The Broken Girl (Lonely Girl Book 2) (12 page)

I turn around and come face to face with Charlotte. Her eyes are red and I know she’s been crying. “Don’t you dare, Charlotte. I can’t do much for her but I can do this.” She grabs me by the arm and brings me down the stairs and right out into the backyard. It’s too early for anyone to be out, and I’m happy for the lack of company because Charlotte isn’t going to go along with my plan easily.

“Keegan,
why? I heard her. She will never get past this. I get it, you want to protect her, but she will hate you forever for this.”

I turn away from her
, blocking her from seeing the tears that are falling. “I want her to hate me. She should hate me. Sarah did this to get back at me. She wanted Bec to stay away from me. What if she didn’t stop there? What if she tried again and we aren’t so lucky that one of us found her?” Charlotte puts her hand on my shoulder. She is so much like her cousin.

“We should call the police. They will handle Sarah.”

“No. We have no proof but our word against hers. Bec doesn’t remember anything. Sarah’s brother is a hotshot lawyer in Ottawa. She’s not stupid. She won’t go down for this. Bec will be made to look like a foolish girl who had too much to drink and came up with a lie to get out of it. I won’t let that be Bec, not because of me. I can’t. Her parents will find out and she will be dragged back home and that will kill her. I won’t be the reason for that. So I will take the hate, all of it.” I am barely able to finish my sentence. My entire body is betraying me. Trying to stay calm isn’t working.

“Keegan
, why would you do any of this? I can tell how much this is killing you.”

“Because I love Bec, every goddamn broken piece of her.” Those are the final words that bust up the gates holding me together. This girl has climbed inside and ripped me apart. I begin to bring myself down to the ground
, putting my head in between my knees. Charlotte brings her arms around my shoulder and hugs me. “I know you do. I never doubted that. She may never know the extent you’ve gone for her and what you’ve given up. But I do, and I will never forget what you’ve done for my cousin, Keegan. Thank you for loving her for who she really is.”

I can’t respond because my words have escaped me. My heart is upstairs
, not but a hundred feet away, thinking I drugged her. Wishing she’d never met me, hoping to never lay eyes on me again. Those thoughts are killing me. “She really is amazing, Charlotte. I will never stop loving her.”

“Oh
, Keegan, A broken man loving a broken girl.”

Broken by me.

Becca

What the hell just happened?

“Why?” I keep repeating this. Keegan, oh my god.

“He drugged me.” What the hell is a party favor? Seriously, am I supposed to be okay with this? Did he really expect that? Broken doesn’t even begin to describe my heart right now. Keegan has hurt me in the past but this is a whole different level. I don’t want to believe he would be capable of doing this to me but he said it himself. Maybe I don’t know him at all. My Keegan is dead and gone.  I hear a crash but I’m too emotionally drained to go check it out. Crawling across the floor, I pull myself into the chair in the corner and pull a blanket over me, trying to shut out the world.

I must have nodded off because I hear Charlotte. “Jake, now isn’t the time
, okay?” The door opens and I look over to see Jake standing there. His eyes are tired and he clearly hasn’t slept at all.

“Charlotte
, no. I need to talk to her so either get out or stay.” Charlotte looks to me with such pity. Has she talked to Keegan? Does everyone know?

“Becca, you don’t have to do this right now.” The look on her face is telling me to send Jake away but I just can’t right now
. I need him.

“Charlotte
, shut the door. I need to see Jake.” Jake’s face is full of relief, however, Charlotte looks nervous. She does what I ask though.

“Call me if you need me
, Becca. This will get better. I promise you.” Well, that answers my question about her knowing about the drugs. She pulls the door closed quietly and leaves me with Jake.

“Jake.” It’s all I get out before my tears have return
ed.

“Becca, I am so sorry.” I don’t want to talk about any of this; I just need Jake right now. He’s always there when I need him. “Becca, I need to talk to you. I just need you to listen okay.” I’m shaking my head before he’s finished.

“No. I’ve done enough listening today, I think.”

“Becca
, I need to clarify some things about what went down last night. Alec doesn’t know.” I was ready to stop him and scream for him to shut up but this is something I didn’t know.

“Alec doesn’t know about the drugs
?” Jake shakes his head in response.

“We knew if he found out about it he’d have called an ambulance and your parents. I know you didn’t want them to try and make you go home again.” Jake was thinking about me
. At least someone was worried about how this would screw up my life.

“When you say
we
?” I begin to ask him the question, but I feel like I already know the answer.

“Charlotte, Keegan
, and myself.” I gasp. Charlotte must have known afterwards. She’d never have let the drugs be given to me. I begin to back away from him, pulling myself up in the chair.

Jake is looking at me with such pain
on his face. I’m so tired of everyone else feeling hurt. “You knew about the drugs and didn’t stop it.” Jake had been reaching out to put his hand on me. When he heard what I said, he pulled back as if I had stung him.

“You think I knew about the drugs before
? You think I’d let that happen to you. I know you don’t remember but we had a fight last night. Even though I was angry, I’d never knowingly let harm come to you, Becca. I love you.”

This is why I
had always run to Jake. He was my rock, the one I could always depend on. “Wait, we fought? About what, Jacob?” He seems upset and I wonder how bad it was.

“None of it matters because I was so stupid to do it.” He’s trying to brush what happened under the rug,
so I must have been awful to him.

“Jake, please tell me
. I feel like everything has been taken from me. I want to know.” The irony of how Keegan must be feeling with his memory loss isn’t lost on me, but I push him out of my mind.

