by G. Bailey
"What the fuck was that for?" Gage angrily shouts. He is always angry now, far more than I’ve ever seen him be. Even when we got that phone call from our parents to tell us about David, he wasn’t this bad. That phone call still haunts me to this very day, and I’m sure it’s the same for him. Except somehow, the look on Trixy’s face, the hurt in her green eyes as the rain poured down on us, haunts me so much I can’t hardly think about it. I should have stopped my brothers and told them to deal with their emotions over David in another way. Yes, Trixy did something wrong, so has everyone at some point, but we had no right to be her judge and to deliver punishment. We are fuckers who never deserved her in the first place. Now we will never see her again, and I really think we deserve that.
"Turn it back on, you fucker," Garett commands, and as he looks at me, I want to hit him so fucking badly, but he already looks like shit. No sleep and plenty of drinking will do that to a person.
"No. We need to get Trixy back. We love her, and I don't know about you two, but I don't want my life without her in it," I growl at them.
"David—" Garett starts off.
"Is dead. We never asked her about what happened that night. I'm angry she broke his heart, and he felt so down that he had to do that to himself, but it isn't going to fix anything now," I reply, getting madder. I know she wanted to tell us something, and we didn’t let her. I’m so fucking embarrassed of myself and my brothers, it’s unreal.
"I can't forgive her for David. It wouldn't be right," Gage snaps.
"Then you want to live like this?" I ask, waving a hand around the room. "Missing her because you know there is no one else in this world like Trixy. I love her, and I just want to talk to her."
"We can't forgive her for what happened! She was selfish, and it cost David his life. Our little brother, remember him?" Gage shouts, standing up with his fists at his side. I stand up and storm over to him, lifting my fist and punching him in the mouth. He bounces back from the hit and smirks at me before wiping the blood off his bottom lip. I wait for him to hit back, but Garett gets up, stepping between us and shaking his head, just as someone rings the doorbell.
"Get the door, Griff. Don't be a dick. We all miss her, but we had to do it," Garett says, and he isn't even angry anymore. It's like all the fight left him the moment Trixy did. Someone rings the doorbell again, this time they keep pressing it to the point that it is annoying.
"Fine," I growl and push past my brothers to the front door. I pull it open to find a dark-haired woman holding a toddler on her hip. There is a young guy leaning on the wall at her side, his arms crossed, and he looks like he would kill me if I even thought of pissing this woman off. The woman looks nervous as she clears her throat and looks to her baby before back to me.
"What do you want?" I ask, crossing my arms and feeling my brothers step behind me to see what the hell is going on. The woman lifts her head high and levels her gaze with me.
"My name is Lottie, and this is Noah. Noah is your nephew and David's son. Will you let me and my boyfriend, Jake, in so I can tell you the whole story of what happened the night David died?” I nearly trip back as I try to process her words, and instead, I just look to the toddler in her arms. His black hair and blue eyes are like ours and David's, but I know this baby is related to me simply by his face alone. He is the image of us, my brothers. Shock, denial and a little bit of pain slam so hard into me that I’m surprised there isn’t a knife in my chest when I look down. I look back to Gage and Garett, who are as shocked as I am, before I step back and wave her in. Lottie walks in with Jake following, and he stops, making sure Lottie is heading into the living room and can't hear before he looks me dead in the eye.
"If you or your family attempt to take Noah from Lottie, you will find out what it means to mess with the King family. Lottie is one of us now, and I love her. Remember that," he firmly tells us. Though the guy isn’t as stocky as us, I have no doubt he could hold his own in a fight. Pretty boy or not, he sounds menacing when he talks like that.
"Got it," I say before my brothers can respond to that threat. Jake smiles at Lottie when she looks back, acting like he didn't just threaten us or anything. I shut the door and wordlessly follow my brothers over to the sofas. Gage leans against the fireplace as I sit down on the chair I was just in, and Garett picks up some beer bottles in an attempt to clean.
