Can You Keep A Secret? (Completed)

xiii - what now?

"Please Aria, don't leave," Alex begs .

I look between the two brothers . Alex pleading with me and Warren staring daggers into his brother . The amount of tension is overwhelming and for some strange reason the things said tonight kind of hit me a little harder than I expected.

Not really sure my exact place and what I should be doing I nod at Alex . He walks over to me and hugs me . Warren was not exactly thrilled with how this was turning out as he let out a snide laugh .

"Aria, you can do better than him," he says as he begins to make his way to the elevator.

Knowing the state he was in I begged Alex with my eyes to make him stay. When he didn't budge I grabbed Warren's arm. "You can't leave . You're not leaving," I reaffirm.

His body language softened and I looked him in his eyes . He was tired and he was sad , "I can't be here Ar," he says to me .

"Yes you can , I won't be able to stop worrying if you leave like this.  There are several rooms in this place . Why don't you lay down and when you've slept off the alcohol you can leave," I suggest to him.

Alex sighs next to me , "Stay."

With that Warren follows Alex to a room . They did not exchange any more words . I stood there trying to think of something,  how do we navigate this new territory? Why did Penelope tell Warren about her affair with his little brother . How did something so simple turn into this ?

He came back in the room and said , "I'm guessing you have more questions for me."

"Yeah, let's talk somewhere privately," I suggest.  So Alex leads me back to his room and onto the balcony.  He has a nice set up with a comfortable couch and that's where we decided to sit.

"So I omitted some things from our conversation earlier," he begins.

"I can see that . But why? Why would you?" I question .

"I didn't want you getting the wrong idea."

I raise a brow, "and that would be you being in love with Penelope? I don't know the woman but she sure knows how to wrap you guys around her finger."

"You're right , you don't know her and neither did I.  Yes, I followed her but not the whole time I was gone . We had a very shortlived romance . I stayed away because of the guilt . I hate that I did this to Warren," he confesses .

"And it didn't hurt you WHILE you were with her?" I ask .

"Of course it did . And soon we both were consumed with guilt . She was still in love with Warren and she told me that I needed to leave her."

I stayed quiet for a minute trying to make sense of this . "And that hurt you so much that you stayed gone for awhile?"

"I was young and confused . Once I walked out of the haze that surrounded me when I was with her, I began to think clearly . I thought about how lousy of a brother I had become ."

"You know," I try to choose my words carefully , "you would have been forgiven a heck of a lot sooner had all this come out sooner. Warren would be mad at Penelope but he wouldn't be like this towards you ."

He sighs, "I know . I was afraid of how he would have reacted and I thought if I were gone long enough he wouldn't be so affected by her."

"I think it was more about your relationship with him , she was just a catalyst to what happened tonight, it'll be super weird tomorrow but neither one of you should run away . Have the hard conversation but without me present, that was really uncomfortable."