CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. - UPDATED!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: PLEASE READ! Hi guys! After receiving several comments/messages from readers saying they were a bit confused as to what was happening in this chapter, I decided to take it down and revise. I didn't want you guys to read something I wasn't happy with, so the updated version is below! Hopefully this time things are clearer. Love you! xoxo N

"Do you seriously have to go again?" Matt tossed me his keys and I sprinted up the cabin's walkway, nearly eating it on a rock.

"Shut up!" I yelled over my shoulder, fumbling with the key ring. Chris and I had already made him stop three times for a bathroom break on the drive, and yet, my bladder was thirty-seconds away from giving out on me. "Come on, come on," I pleaded with the door. When I felt the lock click over I took off down the unlit hall, barreling into the bathroom.

The porcelain bowl was frigid against my bare legs and I shivered as relief washed over me. You'd think the cabin would've kept some heat overnight, but the aged wood and single-pane windows did an awful job at combating the cold. I was lucky my ass didn't freeze to the toilet seat.

After washing my hands, I perched on the edge of the bath. Over the last hundred miles, the boys managed to preoccupy my brain with silly license plate games and "I Spy," but I couldn't outrun my feelings forever. I needed to sit with this.

Whenever I went too long without putting my thoughts down on paper, it felt like my head was going to explode. I wrote because I didn't know where to put things. I didn't have anywhere to keep them inside myself. The voices were too big to stay in my skull, they had to come out. At least on the page, I knew they found their place. But I hadn't given myself the time lately to do that. I'd been so wrapped up in being with the boys and meeting Mark that I neglected myself. And if I didn't get these thoughts out soon, I was going to become catatonic.

My head hung between my legs. Who knew growing up would be so complicated?

My phone vibrated on the sink. Then again. And again.

I reached across the small space to grab it and plopped my butt back onto the bath's ledge. Everything slowed.

Dozens of text messages from unsaved numbers and people I hadn't spoken to since graduation flooded the screen. And they kept coming.

Hey, is this you? Several said.

Damn, Sullivan look at you! Said others.

Almost every single one contained a video link. Without thinking, I clicked it, turning up the volume.

My blood hardened to concrete. No. No no no.

It was a video taken from someone's front porch. Thick white columns snuck into the frame before the person behind the camera zoomed in on me buried in Nick's arms, and then panned over to Matt playing referee between Chris and Mark. The shouting was clear even from that distance.

Clearer because I'd been there.

"Fuck," I breathed, clenching the phone tighter. The video had been uploaded almost immediately after we'd left Maine, and there were already thousands of comments.

I held my breath as I opened Instagram, preparing for the worst.

A garbled cry escaped me as the notifications came streaming in. Hundreds upon hundreds of mentions, tags, and follow requests populated on the screen. But worse than that, every post as far down as you could scroll was about me and the boys. Screenshots of the video were posted with captions like "Sturniolo Triplets Slumming it with Runaway!" or "Caught on Camera: Youtubers in Heated Fight - Girlfriend's Troubling Past with Addiction Crisis Comes to Light!"

My heart was going so fast I had to ground myself by clutching onto the shower curtain.

At a certain point you think "this is rock bottom," or at the very least have the age-old thought of "things could be worse," and it is almost always at that precise moment when they become so.

It took longer than it should have for my eyes to compute what they were seeing. At first my initial reaction was that I was hallucinating. The adrenaline from reading all the headlines infected my coherence and I was having a meltdown. That had to be the answer because this couldn't be happening. My mother wouldn't do this to me.

Not this.

I felt the back of my top rise, my skin catching momentarily on the chilled acrylic as I slid off the tub onto the chipped vinyl floor. On the screen, my mother stood more polished and beautiful than she should have been for a deed so deceitful, so unforgiving as this; and yet, her thinned out cheeks were adorned in a wind-kissed blush from the outside air and her mossy eyes fluttered at half-pace. Anyone else would mistake it for flirtation or seduction, but I knew better.

She was drunk.

Though she certainly didn't sound it.

My childhood home loomed in the background, mocking me as my mother stood on our browning lawn feeding lies to the vultures.

"It breaks my heart," she pretended to wipe a stray tear, "that my little girl has completely fallen off the rails, and she's taking those poor boys with her. I mean you've seen the video, she's got them wrapped around her finger. It's only a matter of time before she ruins their careers. I just hope they realize before it's too late."

One of the plastic curtain hooks snapped beneath the weight of my grasp. Daniela wasn't just spinning stories for money or attention, that would be too easy. No, she'd seen the way I clung to Nick in that video, how Matt and Chris came to my defense and she couldn't handle knowing that I'd found someone else to care about.

My stomach churned seeing her stand in front of the cameras. This was my punishment. If she couldn't have me, I couldn't have them.