"You guys aren't doing good without Trixy, are you?" Lottie says, shaking her head. I guess the fucking state of the room gave us away. Or our tired and messed up faces.
"You know Trixy?" Gage asks as Garett stops next to him.
"Who do you think helped me?" she sarcastically comments. Noah chuckles and grabs at Lottie's hair, so Jake picks him up off her and stands up.
"I will take him for a walk outside. This isn't a conversation for a kid to hear," Jake says, clearly trusting us not to fuck up and upset his girl. I nod once to him before he kisses Lottie on the head and walks out of the house with Noah.
"Trixy helped you?" Garett asks.
"You didn't know your brother, not the one behind the scenes at least. He was good at acting all sweet and nice, and very good at lying," she explains to me. I’m utterly confused how she is even in the UK. How did Trixy help, and why did she? David wasn’t a liar, so this Lottie chick didn’t know him that well.
"He wasn't like that," Gage angrily protests. "David was a good kid."
"The night David killed himself was the same night I told him I was pregnant. I used to go to school with him and Trixy, though I didn't know Trixy much. I thought David and I were a couple. It was my first time, and he told me all kinds of sweet things to get me into bed. After we had sex, he pretended I didn't exist. I was upset, but even more so when I found out the condom didn't work and I was pregnant. My parents made it clear it was them or the baby, and you can see who I chose," she tells me, and after having seen Noah, I’m fucking glad she made that decision. He is all we have left of David, no matter how fucked up he apparently was.
The sick truth of it all is that we ignored him. When we got the phone call to say he was dead, we were high as fuck and drunk off our asses after a match. I’d ignored all his calls that night, so did Garett and Gage. We could have saved the idiot, and now he is dead. A waste because no matter the mistakes he made, he was our brother and too young to have given up on life already.
"Noah," I fill in as she pauses, wiping a tear away with a shaky hand. One look at Gage and Garett, and the confusion on their faces tells me everything.
"Yes. I wanted him from the moment I knew I was pregnant even though I was scared. So my parents kicked me out, and I didn't know where to go. I went to David, hoping he could help me at least for a few nights until I got on my feet," she explains to us. Her parents are shit bags for doing that to her. That’s rich people for you though. They love to keep appearances up no matter what the cost.
"Did he?" Gage asks, but I’m getting a feeling we all know the answer.
"No. I was outside his house when Trixy drove him home from the party. He was drunk, but I needed help, and he didn’t care. David made it clear he wanted me gone and had no interest in helping. He was horrible to me, but Trixy told me I could stay with her and gave me her car to drive to her house. It was raining, we were all overly emotional, but she didn’t have to help me. Trixy went to talk to him, to calm him down and wait for him to sober up," she explains to us.
I didn’t know any of this. Trixy was smart enough to leave the country after the police spoke to her. We thought she ran because she was guilty, but the police said no one was involved in David taking his life, and the letter he left proved that. They couldn’t stop her, her parents hired the best lawyer straight on the case anyway. It was thrown out the window before it was even opened.
"What happened next?" I ask her. I, no we, need to know what happened on the last night our brother was alive. We have been too big of cowards to ask Trixy like we should have done. This conversation should have been with her.
; "I think Trixy should tell you—"
"Tell us now, Lottie. I mean it," I gently tell her, but I’m firm enough to make it clear she isn’t leaving this house until she tells us. We god damn scare her, I can see it in her eyes, and she is one hell of a good friend to Trixy to be here right now.
"Fine. David attacked her and tried to rape her because she said she didn't see him as anything more than a brother. Trixy ran away after she just barely escaped, with bruises to prove what she told me. I’d believe her anyway, I knew what David was really like after I slept with him. David said some terrible things to her, and Trixy was a mess for a long time because of what your brother did. We both were," she pauses for a second as I try to process what she is telling me as anger and pain floods my emotions. He hurt her? He tried to rape her? The fucking bastard. "Trixy's parents disowned her because they believed David's letter, and she had no one, but she still looked after me. Trixy sold all her designer stuff, her car and anything she could to raise money to pay for me. Her aunt legally adopted me, and once Noah was born here, I got to stay here permanently."
