Three Brothers (Completed)

The Disastrous trip to the Cottage

I didn't see Lily again until Thanksgiving. The Soran Family Thanksgiving was a magical time filled with autumn leaves and orange sunsets out at our cottage by the lake. It would be my family, all my aunts and uncles and cousins, but they wouldn't be up until Thanksgiving Day. We wanted Lily up because we felt like she was part of the family, and I had been ecstatic when she agreed to come up for the long weekend, a whole four days.

Both James and I had grand plans for this weekend. I planned on stunning Lily with my new found manliness. I had been living away from home for three months now, I was the big man on campus, she'd have to find me more mature now. James on the other hand just wanted to get her alone and pour his heart out to her, tell her everything he felt and how much he missed her, he was willing to beg her if possible.

I was excited to see her again after three months of fantasizing about what to say to her. Yes, I was texting her whenever I could and she always responded, but there was never anything too serious between her and I anymore. It was kind of depressing.

I hitched a ride with James and sat in uncomfortable silence the whole way up. Sean had been a doll and offered to give Lily a ride up after work.

As soon as Lily came through the door both James and I were on her, big bright smiles and hugging her. I reminded myself that I had a secondary plan for that weekend. If I blew it with Lily I'd try to get her and James back together. However, I didn't get much alone time with Lily, that first day, it seemed that Sean was hovering over her at all times. I was so caught up with trying to get Lily alone to ask her out again that I didn't even notice the secret smiles being exchanged between her and Sean.

I wasn't going to give up that easily though. I went with Sean and Lily when he wanted to show her the boats and take her out one on one. I followed them for the walk through the orange and red forest. I even had her sitting next to me at dinner that night, but I didn't get a chance to ask Lily anything and she went to bed without hearing my question.

The next morning James had decided he wanted to play a game, and all of the board games were in the closet of Sean's cottage room. He had walked in unannounced, he hadn't even knocked. He had glanced at the bed briefly before going after what he really came for. He pulled down the board game and said, "Yo, Sean you want to play with us?" and when he turned around he saw that not only was Sean sitting up in bed, so was Lily, both were holding the sheets to their chests covering the fact that they were completely naked at that moment.

James stared at them for a minute. "What's going on?" he asked.

Sean began to rub the back of his head, something he did when he was looking for something good to say. "Okay, we were going to keep this a secret for a little while longer, but Lily and I are sort of seeing each other."

James dropped the board games in his arms, he got stiff and his eyes grew wide with anger. He walked away from Sean, who knew the signs and was chasing after him. "ROYCE!" James screamed. "Sean's sleeping with Lily!"

"Whoa! Keep your voice down!" Sean ordered.

James rounded on Sean. "Excuse me? You're sleeping with my girl and you want me to keep my voice down? You never even liked her! You're doing this to piss me off!"

I had come out of bed at this point, we were all standing in the living room, ignoring my parents standing in the kitchen. I couldn't believe what was happening until Lily came out of Sean's room in her skimpy little pajamas. I glared at Sean. "How could you do this to me? You knew how I felt!"

"She doesn't like you in that way! Royce you're almost nineteen. You are NOT old enough for Lily!" Sean cried.

James shoved him roughly. "You son of a bitch, you've done this before. You're with her because I wanted her, and that's it."

"That's not true, tell them Sean," Lily said.

Sean winced. "Well, actually, that's not entirely false. At first, that's all it was. I wanted to see what was so special about her, you know, I wanted to see why you two went all crazy. Then she had that rule about waiting to have sex and while I was waiting to have sex with her I sort of got really attached."

Both me and James were furious, I was close to tears of frustration, James was so angry he was shaking, kind of like he was on vibrate mode. Neither of us had given Lily a second glance at this point, the blame was all on Sean. "How long have you two been together?" James asked through gritted teeth.

"Since August." Sean answered.

"August?" I screamed. "You've been with my Lily since August?"

"She's not your Lily!" James shouted back. "She was mine before you went and screwed us up, and I didn't even get to sleep with her. Sean always has to get everything first!"

"Okay, that also might be part of the reason why I went after Lily, but not the full reason. I actually do like her, and unlike you two I'm older and closer to her age." Sean argued.

"I'm one year younger than her!" James cried. "You're three years older than her! How is that closer?"

Sean shrugged. "What can I say? Lily wants an older more mature man."

James jumped on him, only to have Sean throw him back. The three of us got into a shoving match, shouting obscenities and threatening to throw punches, and no one came to intervene. We didn't stop until we heard the front door slam shut and the sound of a car revving up to go.

Sean ran out of the cottage and watched his car speed away down the dirt path towards the highway. We were silent as Sean came back. "I think Lily just left," he said.

"Of course she left," said our mother from the kitchen. "With you two screaming like that about her I'm surprised she didn't run out of here crying."

Sean went back into his room to call Lily and me and James shuffled off, fully embarrassed by our scene in front of Lily. Sean was on the phone for almost an hour with Lily. When he came out of his room he looked upset and downtrodden. He sat down at the table while James and I stared at him. "She's going to leave my car at our house," he whispered. "And she broke up with me." I exchanged a look with James, a small smile on our faces. "Don't look so happy boys, she didn't just break up with me, she broke up with you guys too."

"What?" I cried. "But we were never going out.

"She says she never wants to see any of us ever again." Sean said. "Congratulations boys, we somehow found a way to make the sweetest, nicest girl hate us. I hope this is what you wanted."

Thanksgiving wasruined that year, none of us could get Lily off of our minds, not to mentionall our relatives showed up and demanded to meet her. She wouldn't answer textmessages or calls, and there was nothing any of us could do to change her mind.Lily was gone and there was nothing left but a big empty hole from where sheused to be.