How Could You?

Chapter 4

As Luke helped me limp up the stairs, I could hear Beau and Daniel yelling at each other again. Another tear slipped down my face at that.  I had destroyed their friendship. Just like how I destroyed mine and Luke's relationship.

"Stop crying already, Jai." Luke rolled his eyes at my tears. I still couldn't believe this had happened. Luke was the last person I expected this from.

"Stop." I pushed Luke away from me. I didn't want him to help me simply because he felt obligated to. We were near the top of the stairs so I thought it was reasonable for me to be able to make the last couple steps on my own.

"Jai, don't be like that." Luke sighed. "You know what? I don't even care anymore."

"Wow, thanks. That's the thing to say to your twin brother." I let out sarcastically, with a dry laugh. I went from being heartbroken to feeling angrier than I've ever been.

"As far as I'm concerned, you're not my brother!" Luke snapped, causing me to flinch back. We stood in silence for a few minutes before I decided to break it.

"If that's how you feel, Luke. I'll be out of your hair in no time." I promised, before finishing the limp to my bedroom door and locking myself inside. He didn't even react. I don't know when my twin brother- no, both of my brothers- had stopped loving me, but somehow it had happened.

It's funny, I used to think that nothing could come between us, but Luke chose a girl over me. He didn't even hesitate to do it, either. I don't know which part hurt more. The fact he left me or the fact that he didn't even hesitate to do it.

I screamed in frustration. I didn't know what to do. I sat on the edge of my bed and opened my bedside table drawer. Biting my lip, I pulled out something I had thought I would never look back at ever again.

A bottle of sleeping pills.

A few years back, I would get high on sleeping pills and just let myself check out from life when things really felt like they were getting to be too much. My brothers knew something was wrong, but they chose to ignore it, making it even easier for me to develop an addiction. I had eventually kicked the habit on my own, but I felt like I needed to keep a bottle just in case. I figured that their might be one day where I truly needed it.

I opened the bottle and shook a few out into my hand. I breathed in deeply. Was I really going to fall back into old habits, and lose everything I had worked so hard for? Yes, I was. I couldn't deal with fighting this much with Beau and Luke in the same day, let alone the same hour.

I put five of the pills in my mouth and swallowed them dry. I coughed a little at the feeling, but it quickly passed as I started to become numb. They were already starting to take the edge off of everything. I set the bottle on my bedside table and let myself fall backwards onto my bed as I let the pills take over and rip away my consciousness.

~

When I woke up, I felt worse than I did before. I checked the time. It was 5 o'clock in the morning. The pills had definitely done their job, but it was kind of disappointing to know that no one had come to check on me. They had simply let me suffer in pain, alone in my room. I at least had expected Daniel to come up and check on me, but that didn't even happen.

I was tempted to take some more pills, but I knew too many at one time was never a good idea. I unlocked my door, before slowly making my way downstairs. It took me a long time, considering I had two casts and had to use crutches. By the time I finally made it down the stairs, I was out of breath and exhausted. I walked into the kitchen and was startled to see Beau awake. He glanced up at me, causing me to stumble and fall on the ground.

"You okay?" Beau asked, as he quickly helped me to my feet. It felt weird. He had just yelled about how much he hated me less than twenty-four hours ago. I quickly nodded my head as he handed me my crutches, keeping an arm looped around my waist.

"M'fine."

"Jai..." Beau sighed as he helped me sit down at the table. "I was out of line yesterday. I'm just frustrated because Jeremy is on my case, so I got involved with you and Luke and took my anger out on you."

"It's okay, Beau." I faked a smile.

"No, it's not okay." Beau frowned, "it's never okay for me to take sides when it comes to a simple fight between you two."

"It's not a simple fight." I felt a tear slip down my face. Beau looked alarmed when he saw this and crouched down in front of me and started rubbing my back comfortingly.

"Hey, tell me what's going on." Beau whispered. I bit my lip and slowly nodded.

"Luke hates me." I let out a small sob. "I was half-asleep and accidentally kissed Maggie."

"Well, an accident is an accident."

"It's not that simple." I wish it was so much. "She wanted to cheat on Luke with me, but I wouldn't do it. Luke came in and saw us, and she told Luke I attacked her. Then, she broke up with him because she didn't feel safe dating someone that looked like her attacker."

"Oh, Jai..." Beau hugged me to him. "I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you instead of Daniel having to knock some sense into me."

"What do you mean?" I was very confused. What was he talking about?

"After Luke took you up to your room yesterday, Daniel punched me and told me to fix this before storming out."

At least someone cared...