Mended

9

Ethan's POV

My head throbbed as the pounding music of the bar we'd come to reverberated through my body. I had lost count of how many drinks I'd had, yet the numbness that I always craved had yet to creep in.

Releasing a deep breath, I scanned the place around me, making sure I didn't see anyone familiar around. I paused when my gaze caught a girl's across the bar. She smiled when she noticed that I was looking back at her, but I quickly looked away, not in the mood for any unwanted advances.

Next to me, Elijah, Kaiden and Caleb were talking, the three of them unfazed by all the noise and bodies around us. I drifted in and out of their conversations, not in the mood to talk much as the night went on. All I wanted to do was drink and try to fucking forget everything that was eating away at my mind.

Currently, Izzy's hurt face was at the top of the list. I couldn't get the image out of my head, and it was fucking killing me. Not to mention that when I'd tried to apologize, she'd walked away so easily. That shit had never happened before, and now a part of me was even more pissed at her.

"You good?" I twisted my head over to see Kaiden staring at me with raised eyebrows. Elijah and Caleb followed his line of vision.

"Yeah," I said flatly, taking another sip from my drink. "I'm good."

Caleb snorted from beside me. "The guilt creeping in yet, Ethan?"

I rolled my eyes and looked away, mindlessly continuing to watch the people around us as I tapped my fingers against the rim of my glass. It was hours later when Damien and Aiden showed up, right when the alcohol was finally starting to kick in. The buzz was just beginning when Elijah said something that made me wonder if I was hearing things.

"What did you just say?" I asked, leaning over the table to hear him better over the music.

"Sophia's on her way here. She took a flight in this morning," Elijah said and my heart halted inside of my chest as I tried to process his words.

Last time I'd talked to Sophia, she'd been in the middle of cleaning up my mess with Alastair. It was risky for us to talk on the phone, so we limited it as much as possible, but I knew that she had been in San Francisco for the past few days.

Nobody else knew that though.

We'd have to be extra careful about what we said when she arrived, but I was glad she was coming. I needed to talk to her face to face. I needed to know for sure that Alastair and her had destroyed all the evidence of what I'd done.

But I knew that this also meant I'd have to tell her the true extent of what I'd done. Of what I'd gotten myself into.

My chest constricted at the thought, and I quickly reached for another drink to push away the panic looming ahead. It would be fine. She would understand; she had to.

My phone ended up dying a half an hour later, so I was forced to listen to all the shit Damien and Aiden talked about with my brothers. I ignored all their attempts to try and make me talk about anything related to myself, and instead, spent most of my time watching the door to see when my sister would show up.

Twenty minutes later, she appeared at the entrance.

Sophia and Izzy looked so similar, it was almost eerie. The differences were in the minuscule things. While Izzy had raven black hair, Sophia's hair was a lighter shader of brown and only reached her shoulders in length. Her eyes were more blue than grey, and she was a few inches taller than Izzy.

I watched as she trailed through the bar, her gaze searching through all the tables until it landed on us.

"Soph's here," I announced, and all eyes turned towards her.