"How could they? How could anyone do something like this? Kylie and Elijah...how could they do this to me?" Jess had planted herself down on her mothers' glassed tiled floor, her arms cradling her knees as she rocked back and forth repeating the two names.

She'd dreamed of nothing but elegance on her wedding day, yet there was nothing elegant about the picture she was creating. What with her blotchy mottled skin, puffed-up eyes that one would usually get from nights of insomnia. She was the very picture of devastation, and the worst thing was that as she recalled the events since Kylie's arrival, she realised she'd missed every single sign. Maybe, that was what devastated her the most. How could someone be so naïve to multiple red flags?

"This must be a joke...she's pranking me, isn't she? Mum, Kylie's pranking me because it's my wedding day and that's her idea of a joke, isn't it, Mum?" Jess stared up at her mother, a small giggle escaping from her lips as she finished her sentence.

Pattie was stunned into silence. She had little idea of how to react now that things had gone from bad to worse in a matter of mere seconds. She'd planned it all, she'd just wanted to protect her little girl, and she'd succeeded for years, never allowing any misery to meet her and Kylie had come along and single-handedly ruined it all.

"Jess, I...really don't think this is a joke." Cody was kneeled down beside his older sister, a glass of water in hand, offering her sips periodically to calm her. "I can't believe all this time...they were...I can barely get my head around it."

Jess sobbed at her brothers' words. Was she destined for a life of unhappiness? Had seven years of love really been destroyed by a few months of lust? Or worse, had there been more between Kylie and Elijah than just mere lust? The questions flooded through her mind, and coupled with her hysterical crying, she could feel a migraine coming on.

"I'm supposed to be getting married half an hour." Jess laughed.

"Mum, you should probably call the Church and let them know what's happened...before it's too late." Cody continued rubbing his sisters' back whilst their mother remained stood, motionless and silent.

"What? No...what are you saying, Cody? Jess is getting married today. She's marrying Elijah, have you forgotten that?" Pattie explained slowly, a smile gradually appearing on her face as though she'd not truly acknowledged the events that occurred only moments before.

"What?" Jess replied, tears still streaming down her face.

"Mum...listen to me. You need to call the venue and let them know. Jess isn't going to marry Elijah anymore. He's been cheating on her."

"No. Jess, my darling, you're hurting right now so you're not thinking straight, but you're still going to marry him, aren't you? You can't let Kylie ruin this for you, this is your big day and you can't let that bitch steal that from you. You can't Jess, okay? You can't!" Pattie yelled, leaning down to shake Jess's shoulders with each word she spoke.

"Mum, I can't marry him...not now." Jess wept, pulling herself away from her mothers' harsh grasp.

"Listen to me Jess, okay? Sometimes, men make mistakes. Mistakes that hurt us, the women that they love. But it's not...it's not really their fault, they can't help it. It's her fault. She tempts him, she makes him think that the grass really is greener on the other side, but he doesn't really think that. And when we find out, we get angry, we shout at them, we tell them were hurt. But we learn to forgive them because they love us. He just can't help the temptation." Pattie elucidated; as though her words were common sense to anybody.

Jess stared up at her mother, her mouth dropped open in consternation at her mothers' ludicrous words, "Mum, what are you even saying? Are you hearing yourself, right now?"

"I'm telling you to forgive Elijah and forget. And if he does it again, you keep on forgiving and forgetting, otherwise, you risk losing the man that you love."

"Mum...Jess isn't you. You can't force her into this same vicious cycle, you can't force her to make the same decisions that you do. Please don't do that to her, she deserves better than him...better than any cheater." Cody whispered.

Jess felt sick to her stomach as she heard the words echoing through her ears, finally realising that she'd not just been oblivious to Kylie and Elijah's affair. "What do you guys mean this same vicious cycle? What are you talking about? What else are you hiding from me, mum?"

"Dad...he cheats on mum. He's been doing it for years. And not just with the same woman, it's pretty much a new one every week. Mum turns a blind eye every single time...and that's what she's telling you to do."

"Daddy cheats on mum? No. No! You're lying, Cody! Daddy loves mum, yeah they might not be so close anymore but...that doesn't mean he doesn't love her!"

