There was a page in the diary that Chloe named the door that cracked the concrete wall. It was about her father taking a job in the UK without the family's consent. They weren't happy about the decision, and at that time, her dad had thought it was the only alternative to provide better for the family. Mostly for Chloe's college that she now didn't live to go to. And he had to give up faith and abandon work to return to his wife.

***

I had spent a couple of days mulling over what Scarlett had said on the video call we had the other day.

Today, I stripped to my underwear and offered sex to Myles. I thought he had needs. I shouldn't be the girlfriend who deprived him of them. He looked and sounded pleased, he took off his shirt and lay over me on the carpet of his living room. At that point, I thought that was it, but he leaned his head and brought his ear to my chest, quietly listening to my heartbeat. Then he promised to wait.

"We will do it only when you aren't anxious." He had promised.

"I am not anxious."

"You are." He ran his palm onto mine and brought my fingers to his face. His eyes fluttered heavenly when my index finger traced his face. "Your hand is cold." He said and kissed my fingertips, while he held my stare. "And you're white like you've seen a ghost. I can feel you straining under me." His perfect lips shifted into the most mesmerizing smile.

He was right about everything. I was scared. But I needed to prove to him I could give everything Autumn could.

"Don't let anyone rupture your conscious."

"My shackled conscious isn't very enfranchising."

"Enfranchising from what?"

"From doubt of myself."

Myles rolled over on his back and drew my body onto him. I crossed my arms on his bare chest, to support my head. His hands were behind me, gently outlining my waist.

"That girl I posted on my account." My eyes fell over to a bulged vein under the skin of his neck while he listened intently underneath me. "Her name is Scarlett Maverick. She is everything a good life can be like. But her mastery was domination."

"She's a bully?" He asked and I nodded, not meeting his eyes.

"Because of her, I learned that hell had different names. Her name is the first and the worst. She could get under my skin no matter how far away I am from her. That day in Little Tokyo, I just couldn't take the wheels."

Briefly, my eyes met his in passing. He was watching me with dread in his inward stare.

"Why?"

I had to chew my lip to prevent the tears in the back of my eyes from falling, as fear was getting into me from every inclination.

"I kind of killed Chloe."

"Chloe?"

"My best friend, whom I told you about."

"Okay, I don't think you are right." His chest rose and fell with me on him. His voice was everything concerned would sound like.

"You are not there." I trembled.

"But I am here. I know you, it doesn't matter for how long. I know how I feel. What I see when I look at you. Killer? That's just absurd."

"I am serious. I am responsible for Chloe's death. I was behind the wheel."

His hands left my waist and held both sides of my face, bringing me to meet his eyes. It was then I noticed I was hyperventilating and it was subduing at the succor and consolation swimming in his solicitous eyes that were glistening with hovering attentiveness.

"Okay. Breathe." He whispered, his forehead crinkling while his thumbs stroked my cheeks in his hands.

The calming inhale and exhale I processed were progressive. Myles did them all with me. Whispering, "I love you." until my eyes gradually closed at the relief and reassurance he instilled through my weak flesh and bones. I buried my face in his chest then, and he hugged me tightly.

New Year's Eve was a horror among the most terrible memories I have. It stalked me up til now. There was nothing to numb the pain.

We weren't invited to the party that evening, and we chose peace of mind over it. Drove to a drive-in movie and laughed halfway into it until the jocks from our school recognized my car.

The details were still dark and explicit. I remember them taking over the wheel of my vehicle and delivering us to Scarlett's huge party. Then I remember the struggle to leave and the toast she made on the table around hundreds of her guests that were all familiar faces from school. Their peals of laughter at us, their chanting at her. Chloe's tears when she pulled me out through the door.

Scarlett still didn't let it go. I remember her coming after us because she was merciless. She made her worshippers restrain us. Then they forced dirt from the garden into our mouths and made us swallow everything with a whole bottle of tequila flushing it down our throats. She said it was either to drive away inebriated or break our arms. Her fake boyfriend standing next to her proposed even worse, his eyes skimmed over Chloe with indecency.

I shouldn't volunteer to drive but I had to, believing I was in control even when the drink had begun to kick in. And in a matter of seconds, I was punished for wanting to protect Chloe and seeing the terror in her eyes fade away.

Scarlett broke us, thinking our hearts were made of bones or maybe steel. But even bones could be broken, and steel could melt and solidify into a mess. Scarlett and the entire school exhausted Chloe and me, bringing us hades and shadows every time of the day.

I do remember the time I was confusedly conscious, and my body was dangling upside down, hooked to the seat belt. The first thing I did was a guttural yell at Chloe, given I couldn't find her next to me by the passenger side as she was supposed to be.

