More Than One [18+]

69.

She's back...

She's back.

I look around the table. We're all pretty fucked up by the fact she suddenly appeared again. We sold the bar, because it reminded us too much of her.

It's one am, but none of us can sleep. We're seated at the dinner table, all a whisky in our hands. We don't talk, it's too painful. It's been too painful for two years to talk about her.

Elijah coughs. I slowly look up at him, in the haze of thoughts about Scarlett. Her smile was always so beautiful... now we didn't even get a small or fake one.

"So she's clearly mad," he hums. I roll my eyes. I'd be too. "Yeah, fucking duh. She's hurt," Owen snaps.  Jordan sighs. "And she's right about it. We hurt her so much, it's normal she doesn't forgive us."

I nod. I didn't even expect her to talk to us. She has every right to be mad and hurt... but we're hurt too. Hurt by our own stupidity.

She was so fucking right earlier. we should have just talked to her. We should have told her there was a psycho threatening her life. We should have sat together and thought about a solution.

But Italy?

Fuck, we didn't even know she was accepted. After she was gone, Elijah mentioned Dylan signing her up to a college in Italy. We went straight to Dallas and Dylan, who kicked us out after confirming it.

But we... managed. Elijah closed up again, Owen got depressed. Although he didn't even try to take his life again. 'I deserve suffering like this' he once said.

Jordan only works, he hasn't taken a day off since she left. Aaron got many scars right after she was gone, brushing it off as 'business', but we all know better. He did it to feel anything else than the burning pain in his chest. Our chests.

It doesn't fucking lessen. It burns me up from the inside, but I know I deserve it. I hurt Scarlett so much and I'll never forgive myself for it. She won't forgive us either, so that's fair.

But now she's back... and for a second I got hope. Hope she could look around this and that we'd end up together. But when we explained... she looked emotionless. Lifelessness.

No feelings for us at all anymore. And that's... that's fine. She has to go on, or so I tell myself. My heart wants nothing else than just hold her for an eternity, to have her back here, but that's not possible.

She won't come back. She made that very clear.

I give a helpless shrug. I'm worth nothing. Not since she went to Italy... we didn't even send men to check up on her, can you believe it? She clearly didn't want to have anything to do with us anymore. We respected that. We shouldn't have. Now we lost her.

"Ethan." I startle out of my thoughts and look at Aaron. He points at my phone. "It's ringing." I sigh and nod, but pick it up. My eyes widen and I jump up.