that felt way too familiar. How strange that in six days this hospital and surrounding area had become our new reality.

  Jackson turned off the truck and looked over at me.

  “Emily, how are you doing?”

  I stared unseeing out the front of the windshield. “I’m fine.”

  “Be honest with me. Don’t bullshit me.”

  I turned and looked at him. For a second, rage filled my heart. “You want to know how I feel? I feel guilty for being the worst partner in the world.”

  “You don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”

  “I cheated on him.”

  “You can’t cheat on someone after they dump you. He had just admitted to sleeping with your friend and then he told you, in front of me, that it was over between the two of you.”

  “That wasn’t his fault. That was his weird brain tumour’s fault. What’s my excuse?” my eyes filled with tears. “What’s my excuse for sleeping with you?”

  “You tell me.”

  I looked at him in disbelief, my voice was incredulous. “What?”

  “Why did you sleep with me?”

  “Just because I have feelings for you does not justify me cheating on Matt.”

  He went completely still. “What feelings?”

  I gave a half laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Don’t act like this is a surprise to you. Everyone knew. Julie all but announced it to the world.”

  “That was real?”

  Oh shit. I felt frozen.

  Jackson looked stunned. “You have feelings for me?”

  Humiliation washed over me. I ripped open the door of the truck and started to run across the parking lot. I thought my feelings were transparent enough for the entire world to see. How was this news? I was in love with Jackson. What did he think I was feeling? Did he think that we had only ended up in bed because I was feeling a bit revengeful? How could I have felt so much for him, felt so special around him and shared my body with him and he didn’t even realize how I felt?

  A hand grabbed my arm and spun me around. He was breathing hard, looking down at me.

  “What?” I yelled. Tears were streaming down my face.

  “Why are you running?” he sounded pissed.

  “Just forget I said anything.”

  “I’m not just going to forget that.”

  “You have to,” I was shouting. “I want a redo.”

  “You don’t get a fucking redo on that.” He was practically shouting back.

  We eyeballed each other. My breath was coming through my nose harsh and fast. I broke my gaze away first, unable to maintain eye contact with the intensity that was vibrating out of him. I started to back away from him. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  He reached out and grabbed me, pulling me back. “Stop.”

  I lifted up both hands. “This isn’t something you need to fix Jackson. You were there when everything in my life was going to shit. And frankly, I don’t think anyone could blame me, because anyone would fall for you.”

  “I’m not trying to fix you. I'm trying to understand.” His voice sounded strained.

  “I love you,” I said between gritted teeth. “What’s so hard to understand about that?”

  His head jerked back like I had slapped him. I could see the panic cross his eyes. Since I had known Jackson, this was the first time I felt him losing his grip on his emotions.

  I let out a pent up breath. I needed to let the poor bastard off the hook from his weird sense of responsibility that he carried around for everyone.

  “Jackson, you and I want totally different things. All I want is to feel safe and have a family. Those are my two goals. You live this dangerous life and you don’t want a wife or kids. I always knew nothing could come of us.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I'm saying that you don’t have to worry that I have any expectations from you. We can’t take back what happened and I'll always feel a lot of guilt about that, but I don’t expect anything from you.”

  His head jerked and his jaw tightened. “So what? You are just going to go back to Matt?”

  I drew my breath and then released it. I had no answer to that. Would I ever be able to be with Matt after knowing what it was like to be with Jackson? I was in love with this huge man that stood before me. There was no denying it but it was so obvious that he did not share the same feelings.

  A jarring sound interrupted us. It was Jackson’s cell phone.

  We stood there for a long moment until finally he brought the phone to his ear.

  He answered and then listened. “Okay.”

  He hung up and looked at me with resignation on his face. “Matt just woke up.”

  Oh fuck. It was time to face the music.

  I wiped the tears from my face. “Okay.”

  We started walking towards the hospital doors. I took deep shuddery breaths, trying in vain to compose myself. We got on the elevator and I could feel the emotions rippling through him. What those emotions were, I had no clue. Did it really matter now? The damage was done. We had crossed a line that was so big it was impossible to come back from. Now we needed to deal with the fallout of our actions.