Violent, hot tears ravaged my body; I threw my head into the toilet. Bile burned in my throat as I vomited up every ounce of food in my system. I dry heaved a good four or five times before dragging my hand across my mouth and smearing a thick layer of saliva against the chapped skin.

Had she lost her fucking mind? This wasn't a game. This was their career. Their lives. Everything they worked for was now at risk because of me.

My knees wobbled as I rose from the bathroom floor. Hushed shouts carried down the hall and my pulse jumped. They'd seen it, too.

I halted around the corner from the living room.

"When the fuck were you planning on telling us?" Chris snapped.

Matt shushed him. "Will you keep your voice down? I was going to tell you as soon as we got back here but -"

"But what?"

Matt stumbled backwards when Chris shoved his hands into his chest.

"Hey hey!" I stepped between them. "If you're going to be angry at anyone, it should be me."

This wasn't their fault. They shouldn't be fighting with each other.

Down the hall, Nick was on the phone with someone, his tone low and hushed, but the conversation was abruptly cut off when a bedroom door slammed shut. A cold sweat broke out along my neck.

"Tell her," Chris ordered, taking a step towards his brother.

"Chris, just give me a min-"

"Tell her. Or I will."

I wiped my clammy hands against my thighs. "I know about the video already."

Their heads snapped towards me. Chris asked first, his voice falling an octave. "What video?"

My gaze ping ponged between them. "What do you mean what video? The video you guys are arguing about."

Matt blinked rapidly at me and I ignored the hesitation in my body to take a step towards him. "That is what you're fighting about, isn't it?"

"No, it's not." Nick's knuckles cracked white around the phone hanging at his side. He tossed it to Matt, and Chris crowded over his shoulder to watch the video already pulled up on the device. "But you need to see this."

"Oh, shit," Matt said under his breath. "This is..."

"A PR nightmare," Nick cut him off. "But surprisingly, it isn't our biggest issue at the moment."

I wiped my hands on my pants again. How could this not be the biggest issue? What else was going on? Before I had a chance to ask, Nick stepped up to Matt, his platform Doc Martens giving him a couple of extra inches to look down on him.

"So we keep secrets from each other now, is that it?" Nick cocked his head. Every muscle in his body strained under the fabric of his white tee like he was physically holding himself back from doing something he might regret.

Matt flexed his fingers at his side, not answering.

I looked at Chris who was standing less than a foot away from his brothers, ready to break up whatever fight was about to erupt. Or tap himself in.

Frustration weighed out my anxiety and I grabbed Nick by the shoulder, pulling him away from Matt so we were all standing in a circle. "Enough with the testosterone. What the hell is going on?"

You know that feeling just before the drop on a rollercoaster, when your stomach is suspended in midair and you can feel it's about to slam back into your body like a cinder block? That's what it felt like when Matt said, "I haven't been honest with you."

Immediately, all of the worries I had about his secret calls and texts, about him having a potential girlfriend, made my stomach plummet to my feet. I staggered back a step.

"There's someone else," I croaked. I was going to be sick again.

Matt's face rearranged in confusion. "What? God, no, Nat, it's not that," he reached for me, and I instinctively moved closer to Chris. His hand pressed into the small of my back.

Half-formed thoughts spiraled in my head. If it wasn't that, then what?

Nick rocked on the balls of his feet, his arms crossed over his chest. His gaze hadn't left Matt since he walked into the room.

"What's the matter with you?" I squinted at him. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Can we please talk in private?" Matt stepped towards me again, and Chris's hand pressed deeper into my spine.

Matt's blue eyes were dark and glossy like saltwater washing over stones and I knew that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to leave me breathless.

I shook my head. "No. Say it now."

His words came out in a rush. One deadly tidal wave after another.

"You have to understand, we were so focused on finding your dad, I didn't want to take away from that!" Matt looked to his brothers for support, but neither of them moved to come to his defense. "I was going to tell you last night but -"

His eyes cut to Chris over my shoulder and another wave of guilt crashed in my chest. "We were supposed to have more time," Matt continued. "But when Cara texted that first night saying she needed us back in L.A. by Friday because something had gotten screwed up with the tour dates, I didn't know how to tell you. Not with the anxiety you were already dealing with about meeting your dad. I knew you wouldn't -"

I put my hand up, stopping him. Inappropriate laughter seethed in my throat as all of the missing pieces fell into place and I finally saw the bigger picture.

We'd been together practically every waking moment for the last five days and there hadn't been a single mention of a tour, but of course, this is why they'd come to Vermont in the first place. Everything was clear now. They were about to head out on a six week tour and weren't sure what they wanted to come back to once it was over. Each of them wanted something different. Chris wouldn't give up this life with his brothers, but Matt didn't want it anymore - not in the ways they had it now. And Nick, Nick was ready for the next thing. I mean he'd practically said it last night when we were talking about Carter. He wanted to be his own person, feel like a separate entity to his brothers. That's why things had been so tense between them, why Matt spent the last three days dodging phone calls and playing into whatever fantasy I could give him, why Chris got so wound up over his brother making decisions for me. They were using me to play out their own battles because they were too fucking scared to have it out with each other.

