“Stop disrespecting them, or I leave for good, and you’ll never hear from me again!” My chest vibrates in anger, and I force myself to control my rage a little bit as I say, “If it’s anyone’s word I’m buying, father, it’s Evelyn’s.”
“What do you mean?” Gabriel’s eyes questions in bewilderment.
“What she means,” Lexi starts to explain, “Is that I gave her Evelyn’s diary, so she could learn from Evelyn the truth.”
“What diary?” My father’s eyebrows furrow.
“The diary you didn’t know existed: Evelyn’s diary. Her whole life is in there, so I pulled it out from its hiding spot in Evelyn’s room before you burned her stuff and decided to move from Liverpool to London. It’s amazing, isn’t it?” She lets out a humourless chuckle as she clarifies, “You spent the last five years threatening me not to open my mouth only for Evangeline to finally learn the truth from herself.”
Trevor’s fists shake as if holding himself from punching her, and his actions cause nothing but merely hurt me. Why would my brother side with my parents’ side on this? Is it a simple hatred he secretly has for Adam, or has my father tricked him into believing that living in a much greater luxury than what we already have is better than leaving your sister find her true love on her own?
Trevor takes a threatening step towards her and before he snarls out a curse, Lexi steps in his direction, reducing the little distance already existing between them, and my eyes widen in disbelief when she punches him right in the jaw.
Within three seconds, Lexi managed to have the spotlights on her.
Giving me a sneaky smile, which no one caught but me, she looks at Trevor’s flabbergasted yet painful expression as he massages his bruising jaw before she mutters, “You, Trevor, are the biggest asshole of them all. I’ve literally grown up with you, and other than the fact that you so blindly supported your parents’ decisions on corrupting your sister’s life, you didn’t even give me a chance to fix it. In my chest, your torments still exist because you never stopped with the threats, and somehow you didn’t only lose your sister, but you lost me as well. You were like this brother I’ve never had ever since we were young, and, now, your image of a fancier life has led you to losing the two closest people you had. Just know that your decisions came at the expense of losing us because even if you’re ever forgiven, there will still be this tiny gap you broke in our hearts. Now that it’s all out, I’m out of here.”
Lexi walks over to me, pulls me into a hug, whispers how she’ll now cross ‘punching someone’ off of her bucket list, and tells me that she’ll head home because there’s just ‘too much drama in the air’ for her taste.
Trevor’s eyes switch its glance from Lexi’s retrieving back to me, and I catch the defeated look in them, and that’s all that mattered to me right now. Seeing the apology in my brother’s eyes, I feel like this is the first step towards fixing our relationship. My father, nonetheless, ruined the spark of hope that bloomed in me by opening his mouth.
“How do you know that this diary your friend gave you isn’t something twisted she created to turn your wrath on us?” He crosses his arms over his chest with daring eyes.
“Are you insinuating that Lexi wrote what I read to trick me into hating you?” I grit my teeth.
Fury, at its highest, started swelling in my chest and just before I continue offering my father a piece of my mind, my mom looks at me with defeated eyes as she softly says, “There’s no need to deny anything anymore, George. Stop beating around the bush. If she knows the truth, I may as well start begging her for forgiveness, even though it was your call- your mistake.” Her eyes, which are tainted with sadness, avert to my dad as she continues, “I’m not willing to lose my daughter again, George. You may as well start picking sides. The success of your business or the love of your daughter.”
A small bud of love bloomed a little bit for my mom as she spoke, and the hope that was just buried started replanting itself in my chest.
“You know it’s not that easy.” My father seethes with a blood-boiling voice.
My father shares a look with Gabriel who starts explaining, “This contract was signed in a courthouse. When we signed it, we agreed to the terms and conditions that would follow if one of the contract’s partners disregarded it in any way. If one were to ever deny this contract, they would have to pay the other agreeing partner half his fortune; otherwise, they’ll end up in jail.”
Even though my eyes widened in terror at this new piece of information, that I was oblivious about, hurt stabbed my chest like a knife at a certain question. A question that I suddenly feel I now know the answer to.
Is your daughter not worth half your fortune?
Looking around the room, Adam, Adrien, Gina and Trevor’s eyes mirrored mine, which got me thinking that maybe I’m not the only one who didn’t know about this. Mom is the only person in the room who seems to have known about the consequences of not fulfilling the statement of the contract. Well, it’s either that or she’s not fazed by Gabriel’s words.
“Wait.” I shake my head slightly trying to understand before I ask, “Are you saying that if you don’t want to abide by the
