A/N - yes this book is still alive...
Zane is 23 in this part :)
TW: scenes some may find upsetting ❤️
~~~
"Happy birthday to you!", we all cheered as Chase blew out the candles on his cake, leaning back and pressing a kiss to Aurora's temple afterwards.
How my brother was seventeen today, I'd never know.
"You gonna make a wish Chasey?", Caleb chuckled, shaking him by the shoulders, "more books? A new pair of glasses? A nicer girlfriend?".
He gave Aurora a teasing look and she rolled her eyes, shoving the eighteen year old's head.
"You love me and you know it", she jabbed a finger at Caleb, "but yeah, make a wish".
"I already made a wish", Chase revealed, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend and picking up the knife with the other. His voice was deeper, he was taller, growing what only some would class as a beard, as well as his hair being a little longer.
They were growing up, and there was nothing I could do about it.
"I want the first slice", Xavier announced, barging past his twin and our cousins so he was at the front of the line, "you don't mind me going first, right Rory?". She just chuckled, ruffling his black hair and shaking her head.
"Have at it", she told him, "why is there so much gel in your hair?".
"He claims the girls love it", Prescott snorted and I rolled my eyes, looking at my fourteen year old brother's all-over-the-place hair in distaste.
"They do", Xavier flashed us a grin, taking a slice of cake on a plate from Chase with a thank you, "I've already got girls wanting to be my valentine". Give me strength.
"What about you Xan? Long line of girls for you too?", Caleb grinned, only to be met with a scowl from our youngest brother, "who shit in your hands and made you clap?". Emiliano and the twins laughed, Marco wearing his usual stoic facial expression as always; I just eyed Alexander carefully, he'd been worse than I'd ever seen him temper wise recently.
"Fuck you", and there we were. The laughter died down instantly and I cleared my throat, watching his blue eyes settle on mine.
"Do you need a moment outside?", I asked, he just scoffed in reply and barged to the front of the line for cake, holding out a plate.
"I want some fucking cake", he stated, I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed, this was how we were going about it apparently.
"Xander", Chase warned, not making a move to cut any for him.
"Fine. I want some fucking cake- please", he snapped, "what are you all looking at?".
"Okay, that's enough", I pried the plate from his hand and held a hand on his shoulder, "with me now". I knew it wasn't his fault, trust me I reminded myself every time he did or said something out of line, but we'd been having a good day so far, I wasn't having him try and throw it into jeopardy.
And just because he had to, he shoved Xavier's plate of cake on the way out, causing it to squash against his chest- really?
"Xan!", he exclaimed, dropping his plate onto the table as if it were on fire and grimacing at his shirt, "ew, ew, ew!".
"Relax, take it off", Prescott was at his side in an instant as I began to usher my hot-headed brother out of the room, a satisfied smirk on his face.
"I don't know how you cope", Marco muttered to me as I brushed past him, a smirk tugged at my lips as I directed Alexander to my office.
I didn't know how I'd coped either...
~
Having Alexander in my office was becoming nothing short of a daily occurrence, whether it was to bring him in here to calm down, lecture him, talk to him about school, it was like he had a magnetic pull to this room.
I leaned against my desk, the wood creaking slightly under my weight as I watched my brother, slumped in the sofa opposite with his arms crossed and a frown fixed on his face. How he had so much personality for a fourteen year old, I'd never know.
"What?", he asked when he finally to notice of me staring, "I'm not gonna pounce or something".
"I'd hope not", my lips twitched up in amusement for a split second before I frowned, "do you want to tell me what that was about?". He gazed away from me, towards the window, and clenched his jaw slightly; I just wished he'd let me in.
"Nothing", was his reply. I hummed, standing up straight and taking two steps towards the sofa, lowering myself to his left, silence filling the four walls of the room momentarily.
"I won't pry, but I don't believe that for a second", he stayed quiet, "maybe you're not taking your meds, or the therapy with Wren isn't working-".
"I am, and it is", he snapped, raking a hand through his jet black, less gel-filled hair, "it's nothing".
"Your nothing is code for something", I replied, watching his side profile, "and until you feel comfortable enough to tell me what that something is, I'll be waiting".
The way he switched up the second Caleb asked him about girls, the way he'd been doing so for a while now...I had my suspicions. Suspicions that I wouldn't act upon, nor would I ask him about, until he was ready.
Even if it was causing him more harm than good.
"Am I in trouble?", he cut to the chase and I smirked, I'd never met a kid like him.
"You can apologise to Chase, and Xavier- and everyone else in the room", I instructed and he nodded twice, "you can go and cool down upstairs and return when you're calm".
