Chapter 11 Lily
LILY
TWELVE MONTHS AGO
Today is my brother’s funeral. A day I never thought I would experience, not at this age anyway.
I mean sure, I imagined losing him one day, when we were both old and gray, but not like this.
He was all I had left, my anchor, and I knew if he died first that it would always hit me hard, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality. He’s dead. My brother is dead.
There is a firm knock at my door, but even in the silence of my room it doesn’t startle me, I feel nothing anymore. I’m not surprised in the slightest when the door opens and Max pops his head inside, but I don’t bother moving from my spot in bed.
“We’re going to be late if you don’t get dressed,” he tells me gently, and I fucking hate the sympathy I hear in his tone.
“I don’t think dead people care if you’re late,” I reply with no emotion, and Max sighs, slipping inside my room and closing the door behind him.
“Lils, please,” he pleads, moving to my bedside and dropping to his knees until he can be in my line of sight.
“You will hate yourself if you miss it, and we both know Logan would want you there.” The sound of my twin's name is like a knife to my gut, and I close my eyes as a tear slips down my cheek.
Max reaches out and swipes it up without a word, and it only twists the knife even deeper.
“I still can’t believe he’s dead. He’s gone, Max, he’s gone and he’s never coming back,” I choke out, a sob wracking my chest, and before I can say anything else, Max is pulling back my sheets and climbing into my bed, dragging me into his arms.
“Come here, princess.”
For the last week he has barely left my side.
It’s like the second my brother’s heart stopped beating, he knew he had to step in and take care of me, and I know why.
I know it so deeply that it fucking kills me, because two weeks ago I could see a future for us I never imagined, but now, all I see is death.
It doesn’t matter what he feels anymore, because I no longer feel anything but pain.
Max lets me sob into his chest for I don’t know how long, before he gently pulls back and wipes the tears from my cheeks. “I just need you to get through today, Lils, just be there for Zack, for your parents, and then you can come back here and fall apart for as long as you need.”
His arms feel like they are physically holding me together, like if he lets go I will fall apart, and I want to beg him to.
I don’t want to go to my brother’s funeral, I want to climb in the coffin beside him and seal my fate right alongside his.
But the way Max is looking at me right now, is like he would die if anything happened to me.
It’s almost too much to bear, and I shove myself out of his hold just to get away from it.
I can’t let myself love someone else.
I loved my parents and then I lost them.
I loved my brother and now he’s dead.
No, from now on the only thing I will feel is pain.
I feel his eyes on me as I snatch the dress that my mom picked out off the wardrobe door, before discarding my pjs and putting it on.
Then I pull my hair back into a slick bun, forgoing makeup, instead pulling out a large pair of black sunglasses from one of my drawers.
When I slip on my shoes, another sob gets caught in the back of my throat, as my body registers what I am now ready for.
Logan’s last words once again flow through me, and if my heart wasn’t already shattered, it would break all over again. Inhaling deeply, I let the tears fall down my face, as I rise to my feet and nod at Max to let him know I am ready to go.
It turns out Max was right, when we get to the funeral, we are the last ones to arrive, and with a steady arm around my shoulders he guides us to our seats.
I can feel everyone’s stare on me, my parents’, Zack’s, Elle’s, even some of my brother’s friends from college, but when I turn I find only the stormy eyes of Asher Donovan.
He looks as broken as I feel, and I’m not just talking about the mess of his face.
It’s completely marred in cuts and bruises, ones I barely registered when he and Logan were both brought back to the house, presumably saved, but now they are all I can look at.
His face is swollen, the bruises flowing down into the collar of his shirt, and I’m almost certain the rest of his body must look the same.
I’ve seen him in such a state only twice before, once when his brother’s men tried to kill him, and once when he took the bullet meant to kill Elle, but never did he look this broken.
His body may have once again survived, but this time, like me, his heart did not.
There is no sign of Lincoln, and I’m not sure if I’m glad of that fact or not.
I know deep down it’s not his fault, but he is still the reason my brother is dead.
The service begins, and I move my focus back to the sleek, black coffin that houses my brother, and tune everything else out.
I don’t hear the prayers or kind words, no, the only thing I hear is my brother saying my nickname one last time.
The only thing I feel is the deep vast of emptiness in my chest, where my beating heart once lay, and all I see is the fucking box his life was reduced to.
Before I know it, it’s over, my twin is lowered into the ground, and I know nothing will ever feel the same again.
I don’t have to tell Max I won’t be attending the wake, he just knows, driving me straight back to the house instead, and even when I’m safely back in my room there, I can still feel the weight of this fucking day.
“Do you want to shower?” Max asks, tapping away on his phone, before shrugging off his jacket and tossing it on the chair, but I shake my head.
“Okay, then how about some food?” he pushes on, and I feel his stare on me, as I kick off my shoes and slide back into bed, in the exact same spot he found me in earlier.
“No, I’m fine, you can go,” I snap, needing him to leave so I can just fall apart in peace, but sometimes I forget how persistent he can be.
“Baby, please,” he pleads, and the two words hurt almost as much as the last ones Logan said, especially when he once again moves to my bedside and drops to his knees. “Tell me what I can do, because seeing you like this is fucking killing me.”
My vision blurs as fresh tears gather in my eyes, but I quickly blink them away.
“You should go,” I tell him again, and his frown deepens.
“I’m not fucking going anywhere, princess,” he snaps, clearly getting annoyed, but I’m too far gone to care.
“Well I’m not really in the mood to fuck, Foster,” I snap, pushing up from my spot on the bed and putting some distance between us, but still I see him flinch back as if I physically hit him.
“That’s not why I’m here and you know it,” he sighs, pushing back to his feet, and I fucking hate how reasonable he is.
“Then why are you here?”
I don’t know why I ask that. I know why he’s here, why he’s been here every day since my brother died, but we can’t go on, not like this. I recognize the look in his eyes, because two weeks ago I saw it in my own when I looked in the mirror, but things are different now.
“I’m here because I care about you, because I want to make sure you’re okay, because I lov….”
I cut him off quickly. “Last time I checked you don’t have to keep watch over your fuck buddies.” I feel his sharp intake of breath like it’s my own, but all he does is roll his shoulders.
“We’re more than that and you know it,” he tells me firmly, and I know for this to end, I’m going to have to hurt him even more than I’m hurting myself.
“No, we’re not. We both know why this started, and just because you're a good lay, doesn’t mean I want more.
You and I aren’t anything more than that, I told you at the wedding it was nothing, and now we’re over.
” I’m surprised I get the words out without my voice breaking, it’s probably the clearest sentence I have been able to utter all week, and I see the crack in him, which means I know I need to keep going.
“Now close the door on your way out,” I add, moving back to my bed and climbing back between my sheets.
Max remains frozen for a second, processing each of my words like they are the most unbelievable thing he has ever heard, before he nods slowly. I watch as he grabs his jacket, pockets his phone, and then storms toward the door, before pausing when he rips it open.
“I guess it’s back to being friends then, hey, princess?” he tosses over his shoulder with a smirk, before he walks out and slams the door behind him.
Then I cry. Not just for my brother, but also for the man I could have let myself love, but had to push away instead.