Page 3 of Girl Like Me

“Don’t you dare try to blame us for that, we’ve never done anything to make you feel like that, so try again, because we would have understood.” Maximus growls, which is surprising, he never raises his voice.

“Bullshit. Levi would have talked me out of it, Mercer would have gone off the rails, you could have had a setback and Rocky would have messed up his training. So sue me for being a coward and just trying to leave. I love her, can you understand that now that you have met her?” Surely I can get them to see that with how they feel about her.

“How could you have not even wanted to say anything as we all started falling for her?” Levi asks.

“Because her safety is more important to me, I would rather all of us be in love with her than have shared who she was and the police would have returned her to her family straight away. Watching her be happy, I had never seen that light in her eyes, they were always lifeless like she was ready to give up.”

“She is going to kill you for not telling her, even if it did come from a good place.” Maximus is trying to be a smart ass, but he is right.

“None of us can see her.” It’s better to break it to them now, especially Mercer, he doesn’t need to lose it when the police bring him a piece of paper that says he can’t go near her.

“Why the hell not?” Mercer shouts, throwing his arms in the air.

“She doesn’t want us to.” I try to not look at Levi, he can always tell when I’m lying.

“Bullcrap, she wouldn’t not want us to see her.” Rocky adds, his pace around the table has picked up.

“Even if you don’t believe me, this says we can’t and you will all have one by the end of the day.” I hand them the order that states we can’t contact her in any way.

Maximus pulls out his phone and tries to call her number, but it goes straight to voicemail.

“She gave her phone to Beth, that’s what Lissa told me.” They all look at me with varying shades of sadness on their faces.

“What are we going to do? She promised she wouldn’t leave us.” Levi says, as a lone tear rolls down his face.

“We will be smart, we will fight for our girl, and we will find a way to stick to our original plan.”

“The plan where you marry her?” Mercer asks, his tone murderous.

“No, you do,” I say pointing at him, “We plan it all and find a way to take her on her eighteenth birthday.”

“Me?” He asks, as his eyes widen at the prospect of marrying JD.

“Yep, you turn eighteen first, if you marry her then her parents can’t lock her away. Right now she has no memory, so they won’t need to lock her away, and if we can somehow get her a message to keep tight lipped if her memories come back, it may just work.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Maximus asks.

“Then we may be the ones washed up on the beach next time.”

Rocky stops pacing. “I can live with that, I want JD back.”

“Me too.” Maximus adds, I never expected him to want to be part of this and I wouldn’t have blamed him. We all look at him in surprise. “What? If I lose her, I may as well be dead.”

“So we are all in?” I ask. Everyone nods even though we have a very flimsy plan that could lead us to some serious trouble or even prison. It looks like things are about to get interesting.

I know they are still pissed at me, I don’t believe I was that easily forgiven but I will prove to them that the reason I kept it secret is because that family is no good, none can be trusted.

The weeks away from the guys has me feeling like my heart is stuck in a vice and each passing day it gets tighter and tighter. I hate feeling trapped in a house I should remember but don’t, with parents who feel like strangers, and a brother who acts as if we are best friends. I smile and act polite, yet they seem to tiptoe around me. My father Ellis is hardly ever around, always seeming to make himself scarce. I noticed there are cameras in the house and the yard, but when I asked my brother Carter why there were so many, he said some shit about the value of the property. I’m not sure I fully believe that. The house is huge, larger than anything I’ve seen before. I thought Rory’s house was big, but this makes it look like a regular sized home. The outside is made of varying shades of grey bricks, it gives off an old English castle vibe from the outside, but inside everything is modern. My bedroom doesn’t feel like me, it’s foofy, and pink. That might have been Bristol’s style, but it makes me want to puke.

“Bristol, hurry up or we will be late for school!” Carter yells from the bottom of the staircase. My parents decided it was time to send me back to school, keeping up appearances has been stressful but to them it was completely necessary. I had a last minute visit from Lissa while my parents signed me out of the station and she thinks it’s best that my memory stays gone. Even if it comes back, she said to call her from a pay phone as soon as I can, especially if I remember why my parents committed me in the first place. Not that I have had any new memories, just the same ones running through my mind. I want to contact Rory, I need to know how he knew me, and why he chose not to tell me. It takes all my self-control to not reach out to him or my other guys. I have a new phone or maybe it’sBristol’sold phone but I don’t trust it isn’t being traced. Everything about these people screams sketchy.

“I’m coming.” I yell back, closing my bedroom door behind me. Carter has now joined me on the second level in the east wing, yep we children reside in the east wing. “It is hard work having to look like this.” I gesture to the straight blonde hair, my mother insisted I have done almost the second we stepped into the house. My fake ass nails are back, along with the fake tan that I was glad had gone away during the time I was with Beth. I feel ridiculous but I need to do this for Rory, I’m his only hope at staying out of jail.

Carter hands me an apple as we head down to the garage. If I thought the house was huge, the garage is absolutely ridiculous. The entire space is filled with all the latest models of the most expensive sports cars on the market. The bonus of all of this is I have a car, though everywhere I go Carter is right there with me. I don’t know if we were close before this, my Spidey senses tell me not to believe anything he says until my memory comes back.

I follow Carter to his black Lamborghini which is backed in on the far left wall of the garage, tucked in between a red Porsche and a blue Maserati. It blew my mind that a kid would have a car like this, he laughed it off saying our father is all about people knowing he has money and if he gets to drive a car like that he doesn’t care. He also thought it was amusing watching me figure out how the doors opened. They open upwards which is stupid if you ask me.

“Can you give me a rundown of everything I need to know-past history, friends, do we hang out together?” I ask, getting into the car, reaching over for my seatbelt, securing it snugly across my lap.

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