Royals

Chapter 33

Emily as a child lol.

For the first time in forever, I woke up alone.

I rolled to the side of the empty pull-out couch and squinted at the stove clock. As I got up to survey the vacant bedrooms, I realized it was nearly noon. The whole suite buzzed with an uneasy silence, and everything seemed to be eerily unoccupied.

I saw the door to the balcony cracked open, so I decided to get a bit of fresh air. I made my way through the sliding doors, wrapped up in my blanket like a burrito.

A deep, bleary voice from beside me spoke up, startling the daylights out of me. "Lillia didn't come home last night, Brandon and Marietta are getting a birthday gift for their mom, and Joey's grabbing breakfast."

"Oh," was all I managed before plopping down in the seat beside Jake.

"We're going to be siblings one day," Jake commented, staring into the never-ending water before us.

"Uh, what?" I asked, slightly caught off guard by his gentle tone.

"Brother and sister-in-law's, that is," he clarified. "After all, we are dating twins."

Marry Brandon? I felt the need to clear my head just with the thought of it. Marriage means knowing everything about your spouse, it prohibits keeping secrets, and it was just too big of a commitment to imagine. For crying out loud, I couldn't even last the whole weekend without canoodling Joey.

Besides, who would even want to marry me?

"Oh, yeah," I absently responded, attempting to mentally convince myself, for the millionth time, that Brandon was better for me than Joey could ever be.

"How are the two of you doing, by the way?" Jake asked, noticing that I spaced out.

"We're doing alright," I truthfully replied.

"Define alright," Jake requested, digging into my feelings.

"By definition, alright means passable, satisfactory, adequate--"

"Em," Jake cut me off, "you know what I meant."

"We'll he's sort of upset with me for drinking on Friday and for blowing him off to be with Joey. By the way, be sure to tell your snitch of a girlfriend I said thanks a lot."

"I'll be sure to pass it along," Jake replied with a proud smile. "But seriously, is he really upset with you?"

"I don't know--last night he seemed fine. But if not, he'll get over it."

A rage of fury seemed to race through Jake's mind. "What do you mean 'he'll get over it'?"

"I just mean that he'll realize how stupid all of this is and will forget all about it."

"Emily, you can't keep treating people like that and expect them to come around," he lectured. He opened his mouth to speak again, but I beat him to it.

"Treat people like what?"

"Like they're at your disposal. You act like friends just come and go, and if you mistreat or lose them, then you can just replace them with other people. That's not right, and you know it."

"What are you talking about? I treat Brandon perfectly fine; if he had a problem with me, we wouldn't be dating. So, if anyone, I think you need to be nicer to people," I immaturely snarled.

"I need to be nicer? You're kidding, right?" he snickered, laughing coldly. "I'm in a successful relationship with Marietta, and I think it's pretty serious. She's a great influence: scarcely drinking, extremely sweet, and just an amicable person in general."