Love's Suicide (Love's Suicide #1)(4)

I didn’t find out until I was sixteen that they’d saved a lot of money and it was put into a trust that I could have when I was twenty-two. I knew I would cherish that money and put it towards something good that they would be proud of.

Being at the cemetery was something I tried to avoid, but every year on the anniversary of my parent’s death I had to come.

Had it not been for the Valentines, I would have had to move to England with my aunt that I hardly knew. I think in my seventeen years of life I had seen her three times, if that. Compared to living next door to the Valentine’s house and spending the majority of our time with them, she was out of the question.

One good thing was that my mom and dad had been organized. They’d had a will and also named the Valentines as my legal guardians in the event that both of them had died. My aunt had tried to have the courts grant her custody anyway, but she lost after they let me talk to the judge in private. No judge in their right mind was going to give a child to a practical stranger when a loving family that I was familiar with had already been arranged. Since that day I’d never gotten one single birthday call, present, or even a card.

I was twelve when my parents perished in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers, on September 11. My father worked as a highly classified agent, who dealt with Presidential events. He was in charge of making sure the security was in order and overseeing any threats. My mom stayed home and designed greeting cards. You know those cards that you open and immediately begin to weep? My mother probably wrote that one. We still don’t know why she was there so early in the morning to meet with him, but their last phone call to me let me know that they were together when they took their last and final breaths. It wasn’t exactly peaceful, but it did give me some kind of comfort knowing that they weren’t alone. If I had to die that way, I’d want to be with the person that I loved.

My mom was always the romantic, and I guess that explains why she did what she did for a living.

Since the day they died, I’ve never purchased a single card, nor have I opened one. I couldn’t take the chance that it was something she designed.

I stared down at the names on the matching headstones.

Loving Father. Loving Mother.

Tears filled my eyes, even after I’d promised myself that this year would be the one where I could handle visiting without breaking down. It wasn’t as if I never cried for them. Whenever there was a moment in my life that required a parent, I lost it. While seeing my friends with their families, or watching a mother hugging her daughter in public, even a little girl holding the hand of her father would cause me to break down.

I guess that it had been happening for so long that I was just used to it. No matter how hard I tried, I knew I couldn’t prevent it. I’d been jipped from having that bond with the two people that brought me into the world. We’d never share a meal, a cry, or a holiday together again.

I suppose I could blame the President, or the terrorists that took them away from me, but it wouldn’t bring them, or the other thousands of people that died back. Instead those of us that were left without them had to suffer. I looked around the cemetery and saw several groups of people standing over graves. When something with an impact like September 11th happens, it affects communities. My parents weren’t the only people that our town had lost. The total was one hundred and twenty-five people, fifty-five military personnel and seventy civilians to be exact. My stomach turned imagining all of those people being buried in the ground before they even had the chance to live.

Brooks caught our attention at the right time when he walked up behind us and smacked my ass. “Sorry I’m late. I had something to do this morning.”

Knowing Brooks, he was probably doing another one of our classmates. Ever since Branch and I decided to go public, Brooks had been throwing himself at anything that walked, claiming he was finally ‘free to roam about the country’. Yes, he actually said that. Unlike his twin brother, he wasn’t ever serious and made a joke out of things that were absolutely inappropriate. That’s why I knew I’d chosen the right brother.

Even though identical, they were very different in my eyes. Branch kept his hair neatly cut. He dressed preppy, and you could tell that he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. They both had light brown hair and the same dreamy blue eyes. Branch had the most beautiful straight white teeth. He excelled in sports and was even up for a baseball scholarship. He’d pitched a perfect game while the recruiters sat in the stands evaluating him. In fact, mostly everything about Branch was perfect.

Brooks, who’d always been my go-to, was now the opposite.

I would say our relationship changed during our sophomore year. He’d started not to care about anything. He did everything half-assed. Nothing was important enough to make him want to be different, not even me.

Like his brother, their features were the same, but his hair was longer and rough looking now. He dressed grungy and didn’t care what anyone thought about him. While his brother played sports, Brooks played video games, built things in the backyard, and caused trouble around the neighborhood.

That’s why when the time came to choose between them, I had a terrible time deciding. Though I’d always loved both of them from the time when we were all in diapers, Branch only ever picked on me, while Brooks did everything in his power to stand up for me and keep me safe.

It was a no-brainer.