Razor's Edge of Love

A/N: Long time no update, I know and I'm sorry for that. But I've just completed the final few chapters and as long as all goes well this story should be completely uploaded onto this site within two weeks. Hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter 12, Surprises:


With that Julie went to her room, needing to be alone. Though she knew John would follow.

"You okay?" he asked soothingly as he came into her room a few minutes later.

"Do I look it?" she asked sadly as she wiped a tear from her face.

"I know it'll be hard," he said as he sat beside her. "But it's gonna be okay. Aren't we always?"

"It's not just that." She had been keeping something from him now for almost a week. She hated it had to come out like this, but it was time.

"Then what?"

"I'd been feeling pretty sick two weeks ago and then last week -"

Noting how she had stopped, he curled a sympathetic arm around her and said, "It's okay, Julie. You can tell me."

Fighting the tears, she replied, "Last week I - I thought something was different. Different for us."

"What are you talking about?"

"It was a false alarm, John," she stated as she looked up at him with her tear-filled dark eyes.

Suddenly the words clicked in his mind and he curled his other arm around her, holding her as close as he could. "I'm so sorry, Julie. Why didn't you tell me?"

"There wasn't a point in it. I didn't want to tell you and have you get your hopes up for nothing. Or to have you say that it was a bad idea and -"

"You wanted it to be real, didn't you?" he asked as he moved back slightly and looked at her.

She could only nod before bursting into tears.

John sighed as he comforted her. While before he hadn't wanted to admit it to himself, he had wanted it, too.

Damn the claims from those who went on about incest producing deformed children. They knew as well as anyone else the likelihood of that happening to parents who weren't related could be equal. Just as it was true that their children, should they have any, could be perfectly normal and healthy.

"I love you, Julie," he told her softly as he gently stroked her back, wanting to help calm her. "And you are the only woman I would ever want to have my child or children."

Through her sobs, she asked, "But what if we can't? Three years and only this once?"

"Then at least I'll still have you."

Julie silently melted into his caring embrace at that.

Each of those two weeks both lovers had been fighting to stall, but now here John was helping his sister to load his back seat with the few boxes she was taking with her.

"I guess that does it," he stated when they were back in his room, making sure anything she had left in there that she had wanted to take was with her.

She nodded sadly.

"Please, Julie, don't cry because you're gonna make me cry."

"How is this happening? A month ago we were fine and now we're falling apart every five minutes. Thanks to Dad yet again."

"Let's give it a year. A year and then if you want to leave you can move in with me."

"Says the man who hasn't even found a place yet," she tried to joke.

"But you will," he told her softly just before he curled an arm around her and kissed her forehead. "And when I do, it'll be your home, too. Whether it be your second home with the dorm being your first or where you're living if you choose to leave the dorm."

"I think it's time to go," she told him sadly as she glanced at the clock.

He nodded. "Alright. Just give me a few and I'll be ready."

"Was that your boyfriend?" Julie's roommate Cassie asked once John left, having given her a long kiss goodbye.

"You could say that," she answered.

"Nice going," she told her with a smile.

"I know."

The days were becoming weeks and finally a few months passed. John and Julie were speaking on the weekends, each for a shorter amount of time. Work had picked up for him at the gym and her classes were weighing her down.

But then the inevitable happened.

"Hey, you're in my English class, right?" a tall, slim blonde haired young man asked.

"I guess," Julie replied.

"I'm Rick Sanderson," he told her as he held out his slender hand for her.

"Julie Franklin," she told him.

"A couple of us are going out tonight and I was wondering if maybe you and or your roommate would like to join us?"

"Let me think about it."

"Ah, let me guess, high school sweetheart back home or elsewhere and you're worried about cheating on him? Look, we're just going to our nighttime hangout, it's nothing more serious than that.

"Don't pretend to know me, okay? I just need to think about it."

"Come on, Julie," Cassie pleaded an hour later. "You should want to get to know other people."

"Should. Don't."

"If it were up to you, what would you be doing tonight?"

She smiled at an image of being curled up on the sofa beside her brother. Both just in their around the house clothes and watching TV or having the TV on in the background while they kissed. Or maybe did a little more.

"Well, that was informative," Cassie said sarcastically.

"Look, I just have a lot of work to get done and don't feel like going out."

