Page 141

“Yes it is!” my mom screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you, James?!”

I’d never seen her so upset before.

“Penny...”

“You didn’t want her to date Axel because you hate Tyler. You wanted her to date Jacob because you love Brooklyn!”

“I don’t love Brooklyn,” my dad said.

“You proposed to her!”

WHAT?!

“Well at least I didn’t sleep with her while I was dating you!” my dad yelled.

“We were on a break when I was with Tyler!”

I just stared at the scene in front of me. My mom had slept with Uncle Tyler?! When?! What was happening right now? I turned to see the expression on Aunt Brooklyn’s face. And she didn’t looked shocked about the proposal comment. Seriously...what the fuck?

“And this isn’t about our past, James,” my mom said. “It’s about Scarlett’s future. How could you do this to our baby?” My mom’s voice cracked. “Have you not seen how much this has affected her? That little girl we raised was fearless. She had the confidence to tackle the whole world. And you broke her!”

I felt myself shrinking. Even my mom had seen my confidence vanish over the years. And it had all started that day in sixth grade. My dad made Axel wait. And Axel tried to get me to make the first move by dating other girls. The two of them together had ruined any self-confidence I had. I put my hand on my chest. My mom was right. I was broken.

“I was protecting her from him!” my dad yelled. “I was keeping her safe.”

Tears started streaming down my cheeks. What did it matter that I was safe when I was only a ghost of my former self?

“You should have seen Axel the day he found out that Scarlett and Jacob were dating,” Aunt Hails said. She put her hand on her chest like her heart actually ached.

“Mom, don’t...” Axel started.

But she ignored him. “You’re our family, James. How could you do this to my son who thinks of you as an uncle?”

“I should have put this together,” Sophie whispered.

“How could you have possibly?” I tried to wipe away my tears as I turned to her. “We didn’t know any of this about Uncle Tyler and Aunt Brooklyn.”

“Oh, I did. It was all in your mom’s books.”

I stared at her. “We’re not allowed to read her books.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I remember her saying that ages ago. I went home and read them that very day. They’re very scandalous.”

“You read them?”

“Yeah, I read the whole Hunted series and Empire High series. Drama. Oh my God, do you think she’s going to put this in a book? Awkward.”

I hadn’t heard what my parents were talking about because I was busy talking to Sophie. But I turned back to them when I heard Aunt Hailey scream at the top of her lungs.

Uncle Tyler took a swing at my dad, his fist colliding hard with my dad’s jaw.

My dad leaned forward, ramming his shoulder into Uncle Tyler’s stomach. The two of them fell onto the coffee table, shattering it in half.

“Not again,” my mom said.

“I think we all need to take a deep breath,” Aunt Daphne said.

No one listened to that advice. My dad and Uncle Tyler kept fighting.