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My blood swims with ice and shame. I look down, too conscience-stricken to meet his eyes.
“We paid for your years of therapy, we gave you an education, we packed up everything and moved just so you wouldn’t have to grow up living next door to that house of horrors.”
Tears sting my eyes. My heart grows heavier with every word.
“And how do you repay us?”
Samantha steps forward, the steady voice of reason. “Andrew, calm down. I’m handling this.”
He ignores her. “Answer me,” he spits out.
“Please,” I muster, lifting my hand like a prayerful white flag. My voice shakes. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You son of a bitch.” His teeth are bared, his finger jabbing at me as he stands toe-to-toe with me. “You desecrated our daughter!”
We all go silent.
I look up, my gaze shimmering with penitence.
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how to excuse this, or argue my case, or latch onto the smallest thread of sympathy and make him understand.
All I have is my pathetic truth, so I let it fall out of me: “I’m in love with your daughter.”
He responds by slamming his fist at my face.
Andrew slugs me in the jaw, bowling me over until I stumble back against the wall.
“Andrew!” Samantha shrieks.
I don’t have time to recover or process the hit before he’s on me again, snatching my shirt collar in a deathlike grip and shaking me. “You’re not in love with her. You preyed on her. You groomed her.” His spittle mists my face as he growls through clenched teeth. “How long were you fantasizing about my little girl? How long were you violating her under my goddamn roof?”
No.
I’m floored, stunned, heartbroken.
A breath leaves me as my stomach roils with sickness and I feel like I’m going to puke.
That’s what he thinks?
That’s what he believes?
I whip my head back and forth, choking on my own air. “Andrew…no. God, no, it was never like that.” Bile climbs up my throat as my body quakes with disbelief. I’m like a rag doll in his grip, listless and stripped of fight. “Fuck…no…”
Andrew shoves me away, and my knees buckle.
I collapse.
“Andrew, damn it, get ahold of yourself,” Samantha says, her voice hoarse and pained. She races over to me, crouching down to inspect my face that’s oozing with blood from a split lip. She grazes her fingertips to my jaw with a mother’s touch.
I’m still shaking my head back and forth, my breathing escalating. It feels like I’m about to have a panic attack. “You don’t think that…” I rush out, looking up at Andrew, my limbs trembling. “You can’t possibly think that of me…”
A brief moment of regret flickers in his eyes, but he slips the mask back on. “What am I supposed to think? You were having sex with your sister.”
“No…”
“Your sister, Brant!”