"I am calm", he had the audacity to try and lie to my face, I just gave him a deadpan look and he groaned, rising to his feet and sighing, "fine, but I still want some cake".
"I'll make sure a slice is saved", I told him and he nodded again, opening my office door and leaving the room without another word. Only did I exhale when I heard his bedroom door close upstairs, letting my head fall back against the sofa- what a fucking day.
~
"You two have two more years until you're legal", I sunk into one of the chairs on the patio beside Caleb and Theo, eyeing the bottles of lemonade and vodka on the floor in front of them; our cousins had just departed and the party had died down. Chase and Aurora were playing Mariokart with Xavier, and Alexander was still upstairs, nowhere to be seen.
"Good thing we're not at your club then, huh?", my eighteen year old brother flashed me a grin before sipping his drink, "we're letting loose".
"Please don't- don't say that again", Theo scrunched up his face and looked at me, "is uh, is Xan okay?".
"Question of the hour", I muttered, "he'll be okay". I hoped so.
"Someone's gotta be the problem child", Caleb raised his glass, gulping the rest of the contents back in one go, Theo just rolled his eyes at his best friend.
"Pretty sure you take- you take that uh, that title", he muttered, sipping his at a much slower pace, "you're in- in therapy".
"So's Xan", he shrugged, "so are you".
"We're not talking- talking about me", he shrugged, "uh, Mum's requested I- I bring some cake home, is that- is that okay?".
"Take as much as you want", I told him, watching the pair of them for a moment, "I'm proud of you two". Their facial expressions wavered for a moment before Theo sent me a weak smile, and Caleb reached down to pour himself another drink.
"You say that like twenty times a day", he said and I hummed.
"Good", I nodded.
"My parents are- are the same", Theo added, "they think I'm gonna- gonna uh, I'm gonna-". He huffed, taking a sip of his drink and looking at Caleb.
"Don't look at me like you wanna fucking apologise", he snapped and I smirked, knowing his patience for his best friend was everlasting always.
"They uh, they walk on eggshells", Theo faced me again and I nodded in understanding, knowing all too well how that felt.
"I was the same with Caleb", I informed him, "still am sometimes".
"It's not like I'm here or anything", he waved a hand and we both rolled our eyes.
"You both experienced a great loss, and the nature of that loss makes it ten times harder", I swallowed, my mind drifting to the boy who used to be attached to these boys, this house, like glue, "people are bound to walk on eggshells".
"Well, we're fine", Caleb announced and Theo looked at him as if to say 'really?', "we're kinda fine, we're getting better". I knew that was the truth, after what could only be classed as a shit first year after August passed, the pair of them were gradually beginning to cope, and now we were approaching the second anniversary of their best friend's death.
Time flies when you're...I don't know what.
"We're getting- getting better", Theo repeated and I smiled, not doubting it for a second.
~~
"Isabella", I stiffened in my seat, squeezing my thigh in one hand and the handle of my mug of peppermint tea in the other; I hadn't been expecting that name to come out of my cousin's mouth today...or for the foreseeable future.
"What about her?", I dared ask, trying to ignore the shaking in my hands, the slight dizziness in my head.
I'd received an alert from my phone telling me my blood sugar levels were low about ten minutes ago and chose to ignore it, Marco had told me what he wanted to talk about was important, so that could wait.
"Her arrival home, have you contemplated it?", my twenty-two year old cousin steepled his fingers at his desk, shirt sleeves rolled up and showing off the variety of tattoos he'd covered himself in this past year: the thorns going down the entirety of his right arm, the snake wrapped around his left wrist among them.
"Only every day since she was taken", I scoffed, placing the mug of the foul drink on the table in front of me and clasping my vibrating hands together, "why?".
"Don't you think it's time?", he asked and I cocked my head.
"There are a lot of ways to answer that question", I pressed my index and middle fingers against my temple, leaning back, "of course I want her back, but there are other factors I have to consider".
"Like?", he raked a hand through his black hair, eyes unmoving from mine, "you're shaking".
"Our mother", I replied, "I'm fine".
"What about her?", he frowned, "I didn't ask if you were fine".
"I don't want her here", I snapped, "orange juice?".
"Why not?", he narrowed his eyes at me, "fridge".
"Do you even have to ask? She abandoned us, left us with that monster, in the middle of the night", I scowled, making a move to stand, pausing when he raised a hand and got up himself, "part of me wishes she'd die".
Not for Isabella's sake, but for mine.
Having her back here would cause nothing but problems for me, for us.
Marco stiffened on his way out of the room, hand hovering over the doorknob; I knew I'd struck a nerve, especially given the fact I was pretty sure there wasn't a price he wouldn't pay to have another five minutes with his mother.
"Be careful what you wish for, cousin", was all he said, slipping out of the room afterwards and leaving me in silence.