"Of course your dad loves me. Just because he...sometimes sleeps with some cheap whore, doesn't change that fact." Pattie explained to her children, turning her back to them as she spoke.

"What?" Jess gasped, her entire world shattering around her as everything was finally falling into place.

Her mother had always been a bitch. But finally, Jess was seeing that beneath the hard exterior laid a vulnerable and pathetic woman. She saw behind the obviously plastered on foundation and concealer. The layers of makeup she wore to cover up her signs of age for the pictures that she'd later send to a man who couldn't care less.

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"Can I come in?" Kylie asked, a lop-sided grin on her face. She'd been drinking, that much was obvious.

"I'm leaving in ten minutes." He replied, hesitantly.

"I'll take that as a yes then?" Kylie responded, not waiting for Elijah to move out of the way before barging into the house and making her way up the stairs. She was unstable on her feet and Elijah sighed as he followed her, his hand placed on the small of her back to avoid any further nasty accidents.

"So, you're really doing it then? Marrying Jess?" Kylie said as she slumped onto the crimson-coloured bed that she'd slept in only over a month ago. She glanced around in the room, a thousand images of her and Elijah's nights spent in this very room invading her thoughts.

Elijah nodded, still stood at the doorway, avoiding eye-contact. "Kylie, what are you doing here? You should already be there, waiting for us. And for god's sake, why aren't you dressed?" He pointed to her current attire, a slinky transparent carmine-coloured dress draped loosely around her figure.

"I'm not coming to the wedding. I'm surprised that there is even still a wedding at this point."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Kylie shook her head in response, she wondered if Jess had received her voicemail yet and whether she'd still decided to go ahead with the wedding despite their affair. Kylie had misplaced her phone and was unsure as to whether Jess had bothered to reply or not. She felt a tinge of discomfort in her chest at the thought that in an hour and a half, Jess and Elijah would be husband and wife.

"What's in the bag?" Elijah's eyes narrowed as he noticed a small carrier bag tightly clasped in Kylie's right hand.

"The answer to all my problems." Kylie chuckled softly. He noticed something odd about the girls' demeanour as well as her eyes, her usual spherical orbs appearing smaller and an unnatural sheen about them.

"Sounds...promising. Can I have some of whatever it is?" He jokingly replied, slightly uncomfortable with the change of pace in the room.

"You don't need it, trust me. Actually, I came here to say goodbye to you." Kylie suddenly stood up, her hand still tightly wrapped around an unusually shaped object placed within the bag.

"Goodbye?"

"I'm going...back to Ireland."

"What? You mean, right now? You're not even gonna wait to say bye to Jess?" The deflation in his voice was obvious, but his eyes remained glued to the bag that she was nurturing between her fingers.

"I've left her a message explaining everything. The truth is too much has happened here and I don't feel like...I can move from any of it." She nodded unconvincingly, as she gazed up at him, her fingers finding their way along his jaw, grazing the small amount of stubble growing on his chin, "I've already taken up enough of your time, so I'll let you go."

As Kylie turned to leave the room, Elijah's hands slipped around Kylie's waist pulling her back towards him. She was clearly caught off guard and he took this as his chance to pull at the bag in her hand and as he did so, a black object fell out of the bag.

Elijah felt the room temperature drop by several degrees as he recognised the object laying on the ground, between them. He'd never seen it before but he'd watched enough action movies to recognise the lethal object but he still asked, "Kylie, what the fuck is that?"

He made no movement towards the gun or towards Kylie and so she leapt downwards, picked up the gun and placed it against her temple.

"Kylie, what the fuck are you doing? This is crazy...this is really fucking crazy."

"I just wanted to end it all..." She spoke, almost breathlessly, her voice catching in her throat. A voice that didn't belong to Kylie, or at least the Kylie that he'd ever known; a sound that radiated pain and innocence, "I killed Jax...so why on earth do I deserve to be here, to still be able to live or even breathe every day when I took that away from him? I don't." She sniffed audibly before continuing, "I needed something that I knew would do the job, quick and with no chance for any mistakes, no chance that someone would find me and save me somehow."

