Jake doesn’t know how Brett felt about him. Neither do Alex and Seb. Hell, I only just found out. We had no idea. But that’s classic Brett. No one can compartmentalize quite like he can.
But all of us being together for this event—especially after Brett told me about his true feelings for Jake—made me realize that Jake deserves better. We all deserve better.
Especially Brett.
He deserves to know his lost love is alive.
Jake’s eyes are a battlefield—grief, guilt, and something even darker. His silence is heavy, screaming with everything he’s carried alone for years.
“Because sometimes death is easier than the truth,” Jake finally says.
“Easier for who?” Seb asks, his voice quiet but carrying over the sound of the waves. “For you? Or for us?”
“For everyone,” Jake says, his face twisting.
The silence doesn’t just settle—it crashes down, suffocating, a brutal void where words should be.
Brett finally breaks it. “Did it ever occur to you how your actions affect other people?” he spits, glaring at Jake. “That we have feelings too? That we cared about you?”
Jake flinches, as if the words aren’t just spoken but driven into him like a knife. Pain flickers across his face like he’s been struck and is too shattered to hide it.
“Brett’s right.” Alex’s voice is choked with tears. “You were our brother.”
Jake stands there, letting the words hit him like waves crashing against rock. I see it in his eyes—the years of guilt, of solitude, of carrying a burden none of us could have imagined back then. But he doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t fight back.
Because there’s nothing to fight.
He did what he had to do. He and I both did.
“Say something,” Brett growls, his fists clenched at his sides. “Damn it, Jake, say something that makes this make sense.”
Jake exhales sharply and runs a hand through his hair. He glances at me for a second before he looks out over the endless stretch of ocean. The sun casts shadows on the sand.
“I didn’t want to leave,” Jake finally says, his voice rough. “I didn’t want to disappear. But I had to.”
“Why?” Brett demands.
Jake hesitates, his jaw tightening. He’s weighing his words carefully, measuring the risk, calculating the fallout. “Marnie was gone. And by now you all know she was pregnant with my baby.”
Sebastian shifts beside Brett. “Marnie was gone, right. Shewas never found, Jake. Neither was Old Man Larson. What the fuck did you do?”
Jake’s face goes pale, his breath catching.
Alex nods. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
A muscle in Jake’s jaw twitches, but he doesn’t answer.
Brett takes a step forward. “That’s why you ran, isn’t it?”
Still, Jake says nothing.
The silence stretches long, thick with tension.
I can’t let him carry this alone.
“He didn’t just kill Old Man Larson,” I say, my voice steady despite the weight of the words. “We buried him. Together.”
Sebastian inhales sharply. Alex stiffens. Brett’s eyes darken with something unreadable.
