ALYSSA

The silence was the worst. The silence meant you had time to think and that was something which I hated because, the moment I started to think, I was always taken back to that night; I was taken back to the night where the man I loved, and thought loved me in return, took something from which was never his to take without permission.

I always end back at the night where my own husband forced himself on me and then walked out of the bedroom. He left me in tears while he laughed manically about what he had just done to me, he thought that taking my virginity when I wasn't ready to give it to him was the most amusing thing to have happened in our marriage; he was a monster but I had come out fighting the other side.

I had been through a lot, a whole lot more than I ever told people about, but I always came out a whole lot stronger, I always came out fighting. I got my life back on track and I moved on from the horrors of my past but, if there was one thing which Andrew seemed unable to do, then it was to move on from the past and get on with his life.

He couldn't simply get over my sister and he couldn't get over the day she walked out on him either. She took their children, their relationship, and walked out like he had never meant a single thing to her; he was her world at one point but she won't tell me what happened or even why she felt the need to leave. She would never talk about it and would always change the topic whenever I brought it up in conversation.

She claims that, the moment Andrew signed the papers to take over the company, he signed his entire life away and she already knew that he would have time for either her or their daughter; she was only saving herself from the heartbreak which was inevitable the moment he put his name on that dotted line.

But, from what I had seen, despite Andrew being an arrogant ass with obvious anger issues and a serious lack of respect for women who also needed help for the amount of alcohol he was consuming on a daily basis, he really did love my sister at one point and she broke him by walking out in the way that she did. He never got the chance to meet his daughter and Bec had never even told Andrew her name; the anger at both of those thoughts made me want to actually murder my sister.

She didn't even have the guts to leave Andrew a note. She just left that night and never bothered to contact the guy again. Now I see the state that Andrew is in because of my sister, I no longer question the love he had for her and I don't even question the fact that he was happy with her, but I do wonder whether she ever really loved Andrew or whether she just used his new position at Collins' Inc. as an excuse for the fact she was cold, heartless bitch who didn't understand what love was and neither did she understand the damage she had done by walking out on Andrew that night.

I didn't like the man and, after the shit he had said to be today and the things he had done, I would be the first in line to push him off a cliff in the hope that there were some jagged rocks at that bottom to mess him on my behalf. But, seeing him like this, seeing a man who seemed only too powerful when we were in his office, broken and falling apart only made me feel sorry for the guy.

But I wasn't going to accept this as a valid reason for his behaviour towards me and neither was I going to allow his comments to slip like they meant nothing; but I also knew that he needed time to adjust to the fact that I practically looked like a clone of my younger sister in every single way and he needed to realise that there was nothing which was going to push me from the company.

He was broken man. Any idiot would be able to see that and all he needed was for someone to love him, for someone to help him love himself while accepting all the faults which came with loving him. I didn't have any intentions of being that person, but I knew of someone who may be able to put a smile on that ridiculous face of his before the end of the month.

"Ella," Andrew's tears didn't seem to end as he spoke her name so quietly that I was only just able to hear what he was saying, his eyes were puffy when he looked from the ground to where I was sitting and, if I was friends with the man, all I would want to do is embrace him in a hug to assure him that things would work themselves out in the end, "who does she look like?"

"She's a weirdly cute mix between Bec and yourself. She's got your dark hair but her eyes are a strange mix between your blue ones and her green ones. She has one of the cheesiest grins you could ever imagine and, despite being three years old, she's definitely got height and attitude on her side," Ella always brought a sense of joy and pride always washed over me whenever I thought of that innocent little girl. I loved her so much and there wasn't much that I wouldn't do for her.

She was too sweet. And she had this look which she would give you and you would do absolutely anything for her; she had mastered getting her way not long after she turned two and I understood now where her feisty attitude came from. Minus the constant use of profanities in practically every single sentence she spoke, she acted every bit the same as her father.

"And, if you take out the excessive use of profanities, she acts like you too. She definitely inherited her attitude from you too and I can see her being a female version of you when she grows up," I was sure that I caught a brief smile on Andrew's lips and he didn't seem to care that his state on inebriation was so high that he should have either passed out by now or be in some hospital bed.

