All Chapters of Falling for My Best Friend's Brother: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

404 Chapters

081: Pharmacy visit

Avery's POVI looked at the message on my phone for a long time before I did anything with it.'Are you home? I have been trying to reach you all afternoon.'He had sent it forty minutes ago, and my phone had been on silent in my pocket since the lecture hall that morning, which meant there were probably several more above it that I had not seen. I thumbed back up the thread. A missed call at one. A text at one-oh-five that said 'Hey, you good now?' then another at one-forty that said 'Text me when you can.' and finally the one on my screen.I typed 'I am fine' and deleted it. I typed 'Sorry, I had my phone off' and deleted that too. Then I put the phone face down on the bed and sat there with my hands in my lap. I tried to work out what I was actually going to say to him, and every version I came up with sounded wrong in a different way.I thought about the possibility of me being pregnant for him again and wondered whether I would tell him as Avery or as Scarlett. Neither answer fel

082: Negative

Avery's POVI got into my car without looking back at the pharmacy door.My hand was not steady on the key at all and I tried several times before I got it turned on. I turned the engine over on the second try and pulled out before I had even checked my mirror. I took the back road out of the carpark and just drove for the first two minutes without a plan, just putting distance between me and the door Jade had walked through. The radio came on automatically when the engine started and I turned it off straight away because I could not handle noise right now. I just needed the road and the silence and enough time for my breathing to slow down. It was not slowing down particularly fast.Jade, in her pajamas, at six in the morning, very far from home, going into the same pharmacy I had just come out of.I gripped the wheel and kept my eyes on the road.There were possible explanations. Headache tablets. A prescription she had forgotten. Something for her mum. I tried them all on for size

083: Nobody

Avery's POVI did not move for a while.I was standing at the sink with my back against it and my eyes closed and the two tests sitting on the porcelain beside me, and the word negative was doing something to my body that I had not been prepared for. It was not a clean relief. It was not joy. It was something more like the feeling after you have been holding a very heavy thing for a long time and someone finally says you can put it down, and your arms do not know what to do with themselves. I stood there for a good minute just breathing, not really thinking anything, just letting my body understand that it was okay.I wrapped both tests in toilet paper. Then in a second layer. Then put them inside both boxes. Then inside the paper bag folded twice. I would put it in a bin on campus later. Not here.I unlocked the bathroom door and went back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed.I had been almost, nearly pregnant and nobody had known about it except me. Not Jade. Not Priya. Not my

084: Something's off

Liam's POVI picked her out before she had even reached the side path.The grey beanie. The hood up over it. Hands jammed into the pockets of the hoodie. She was walking the way she walked when she was trying to make herself smaller, head a little down, shoulders pulled in, none of the usual squared-up posture I had got used to seeing on her on a normal morning. I knew it was her by the walk before I knew it was her by the face.Coach blew the whistle for the next set and I jogged into position without taking my eyes off the path.She passed the edge of the field. She looked up but didn't acknowledge that she saw me. She turned and continued walking towards the building entrance. I kept watching for the small turn of her head that would tell me she had seen me, and it did not come, and then she was past the field and onto the side path that led to the sports building, and I got back into the drill because the alternative was to stand on the pitch in front of my coach with my mouth ope

085: Look me in the eye

Avery's POVI read the message twice.'Can we talk'I typed back: 'I am at coffee with Liam right now. Can it wait?'The reply was instant. 'yes I know where you are. I am outside.'I looked up at the window.Across the road, on the pavement opposite, Jade was standing with her phone in her hand looking directly at the cafe. She was not dressed like someone who had been passing. She was dressed like someone who had been waiting. She lifted one hand in a small wave.My stomach dropped."Avery?"Liam had been watching my face. I turned the phone so he could see the screen. He read it, looked out the window, looked back at me. Something moved across his expression that was not quite surprise and not quite anything else I had a word for."Did she follow you here," he said quietly."I do not know.""Did you tell her where you were?""No.""Did you tell anyone?""No. Liam. I did not tell anyone."His jaw went tight. He was doing the calculation I was doing, which was trying to figure out ho