Elijah knew she wasn't thinking straight. The fact that she'd wandered across the street with a gun placed in a carrier bag made that fact clear enough. "Kylie, where the hell did you get that?"

"Why does that matter?" Her index and middle finger moved over the trigger, threatening to clamp down.

"No! Wait, please...put it down, okay? Let's talk okay, but please...just put the gun down." Elijah edged towards the girl, one step at a time as he spoke, but she backed away as he got closer. He had no idea what to do in such a situation, it wasn't one he'd ever banked in being caught up in. "Kylie, Jax's death wasn't your fault, it wasn't. It was Leon driving that car...but if you want to blame someone else, then blame me. I pursued you continuously, you told me to leave you alone but...it was me who wouldn't listen. It was my fault, not yours." He explained, his hand tentatively leaning out towards her.

"No. Jax told me to stop, he told me things would end badly and I didn't listen to him. I never listened to him." She cried, her fingers still lingering.

"No one could've known that this would've happened. But you doing this isn't solving anything. Think of Valerie, she was so worried about you, you know. Imagine what this would do to her."

"She hates me."

"No, she doesn't. She might be angry but she doesn't hate you. She's your mum, and this would kill her. It would kill me, Kylie. If for no other reason, then...put the gun for me, please Kylie. I...I love you."

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"I need to...I need to ask them. I need to know why, why...they did this to me. Why I wasn't good enough for him." Jess sobbed into her hands.

"You are enough, Jess. If anything, he's not good enough for you." Cody said.

"Why do people cheat, Cody? Why don't they just walk away? Why did Elijah cheat? Why does daddy cheat on mum?"

"I wish I knew the answer, Jess but I honestly don't. I'm not sure even the cheater themselves knows why."

"No, that's not good enough. I need to know, I need answers. I can't just...forget and not know why...how they both justified what they were doing to me? I can't." She hauled herself up from the ground and brushed down her clothes. She rubbed her eyes, not caring that she was smudging her mascara as she was doing so. "I need you to call at the house, find out if Elijah's still home, Cody. Tell him there's been a delay and he needs to stay put, don't tell him why."

Cody nodded as Jess stepped forward towards her mother who was still silently seated in the corner of the room, "Mum, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I will be once this wedding starts." She beamed up at her daughter.

"Mum, there's not going to be any wedding."

"Jess, you can't push him away, you have to stay with him. It'll ruin everything...you don't want to end up being like Valerie, do you?"

"What?" Jess scrunched up her face at her mothers' childish words, "what do you mean?"

"She's alone, she's pathetic. When her husband left her, her life fell apart. She was carted off to a loony bin. She was the laughing stock of the town, and now look at her, she's still as unhappy as they come...I don't want that for you." Pattie exclaimed.

"Well, mum you know something? I'd rather be like Valerie and not beg for a cheater to come back to me than be a fool like you." She snarled into her mothers' ear as she heard Cody call out to confirm that Elijah was still home.

She hiked up the hem of the dress and scurried out of the house, not waiting for either her brother or mother to stop her from leaving.

Her and Elijah's home was a mere ten minutes away from her mothers. She ignored all the constant bewildered stares around her. She knew she appeared ridiculous dressed in a wedding gown with make-up stains decorating every inch of her face.

But it didn't stop her from running, desperate for answers.

Until she was finally there, fumbling with her keys to enter her home. Her fingers shaking violently and tears uncontrollably rushing down her face.

She heard their voices straight away. The voices of the two people she mistakenly thought she could trust the most. Kylie and Elijah.

And as she made her way silently up the stairs, she heard them louder and louder, until finally she pushed open Kylie's bedroom door and stunned the two into silence.

"So, it really is fucking true then?"

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Authors Note: OOOHHH so Jess, Elijah and Kylie (+ a gun) all in the same room, how's this all gonna go down? I know some of you already worked this out, but does Pattie's truth change your opinion of her? (btw, I do not share the views shared by Pattie in this chapter.)

Elijah dropped the L word but not to Jess, oops, does he really love Kylie?

Hope you guys enjoyed, as always please do comment and vote! Love you all x