STEPBROTHER: Bad Boy Blues (Taboo Romance) Page 8

  “That’s so sad, Mom,” I replied, my eyes swelling and threatening to cause some tears.

  “When Darwin was a little older, things didn’t change. He found other means to get the love that he was deprived of.”

  “Other means?”

  “Yes. He rebelled. He invested so much of his time and himself in the company of people... friends he made in the neighborhood, friends he made at school, friends with rather... dubious characters.”

  “What? Like he did drugs or something?”

  “Charlie said he didn’t. But twice, he was busted for doing something bad. Once, he was caught shoplifting. Another, he crashed his mom’s car in the middle of the night while driving under the influence of alcohol.”

  “Oh my God! I bet she didn’t like that.”

  “Oh... she didn’t! She made life harder for him. She started to abuse him... not physically though. But painful words can do more damage. He was emotionally scarred.”

  “How did he deal with it?”

  “You said that he has become a very popular... personality... in school, right? Even if he’s been there for less than a week?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s because it’s what he has become. Those traumatic events he experienced while growing up made him seek refuge in the company of other people. For him, the people outside his family were his family. He found validation from other kids... regardless if they were positive influences in his life or otherwise. He makes an effort to be accepted by other people, to be admired, to be loved... because outside of Charlie, he never got those from his own family.”

  “Is this... is this the tragic event you mentioned before, Mom?”

  “No.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “It was when his mom died two years ago, when Darwin was seventeen.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “Lung cancer. On her deathbed, Darwin’s siblings didn’t even allow him to visit her. One night, he managed to sneak into her room at the hospital. I guess he even didn’t want her mom to know he was there. Maybe he just wanted to hold her hand and say his goodbye, even in silence. But her mom woke up and saw him standing beside her.”

  “And?”

  “And she pressed the nurse button to ask the personnel to get him out of the room.”

  “Oh my God...”

  “She died and he wasn’t even able to bid her farewell. He wasn’t even able to fix things with her... to find the answers he sought… the closure he needed.”

  Silence followed as we both failed to finish our dinner. I felt so sad at that time, but I also began to understand him. He has been repressing a lot of his feelings for so long... that’s why he seemed so distant and uncaring and unkind. He was denied the love of a mother... hence he tried to find acceptance from other people. The bad boy, tough guy persona he displayed was just a mantle he had to wear to repress the pain his heart was surely feeling.

  “I never knew,” I whispered to myself, which my mom heard.

  “It’s hard for us when we just think about it,” she answered. “What more for him who had to go through that kind of experience?”

  And just like that, the weight of the indignity that has continued to crush me since Saturday night vanished. It was nothing - NOTHING - compared to the sorrow that Darwin has been carrying for many, many years. The embarrassment that befell me will wither in time, when people begin to forget as they start to revel at the newest gossip that someone would start. Darwin’s agony... he will have to carry that all his life.

  At that moment, I just wanted one thing.

  I just wanted to see him... to hug him... to feel his body... to provide him comfort... to tell him that it’s alright, that everything will be alright, that I would always be there for him... regardless of whether that’s good enough or not.

  I wanted to see him so bad...

  But I didn’t even know where he was.

  Darwin didn’t go to class the following day... again.

  People in school were still giving me condemnatory stares. To their credit, though, they never approached me or make a joke about what transpired. They just gaped. Sometimes rudely, but at least, that was all they did.

  At lunch, as I was carrying my tray, Maggie signaled for me to come join her in one of the empty tables. I appreciated her a lot, especially during those times when I had to be surrounded by students who I knew were thinking the worst about me. I started to approach her.

  But then, someone bumped into me, causing me to lose grip of my tray, and my food fell on the floor.

  “Oops, sorry,” a high-pitched voice said. I looked at him and saw a big, burly man towering over me. It was Colton, and he wasn’t alone. He had two other guys with him, his teammates in the football team. He apologized but his face painted a different picture. He was smirking.

  “It’s alright,” I said as I wiped the soda that splashed on my arms. I looked around and I saw that the commotion attracted the attention of everyone in the cafeteria. I swear that all of the people there - the school staff included - were looking at us.

  “Serves you right, I guess,” he uttered, still with that condescending smirk.

  “I beg your pardon?” I replied, wanting to know if I heard him correctly. I never thought anyone would be that churlish, especially to a girl.

  “I said it serves you right, brother fucker,” he answered before laughing hysterically. His teammates laughed with him.