With that Cassie headed out and joined the others.

"Hey, Julie," John answered his phone, knowing it was his sister on the other end from the ringtone.

"I miss you," were the first words out of her mouth. She couldn't help it, she wanted to be beside him, for him to be holding her.

"I miss you more," he replied.

"Has it been a year yet?" she asked, only partially kidding.

"It feels like it. But somehow I doubt it. So, how's it going there?"

"I got asked out," She answered with a scoff. "What's worse is my roommate was trying to talk me into it and the guy had the nerve to mock what I feel for you, not knowing any more than I love someone who isn't here."

"You turned him down though, right?"

"Of course. I love you, John. More than any sister should love her brother, I'm told. But I don't care. You really are everything to me and there's no one who can change that."

He smiled, "I feel the same for you, Julie and at this point I don't care who knows it."

"You say that now. Just wait until you're getting sister fucker jokes and I get questions about how it feels to fuck my brother. I just don't think we could take that."

"Maybe not separately, but together, I know we can. Just know that there's nothing anyone can say to change that you're the one I want and need."

They hung up not long after that and hour later there was a knock at her dorm room door.

She opened it and was depressed to find Rick there. She only wanted to see John, but instead here this infatuated co-ed was.

"Cassie said you had some work to finish and I'm a hell of a tutor, so if you want some help -"

"That's nice of you, but I'm really not interested."

"I brought dinner," he stated as he held up a fast food bag.

"Rick, I'm really tired and I'm not hungry," she told him, wanting to spare his feelings.

"Okay," he replied, watching as she slowly closed the door. But he wasn't ready to give up just yet.

A few minutes passed and Julie caught the scent of a hot sandwich wafting into her room. She looked to the door, but it was still closed. Curious, she stood from her desk and walked back to the door.

On the floor just outside of it Rick had left the bag, her dinner still warm inside. She soon saw a note he had written on the bag, reading, "He's a lucky guy. I hope he knows that."

Julie felt her heart sink. She wanted to reply that John did, but she knew he didn't feel it right now. She knew she was lucky to have him, but she didn't have him right then and inside it was killing her.

"John, that's the fifth time this week Julie's called wanting to talk to you," Adam stated a month later. "Why won't you talk to her?"

"I'm not talking about this," John answered as he made his way through the thick Saturday afternoon crowd to get to his next client.

"What? Are you jealous? Do you think she's cheating on you? What?!"

"You want the truth?" John snapped.

"Yes!" his friend cried. Adam couldn't be sure why, but he saw what his friends had as the love he wished to find for himself. Not with his own sister, but with Karen. To him John's and Julie's love was the essence of true love and he hated to see it come to this between them.

"When I hear her voice on the other line, it takes everything in me and more not to beg her to come back home. I don't just mean beg and plead, I'm talking full on, crawling on my knees, begging her to come home to me."

"And you're not the least bit concerned that she's gonna think you're over her?"

"Are you kidding? That tears me the fuck up inside, okay? But I don't know what else to do."

"Go to her. Tell her this. She deserves the truth and you know it."

"If I were to go there, I'd never leave. Our secret would be out and I can't even imagine what that'd do to her. I won't do that to her."

"Then let her know that. Or let her go."

"I can't. Either one would kill me. Do you know where I was just two days before Dad made his big announcement?"

Adam shook his head.

"I was looking for an apartment for us. Right up until I found the perfect one."

"Did you put down a deposit?"

The muscular brunette nodded. "It's where I'm living now."

"Is he still busy?" Julie asked sadly when she heard Adam's voice answer the gym's phone the next day.

"Yeah. Busy being an idiot," he answered.

"What now?" she asked with a slight laugh.

"He loves you, he just can't bring himself to talk to you. He needs you and he really wants you to come home. But it's knowing that you can't that has him afraid to even talk to you, knowing he'd end up begging you to come home."

It was a lot of information for her to take in at once, but somehow she managed. "Maybe it's for the best."

"How can you say that?"

"I told John a while ago that maybe this wasn't supposed to last. Maybe now he's feeling the same way. Maybe now we can put all this in the past and move on."

"You can't mean that," Adam stated, unable to believe what he was hearing. Was his friend, the sister and lover of his best friend breaking up with him through him? This couldn't be happening.

"Just tell him that I understand and he won't have to worry about me trying to call him every day anymore."

