The Remorseful Brothers Novel

I guess they were both at fault in some ways but Clara shouldn’t have Oh, she shouldn’t have. She went too far. She knew I got pregnant for him and she said nothing. If not for anything, at least for the baby’s sake, she should have just told me the truth. But no, she …..ched me struggle to raise Amie all alone.

She was there all those nights I cried silently so I wouldn’t wake Amie because it all just git too much. She was there all along. She was there to brutally watch Amie grow up without a father. God! She fucking used to pet her to stop crying for dad!

And that only infuriated me more. How dare she claim that she loved Amie when she took an important piece of her life away.

“You have no justification for your actions, Clara.” My voice trembled but I kept on speaking, “If not for anything, you should’ve thought of Amie and told me but you made the girl fatherless!”

“Dennis was there, wasn’t he? I was there because I loved you and even though you took the only man I ever loved away from me, I stuck by your side. But you were too stuck up on your lost love to see any of us or our efforts.”

I shook my head. “How can you love with so much bitterness in you?”

She laughed as more tears ran down her cheeks, “I’m not bitter, not after you left Aiden. All my intentions towards you after then were pure.”

Suddenly, an errant tear rolled down my cheek. Angrily, I wiped it off. “I can’t believe I took you as my friend. I regret ever knowing you, Clara.”

She stared at me, speechless for a while then she cast her head down. As I walked past her, her words stopped me.

“I was glad after you ended things with Aiden but since then I’ve lived

with the guilt and regret,” she paused then whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I turned to her just at the same time she did.

“I regretted it and wished I could right my wrongs but it was too late and I already planted the seed of hatred for Aiden in your heart, I thought it would be no use.”

The measly seed of hatred that the truth could have casted away but I didn’t say that to her. I turned a blind eye to the genuineness in her eyes and the guilt.

“I want to let go of the past. It’s what I should have done a long time ago. It’s going to be hard but I’ll pull through like I’ve always done.”

With Clara by your side, a quivering voice whispered in my head and my throat clogged up and my voice trembled but I pushed it all to the back. Têxt © NôvelDrama.Org.

“Right now, you’re part of that past. And me letting go doesn’t mean we’d remain friends. Today, I end every tie and friendship I have with you. I don’t want to ever see you again. Not around me or Amie. Ever again.”

Clara staggered back, disbelief and hurt swirling with the tears that pooled in her eyes.

I turned around before she could see my tears fall. I ran into the nearest restroom and silently cried over the loss of a friend that, until today, was more than a friend.

A MONTH LATER

AIDEN

I could as well be mourning the loss of my favorite person in the world. In fact that was what I was doing here, I was mourning the loss of a happy life as I plarted a smile on my face to welcome a tolerable life. A

life that would be full of riches and good sex but would keep deepening the hole in my chest.

As I watched Sharon, beautiful in her sparkling stoned short white dress with the biggest and happiest smile on her face walk up the aisle to me, her arms hooked with her father’s, I knew my life with her would be hollow.

I knew that soon, I would unintentionally wipe that bright smile off her face and infect her with my unhappy life because I could never return the love she had for me. Not that I wouldn’t try. I would give it my best shot. But right now, it felt impossible and I knew that it would be damn hard.

There were few people in the court, all happy to see the union of two successful people. And that was the end of it, success.

The marriage would be successful. Not imperfect and messy and beautiful like the one I would have had with Anastasia.

We’d be the power couple that would turn heads, wherever and whenever.

But still, as I looked into Sharon’s happy eyes and said my vows to her and slid a ring on her finger, I vowed within myself to make this work. To make this beautiful woman happy till the end of time.

“And from this day,” the marriage officiant said, “I pronounce you man and wife.”