Broken (Brown Eyed Boy book 2)

Lies They Shouldn't Have Told Me (Jessie POV)

It was weird but the next two weeks of my life seemed to go by pretty quick. I was around Emmett, Cassie and Carlos a lot and as I learned that day in the park, it was always comfortable. There were the occasional awkward moments where Carlos and Emmett would reference something I didn't remember but then Carlos would look at me and tell the story in as much detail as he could remember. It always made me feel like I was a child being told a bedtime story of someone else's life but it didn't upset me as much anymore. When Carlos told me things he always did it in a way that seemed to say I remembered it and was just pretending not to because I liked to hear him tell the story. And sometimes, I could almost believe that. But no matter how many new things they told me about, no matter how many sessions I went to with that therapist who was supposed to help me remember, I still felt like there was something missing. Like there was a giant key to the room of my life and everyone was keeping it from me, preventing me from making any progress inside.

            The one person who had helped me before that I hadn't seen much of was Jared. The last time I had seen him was the day he took me back to the high school and told me about everything he had done in the past year to me. Admittedly it was some pretty bad stuff but it made me realize that if anyone was going to tell me the truth about Carlos it was going to be Jared. Everything he told me before said that he wasn't exactly on Team Carlos and that meant if he felt Carlos was hiding something from me then he would tell me. It wasn't that I didn't trust Emmett wouldn't tell me something like that but some how I felt like it was something that Emmett didn't know about either. So in my mind, I couldn't help but feel like I had no choice but to go to Jared.

            Carlos and Cassie went with their mom to do some last minute shopping and had invited me to go with them but I declined. Them being gone for the day gave me the perfect opportunity to talk to Jared. When I called him, he was just as surprised as the first time and it made me realize just how much he thought he had screwed up our relationship. And just as before, I saw it as another reason why I should go to him about Carlos. It was threatening to rain pretty bad outside so we opted to stay in my house and watch some movies on TV. I didn't know how I was going to bring up what I was wondering so it took me a couple of hours to bring it up. But when I finally got the nerve to say it, something inside of me seemed to yell that I was going to regret it.

            “Jared, I need to ask you something,” I said slowly. “About Carlos.”

            “What about him?” he asked, surprised.

            “You guys were never really friends right?” I said. “I mean, you told me all of the stuff you did last year because you were jealous of him or whatever. So, you were never really his friend and probably not is friend now.”

            “I guess,” Jared shrugged. “We aren't best friends or anything now, but we have a sort of understanding.”

            “About what?” I asked confused. He didn't say anything and just stared at me in a way that told me the understanding was somehow about me. I wanted to know more but figured it just had something to do with both of them liking me and probably what would happen if I chose one of them. “Never mind.”

            “What were you going to ask me?” Jared said.

            “I...I don't know,” I said, backing out last minute. “It's probably nothing, just forget I said anything.”

            “Jessie-”

            “Really, Jared it's nothing,” I said, turning back to the TV.

            “Look, I told Carlos I would tell you the truth no matter what,” Jared said. “So if you're worried that I'll lie about him, I promise I won't. I just want to help.”