With that Adam heard her hang up and could only stare at the phone in utter disbelief.

"Wrong number?" John asked as he saw the look on his friend's face.

"Your sister just broke up with you," he told him bluntly as he hung up the phone.

"What?" he asked, feeling as though Adam had just power kicked him in the stomach.

"She said something about how she'd told you that maybe it wasn't supposed to last and now she figures you feel the same. Then she said that you wouldn't have to worry about her trying to call you every day anymore."

John could only watch as Adam made his way to his next client. He had just lost what mattered most to him and he wasn't even there for it. There was nothing he could say and he couldn't think of anything to do.

He could call Julie, but then they would both fall apart, only making the separation even harder. It was then he knew he would have to do the most painful thing of all.

"Julie?" Rick asked as he knocked on her dorm room two days later.

"Yeah," she replied, wiping her reddened cheeks dry with the backs of her slender hands.

"Are you alright?" he asked when he saw her.

"Peachy," she lied, nearly starting to cry again.

"What happened? You didn't say a word in class and now you're crying, what's wrong?"

"I can't tell you."

"Your boyfriend broke up with you, didn't he?" he asked, fighting to conceal his hope.

"I don't know. He wouldn't talk to me, so I guess I broke up with him. Through a mutual friend, no less."

"Hey," the tall, slim blonde said softly, "it'll be okay. When you're ready to talk or whatever, I'll be here. But first let's get you cleaned up."

That was how it began for Julie and Rick. From there Julie was almost never able to get John on the phone and when she did it was never for more than a few minutes.

Part of her was happy for him that he was able to move on. Thinking what they'd had was better left in the past. How would it look for her to forever be in love with her brother? Though part of her was all too well aware of that being her fate.

However the reason John hadn't been answering or returning her calls wasn't because he had moved on. Or because he had found someone else. His days were revolving around the gym. Work was all he could focus on and he was strangely thankful for that.

It was the one thing their father couldn't take from him. He had taken his lover, but he still had this to cling to and cling to it, he did.

The months were still passing and finally, just before the end of term, Rick asked Julie a question. One she found herself saying yes to.

"John, I'm not sure if you'll get this message, but I'm getting married. I know it's sudden, but I'd like it if you were there. Maybe you can even introduce me to whomever you're seeing now. I miss you."

That was all she could say before his machine clicked off. Part of her knew she was doing the wrong thing, but too many others around her now were seemingly brainwashing her into what was typical.

For some reason, probably thanks to a few of her so-called friends being biology majors, she was having to hear the crude incest jokes she had feared and worse. Ones that often caused her to vomit.

"I'd kill myself if my parents were brother and sister," a slender redhead said with a shiver.

"I'm with you," a muscular blonde said with his own shiver.

"Come on," a petite brunette said. "If it wasn't for incest we wouldn't have half of the jokes we do."

"Yeah, but think about the kids," another redhead said.

"All those defects and shit, it's just not worth it," the muscular brunette added.

"You know the chances of that from first generation incest is ninety-nine percent, if that," Julie stated almost coldly, trying to fight the tears forming in her dark eyes.

The others stopped talking and stared at her in shock.

"Cassie left a few of her Bio books around the dorm. I looked at a few, sue me. The only way the defects happen to the extent you all mock is if it goes on for several generations or more."

"Define several," the slender redhead challenged.

"Figure it out yourself." With that she stood from the table and added, "I think I've had enough for tonight. Maybe I'll see you around."

"Julie, wait!" Rick called as he began to jog after her. When he caught up to her, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just sick of their shit and now I'm going to bed," she told him angrily and stormed off to her room. She knew they didn't know her history, but it didn't matter. She still hated all they were saying.

Despite all she was feeling, she stopped herself from trying to call John. She wanted her brother to be happy, to have a real life, so much of her knowing they couldn't have that life together. That was what had gotten them into this after all.

But another thing John wasn't saying was his belief in the old saying, 'If you love them, set them free. If they come back, then it's meant to be.' Never before had he clung to it like this, but it had to be true. Julie was meant for him, he knew it. He could only hope she knew it, too.

He had listened to the message and decided he would be at the wedding, even if he knew he would never be able to handle it. He had to try for her just as he knew she would try for him.

His only question now was: Who would be his date?