My hand goes to lie over top of Jake’s and rub the top of his hand with the bottom of my thumb. “I told you goodbye.” The hand that had been resting on Jake’s is now no longer there. It was
as if it automatically recoiled at his words.

“You did it again. You pushed me away
, Jake.”

“Becca
, God, I was so stupid. I regret it so much.” He looks torn but I can’t begin to understand. I’m too emotionally overwhelmed.

“Jake, just go. I don’t need your pity. It’s become very clear to me that I’m very much on my own here. After everything we’ve been through
, you were just going to walk away. I don’t need people like that in my life, Jacob.” He goes tense at my use of his name. He begins looking around as if the room has the answers he is so desperately seeking.

“Keegan…”

I interrupt him. “Jake, I don’t want to talk about Keegan, not now, not ever. I’m done with him.” My tone was firm. He looks lost at my words but doesn’t question it.

“Sarah…”

I put my hands up stopping him again. “I definitely don’t want to talk about that stupid bitch either.” He lets out a heavy sigh.

“Fine
, Becca. Just know I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You’re my best friend.” I pull Jake to me and wrap my arms around him. Jake is safe. He always has been. “Becca, no one will ever know what happened, I promise you.” I hold him tightly pressing him against me. “But Becca, there is something I have to tell you about last night and I need to tell you. I need you to just listen, please. I’m begging you to just remember I love you.”

My heart drops. I feel like the rug is again about to be pulled out from under me. I just nod because I know I won’t be able to use my words. “Becca
, before our fight is when I’m assuming the drug mishap happened. Then we had this huge blowout and I said some awful things, which I’m glad you don’t remember. There was just so much anger. I didn’t want to fight any more after you walked away from me.” My heart slowly starts coming back to its rightful place. If a big fight is all I need to worry about, I can deal with that, especially in light of all the all chaos that has taken over my life.

“Jake
, I don’t blame you for not wanting to fight with me. I walked away most likely so no further damage could be done.” I’m not sure if that’s true or if I walked away because the damage was already done, but I guess I will never know. There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions lately.

“Becca, you walked away because I told you I was done, that I was letting go.”

I can’t move. I just sit there. I know he’d said this already but to hear him tell me why he hadn’t chased me was a whole different thing.

“Okay.” That’s all I can say. I don’t really know what he expects me to say but this can’t be the entire bomb he’s looking to drop on me. “Jake
, I don’t remember the fight, so can’t we just leave it at that? Unless you’d like to reiterate it so I know what you actually want from me.” The sarcasm in my voice is definitely being picked up on by Jake now.

“Becca
, something happened before Keegan found you.” I wince at his name and the facts of him ‘saving me.’

“What
, Jake, is it really important? I already know this is entirely his fault. Can’t we just leave it at that and move on.” Did something happen to me that Keegan didn’t know about? “I don’t want to know. If something happened to me I’d rather be ignorant to it, thank you very much.”

“God
, Beckers, no! Nothing like that happened to you. I promise.” Now I’m lost. What is he talking about?

“Jakey, you’re worrying me now.”

“Just know that I love you. I never would have done this had I known. I should have known just by the sound of your voice but I was too hurt to pay any attention.” His words are like ice in my veins.

“What did you do
, Jacob?” My mind is running away with ideas of what happened last night. Did I catch him with someone again? Was it Kristy? Did he tell me he didn’t love me?

“After you ran away from me
, you were gone for about twenty minutes. You came behind me and called my name. I should have known. But I didn’t. I just walked away from you, Becca. I left you drugged and alone.” And just like that everything I thought I knew about the people in my life had changed.

I move away from him
, putting some much needed distance between us. “Did you look at me, Jake? Did you see me when I spoke your name?”

He shakes his head. “You were behind me,
and I heard you call my name. I never turned around, I just walked out the door and left.”

“You were that mad at me that you couldn’t even look at me. You couldn’t just say anything to me. What the hell is wrong with you people?” I will not cry any more today
, or so my mind tells my tears, but they don’t seem to be listening.

“Becca, if I had known…”

“No! But you didn’t because you were too upset with me, right? Too upset to turn and even glance at your best friend.” Jake’s eyes are glazed over and I know he’s hurting, but I’m enraged.

“Leave.”

“Becca, no, please.” He goes to reach for me but I pull away. “I said leave! Come on, Jake, you should be good at it by now. You wanted to leave me last night so just do it. Leave, I don’t need a friend who left me alone when I needed him. I run to you Jake, I always have and when I needed you… Where were you? Fucking Kristy again?” He winces at my tone and words. I know I’m being harsh but I don’t give a shit. The two people I thought I could trust have let me down.

“I’m sorry my life is screwed up and I couldn’t just deal with it normally. This isn’t easy for me,
and nothing has been clear to me until now. The confusion and doubts I had have left. I choose… and it’s neither of you. I choose heartbreak. That’s what you’ve done to me, Jacob Kelso. As much as I love Keegan, it was always you I went to… Why? Because you were the love of my life.” All the tears have dried up. I feel like this is it for everything. I’m done.

“I love you
, Rebecca. Believe that.” Jake is just staring at me, trying to reach into my heart but my heart is in a million pieces right now and is in no way ready to be put back together. “Damn it, Becca, why can’t you just let me love you, for fuck sakes. I love you. Why is that so wrong? Why do you push me away?”

Really
. I’m pushing him away. “No, Jake, you pushed me away. You pushed me to stay with Keegan. You left me alone in the dorms and you told me goodbye yesterday.”

“You don’t understand
, Becca. Just let me love you.” Jake is pleading with his eyes but my heart isn’t responding. It’s using the only strength it has left to keep it beating.