~
After some orange juice, some gummies that Marco found somewhere and a lecture from said cousin on why neglecting my health like this was gonna get me killed someday, we were back to the conversation on my sister's return home. I didn't even know where in the world she was, all I knew was that she was thirteen now, and there was a chance she didn't even know we existed.
"So what you're saying is you'd separate her from Maria?", Marco asked, rolling down the sleeves of his shirt and clearing his throat, "and how would the boys take this?".
"She's dead to all of them- apart from Prescott, maybe Chase", the two of them didn't have the heart to truly hate our mother, deep down I knew they'd probably take her back with semi open arms.
"And what?-", he was cut off by the ringing of my phone, I held up a finger and pulled it out of my pocket- the boys' school.
"Am I speaking to Mr Zane Delgado?", and here we fucking go...
~
"Another fight?", I looked at Alexander, slumped in a chair in the principal's office, knuckles bloody and chest still heaving, "thank you for calling me". I lowered myself into the chair beside my brother and eyed him, he was refusing to look at me as always- I was running out of fucking options on how to help him at this point.
"Thank you for coming Mr Delgado, we know you have a lot on your plate", and the boy next to me was the root of most of it, "Xander here is refusing to tell us what's happened, refusing to be looked at by the behavioural department, we thought we'd try you".
"Where did the fight happen? When?", I asked, focusing on the principal instead. My brother was gonna make the woman go grey at this point.
"Cafeteria, no more than fifteen minutes ago", she replied, "this is the tenth fight in three weeks, and while I know there are multiple circumstances out of Alexander's control...a more severe punishment is looking to be suitable". Please don't fucking expel him.
"How severe are we talking?", I dared ask, stealing a glance at Alexander who had chosen now to pay attention.
"A suspension at least, expulsion is being suggested too", fucking hell. I looked at my brother again, his small, shaking frame taking me back to a time when I used to shield him from blows coming from our father, when I used to cradle him to fucking sleep.
"Can we discuss this in a meeting? I'd much rather take Alexander home and calm him down", I asked, only rising to my feet when she nodded understandingly, "please email me, I'll get back to you as soon as possible".
"No immediate rush, like I said- we know you have a lot on your plate", so why did it feel like more and more was constantly being added on?
~
"I'm calling Wren the second we get in there, you're going to see her first thing", I was trying, believe me I was trying, to keep my cool with him, remind myself it wasn't his fault, but boy was he driving me insane recently, "if you can't tell me what's going on, maybe she'll have better luck".
"So you're just shipping me off to the next person?", he asked, shaking his head, "might as well request more meds while you're at it".
"I don't know how to help you", I hissed, squeezing the wheel as I stared at the house, I'd locked the doors in the hopes of having some kind of civil conversation with the fourteen year old, but it didn't seem to be going to plan.
"I don't want help, I want-", he cut himself off with a groan and fisted his hair in both hands, "let me out Zane".
"Not until we get somewhere with this conversation", I declined, facing him fully, "you want what? Why won't you talk to me?".
"I don't want to talk! I want you to let me out!", he yelled, elbowing the door, "I hate you! You're not listening to me!". I tried to ignore the weight of his words, hearing the boy you'd practically raised for his whole life tell you that he hated you wasn't exactly something to smile about.
"I'm not listening to you?", I scoffed, "all I do is try and listen to you, try and help you".
"You're not helping, you're making it all worse!", nothing could've prepared me for what he shouted next, "you're just like him. You're worse than him! All I see when I look at you is him! He was probably better at looking after us than you've ever been!".
I felt as if I'd been smacked across the face.
I didn't speak.
He didn't speak.
Nothing but his erratic breathing filling the car as my shaky fingers inched towards the button to unlock the car doors.
"Out", was all I could whisper, my heart feeling like it'd been stamped on and shoved back into my chest.
You're just like him.
You're just like him.
You're worse than him.
You're worse than him.
"Zane, I didn't mean that, I-", I knew he didn't, but I needed him away from me right now, before I said something I regretted next.
"Out", I repeated, staring straight ahead until his defeated sigh filled the air and he climbed out, his blurry figure retreating towards the house as I finally broke.
One step forwards, a million fucking steps back...
~~~
A/N - oh no 😍
As much as this book is about Zane and Zane's POV, this part is mainly gonna focus on both Xander & Caleb - Xan figuring out who he is, his sexuality (while trying to keep it a secret), and dealing with his anger...and Caleb still learning to live without August (I recommend reading the 'Caleb + Delilah' Extra scenes if you haven't already) as we may or may not be seeing that through Zane's eyes at some point...
Next chapter hopefully coming soon ❤️❤️❤️