086: Emails

Avery's POVLiam and I both watched Jade cross the road without saying anything for a moment. She did not look back. She got to her car, got in, and pulled out without hesitating, like a person who had done what they came to do and was not second-guessing it."That was not what I expected," he said."What did you expect?""More of what she usually does.""Maybe she surprised herself too."I looked at my coffee. It had gone cold while Jade was there. "She is going through something. Her real dad is moving out of town at the end of the month."He was quiet for a second. "You knew that?""I found out when I heard some of the girls at practice talking about it. She has not said it to me. So she has been carrying that and then coming at me sideways. And I have been coming back at her instead of asking what was actually going on. We have both been doing it and neither of us stopped long enough to ask the other one what was wrong.""That sounds like the two of you.""It does a bit." I looked

087: Second mail

Avery's POVTwenty minutes after I closed the laptop, it chimed again.I had moved to my room instead. I had been sitting on my bed with a textbook open on my knee that I had not read a single line of, telling myself I was not going to go back to the table and reopen the laptop and look at the email again. I was doing well at that. And then the chime.I went back to the table and sat down and looked at the screen for a moment without touching anything.There was a new email. Also from Cross.'Avery, please confirm receipt of my last message.'One sentence. Sent twenty minutes to the dot after the first one.He had probably timed it. He had waited exactly long enough to look patient and sent the second one early enough to tell me the patience was not unlimited. I was sure he had a system for this. He was not a person who did things without a system. He must have done this before, with someone else, in some other year, in some other office hour that had gone the same way.That thought s

088: Where is he?

Avery's POVI was still lost in thoughts when my mum knocked.I had been sitting in the dark looking at my laptop, which had not made anything easier. It was nearly nine thirty PM. I had been in the chair for an hour plus without getting anywhere close to a solution to my problem with Professor Cross', and when the soft knock came at my door I sat up before she had even finished knocking."Come in."She opened the door and stood in the frame. She had her dressing gown on and her hair was down and she was holding her phone against her chest with both hands the way she held things when she was frightened and trying not to show it."Dean has not come home since today. I do not know where he is.""What time did he say he would be back?"She came in and sat on the edge of my bed. "He did not say. He left very early this morning and I have not heard from him since. I have been calling his phone for two hours and it goes straight to voicemail."I checked the time. Nine thirty-four."Mum. He

089: Not responsible

Avery's POVI read the message three times.'Your stepfather owes us. Pay the money or else we hurt him. The clock is running.'My mum had just gone to bed. I put my phone face down on my duvet and sat there for a moment.Dean had given some loan shark my number and told them I was responsible for him. He had not asked me. He had not told me. He had just handed me over to whoever this was, along with enough information for them to call him my stepfather.I picked the phone back up.I typed out a response; 'I do not have a stepfather and I do not pay debts that are not mine. Do not contact this number again.'I sent it, then dropped the phone. Another message came in. 'The clock is ticking'I was so pissed that I went into the contact and blocked the number. Then I sat there in the dark and took three slow breaths, trying to calm myself down, because what I actually wanted to do was see him face to face right now and say everything I had not finished saying the night I tasered him. I w

090: 3AM

Avery's POVHe had not moved from the sink.I crossed to the counter and put my phone down in front of him with the screen facing up and the message open.He looked at it."Avery.""Who are they."He looked at the glass of water in his hand instead. "It is not what it looks like.""It looks like someone you owe money to texted me at past midnight to say the clock is running on your payment," I said. "Tell me what it is if it is not that."He put the glass down slowly."I borrowed some money." He turned the glass of water in his hands. "From some people. A while back. I am working on paying it back.""You borrowed it from people who text the people around you at midnight.""They are frustrated." He rubbed his face with the back of his hand. Up close he looked significantly rougher than he had when I had first seen him as I came through the door. His eyes were red and his coat was crumpled and he had the look of someone who had been in a fight. "I missed a payment last month. They are

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