One Hundred Sleepless Nights

24

Tony pulls me into one of Jaime's guestrooms immediately when we get inside the house, worriedly looking behind us to see if anyone sees us going in here together. Funny enough this is the room I always stayed in when Jaime first bought his house. I want to share this with Tony but I know that right now is definitely not the time to tell him that.

"What the fuck, Alia?" Tony whispers angrily.

I've never seen him remotely mad before right now. I've seen every single emotion out of him but this one. I was even starting to suspect that he couldn't get angry, but now I can see that I was super fucking wrong.

"Tony-" I start but he cuts me off right away.

"You're Jaime's sister?"

I don't doubt how betrayed and angry he's feeling right now. He has every single right to be mad at me, and by the looks of how he is, he is genuinely that angry. This must be how Jaime felt years ago when he found out about his friend and I.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he continues.

"I wanted to!" I say defensively. "I just didn't want to ruin this. Then I went too long without telling you and I didn't want to bring it up in case you thought I was hiding it from you, so-"

"You were hiding it from me! You should've told me." he says. "We're in a band together, Alia. This could ruin it. It could ruin our entire friendship."

It kind of stings the way he's only thinking of his relationship with Jaime and not about him and I. I know its because him and Jaime have been in a band together for the past 15 years or so, and we've only known each other for a little bit, and only started dating like a month ago, but it still hurts.

"It wouldn't ruin anything." I say weakly even though we both know that's not true.

Tony looks at me like I'm a complete idiot. He stares at me like this for five seconds then turns around, running a hand through his hair in clear frustration. His hand returns to his head, resting on his forehead. He's stressing big time and I only have myself to blame.

"What am I supposed to tell Jaime?" he says as he turns back to me. "'Sorry, man, I didn't know that she was your sister, I only found out at your house for a party I threw you for your birthday since we're such good friends?'"

"Tony, come on, it wont be a big deal."

"Alia, are you serious? I fucked you! A lot!" he says spitting the word out like its a crime. "That's not going to go over well with your brother."

"Its not like we're just sleeping together, its more than that." I say.

"I highly doubt thats going to be a fact that will comfort him." he says dryly.

"He'll understand, Tony. If we tell him we've known each other for awhile and that we're together and -"

"Alia, no amount of reasoning with him will make this okay."

"We don't need to tell him." I point out. "He doesn't need to know."

"We can't just hide something like this from him and lie to him about it."

"Soooo..." I say nervously. "We kind of need to."

He stops and stares at me, standing so still that I'm worried he's stopped breathing at this point.

From the room we can still hear everybody in the party laughing and talking. The music is faint but I can vaguely make out the song that's playing right now. All these sounds and yet the quiet in this room is deafening.

"Why? Why do we need to hide this from him?" he asks slowly.

I give a nervous laugh, one that is clearly not comforting to him. Both hands run through his hair now.

"Alia." he says, his voice deep and frustrated. "What else are you not telling me?"

"Okay, don't be mad." I start. "But this isn't exactly the first time I've been in this situation."

Tony sits down on the bed beside him, putting his head in his hands.

"Look, okay, in my defense our dad had just died and I was so upset, and his best friend at the time was there to comfort me and we were talking all the time and he was always at the house and then one day one thing led to another and we kind of slept together and Jaime found out and was pissed." I say quickly.

"Who died this time then?" Tony asks dryly.

"Kind of insensitive but okay." I mumble.

His eyes shoot to mine, glaring at me from his spot on the bed. He goes to open his mouth, probably to yell at me or tell me he can't stand me, but I cut him off.

"I know, I know." I say, holding my hands up in front of me. "Wasn't fair of me, I'm sorry."

The same look of hopelessness returns to his face. I cant imagine how he's feeling right now. He feels betrayed by me and he feels like he's betraying Jaime at the same time. He's caught in the middle of the Preciados, a place he clearly never wanted to be.

I cross the room and sit beside him on the bed, close enough that my leg rests against his. Despite the situation its a nice feeling to be so close to him. God knows I worked hard to get here.

"I'm sorry, Tony." I say quietly. "I... I - I could explain it all but I fucked up. Plain and simple."

"Not so plain and simple now." he says.

"I can explain it to him. I can tell him its all my fault, this way he only has to hate me. I'm used to it anyways."

"I'm not letting you do that. He's your brother, you're not ruining your relationship with him over me."

From outside the room we still hear the party going on, carrying on as if nothing is happening right now. I wish it was true.

"We can't be together now, you know that right?" he says to me, glancing sideways at me to gauge my reaction.

"Tony." I say, my voice breaking at the end. "We can figure this out."

He gives a laugh, one that's from frustrating. "No we can't, Alia. There's not a single easy way out of this. If we continue dating, its going to ruin both of our relationships with Jaime. If we break up, it ruins ours and possibly the one we have with Jaime as well. We're fucked either way, but we're less fucked if we just break up."

"Is that what you want? To break up?" I ask, my eyes filling with tears.

"Of course I don't." he says, his voice deep and hurt. "But I can't ...I can't do this to Jaime."