Love And Marriage

Chapter 19: Betrayal

"Are you ready for today?" I asked Jesse.

It was a picturesque Saturday afternoon and instead of enjoying it as the last Saturday I didn't work, we were sitting down in our breakfast nook, eating lunch, about to go to Shaun's intervention. Jesse had been pretty quiet today. It's been two weeks since we've seen his brother, and to be honest I had no clue how he was doing. I worked in the same hospital he's been in for the last week and a half and I haven't even asked about him. That's just how I felt, I didn't care. I don't know if Jesse asked about him, but he hadn't asked me anything about him. I think knowing he wasn't dead was enough.

And the lack of Aiesha around was due to her visiting Shaun every day with Diana. Diana had been with us a couple evenings while her mom checked on Shaun. She seemed to be doing okay with it all, but then again I have never known Diana and Shaun to be close. She was way more concerned about Jesse and how his bruises were healing. Jesse really didn't want to tell her that it was Shaun, but she deserved to know the truth, and since Jesse had been lied to about Shaun and it resulted in a really bad situation, he didn't want to do the same thing to Diana.

I watched Jesse's face carefully, he seemed nervous about seeing him again and I was too. It was such an awkward situation, and I didn't know how it would go. Apparently Mel was beyond pissed at him and hadn't seen him in a few days but would be joining the intervention. Right now Shaun was staying at his mom's house and Aiesha for some reason tried to get Jesse to no avail to go see Shaun.

"I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to do when I see him. I want to knock his fucking teeth out."

"Please don't. Promise me that no matter what happens you won't get physical."

"But-"

"No, Jesse seriously, you can't keep getting hurt, you still have bruises and you still can't drive yet. Promise me, promise me you won't."

Jesse sighed. He rubbed his face and looked at me again. "I promise." He said. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. He kissed me back, snaking his arms around my waist and pulling me into his lap.

"It's been a while since you've been able to do that." I said, kissing his nose.

"You know what else we haven't done in a while?" he said, moving his hip suggestively. His ribs were healing pretty well and most of his bruises were fading. He was feeling pretty good but he still had some healing to go.

"Stop it before you overdo it. You have such an overactive sex drive. What are you going to do when I'm like seven months pregnant?" I said, lightly hitting his chest.

"Fuck carefully." He said. He kissed across my collarbone.

"Stop talking" I laughed. Smacking his arm.

"When do we get to see our little girl again?"

"About three more weeks. Imagine if it's a boy and we keep saying it's a girl."

We were still laughing when the doorbell rang. Giving me a quick kiss on the lips, Jesse put me down and went for the door.

"Hey Ci. What's up?" I could hear Jesse say. I walked into the living room as Ciara sat down on the couch.

"Hey baby brother, um I just kind of wanted to prepare you for the shitshow you're about to witness."

"Okay." Jesse said. He sat down on the couch. I walked into the room and sat down, resting my face against his back.

"We lied to you about so much I don't know where to begin. Um Shaun started using cocaine in his freshman year of college. It was the frat guys who introduced him to it. It only got worse from there. By his junior year he had been on at least three different drugs. But cocaine is his favorite. Um the heart attack he had due to "Steroids"? Cocaine. The violent mood swings? Cocaine. The stealing, most of which you probably don't know about. Cocaine. He's been to rehab 2 times already but he's never had a relapse this bad before. I knew he had relapsed when I saw him about a week after Dad's funeral, well I didn't know then but I suspected. And a couple weeks ago Mel told me. He tried to stay with me and Xavier and the kids, but I was on to him. There's just so much you don't know, Jess, just so much." she said.