My head was reeling. I pushed away from Chris. They all knew about the tour already, it'd been planned, so why the fuck was Nick acting so surprised? What else was I missing?

I let out a derisive snort. Actually, I didn't care. "Right. So, you've been lying to me this whole time then? You knew you were leaving and you didn't say anything because, what? You knew I wouldn't take this trip with you? Wouldn't give you a good story to tell to your fans?" My glare was glacial, which was ironic considering the anger coursing through my body brought spots to my vision.

"Nattie," Chris's voice cracked around the nickname and another piece of myself broke off.

"Don't," I whipped around. Unadulterated pain slipped through the cracks in my teeth. "Don't you dare call me that, right now. You're just as bad as him."

I clutched at the front of my sweater, holding onto my stomach. There was nothing left to throw up, but that didn't stop the nausea from forming low in my belly. I tamped it down with indignation. "You," I stepped up to Matt until I was directly under his crippling gaze, "told me not to start this friendship out by lying, and look at what you've done?"

Throwing his words back in his face was all I could do to keep myself from putting my fist through a wall. I watched each of the words land like a right hook to his jaw, the tendons flexing.

"I thought I was doing the right thing."

He meant it, and that's what hurt the most. The three people I thought I could trust had turned out to be no better than the one person who'd betrayed me over and over again my whole life.

"When?" I concentrated on the standing lamp over Matt's shoulder to keep the tears at bay. My heart felt like it was going to physically crack from the weight of his words.

"We're taking you back to Woodbury tomorrow. We fly out of Boston Friday morning."

"Actually," Nick cut in, his voice nearly guttural. "Cara had no idea we weren't in Boston." Each word that came out was coated with accusation. "So you can imagine her confusion when she received a video of her clients nearly getting into a physical altercation with a lawyer in Maine."

Matt pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed under his breath.

He hadn't told their manager that they were going to Vermont like he was supposed to. Nick and Chris were under the impression Matt was handling all the communication with Cara because he always did. Which means they also weren't aware that she'd changed their plans about returning to California. Matt hadn't just been lying to me, but to his brothers as well.

A metallic tinge seeped into my mouth. I hadn't noticed I was biting my lip until the stream of blood hit my tongue. I wiped at it with my fingers.

"We're on a red eye back to L.A. tonight," Nick said through clenched teeth.

"What!" Chris barked.

I couldn't hear any more of this. I shook my head and started out the front door. "I can't do this."

"Nat!" Matt called from behind me, his voice strained. "Where are you going?"

"Matt, give her a minute!" Nick shouted after him, but his pace quickened, ricocheting off the pavement behind me like bullets.

Tears hardened on my cheeks from the cool, late afternoon air and I braced for impact on the edge of the crumbling retaining wall. "I'm done talk-"

"You don't have to talk, just listen," Matt urged, pulling my arm gently so I was facing him. Red veins coursed through the whites of his eyes. I hated that I felt sorry for him.

"I know I fucked up, okay? I know you're upset and you have every right to be, but I didn't mean to hurt you. You have to know I would never intentionally hurt you." Shadows fell across his face from the retiring sun in the trees overhead, and his hands trembled as they cupped my tear-crusted cheeks.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

"You don't get it," I shook in his hands, "it doesn't matter what your intention was, you chose to lie to me. After everything I've told you about my mom? You...you knew-" my voice quaked and I inhaled a sharp breath, "you knew from the beginning I didn't want to get too close and you let me. You let me let you in."

Nothing ever hurt like this. Not discovering that my mother sold me out to the paparazzi. Not my father abandoning me to start over with a new family. I'd come to expect and accept those painful realities a long time ago because my parents were never people I could rely on. The only person I ever had was myself.

So really, who was to blame here? Me or Matt? I let him convince me that I could feel safe with him and his brothers, that I could let my walls come down because they would have my back.

The only thing they did was put a knife into it.

"Natalia, look at me," he tilted my face towards him. This close, I could smell him musky and warm and I remembered how perfect it felt to be held like this less than twenty-four hours ago. It sent my head into an even faster spin. "I meant what I said last night. I love who I am with you. Please, please don't let one mistake fuck this up. Tell me right now. Tell me that you can forgive me and I will do everything in my power to make this up to you."

I guess I had more of my mother in me than I thought, because even though it felt like I was swallowing razor blades as the boy I'd started to fall in love with begged me to fight for him, I wrapped my hands around his, holding them tighter to my face so he knew I meant it, and said, "You don't deserve it."