  I was shocked speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. The entire cafeteria was just as shocked as I was. They weren’t laughing. No one was giggling. But they were watching us. I knew they were watching us. They were watching me as I was being ridiculed by a man who was intimidating… in both his size and his vulgarity.

  “Watcha gonna do about it, brother fucker?” he asked mockingly as he continued to laugh with his companions. He made sure that his words were loud enough for everyone to hear.

  But no one laughed with them, still.

  It seemed that the entire cafeteria was sympathizing with me.

  No... they pitied me...

  And how can they not? To them, I’ve always been silent little Betty, nerdy little Betty, bookish little Betty, studious little Betty who went to a party for the first time in her life and was stupid enough to get drunk and kiss her own sibling. And now, she was being confronted by, arguably, the biggest and, obviously, the meanest guy in school… pushing her around and treating her like garbage.

  I’ve never felt so helpless my entire life.

  Tears started to drop from my eyes and Colton noticed.

  “Ooohhhh, the brother fucker is crying,” he taunted. “What? You expecting your Prince Sibling, errr, Charming to come rescue you? Sicko!”

  I wanted to just shrink into non-existence, to get it over with, to disappear from the world and spare myself from the humiliation that was being done to me.

  Then I remembered Darwin and all the pain he had to endure. He never made the right choices all the time, but he persevered, so much so that he never told anyone - not even me - the torment he was suffering.

  If he was that strong, I could be that strong too.

  So I looked at Colton straight in the eye, burning with fury. He was taken aback by the stance I took. I shoved him away to create some space between us, with so much strength that his companions had to help him regain his balance.

  “First of all,” I yelled, “for a lumbering dolt like yourself, you sure sound like a girl! You sound like Nikki Minaj after swallowing some helium!”

  A funny thing happened, something which I never expected. The whole cafeteria started to laugh. And they began to egg me on. They were quite vocal, telling me that they were on my side.

  “Secondly, you have no right - NO RIGHT - to treat me like that!,” I continued. “But I guess you’re too idiotic to even understand why, right? I mean, you can’t even spell fuchsia, can you?”

  “O-Of course I can,” he uttered, his vo
ice was trembling.

  “Go on,” I challenged him. “Do it!”

  “F... U...” he started to spell, struggling for the letters. “S...Y...”

  “Wrong!” I quickly interjected.

  “Fuck this!” he replied as his anger returned. “Why should I even listen to a brother...”

  Before he could finish, two guys stepped in between us. Two guys who were just as huge and as imposing as Colton and his lackeys.

  Benson and Riley. Darwin’s troops.

  Colton was stunned by the presence of the two men who separated us. He eyed them keenly as he tried to analyze what was happening. Benson and Riley didn’t budge.

  “Leave! Now!” Benson, the bigger guy of the two, ordered.

  “You don’t boss me around, punk,” Colton answered as his teammates drew their fists, hoping to intimidate Darwin’s friends.

  Still, Benson and Riley didn’t move.

  “Do you want us to bring this outside?” Riley questioned him.

  Colton backed down. He turned around and motioned his companions to leave as he realized the futility of the situation.

  I heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Are you alright, Betty?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah, yeah... thanks guys,” I said.

  “No problem,” he continued. “Darwin’s our comrade, and our comrade’s family is our family too.”

  That was actually very sweet to hear, something I did not expect from a young man who used to bully people in middle school.

  I proceeded to Maggie’s table. The students in the cafeteria were still looking at me. But they weren’t giving me judgmental stares that time around. They were actually smiling at me.

  I took a seat and Maggie gave me a hug.

  “That was intense!” she said.

  “Yeah, it was!”

  “You handled it extremely well.”

  “You thought me how to be tough.”

  “I did?”

  “Yup.”

  “How?”

  “By sticking with me through thick and thin. You still like Colton?”

  “Hell no! After that stunt? He just outed himself as a fucked up prick!”

  “So, you don’t feel bad anymore that he chose that Cassandra girl over you?”

  “I still do... but that’s just my pride talking.”

  We laughed and started to eat our lunch. Halfway through, Chelsea approached our table and tapped my shoulder.

  “That was fantastic, Betty!” she exclaimed. “I’m so proud of you! You actually stood up to them!”

  “Yeah, but I was so scared... my knees were trembling,” I told her.

  “I don’t think anyone noticed that,” she said. “All they saw was a brave girl who they immediately admired.”

  I smiled at her and she smiled back. Then she went back to her own table.

  “Wow!” Maggie interjected, almost yelling. “You and Chelsea are on speaking terms now?”

  “Yeah, she’s actually very nice.”

  “I bet she is. For someone who’s in love with her stepbrother...” she started to say.

