One More Chance ☑

07 | Truth

Axel looks down and shakes his head, taking a seat again on the bench. He runs a hand through his brown hair, a haunted look taking over his face. "You might want to sit for a second."

I don't think twice about it from his tone. Whatever he has to tell me is serious. My hand twitches as it itches to grab his, wanting to comfort him. But I resist the urge. "What is it?"

He rubs his hands together and stares ahead. "Adam's my half brother."

Well that wasn't what I was expecting. "Your half brother?" I ask, needing reassurance.

Axel nods his head. "Remember the night at the beach I told you about my dad's affair?"

I nod my head. I remember it perfectly. That night was the first time he'd ever really opened up to me. "Yes."

He sighs, like he's preparing himself to say something that's hard. "The lady you saw drop Adam off is his mom. My dad dumped her after he found out she was pregnant with Adam. She was only twenty five at the time of their affair."

I do the math in my head. "So she's only twenty eight or twenty nine?" I ask quietly.

Axel finally faces me. "Yup. And he left her alone to raise a kid. I didn't find out about Adam until the week before you left for college. Adam was one at the time I found out about him. His mom, Kate, was at a low point in her life and needed money. My dad wasn't paying child support so she came looking for him and found me instead. I tried to talk to my dad about it and completely shut me out."

Finally, I grab his hand, giving up on trying to not comfort him. This man has me wrapped around his finger and no matter how hard I try, I don't think I'll ever be able to move on from him.

He takes my hand and brings it closer to him. "I broke up with you because I didn't want you to have to deal with my messed up family, Vienna. My family is so complicated and messed up and I didn't want to drag you into that."

"Why didn't you talk to me about it? Remember what you said? We were more than boyfriend and girlfriend, Axel. We were best friends. We were always there for each other. Why didn't you trust me enough to handle having Adam in your life?"

Axel shakes his head. "Vienna, that couldn't be further from the truth." He sighs and squeezes my hand. "I was scared to hold you back. I didn't want my family's issues to be the reason you stayed in Bayside or the reason you didn't pursue your dream of becoming a photographer."

"Axel," I drawl. "You could've been honest with me."

"I know," he says, looking away from me. "And that'll be one of the biggest regrets I ever have because I lost you."

Slowly, I release my hand from his, needing my space from him. "What do you mean one of your biggest regrets? What's the other one?"

He doesn't hesitate. "Walking away from you that night at the fair. I should've stayed with you instead of giving you space. I should've let you tell me you needed it instead of assuming you needed it."

"Why do you think that?" I ask honestly, wanting to hear his answer.

"Because I implanted doubt into your mind by walking away. Landon was right. I shouldn't have walked away from."

I stand up and pace in front of the bench. "That's a lot to unload on me."

Axel chuckles and stands up himself. "I always love your honesty."

My heart stops at the word love. He didn't use it in past tense. "I need....time. To process all of this."

He dips his head. "I know." He starts to walk away but pauses and turns around. "Just know I would never cheat on you, Conley. To this day I still don't know how or why you even gave me a chance, but please know I never cheated on you."

I give him a small smile, not having words to express how I'm feeling at the moment. I don't even know how I'm feeling right now.

After several minutes of sitting alone, Olivia comes and finds me, setting her glass of champagne on the table. "Jaden told me you and Axel talked."

I nod my head, not saying anything to her.

"How did that go?"

Instead of answering her, I ask her, "why didn't you tell me Adam was Axel's half brother?"

She gulps and looks at her hands that are picking at her dress. "I really wanted to Vienna, please trust me. I wanted to but Jaden said it wasn't our place to. Axel had a hard enough time telling Jaden himself."

"But why didn't you tell me?" I ask again, getting irritated with her by the second. "You saw how heartbroken I was! I thought he cheated on me!"

She raises her voice too. "V, he didn't want us to tell you."

"What?" I ask, basically speechless.

"V, he's never wanted to hold you back and I think he knew that if you found out why he broke up with you, you'd want him back. We all know that."

Well, she wasn't wrong about that. I'd still be with him if I knew from the start. But who knows what would've happened if I did. I may have never gotten my photography degree.

"But he's always wanted the best for you and he thinks that isn't with him."

"How can he think that?" I ask.

She shrugs her shoulders. "You need to ask him."

A/N: A very short chapter, but a much needed update. This hasn't been edited in the slightest bit and I haven't even read over it, but I wanted to get it up so badly haha. 

I am so sorry I haven't updated this story in so long. Honestly, life happened and I lost motivation for this story and started a new one haha, it's called Classified if anyone's interested. Anyways, I plan on updating this more frequently. Hope you enjoyed!