“Fuck,” is all I can mutter as I wipe my face. We fucked up so badly.
“Trixy is the best person in the damn fucking world. I really mean that because she is better than anyone I know. She is kinder, stronger and sweeter than most people. Anyone in her position would have left me behind and looked after themselves. Instead, she made herself broke and changed her entire life to help me and never once asked for anything back other than friendship. Hell, she even babysits for me despite the fact Noah loves to pull her hair out and be sick on her,” she says and laughs a little. “Now that I’m thinking about it, she might be a little crazy. She does that for me, and then she falls in love with you idiots who hurt her. You guys better hope she is crazy enough to forgive you.”
"Trixy never told us," Garett almost whispers, his voice cracking. "Why the fuck wouldn't she tell us all this?"
"Because I asked her not to. I was scared you or your parents might go for custody of Noah. I'm a single mum who is training to run a bakery. I couldn't fight billionaires in court for Noah without losing," she admits, and I see her point.
"We don't talk to our parents, and they do not deserve to know about Noah. They never cared for us or David, so they wouldn't care for Noah. We wouldn't do that to you, but I know I speak for all of us when I say we would like to be in Noah's life," I say to her, because if this has taught us anything, it’s that we need to focus on the future. Focusing on the past clearly has done nothing but destroy us.
"I'd like that, and I'm sure Noah would," she says, and I’m fucking relieved she doesn’t think we are monsters and won’t let us near Noah. He is family, and I want to know him growing up.
"Good," I mutter, rubbing my face. This changes everything, and I need to make sure my brothers are on the same page as I am. I look at them, and I’m not sure. They look confused and messed up.
"One more thing I need to tell you," she says.
"What?" I gently ask as I look back at her.
"If you are planning on winning Trixy back, you have a hell of a job. None of you deserve even one hair on her head, but lucky for you, she loves you all. Trixy is stubborn though. If you love her and want her back, you will need to fight like crazy," she warns, crossing her arms. I look to my brothers, seeing the same guilt I'm feeling shining in their eyes. We are all a mess, lost in the fucking darkness without her because she is our light. She always has been, but we were idiots not to see it.
“We want her back.” Garett’s comment is simple.
“We will get her back. Life is fucking worthless without her. The funny thing is, we set out to ruin her for David. Instead, she destroyed us, and now without her, we are nothing.” I smile at Gage’s comment. He is beyond right. All I want is for Trixy to spend the rest of her life ruining us.
I want her back. I want her for fucking forever.
Trixy Ansley belongs to us.
And we are going to fight for her and never stop until she forgives us, because if anyone in the world is worth it, it is Trixy. Trixy is worth the world.
"We are closed, sorry," I shout after hearing the doorbell ring, indicating someone has come into the bakery. I finish wiping the table down before I turn around and freeze, seeing the Hallow brothers stood in front of the door. I didn’t expect to see them, and the cloth falls out of my hand in shock. They look good, too good, considering I really hate them. Hate isn’t even the right word for my feelings towards them. I don’t know what is. I love them. I hate them. I don’t know what to do with them now they are here in front of me. They are dressed as usual, smart but casual, and somehow looking better than anyone else around them.
"Can we talk to you for a bit?" Griffin asks, and even hearing him speak hurts deep down in my chest. I try to focus on the street outside, the sun setting in the distance, and how for a little second, there is silence before the heavy traffic moves and cars flash by.
"Are you planning on breaking my heart for a game again? Because I don't want to fucking play. Get out," I tell them, shaking my head and crossing my arms, waiting for them to leave, but they don't. Something has changed, because they don't look confident. They look...broken. It's the only reason I don't run away and I stay still, waiting for them to explain anything.
