Summer with a Brother’s Best Friend (Love Beach Collection)

7. Reece

7 YEARS AGO

7

Ilet my eyes fall shut and will the tears not to fall as Maddox goes on and on about what comes next when the three of us return to Love Beach after finishing our associates degrees. He’s excited. Animated. And he should be. He’s getting to live his dream of following in our father’s footsteps—becoming a firefighter and serving in our hometown.

“Isn’t that great? And Mom is so excited about you getting into her alma mater for nursing school. It’s crazy we’re just like them, right? And it will be us in Love Beach again, like, this is it—what we’ve always wanted!” Maddox whoops, completely oblivious to the shell of myself I’ve become in the last two years.

“I’m not going,” I whisper, the declaration like a record scratch in the room.

“What? Of course you are. It’s just like we talked about, like you’ve always wanted,” Maddox says, emphasizing the words even as confusion mars his face.

“It’s what Mom wants—what you want—but no one ever asked me what I want!” Maddox freezes as he stares at me, his gaze bouncing between me and Isaac who is uncharacteristically quiet. I can’t look at my boyfriend; I can’t bear to see the hurt on his face.

“What are you saying?” my brother asks quietly.

“I’m saying that I got into the nursing program, but I also found a teaching program a few hours away that’s incredible that I applied to.” Steeling myself for the inevitable, I add, “And I was accepted.”

“And you’re…” Isaac’s voice is pained like he can’t get out the words, because he knows without me even saying it. It’s over. We’re over. Because I won’t make him choose me over my brother.

Maddox would see it as a betrayal from Isaac if he followed me and I can’t do that—to either of them.

“Not going back,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I ever will.” Isaac’s eyes are glassy as they meet mine.

It’s stupid but I know my brother better than I know myself, and we’d never survive this.

“So that’s it?” Maddox practically yells over the silent communication I’m having with his best friend.

“It’s what I want.”

“But Love Beach is our home.”

“I don’t want to be a nurse, Mads. I don’t want to be like Mom, and I don’t want to go back home! I need more than Love Beach. I need more than just being in our hometown when no one actually sees me.”

“You’re going to throw everything away to be a teacher? You could be anything, Reece. And what about Isaac?”

“It’s not throwing everything away! It’s what I want; you’re just not listening.”

“And my best friend?” he says again as Isaac watches us.

“We will talk about it in private,” I say as my boyfriend’s eyelids flutter closed.

“How could you break us? This is bullshit!” Maddox yells, and it’s the only thing that pulls Isaac back to the present as he stands and gets between us.

“Don’t talk to your sister like that,” he snaps, my brother’s cheeks reddening as they stare each other down.

“If this is over,” Maddox says, waving his hand between us, “then that’s it. You’re done. There’s no sides, and you don’t do this again. I was cool with it, but I won’t stand by and watch you tear each other apart. Tear us apart. Not again.”

“What? That’s not—” Isaac starts but Mads cuts him off.

“You promised me.” He looks around his best friend to me. “Both of you.”

“Maddox.”

“I’m serious, Reece. You guys want to ruin your relationship, that’s on you, but this is it. There’s no second chance after this. You promised me.”

He’s angry—angrier than I’ve ever seen him—but he’s still my brother, and even though he’s being a jackass, I still love him.

“Okay.”

Isaac says the same and then it’s just us left in my dorm room, the sound of the door slamming behind Mads deafening as we both stare at the inevitable end. It isn’t until Isaac turns toward me, absolutely wrecked, that I lose it. Falling into his arms, I cry—we both do—as we mourn the end of us and the finality of promising never again.