"When's her birthday?"

"November 16th," I had never forgotten that day and I would have something for Ella on that day, though Bec had not remembered a single one of her daughter's birthdays since the day she was born, and she usually settled for making up some excuse about what she had been doing or why Ella hadn't gotten anything from her. I am sure Ella was used to her mother's constant disappointment now, it happened so often, that even I wasn't surprised when it happened.

I may not have loved my sister or had the best relationship with her, not since the time one of her ex-boyfriends decided he was going to try it on with me and she caught the both of us in a highly compromising position in her bedroom, but that didn't mean she had the right to take her frustrations out on her daughter. All Ella really wanted was the love and care of her mother, but she had to get that from elsewhere, and it was usually me who gave her both of those things.

"Can I ask you something, Andrew?" I didn't know how he was going to take what I wanted to ask him. I had a feeling that he would fly off the handle at me once again but, for the sake of Ella at least, it was something I needed to know; I needed to understand why he didn't bother to look for her sooner nor why he didn't fight harder to make sure he stayed in his daughter's life.

"Depends on the question," he finally raised the bottle to his lips and took another long swig on the clear liquid, which I assumed was Vodka and I was impressed that he was managing to drink it as quickly as he had been, I could just about manage one glass mixed with something before I had the overwhelming urge to throw up. I would congratulate the man one day for being able to drink it from the bottle.

"Look, Andy, I think it's time that we put you to bed now. We can talk tomorrow over breakfast. I'll pay?" Ben's eyes were still cautiously on Andrew and I couldn't miss the pure look of concern in his eyes as he looked over his younger brother.

Andrew would be lucky if he lived to see his thirty-first birthday the way that he smoked his cigarettes and drank alcohol. I didn't think he really gave a shit though and his attitude towards life in general showed just how little regard he actually had towards himself. Though, I guess that was the point, he was trying to numb the constant pain which he felt and I would assume that death was the easiest way in which he could do that.

"No. I want to hear her question," it surprised me that Andrew was still capable of putting a coherent sentence together without his words slurring into one.

"Why didn't you bother trying to find Ella before all of this? I mean, this, all of it, it's a bit sudd—"

"You don't think I've fucking tried?" the Andrew I had come to know very quickly was now showing his colours once again. He was the guy who lost his temper and resorted to swearing when he didn't have anything else to say. It would seem that I knew how to push all his wrong buttons and I knew that wasn't going to be good for me in the long run. "I hired detectives and I sent my own men out there in the hope of finding something. Hell, I even bugged your parent's place and that turned out to be fucking useless. It didn't matter what I did or where I went, your fucking sister was nowhere to be fucking found."

Andrew slumped further down in his chair in defeat and drank the last of the liquid from the bottle before he dropped it to the floor beside him. I would like to think that the alcohol was the only reason he looked like there was nothing left which was worth fighting for but I knew that there was another reason entirely, and I knew that my sister was to blame for the look on his face.

I still hated him for the way that he treated me this morning. I especially hated that he made me cry but I preferred that to him not talking to me at all. It actually hurts that he couldn't stand to look at me and all he could do was insult me, though I would like to think he was only like that because the amount of alcohol he had been consuming. But I was, if he gave me the chance to prove it, the total opposite of Rebecca.

Before my sister met Andrew, there wasn't many people she hadn't slept with, I was surprised that she didn't contract something and died; she really didn't know how to keep it in her pants so I was shocked when she told me that she was in a serious relationship with someone and I was even more shocked when she told me that she was marrying the guy.

Rebecca was reckless and she didn't have the time to stop so that she could give a damn about anyone else, she was just the same now, even with Ella around because motherhood had never really suited her. She had been drunk more times than I cared to remember and she had done several different drugs in her lifetime, most of them illegal and bloody expensive to buy, and she had landed herself in the cells more than once for possession of drugs; though that never stopped her from selling them and neither did it stop her from taking them.