That silence was the scariest I do not wish to experience ever again in my life.

Far away from the ruined scene I was in, I remembered what I sighted; a body on a broken door of the vehicle. It had cracked the asphalt. There was no easiest way to lie to myself that it wasn't Chloe. That she was home lying on her bed writing to Myles.

~

"What would happen if I returned home?" I asked Myles from his chest after over an hour of silence.

"Calista, I was thinking..." He began but was interrupted when the door violently opened-violently colliding with the wall behind it.

Brayden... David.

No.

"You fucking bastard. My sister. My fucking little sister."

I shot up to my feet when my brother lurched towards us.

"Bray..." Myles started but before he could get up, Brayden had him pinned back down. Punching. Shouting.

Everything that happened in the following minutes was a blur. I heard the brutal sound of skin smacking, I heard groaning. I heard the anger in my brother's words before my hearing was replaced with extreme silence; the kind that was deafening and chilling.

When I regained control of my brain, I was fully conscious of the scene before me. My soul left my body for a second. Myles's face was bloody, he was lying on the floor getting kicked in the ribs by my irate brother.

No! I have to be in a nightmare. I have to be stuck somewhere in my sleep. I have to wake up.

"Don't speak. You do not speak." My brother yelled, continuously hitting a barely moving Myles.

"Stop Brayden. Stop it." They were my first words since my brother burst through the door. It was a scream, an order that no one seemed to listen to.

I rushed over to David, he was already trying to pull Brayden away from Myles but I still begged, wishing he could do better.
"David, please tell him to stop."

He was hurting him. I could feel every punch of Brayden in my heart. Myles didn't even make an effort to protect himself, he just collected the attack like he thought he deserved it. I do not understand.

"Brayden, it's enough." The older man kept saying, but Brayden was only getting furious and frantic with every kick he left on Myles.

"I should have known better, I should've known you'd find another child." He grumbled. His eyes were dark, and his shoulders tensed. I pulled him but he was unbudgeable. "She's my sister, Asshole. What is wrong with you?"

"Stop it. Please." Until the tears slipped into my dress, I didn't notice I was crying. "Please."

Brayden finally looked over at me. He was fuming. His eyes have glistened.

"He's a fucking child molester." He spats.

What?

I withdrew as though his words could physically push and he took a forward step toward me.

"The team is keeping it in because it could ravage everything we've built, including dignity and respect for having a spot for a pervert like him. He fucking forces underage girls for stuff. And now look at you. He's taking advantage of you." His statement came out with disgust, distaste, and pain. "I thought we were friends. Why my sister?" Brayden shouted, shoving the coffee table. It slid against the silky floor and crashed into the television set.

No. This is impossible. It can't be true.

"Did he force you? What did he do to you?"

I've never seen Brayden so out of character. He was never this enraged. He was a charmer. Violence was never his thing but now he had made a mess in the room, leaving Myles barely alive, sprawling on the floor.
I get it, we had taken a vow for certain boundaries-boundaries that unmistakably stroke out falling for each other's friends. However, that shouldn't give Brayden the right to be so willing to kill Myles.

His latest question had left me struck with shock. I watched him in shock, sprint over, and clasp both my shoulders.

"Tell me now."

"I don't-I don't get it. I-I wanted this. I am in love with him." I stammered, blinking, traumatized as his hands shook me.

After my words registered in his head, he released me and backed off. Before I could understand his intention, he was squatting, straddling Myles's chest. He pulled him by the hair and knocked his head against the marble floor. "What did you fucking do to her?"

"Nothing. He did nothing. Please stop it." Panic was an understatement. I never thought I would have this feeling again. The kind that pulls at the core of my chest, telling me my life is over while watching the person I love lying in their own blood.

As Brayden continued his assaults, David screamed for help, flashes of the night from new year's eve interspersed with this presence in my vision.

Chloe's blood. Myles's blood. Chloe's unmoving body. Myles's unmoving body.

"The team may protect his career with the mess he has running but I swear to God I will sue him for this. I will ruin him even if it is the last thing I do. I will make sure he is behind the bar, as he truly deserves."

"Brayden, it's enough. He's unconscious." David harshly remarked, successfully shoving my brother away.

Brayden balanced to his feet and shoved David by the chest. The man almost fell.

"Don't tell me what is enough. He's screwing my naive sister. I promised to take care of her just to realize that he had taken her to New York along with him. Only God knows the limit he has got. For goodness sake, I just walked into him, and he had her half-naked. If you hadn't kept him on the team. And fucking had a psycho as our number one. This wouldn't have happened."