  “I’m not in love with him!” I instantly corrected her. Was it the truth? Or was it a lie? I never could tell at that time. “Geez, Maggie! Cut it out!”

  “For someone who’s in love with her stepbrother,” she repeated, “you sure were surprisingly friendly with her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Betty, don’t you know? Don’t you read Twitter?”

  I haven’t... not since the #KissingSiblings scandal trended in the school’s network.

  “I must’ve missed it,” I said. “What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I be friendly with her?”

  “Uhm... Betty? Chelsea’s dating Darwin.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve been seen in town for the past two evenings. Some even saw them... well... they were very, very sweet.”

  “I’m sure people just misunderstood their friendship,” I told her, remembering that time when I saw them talking at the parking lot.

  “Uhm... Betty... some people saw them... kissing...”

  At that exact moment, the noise in the cafeteria stopped. I couldn’t hear a word. Not even a whisper. I could only hear the vague resonance of the wind against my face when I rode on his bike as my arms were wrapped around his waist, of the crumpling of a piece of paper that contained a thank you note and a smiley that wanted to say more, of his hands holding mine as his finger traversed the lines on my palm to read my fortune, of my hands running through his back and his rashes rough against my touch, of his lips rubbing against mine and his tongue exploring every inch of my mouth... and the shattering of those memories foretokened by thunderous silence.

  It was a sound that no one else would be able to hear but myself.

  The sound of wretchedness and sadness and broken dreams.

  The sound of my hands trying to grasp the image of his face as it faded into oblivion.

  The sound of my heart breaking.

  I spent most of that evening in bed, locked up in my room, trying to ward off the tears that have been threatening to drop since lunchtime. Mom called me for dinner but I didn’t reply. After a few minutes, she went up and knocked on my door.

  “Sweetie, is everything okay?” she queried from the hallway.

  “Everything’s fine, Mom,” I answered in between sniffs. “Everything’s just fine!”

  A few seconds of silence followed. She was probably thinking if she should leave me alone or attempt to intercede with the hope of helping me with whatever predicament she thought I was in.

  “Have you seen Darwin today?” she finally asked.

  No I haven’t Mom, but I’m pretty sure everyone else in school did, I wanted to reply. Just check Instagram!

  “He didn’t attend school today,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t probe into the matter any further.

  “He didn’t come home last night, as well,” my mom continued. “And I haven’t seen him the whole day. Me and Charlie are starting to get worried.”

  “Don’t be, Mom,” I tried to assure her. “He’s a big boy. He can handle his affairs.”

  Heh. His affairs. That was funny.

  “Well, if you get to see him tonight or tomorrow at school, please tell him that he can talk to us about anything that might be bothering him,” she said, almost pleading.

  Yeah right, Mom! He’ll just tell you that we kissed in front of everyone we know!

  “I will,” I answered instead.

  “Thanks, Honey. Charlie’s worried sick about him and it breaks my heart to see your stepdad bothered like that.”

  Hours passed after my mom left the hallway for bed and the excruciating weight of despair persisted to crush my soul. Darwin was dating Chelsea. He started dating her two nights after he told me how he felt about me? I didn’t know which was more painful. His insincerity? His empty statements? His betrayal?

  Betrayal.

  Now there’s a word.

  How could he betray me when he never really promised anything? He just told me that I made him want to be someone better, someone worthy of my heart. He just said that entertaining such a feeling was so very wrong, but it was a risk he would gladly take.

  Of course, I know now that those were just lies... meaningless words recited in the shadows of a minuscule compartment that thrust our bodies together, in the blackness of cramped space where his eyes were invisible and unreadable as to reveal his true intentions.

  And what were his true intentions?

  To fuck me?

  Like how he fucked and fucks Chelsea despite his pronouncement to the contrary?

  I tried to stay away from my social media accounts since the kissing incident. But I was too disturbed that night. The ache was too much to bear. I had to find a diversion, no matter how momentary, no matter how fleeting.

  So I turned on my iPad and the first notification that greeted me was a tweet from some girl I know only by name... some girl I just followed bec
ause she followed me first. Her post was cruel...

  From #kissingsiblings to #kissingclassmates,

  @darwinmckenzie19 is a philanderer in the

  making! #ladiesbeware

  That tweet came with an attached link to an Instagram post that showed a candid shot of Darwin and Chelsea kissing outside Uncle Crab’s Restaurant at the corner of Jupiter Street and Milsap Avenue. It was a lovely shot. They looked so happy. I could even see a smile form on his mouth as his lips touched hers.