I had never been anything like her Bec though. I rarely went out drinking and, despite being twenty nine, I had never slept with a guy; unless you count the time my ex-husband forced himself on me because I still wasn't ready to give him what he wanted from me. But it was easier to pretend that it had never happened and I therefore hadn't actually slept with anyone. I would rather die before I touched any drugs and, as for smoking, it was a disgusting habit and I hated it.

"I've missed out on three years of my daughter's life. And I don't even know what the fuck I did wrong," Andrew muttered.

"This isn't the right time to talk about this," I knew Ben was right. Andrew was fucked and I needed to sleep, and I also needed get myself home so that I could prepare for the hell which would undoubtedly be released tomorrow when I walked into his office. At least he wouldn't be able to comment on my clothes this time though, not after Robert had helped me pick out nothing but the best and then charged it to the company account.

"No. Now is the perfect fucking time to talk about this," Andrew's harsh tone filled the room.

"You've had too much to drink and you'll only end up saying something you regret in the morning," I was surprised that Ben wasn't losing his temper and patience with him. Apparently trying to treat his brother like an idiot worked better than shouting back all the insults you could possibly think of. I was going to have to remember that but I knew it would never work.

Andrew Collins knew how to get under my skin and he knew all the right things to say so that he could irritate the hell out of me in order to get the reaction he wanted from me. I couldn't believe how quickly or aggressively I acted towards him, without even thinking about what could happen if I was to lost my temper, I shocked even myself after it had happened.

"Can I have a cigarette? I'll go outside with it," Ben attempted to haul Andrew's ass from the living room with Andrew's arm thrown around his shoulder. I watched as Ben struggled to pull Andrew from the chair and I didn't even bother to offer my help, he was only my boss and that meant I didn't need to help him outside of the office.

"No," Ben replied firmly.

"You can't deny me the right to kill myself," Andrew reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes he had earlier. Ben didn't waste any time in snatching them out of his hand and putting them into his own pocket, throwing a disapproving look in his brother's direction, just about managing to hold his brother's weight as the both of them staggered towards the door opposite the bathroom door. "They've mine. Give them back."

"You can have them when you're sober. I don't want you setting me house on fire," Ben turned to look at me and his eyes looked like they were searching for the answers they were never going to find, not without really bothering to look for the answer they wanted to find rather than settling for the answer that they needed to know. "Can you get that door for me, please?"

"Sure," I pushed open the door which Ben had pointed to and the first thing I noticed was the size of the room. It wasn't massive, but it was still bigger than the place I lived in, and it was still big enough for there to be a balcony with a view which looked out across the ocean with a double bed tucked in the left corner of the room. There was a walk-in wardrobe and, through the crack in the door, I spotted the plethora of expensive suits and dresses hanging in there. "Nice room."

"You should see my spare room. It's got a fucking bathroom and everything," Andrew's voice called from the bed as Ben removed his jacket from him and threw it on the back of a chair in the other corner of the room. "Better than this piece of shit."

"I don't know if anyone has ever told you this, brother, but if you don't have anything nice to say then you should keep your bloody mouth shut," Ben complained.

"I tried that. Worst two seconds of my life," I looked over my shoulder to see that Andrew was grinning like an idiot from the bed and I was impressed that, even while he couldn't look after himself, he still had an answer for everything. And, as annoying as Andrew was, it was still somewhat amusing to see him talking back to his brother like they were children again.

"Just go to sleep, Andy. We'll talk in the morning," Ben ignored his brother's comments as Andrew continued to shout that he wasn't his father and he didn't have the right to treat him like a child because he was, after all, thirty years old to which Ben made some comment about acting his age rather than his shoe size.

"Alyssa?" Andrew's voice made me pause in the doorway without bothering to look back at where he was lying.

"Yes?" I waited for the smartass comment or the cocky remark which I assumed was going to come. But there was neither of those and I was shocked by the simple word which came out of his mouth instead.

"Thanks," were his last words before he practically passed out on the bed.

© 2015 Emma Norman. All Rights Reserved.