While Brayden was distracted by David, sputtering his emotions, I raced over to Myles and brought his head to my lap. His eyes were closed but his lips parted, and he inhaled.

I couldn't regulate my emotions. This can't be happening. I can't be holding him like this. He was always on his feet, able to take care of himself, but now he couldn't even open his eyes.

His blood was smeared all over me. I don't know what to do.

"Hey..." I whispered and took my shirt to wipe his eyes and nose.

He didn't say anything. The only relief I had was the sigh of his moving chest. He was alive at least.

"I am so sorry." I choked, my fingers trembling.

I would stay and clean him up. I would risk it despite my fear of driving. I would have taken him to the hospital if Brayden hadn't noticed and yanked me by the arm, leaving Myles's head to collide with the floor once again. This time he winced a little. The sound broke me into undetectable particles.

"Stop it. The fuck? Come, we are going home. You are going home."

"He's hurt. What is wrong with you?"

"It is none of your business."

While I was being dragged out of the condo in my brother's jacket with my phone in my hand, I overheard David talking with someone on the phone.

They weren't going to leave Myles lying there, were they?

"I want you in my office now." He demanded, not sounding very happy.

What pestered my mind was who was going to look after Myles. Who knew he was down? I considered texting Jake.

Brayden had directed me into the elevator but my mind wasn't in there, my body was shaking, tears flowing down my face as I typed a quick message to the man who could take Myles to the hospital, while on the other hand, Brayden was shuffling in the small room, crouching and pulling on his hair, as though he was going crazy.

The moment there was a sound of the elevator door opening, Brayden stormed out without waiting for me. I followed behind, feeling my numb knees hardly dragging me.

"Brayden." I cried after him, but he wouldn't turn. He was raggedly panting.

"Brayden please. Brayden, he didn't force me."

He spun as he opened the door of his apartment. Natalie was standing in his shirt, looking as pale as someone in her situation would.

Brayden scoffed at me then. I had stopped walking, my heart was beating out of my chest.

"Is he what you worry about? Worry about yourself, Cali. For once, care about yourself." He yelled.

That coming from him was messed up. It was a blatant insult. But he knew what he was doing when he said them. He wanted to hit me with sore words and those were the easiest he could find.

Emotions clogged my throat, I couldn't vocalize any words.

"Come." I felt hands around me that I was sure belonged to Natalie because it wasn't my brother. My blurred eyes with tears were on him and he was disappearing into the living room. Natalie supported me inside the condo. I was actually grateful because, at that time, my body wasn't functioning at all.

"His fucking case is as active as real shit could be. There are two similar charges filed against him. He's prosecuted for a stupid, unreasonable, nauseating crime. God. I should have known better. It was why he was supposed to get married. But the asshole canceled it."

He was talking to himself, pacing back and forth around the room, where there was a stack of pictures from New York with my face and Myles's on them.

"Because he loves me," I mumbled to myself, but it was audible. Brayden heard.

"No, he doesn't. He takes pleasure in taking advantage of little girls. That's who he is. That's the truth we kept hiding to protect his career. He is a monster."

"I am not a little girl. I am going to be eighteen in some months," I retorted.

"You are so blind." He gaped, his eyes wide and surprised when he stopped in his track. "You are going home tonight."

He can't just turn away from me now.

"Liar, you said I could stay. You said I could finish my senior year here." I screamed at him.

"That's before I found out my teammate's eyes were on you. I thought mom and dad shouldn't be alone?" He was equally as loud. A vein flinched in his neck as he rushed every word.

"Please, stop it." Natalie left my side and went to him, placing a hand on his chest. He yanked it off and warned her to stay out of it. He circled around her stilled body and began tossing away the throw pillows around the room.

"Where is my phone? I am going to call the police."

No. No.

My legs felt heavy but I raced to him, pushing his arms.

"I persuaded him. I dared him. Okay?" I breathed, wiping my wet eyes with the back of my hands. "I told him to leave Autumn. I am the one responsible for everything. It is fair if only you punish me."

Brayden leaned lower, reversed to clutching my arms. His eyes were completely unrecognizable while he seethed in my face.
"He is an adult. He knows what's right. He knows better than to fall for a child. He knows better than to fall for my sister. I was apparent about it to all of my friends."

He's got to be kidding.

With all the anger I felt, I used them to shove him away until his hands released me. He murderously glared from a couple of feet.

"So you go on telling everyone to stay away from me?"

