Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Especially Brett.
He deserves to know his lost love is alive.
Jake’s eyes are a battlefield—grief, guilt, and something even darker. His silence is heavy, screaming with everything he’s carried alone for years.
“Because sometimes death is easier than the truth,” Jake finally says.
“Easier for who?” Seb asks, his voice quiet but carrying over the sound of the waves. “For you? Or for us?”
“For everyone,” Jake says, his face twisting.
The silence doesn’t just settle—it crashes down, suffocating, a brutal void where words should be.
Brett finally breaks it. “Did it ever occur to you how your actions affect other people?” he spits, glaring at Jake. “That we have feelings too? That we cared about you?”
Jake flinches, as if the words aren’t just spoken but driven into him like a knife. Pain flickers across his face like he’s been struck and is too shattered to hide it.
“Brett’s right.” Alex’s voice is choked with tears. “You were our brother.”
Jake stands there, letting the words hit him like waves crashing against rock. I see it in his eyes—the years of guilt, of solitude, of carrying a burden none of us could have imagined back then. But he doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t fight back.
Because there’s nothing to fight.
He did what he had to do. He and I both did.
“Say something,” Brett growls, his fists clenched at his sides. “Damn it, Jake, say something that makes this make sense.”
Jake exhales sharply and runs a hand through his hair. He glances at me for a second before he looks out over the endless stretch of ocean. The sun casts shadows on the sand.
“I didn’t want to leave,” Jake finally says, his voice rough. “I didn’t want to disappear. But I had to.”
“Why?” Brett demands.
Jake hesitates, his jaw tightening. He’s weighing his words carefully, measuring the risk, calculating the fallout. “Marnie was gone. And by now you all know she was pregnant with my baby.”
Sebastian shifts beside Brett. “Marnie was gone, right. She was never found, Jake. Neither was Old Man Larson. What the fuck did you do?”
Jake’s face goes pale, his breath catching.
Alex nods. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
A muscle in Jake’s jaw twitches, but he doesn’t answer.
Brett takes a step forward. “That’s why you ran, isn’t it?”
Still, Jake says nothing.
The silence stretches long, thick with tension.
I can’t let him carry this alone.
“He didn’t just kill Old Man Larson,” I say, my voice steady despite the weight of the words. “We buried him. Together.”
Sebastian inhales sharply. Alex stiffens. Brett’s eyes darken with something unreadable.
But I’m not finished.
“And Marnie?” Brett asks, his voice hollow.
I hesitate.
Jake’s breath is shaky when he finally speaks. “She followed us that night.”
Brett’s face twists. “That motherfucker.”
The world stands still.
The only sound is the crash of waves, the call of distant gulls.
Brett staggers back a step as if he’s been punched.
Sebastian exhales sharply. “Jesus Christ.”
Alex shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs. “Tell me you’re lying.”
Jake doesn’t.
He just stands there, silent. Unmoving.
And I know, in this moment, that nothing will ever be the same again.
EPISODE 200
HELLO IT’S ME
Misty
It’s Jake.
He’s alive.
And he’s here.
Alex took off with Sebastian so quickly, and I just stood here.
I stood here.
Jake.
Sebastian can only mean Jake my half-brother.
He was just a good guy, Brett told me. I know that sounds lame, but there’s no better way to describe him. He always did what was right. Or he tried to, anyway. And he loved fiercely. He was protective of his single mom, and of his girlfriend.
Brett claimed not to remember much more because it was so long ago, but his pained expression last night said more than words ever could.
Brett remembers.
And so do Sebastian and Alex, given how quickly they hightailed it away.
I’m left standing with Ariel.
They just left me.
Have they forgotten that he’s my brother?
Granted, I don’t know him. Didn’t even know he existed until recently, and when I found out he died all those years ago, I mourned a sibling I never knew.
They fucking forgot about me.
Forgot that this is my brother. My blood. The person I never knew existed until it was too late. Until I had to grieve him without ever knowing what it felt like to have him in my life.
And now he’s just…back?
The realization sits like a stone in my stomach.
I barely hear Ariel saying my name, her hand brushing my arm like she’s checking to see if I’m still here, still breathing. I blink, trying to shake the static filling my brain.
“I need to— I need to go,” I murmur.
“Where?” Ariel asks. “This is amazing news. Alex told me about their fifth friend who killed himself. The guys need to process this, and—”
I swat her away. “Stop, just stop. This is about me too.”
Ariel scoffs in that annoying Southern way. “Not everything is about you, Misty.”
“Fuck off, Ariel.” I turn and leave.
I follow the path Alex and Sebastian took back to the mansion.