What do I do? Alex wondered as she sobbed. She could never tell anyone. Her parents would disown her. That she could have lived with. But Justin... She smiled through her tears as she thought his name, but it vanished as she finished her thought. Justin would be disgusted with her. He could never love her back that way. He always stuck close to the rules, and this was one rule that he certainly wouldn't bend, let alone break.
Alex couldn't understand, couldn't believe why she could love her brother that way. She began to feel sick. Really sick. She rushed back to the bathroom, throwing open the door and promptly vomiting into the toilet. Someone rushed in a few seconds later, holding back her hair for her and asking if she was okay. And she didn't have to guess who it was.
Of course Justin was the light sleeper. Of course she would've only woken him. Why would God have willed it any different?
"Alex, are you okay?" Justin asked, his velvet voice making Alex's head swim, causing her to heave once more. The sound was so sickening that Justin was afraid Alex was going to hurt herself.
"I'm...fine," Alex managed, before hurling once more.
Finally, Jerry and Theresa stumbled out of their room. They looked at Alex, still hurling ceaselessly into the toilet bowl, and then at Justin, who was still keeping her hair back from her face. "What's wrong?" they asked.
"Alex just feels sick. You guys go back to bed. I'll take care of her." Justin replied.
The Russo parents gave Justin a tired, grateful look, before turning and going to bed.
After their bedroom door closed, Alex vomited one last time before falling back into Justin, tired, sweaty, and exhausted. He held her in his lap, his arms wrapped around her. Alex fell asleep quickly, and Justin stood and carried her to her room. As he laid her down in her bed and covered her with her favorite fleece blanket, he noticed how beautiful she looked.
You're sick, he thought to himself. Not in the way Alex had just become, but in the way that was, well, disgusting. To the point of illegal. He swore Alex would never love him back. She saw him as a nerd, a know-it-all, a show off, and her brother. And though she was a notorious rule breaker, that was one one line that she would not cross.
Her smile, her voice, her confidence, her beauty, her everything was why Justin could hardly sleep. On the nights that he couldn't sleep, he cut. Because it was the only way to rid him of his anguish, and the only way to keep his mind from thinking those beautiful, horrible, incestuous thoughts. The blood trickling down his arm was a free feeling. He didn't have to worry about Alex, or school, or anything at all.
He carefully kept his scars hidden, but since no one suspected a thing, they were easy to miss and easy to hide. Justin was far more twisted and tormented than he himself could believe. As he looked at the clock, which read 1:13, he pulled his covers over his head, and returned to a rather unpeaceful slumber.