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Then they separate, both knocking each other back.
This is my chance.
I decide to risk it all and rush between them, my arms raised in desperation, keeping them apart.
“Please stop this. Please. This is not what I want. This is not what I ever wanted.”
The boys pause. Blood runs down their faces. They’re bruised. Lips are split. They breathe heavily.
Neither of them wants to hurt me, but they aren’t even looking at me. Their attention is on each other.
“I hate you,” Clement directs at his best friend in a growl that comes from the back of his throat.
“Clement, listen to me,” I say, looking at my brother. “It’s true I kept our relationship secret. Father commanded me to end it the moment he found out. He said he always viewed Fabien as just an orphan, unworthy of the Auclairs.”
“That doesn’t change a thing. He lied to me.”
“Fabien hated me for years,” I reply, “and he had a good reason to. But there has already been so much hate, and I don’t want any more. We’ve learned to forgive each other, so why can’t you? Please don’t go down this path. Please don’t waste more of our lives in hate. Can’t you see we’ve done enough of that ourselves?”
“I have every right to hate,” Clement snarls, still not taking his eyes off Fabien. “I trusted this man. Until this morning, I thought we had each other’s backs. I thought he was my brother, but now I find out he did the one and only thing I’ve ever asked him not to do? Jolie, I’m not going to forgive that. He’s dead to me.”
“You two are just freaking inflexible,” I say, frustrated as hell now. “Can’t either of you listen? I’m not something to be bled over. I don’t want violence. I’d rather disappear than let that happen.”
Clement now finally turns to me. He glares silently.
He’s not listening.
Jesus, he’d rather kill his best friend than forgive.
Fabien wipes the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. His eyes meet mine, full of aching pain and devastation. He’s mourning a friendship that’s gone forever.
“Let’s go, Jolie,” he whispers.
“Stay with him, and I will never speak to you again,” Clement hisses.
“I will protect her,” Fabien replies to my brother. “Even from you. You were my brother once. You and Jolie and Baptiste are the only family I have.”
“You’re nothing but a liar,” my brother replies.
I turn from Clement to Fabien, and then back to Clement. I’m lost, standing between the two men I love.
I don’t know what to do.
I can’t lose either of them.
“I can’t have this happen because of me,” I mutter softly. “I can’t have you two fight.”
“Then you have to choose,” Clement says.
“Choose?” I ask, spluttering. “How the hell can I choose? You both mean everything to me.”
“Choose, Jolie,” Clement says quietly, “or I kill him.”
My chest constricts. I can’t even breathe.
This is the thing I have feared most. A choice.
I shake my head.