  ***

  The doctor pulled the three of us into the same small room.

  “Well, we have some great news. Matt has woken up. We have taken him off the ventilator. His voice is raspy because his vocal cords are still tender and sore, but he’s talking and his speech patterns seem to be fine. He knows who he is. He knows his name.”

  Irene sagged back into the couch. “Oh thank God.”

  “But it appears that Matt is experiencing some retrograde amnesia.”

  “What does that mean,” Irene’s voice trembled.

  “It seems like Matt has lost a significant chunk of time from his memory.”

  “He can’t remember?”

  “Sometimes memory comes back after a traumatic brain injury, sometimes it doesn’t. Time will tell. But at this point, Matt has no recollection of the past five months of his life.”

  Irene and I both gasped.

  Jackson spoke. “Does he know what happened to him?”

  “We told him he was in a singular vehicle accident and he knows he has lost a significant chunk of time in his memory. The most important thing right now is that we don’t upset him. Keeping him as calm and relaxed as possible is how we can best take care of him.”

  “When can we see him?” Irene was practically vibrating beside me.

  The doctor glanced over at me. I hadn’t yet spoken a word. I hadn’t even moved a muscle. “He’s asking for Emily.”

  I swallowed hard. I had no idea how to deal with this situation. So much had happened in the last five months.

  The doctor stood up. “We don’t want to tire him out, so we are going to keep the visits to five minutes per person for now. Just speak calmly and softly to him. Reassure him if you can.”

  Without looking at either Jackson or Irene, I followed the doctor to Matt’s bedside. Matt’s blue eyes looked up at me. He looked pale and weak lying on the bed surrounded by tubes.

  “Matt,” I said, standing at the foot of the bed. My entire body was shaking.

  His smile was real. “Emily.”

  “You gave us quite the scare,” my voice was soft.

  “Come here,” his voice was raspy. Like he had a terrible cold.

  I walked over to the side of the bed and he grabbed my hand. “Your hair is so long.”

  I gave him a sad smile. “I was growing it out for the wedding.”

  “They told me it is May. My last memory is of going back to work after Christmas.”

  “Do you remember anything after that?” I asked cautiously.

  He frowned and stared up at me. “Nothing.
”

  I nodded and sat gingerly at the chair beside his bed. “Your mom is here. She’s practically beside herself.”

  He studied my face. “You look thinner. Are you okay?”

  I blinked rapidly. “It’s been pretty scary.”

  He grabbed my hand and with that I started to cry again. I sat there smiling at him while giant tears rolled down my face. This was the old Matt. The man I had agreed to marry. The raging lunatic was gone.

  “Emily,” he said softly. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

  I dashed the tears from my face. My throat felt so tight I couldn’t speak. I nodded.

  He shut his eyes and smiled. “I can’t wait to marry you, Emily. In my head we’ve only been engaged a couple weeks and here our wedding is coming up in a couple months.”

  A sob escaped my throat. Somehow Matt had managed to go back in time and the rest of us were stuck in the present. I had no idea how to deal with this. All I knew is that right now, I was not supposed to upset him. “Yeah.”

  He opened his eyes. “Did we plan something good? I know how anxious you were about planning the wedding. I hoped I took enough time to help you get everything ready.”

  A memory of Jackson helping me pick invitations. Doing the cake tasting. Teasing me about my giant wedding binder. More tears squeezed out of my eyes. “It’s pretty much ready, but Matt, we can delay the wedding while you recover.”

  He squeezed my hand. “No way. I can’t wait to marry you. No way are we delaying anything.”

  I swallowed my tears and gave him a watery smile. My poor confused heart was squeezed so tight, I wasn’t sure it was still beating. “We can talk about that later. I think Jackson and your mom want to see you and the doctor said we aren’t allowed to tire you out.”

  His eyes went wide and his body went still. “What did you just say?”

  I shook my head. “We are supposed to only take five minutes each.”

  “What do you mean Jackson is here? Is he here because of the accident?” Matt’s eyes were big.

  I forgot that Matt would not remember inviting Jackson to live with us. All of that had been erased. “Jackson has been living with us for a couple months. You invited him to live with us.”