"Lottie turned up at our door yesterday," Gage explains to me, stepping around his brother and pulling out a chair at the table in front of them. My heart pounds deep in my chest, worried for my friend and little Noah. I don’t trust anything to do with the Hallow brothers anymore, and I sure as shit don’t trust them around some of the most important people in my life. He sits down, crossing his arms against his leather jacket. "We have a cute little nephew and a girlfriend we need to apologise to."
"You think an apology will cut it?" I say, a hollow laugh escaping my lips from the pure anger I feel at him calling me their girlfriend. That isn’t me anymore. "Did Lottie tell you how David tried to rape me? How he tried to hurt me because he was an asshole? Did she tell you how I'm sick of you Hallow brothers trying to destroy my life? You've won, you hurt me more than David ever could have. What else could you possibly want from me?" I shout at them, tears burning my eyes, and I see how much my words hurt them. I'll admit it feels almost good to hurt them as they did me, though I love them still, so I'm conflicted about saying anything more. They confuse me more than I'd like to admit. A stupid part of me wants to cuddle them and tell them it’s all going to be okay. Feelings are so fucking confusing at times.
"You in our lives. For good because we love you," Garett is the one that says it, and it completely throws me off from my angry rant for a clear moment. They know everything, but it doesn't mean for one second that I can forgive them for what they did. I cried for two days in my aunt's arms, and since then, I've been nothing but mad and hurt. I've thrown myself into working here until the university is open again. Then I plan to finish university and never see any of them again. I can’t. Not after this.
"I can't forgive you," I honestly tell them because I don’t want to lead them on.
"Yes, you can. In time. When we prove that we are forever for you, Trix," Griffin gently says, taking a step closer. "We love you, and we will do anything to make this right."
"I want you to all leave," I say, my voice catching, and I quickly walk to the counter, opening the door up and getting to the other side. The brothers follow me over, but they let me have my safety on this side of the counter at least.
"We will go, but every day, we are coming back. I don't care if it takes months or even years. We are yours," Garett tells me, pleading with me from the tone in his voice. “We are so fucking sorry. I messed up, and if I could take it all back, I would. I will never hurt you again, and that is a fucking promise. You’re our world, our girl and our family all in one. No one could replace you or be anything close to how amazing you are. I love you, that is the truth. People lash out at the ones they love just because it is easier than facing the
ir own guilt. I feel so fucking guilty about David, all of us do. We should have been there for him and made sure he didn’t turn out the way he did, and we took that out on you. You have no clue how sorry we are.”
"I love you, Trix,” Gage says. “Everything we did was from anger and not knowing the truth. I thought David was a kind and sweet kid, and we didn't know him. That was our fault, and then when we read that letter, I thought we could finally do something for him, even if it was too late. Grief makes you think crazy things, but no matter what happened, I never lied about loving you," Gage tells me and rubs his face before looking back at me as I wipe a few tears that have fallen away.
"I understand that. I really do, but I don't think I will be able to pretend you all didn't lie and hurt me. I really fell for you. Despite everything, I wanted us. Now I want you to leave. We all need to move on with our lives," I tell them, no matter how much it hurts to say it. The truth is I don’t want them not in my lives. I love them, each one of them for a different reason, and I’m always thinking of them. I don’t know exactly how to feel alive without them with me…but I’m no pushover. I can’t just forget the past, it isn’t that simple.
"There is no moving on for us, Trix. You're everything in our future, or we will have nothing at all," Gage says, and I turn my gaze away from him because his words make me feel like I can't breathe.
"See you tomorrow, Trix," Garett says before grabbing Gage's arm and forcing him to leave the bakery. Griffin stands still before pulling out a thick wad of notes folded in half. He has been silent, letting his brothers say everything he wanted to. Griffin isn’t the one who is good with words like his brothers. Something has changed though because the Hallow brothers are walking away without getting what they want.