"What do you mean you never planned it to go this far?" I asked Sean.
"He meant-"
I held my hand up in the air and cut my mother off - she couldn't tell a lie if she didn't speak.
"What did you mean, Sean?" I asked, my eyes narrowed.
"What's going on?" Darcy chimed in.
I glanced to him. "I overheard Sean and Justin talking about me outside, about me being upset. They said they were the cause of it and that they never meant for it to go this far, and I want to know what the hell they are talking about."
Darcy stood up from the couch and came to my side, and turned to glare at our brother's.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked.
I didn't want him to be on my side, but whatever Sean did involved him too.
Sean looked to my mother, father, then Justin before he looked back to me.
"It was just meant to be a joke… a prank really. Like the ones you and Darcy pull on each other all the time."
I swallowed down the bile that rose up my throat.
"What. Did. You. Do?" I snarled.
My father sighed, "Just tell them, it's best they know the truth."
I looked from Sean to my father then back to Sean.
What truth?
"Sean?" I pressed.
He lifted his arms and scrubbed his face with his hands.
"We buried you two in," he said, avoiding eye contact.
What?
"Excuse me?" Darcy growled.
Dustin whistled. "Uh-oh. Uncle Darcy is mmaadddd."
Justin nudged Sarah who was next to him. "Take him and Charli up to her room and close the door, will you?"
This was serious if Justin didn't want the kids in the room to hear the exchange.
I kept quiet until Sarah brought both Dustin and Charli upstairs and I heard Charli's bedroom door click shut.
"Talk. Right now."
Sean sighed and looked to our mother. "This was your idea, you tell her what you had us do."
I began to tremble.
My mother looked at Sean, then to me. "We just wanted to give you and Darcy a little... push. It's not everyday we can get you both together so we figured having you both in Darcy's house for a few days would do you both good."
I blinked. "I don't understand. We were stuck in Darcy's house because we were snowed it. The weather did that, not you lot."
My mother looked down to her feet.
Darcy gasped from my right so I looked at him and said, "What?"
He glanced at me then looked forward again and glared. "They buried us in the house to stop us from leaving."
What?
How was that even possible?
"I don't think they-"
"We did, Neala."
I snapped my head in my father's direction and gaped at him. "What?"
My father shook his head. "It was a stupid idea, but both your mother and Darcy's wanted to have one last attempt at trying to make you both get along."
Hold the bloody phone.
They were responsible for us being buried in Darcy's house for days eating canned food, taking freezing cold baths, having zero fucking heat and for Darcy almost dying?
I exploded. "You can't force two people to get along! I am sick to bleeding death of you all trying to control our lives. If we wanted to be together, we would be together. That is up to us, not you!"
Everyone flinched when I finished shouting.
"She's right, you're all something bloody else. How dare you force us together like animals!"
I was shaking with anger while Darcy spoke.
"It wasn't meant to be like this. We thought you would both find it funny," Justin protested.
I growled at him, "We hated being in each other's company for twenty years. Do you understand that? Twenty bleeding years! What makes you think four days would sort us out?"
Justin raised his eyebrows. "You both slept together, hate was obviously not an issue between you both in that house."
My heart broke all over again with the reminder, and I was mortified that everyone close to me knew what myself and Darcy got up to in private.
"Justin! Bloody hell, man!" Darcy hissed.
I wiped my eyes before any tears could fall. "Thank you for that reminder, Justin, and thank you for letting everyone know something so personal."
Justin frowned then grunted when his ma slapped his arm.
"What happened between us wasn't even our choice. You forced us together and knew we would either sleep together or kill each other," Darcy snapped at his mother.
Marie frowned. "We just wanted you both to get along-"
"We know!" Darcy screamed. "We know what you all bloody want, but what about what we want? Don't make this out like you were doing this for anyone but yourselves. You all want us together so we can play happy families."
I folded my arms across my chest and looked down as I started to sniffle.
"We're not sheep, you can't just round us up together because you want to see us together."
Sean cleared his throat. "I wasn't aiming to get you both together, I just wanted you to stop fighting all the time."
I raised my hands to my temples and rubbed.
"How did you do it?" I asked.
My father was the one to answer me.
"Firstly, I want to apologise to you both. I didn't like the idea, but I made the decision to go along with it and help out and that was inexcusable. I'm very sorry to you both," he said.
"Same here," Mark, Darcy's father, chimed in. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have partaken in the scheme as it was stupid and wrong. I hope you both can forgive me... forgive us."
"I love how you're all laying the blame at mine and Carol's feet!" Darcy's mother snapped.
Sean scoffed, "It was the pair of you who came up with the idea. We were just the morons' who carried out the deed."
I was aware that both our father's helped bury us in Darcy's house, but the people I was furious with was our mother's and brother's. Our father's would go along with our mother's just to keep the old bats happy, but our brother's wouldn't have gotten much backlash if they said no to the idiotic idea. They wanted to do it for selfish reasons.
"We apologise to you all every single time we argue in your presence, we rarely even cause scenes anymore so I don't understand why you went to this extent. You do understand what you all did, right? You buried us inside a house and trapped us for days. Do you have any idea what it was like? It was scary, dark, and uncomfortable. We both fought the majority of the time there. I had to endure insults day and night from a fucking parrot... a parrot!"
Darcy placed his hand over his mouth, and I snarled in his direction.
"I'm not laughing," he quickly said and looked away from me.
Bastard!
I looked back to my father who suddenly looked depressed. "Go on, tell us how you did it."
He sighed, "After Darcy left the pub the night of the engagement party, I knew you were going to follow him to get your doll back. I mentioned it to your mother and told her I was going after you because I was worried you would get hurt and freeze your arse off going up the mountain. Your mother, and Darcy's, came up the with the idea that once you got inside the house, because we knew you would get in, to block any exits thus keeping you both together to... settle your differences."
My father shook his head.
"Myself, Mark, Sean, and Justin headed up the mountain after you but we kept our distance in case you caught onto us. After an hour or so we reached Darcy's house and we could hear you arguing inside. Sean went to the back door and said it was over the parrot so we figured it was nothing serious."