Trouble Times Two

Chapter Forty-Eight

Monday

When I get out of my room, Jess is there on the pit stop sofa. She gets up hugs me immediately and I hug her back.

We sit back down on the sofa.

I can't be mad at her, she told me all about her boyfriend and how he was the only person who supported her.

I guess it makes sense that it was Vincent as well because everything surrounding the case was closed apart from the families of those involved. I know also knew why she was so spooked when she saw Arthur as they looked so alike. I had never really realised it as they didn't really look alike when they were younger but now people compared the two all the time.

Like Mrs. FB who did indeed give me that A+.

"I kinda wish you'd have told me before I had to see Vincent. You know I can't stand him at all and I'm sort of confused, how do you even stand him when you were metaphorically on the verge of murdering him before you went away?" I ask as I sit down and I just see this look on her face and I can tell he must've really redeemed himself in some way.

"I got kicked out of the house as soon as I came back from Casanova and I literally had to stay in the storage unit that my siblings got for me. They were helping me out as much as they could in real life until my parents got suspicious and I had to tell them to stop coming as they were so close to getting caught. I managed to get a shitty little phone in case I was close to getting murdered or something as I was literally living in a storage unit and um, Vincent works there. He can't be rude to customers of course and he started noticing that I came a lot when he was on shift and then he just followed me one day and saw me living in it. He threatened to report me and told me that he was making me live back with my parents and I laughed in his face and told him that I was here because my parents kicked me out. He's of course, incredibly privileged and said that I must've done something wrong to make them kick me out after I got back from Casanova and that I shouldn't have done what I did. I asked him what you did that warranted you being sent away to wilderness and of course he couldn't answer that so he just told me to live with him in the basement which is where he lives and to be fair, no one noticed but I had to go and when he told them that we were together they were so pissed off and told him to break up with me. They took me leaving as us breaking up but he saved up, graduated early, got a scholarship and is now travelling and living from his car and working all over the place. He has enough money to cover his college years but he's got a real dedication to work and that surprises me but he does." The way she gives me a whole monologue about him and that look in her eye is enough to tell me that she absolutely adores him.

"Okay, I have somewhere you guys can both live without question but he's not living in my house Jess, you can either stay with him or me and I don't mind, but he is not coming here." She seems so shocked.

"How can you be so kind after I've betrayed you like this?" Jess asks and I pull a face.

"Jess, he adores you and the fact that he packed up and came across the state for you and moved away from the cushy life he has back in his home to a place that is a literal place of trauma for him is a dedication that I can't even begin to fathom and is something I wish I had for myself from someone, so yes, yes I'm just slightly irked that you didn't tell me that he was your boyfriend and I dislike him but he loves you and you love him and I'm not ever going to get in the way of that. What's the point of being another person who disapproves of the relationship when I can be the one person in the world that really and truly supports your relationship. I support you, I don't support him but I can certainly be the person to see you guys be happy and I want you to be happy Jess, no matter who it is with. You know I love you just as much as he does and I would never want to see you upset and if that bothering cow ever messes up, you know I'll be the first person to be knocking on that door, beating the hell out of him." She hugs me.

"You know I love you just as much, and maybe even more, than him. You guys are my literal soulmates, he's my romantic soulmate and you're my platonic. I find it weird how many years you guys have been apart and yet you're still the exact same." I cringe at her saying that. "Don't knock it, you know it's true and you know you two are bonded in a way that most siblings aren't usually."

"A lot of people are twins and have massively better relationships than Vincent and I ever have had. He could've been in the position I've been in all my life if he'd have popped out of our mothers vagina last and that's what makes our situation far more infuriating. It could've been him." I just lean back and she thinks about it.

"Yeah I didn't think about it like that and neither did he but he doesn't use all his common sense. You wouldn't be mad if I moved in with him?" I shake my head and she hugs me.

I have no say on what she does with her life. She's almost eighteen, she can make big girl decisions and I want her to be as happy as possible.