MOONDUST

59 🌙 I'm suffering

Jules Martin

I was still in shock as I watched Céline leave the table to hug our brother. "I still don't forgive you, but you look like you need a hug." She said as he desperately tried to wipe away his tears, caused by non-other than the ugly truth he had carried with him for the last year.

He looked at me, scanning me for my reaction, any reaction as soon as Céce let go of him. "Jules, I'm sorry. I really am." I rubbed my face, still finding it hard to take any of his words to heart. "I made a mistake. One I have regretted ever since. I regret falling for it, I regret not telling you about the way it went down." He swallowed before his voice could crack. "I regret losing my brother the most. We were best friends." He clenched his jaw as a desperate grimace spread across his face, his bottom lip quivering on the brink of more tears falling down his face.

I shook, getting up. All of it was just too much. She was the one who made the first move, and even though he fell for it, he kept that to himself. He let me believe he was the one with the masterplan. I believed him when he said, he was drunk. I believed him when he said he couldn't resist. I knew Gabriel when he was drunk. I had carried him home more than I could count. I knew he could kiss a random girl when he was drunk, and not even think anything of it, but just because he was drunk and he could, he did it.

Sober Gabriel did none of that.

Drunk Gabriel was a helpless traitor.

Sober Gabriel was still my brother.

I paced up and down along the kitchen island balling my fists as the information overload was frying my brain.

I walked up to him, standing tall. "I don't forgive you." I said sticking out my hand. "But you look like you need your brother." I hoist him up from his chair and pulled him into a hug. He held on to me like I had said something he needed to hear for the longest time. "You n-n-need to quit that job." I whispered to him. "You're g-g-good at what you do, other law f-firms will see that. Don't sell yourself short here Gabe. You don't deserve to be trapped like this."

"I got fired this morning." He held me tighter crying into my shirt. "It's such a fucking relief!" I almost had tears of my own in my eyes because after all that happened, he was still the same brother that I grew up with, looked up to too. "You know what's worse?" He pulled back, slumping down in his chair. He looked up, the hurt smacking the air out of him. "I was excited to be a dad." His chest shook as he cried harder, and now even Céline was in tears, maman and dad too. "Even if it was hers. It was also mine. But it was all just a lie and I fucking fell for it." The more he talked the more he broke down, and the more my heart broke for him, even if he had broken mine a year ago. I suffered, until I met Luna and she showed me what love was all about. He suffered, and he still didn't know what love could do to make it all disappear.

He's still suffering.

I don't want him to suffer.

***

I was missing my little bright light after a long and heartbreaking conversation with my brother and my family. Luna told us she'd go upstairs, as soon as Gabriel said he needed to tell us something. I wouldn't have minded her staying, she was family too.

I walked to my bedroom expecting her to have crawled back into bed and watched some Netflix show she couldn't stop talking about as soon as we woke up, but instead she was pacing around my room, her phone to her ear and tears sliding down her cheeks.

Oh baby. What the hell is going on?

Softly, I closed the door behind me, walking over to her and when her tired eyes collided with mine she shook, holding up her hand to keep me at a distance.