"I wouldn't have to if you had respected the goddamn protocol." He hissed. "What got into you? You knew the rule yet you broke it. Is it why you wanted me with your friend and not Natalie?" He exclaimed accusingly with criticism on his facial expression.

Blinking, as his assertion caught me off guard. First, ashamed he had to say it in the presence of Natalie. Second, emotionally bruised. He does not know me at all.

I don't think he was correct. Scarlett's case was different.

"Scarlett isn't my friend," I murmured almost inwardly.

When my eyes found him, he was looking at me with hurt emotions. The kind that plastered disappointment, broken, and sorrow on his face. It was painful, it cracked somewhere in me. My head shook slightly, as more tears continued to run down my face.

"You are unbelievable." He weakly decided. "Go and start packing."

"I don't want to leave."

"Go now." It sounded final.

Not now, when I find someone that loves me. I never felt happy until this summer. Who knew I would feel a rush in my body at the warmth of someone, until Myles. Brayden won't take that away from me. He had always cared for my joy. And now I am happy. I am where he wanted me to be.

Natalie sadly looked away from my shocked body that was still trying to figure out how life could be that cruel.

"Brayden..." I heard her plead.

"I just need to make a call. David might keep paying the source for quiet but God, I will make sure that asshole gets everything bad coming his way."

Blanched and stationary, I watched him find his phone, I watched him angrily pressing the screen.

I did not know what everything was about. I didn't know what those families were going through. I didn't know what Myles was going through either. I could be blindly in love, but supposing what Brayden claimed was true, then I do know I do not wish such consequences even on those I hate. Provided Myles. there has to be a reason. Some missing story. I saw in his eyes. I leaned on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. He wouldn't take me even when I had offered my complete body to him.

He was different. I know it. I know him.

"Brayden don't." I felt my body give up, sliding against the couch until I was sitting on the cold floor. "Natalie, please tell him not to. Don't hurt him." I trailed off into a sob, the excruciating kind, as the pain was soul-wrenching. My inside was tightening, breathing was hard. My head hurts. Everywhere brutally hurts.

"Brayden, please think this through," Natalie spoke for me while I was at a loss for words. Pulling my hair, and trembling from the fit of tears, that I couldn't control.

"He had no right."

"I know. But calm down, you could be exaggerating. He might not be that bad."

"You know about this?" He accused her and there was a long silence that passed. I would look up if I had the strength, but because of my loss of hope, I had become fragile and inactive to back up the only person in the room who understood how I felt even after learning how foolish I had acted against her.

"Brayden..."

"Oh my God. I trusted you." He thundered at her. His tone came off shocked. I winced. "I-I she's my responsibility. Babe, I told you that and you decided to keep this kind of matter from me."

"I didn't know he was a..." She stuttered.

Myles was nothing they were accusing him of, though. He didn't do anything wrong to me. Deep inside, I knew what I felt about him. I was confident he was harmless. During that summer, I saw him entirely. He was transparent. I fell hard for him, knowing he was worth it.

"You were still supposed to tell me. Who do you think you are involving yourself in my family's issue?"

"I was just helping. She needed someone to talk to." She feebly challenged.

"Well, you weren't helpful."

"You are unbelievable. Now you're letting emotions speak for you."

Their arguments were another nightmare I had to endure until Brayden's next words struck me.

"I need you to leave." He coldly told her.

He didn't mean it. He can't possibly mean that.

My head lifted instinctively then.

"What?" She breathed, watching him confusedly.

I can't be the reason so much is happening at the same time. I can't be.

"Just get out."

"Brayden stop. I will leave." It pained me to agree but it was for the best. "I will get my boxes ready and I will leave today. You don't have to worry about me again. I will stay away from Myles. I will deactivate my Instagram. I will forget about him. Just don't overreact because of this. You are going to hurt everyone in the process."

At that moment, I knew I had lost everything. I felt my wall crashing, my weak heart despairing. I knew then I wouldn't get to hold him again. And we all know how it would go. All those memories from summer would be nothing more than ink on a paper sheet and hints from the lyrics of sad songs. His scent would wash away from my senses and turn into an indistinct dream when I woke up every morning.

I didn't want to give up Myles, I had wanted us forever, but it was too complicated. I had to take the option that involves and protects everyone, for at that moment I was responsible for it.

Chloe was wrong, she knew it all along. She just wanted me to try, when she said, to put effort into bringing life to our dream.

Looking around me, I knew I was incapable of what she had hoped. The blood on my hands, the tears in Natalie's eyes, the pain in my brother's face, they were all haunting.

Indeed, I was deeply scarred and was impossible of creating anything good. I was better off without trying.

Sorry.