“It’s part of it, yeah.”
She shook her head slowly, pushing her chair back to create space between us.
“No. No, I need you to actually say it,” she said. “You slept with my mom while she was with my dad and you felt guilty about it… and now you feel guilty about fucking me too?”
I didn’t answer right away, because when she said it like that, it sounded very fucked up, exactly how it was.
“And why you sitting here telling me all this about you fucking my mom while my parents was together? You tryna say you think you my real daddy or some shit?”
“What? No! Why would I fuck you if I thought that?”
“Just answer the damn question.”
I took a deep breath.
“No, I ain’t your real father or nothing. Dillon is your dad. What happened between me and Alice happened years before you were born.”
“So if it ain’t that, why you just ain’t tell me the truth?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I answered.
“And now you sitting here acting like you some tortured man, like this big secret was why you couldn’t be with me?”
“Like I said, it’s part of it?—”
“Part of it?!” she snapped. “Part of it? Marlon, what the fuck is wrong with you? You sat there, let me get close to you, let me trust you, let me feel something real with you?—”
“I didn’t?—”
“Yes, you did!” she snapped. “Don’t do that. Don’t sit here and act like I dragged you into this against your will. You knew what this was turning into because you felt it too!”
She stood up then.
“Are you serious right now?” she continued, pacing with hands in her hair. “You let me fall for you! Why the fuck did you thought this was something to sit on while you were in my bed!”
I clenched my jaw. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“So you just didn’t?” she shot back. “You just kept fucking me like it wasn’t relevant?”
She stopped pacing and looked at me, disgust settling in.
“You sick as hell,” she said. “You a motherfucker! Literally! You sat there knowing you had history with my mother… and still touched me.”
“It wasn’t like that?—”
“Oh, so what was it like?” she snapped. “Enlighten me, Marlon. Because right now, it’s looking real nasty.”
I stood up then, finally. “You’re twisting it.”
“Am I?” she laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you couldn’t have her… so you settled for me.”
My chest tightened.
“That’s not true.”
“It feels true!” she shouted. “It feels like you been using me to play out some sick fantasy you ain’t get to finish with my mom.”
“Stop,” I said, sharper now.
