V.O.I.C.E

.Chapter Twenty Nine.

This book is dedicated to amgalgo13 for making an amazing trailor for the book. The video is in the sidebar below.

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 Chapter Twenty Nine                             Evalyn

"I'm sorry Owen. I can't date you anymore," I said apologetically.

"Why?" He questioned.

"I like somebody else. And I feel like we've are better as friends," I said, not going into details. I didn't want to lie to him. He was still my friend and he deserved the truth- or as much of it as I could give.

"It's Carter, isn't it?" He demanded.

Okay then, he deserved part of the truth. "No, it's not Carter," I quickly fibbed.

But I must've answered too quickly, because he said, "I never thought you would lie to me Eva. I know you love him. I've seen it since he moved here. Your eyes are always following him, just like his are following you. Isabella sees it too. But it's wrong. He's your brother."

"What has Isabella been saying to you?” I asked.

“Just the truth,” he snapped, “what I didn’t want to see because I was to in love with you to see it myself.”

“Owen, I don't know what you're talking about. My mother is marrying his father, we’re going to be step siblings," I said.

Owen shook his head at me as he said, "I know that. That's why you can't love each other. But why can you not love me?"

"Because you are one of my best friends. I just can't date you. I'm sorry, Owen. I never meant to hurt your feelings," I told him as my eyes began to fill with tears. I turned to walk away, face tilted down to the ground not wishing to see the hurt I know was on Owen's face. I didn't make it a step past Owen before he grabbed my arm, holding me in place tightly

I flinched of I cried, "Owen, that hurts. Let me go!"

"How do you think I feel? I have loved you since the first time we had to sit beside each other in grade school. And all of a sudden this new guy walks in and I'm left on the side never given a chance. But worse, that guy is your step brother!" he yelled, not loosening his grip.

"I don't care how many times you've been left on the side, but I believe I heard her ask you to let her go. I suggest you do that," I heard a voice called from behind me.

"This is none of your business," Owen yelled back.

"I believe it is my business, since I'm the one you're saying she's in love with," replied Carter coming up beside me, "Now let her go."

Owen hesitated for only a second longer before he finally released my wrist and walked away.

As soon as Owen was out of sight and there was nobody else within eyesight, Carter wrapped me up tightly in his arms and kissed my forehead softly. He carefully took my arm and looked over my now bright red wrist. There was going to be bruises there tomorrow.

“Are you ok?” He asked and I nodded, not sure that my voice wouldn’t shake if I spoke. When I didn’t answer out loud, Carter asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine; it doesn’t even hurt too much. I was just surprised by his reaction. He didn’t like breaking up too much, as you saw,” I said, trying to joke but my tears suddenly burst forth with no way to stop them. Carter pulled my face to his chest and I didn’t fight him. I laid my head over his heart, hearing his steady heartbeat while my tears wouldn’t seem to find an end.

“Let’s get out of here,” He said.

We hurried down the halls, there were a few minutes left of break so there were still a few students hanging out at their lockers waiting until the very final minutes to get to their class. I hurried to my locker and grabbed my jacket and just as I closed the door the warning bell went. 

As I headed back to the front doors I sent Vic a text saying ‘Carter and I are ditching the rest of the day. You have a ride home after school?’

I had just exited the building when I got her answer. ‘Yeah Gerald will drive me home. What’s up? Why are you ditching with Carter no less? I thought things were still weird with you two? What happened after the party?’

Right, I hadn’t told her what had happened after we had left that night. I sent her a quick reply as Carter’s car came into view, ‘I guess I have a lot to tell you. I’ll explain later.’

Carter arrived not long after me and we both got into the car. He leaned over once the doors were closed, giving me a quick kiss on the lips and then he turned back in his seat and started the car.

“So what do you want to do?” he asked as he pulled out of the student parking lot.

“This was all your big idea. I thought you had a plan when you decided to kidnap me from my studies,” I laughed at him.

“I never kidnapped you. You’re willing running away with me. And there was no plan. It was more of a spur of the moment type idea,” he joked back.

We drove in silence for a bit before I spoke again, “How much did you hear back there?”

“Enough to know we are going to have to be careful around him, he already suspects us,” he replied. “Isabella wasn’t nearly as crazy when I told her.”

“Told her what?” I asked, confused.

“That I was breaking up with her,’ Carter replied slowly as if I didn’t really understand English.

“You really broke up with her?” I questioned.

“Really really,’ he said.

I reached across and took Carter’s one hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel and intertwined my fingers with his. “I love you,” I told him, I didn’t think that I would ever get sick of telling him that.

“I know you do,” he said as he pulled into a parking lot. We hadn’t been driving very long so I looked around to see where he had taken me.

“You brought me to a music store?” I asked him.

“I figured this would be a good way for us to get our minds off of today, so get your cute butt in that store and enjoy my thoughtfulness,” he teased.

I didn’t argue with him. Instead I opened my door and followed him inside the store. He was greeted by the guy behind the front counter and they did one of the man handshake things guys do, where they grab each other’s fingers, go in for what looks like a hug but end up clapping each other on the back. He asked the guy if there were any spare studies we could use and the guy nodded before leading us to the back of the store.

We were led past rooms full of every instrument I could think of. There were guitars hanging on the walls, drum kits in corners, and books of sheet music lining other walls. It was all a little disorganized but at the same time it made you feel at home, unlike other stores that looked like a page from a magazine.

The guys opened a door at the very back of the store and gestured for us to go inside. Stepping into the room, I could feel a big smile appear on my face. There was a drum kit tucked into one corner, a least a dozen different guitars on the wall,  a piano sitting against a wall, and two microphones and music stands in the middle of the room. In other words, my own version of heaven.

I took a seat at the piano and began to play a few scales to warm up my fingers. Once I finished warming up, I turned to Carter who was sitting on the piano bench with a guitar in his hand. His scales soon turned into a song and I turned back to the piano and began to play along with him.

One song bled into another. Carter and I talking only when we needed to pick a new song to play. Some songs I sung to, some he sung to, and others we sang at the same time.  After several hours, both our voices were sore so we just played. We kept switching instruments around until we had both played everything in the room. We kept going until even our fingers were even too sore to do that.

We finally looked at the time and seeing that it was nearly five in the afternoon. We decided that it was time for us to head home before our parents wondered where we had gone to.

“Thank you for a wonderful ditch day,” I said to him as we pulled into our driveway. When he was parked, I checked to make sure nobody was looking and gave him a quick kiss before I got out of the car. It was time to go back to being brother and sister.