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"To protect you from the backlash you would receive. You must understand something, Rossi Enterprises was on the rise at the time; our name was everywhere. Investors were coming out of the woods. Everyone wanted a piece of what I was building because anything I touched turned to gold. I'm a phenomenal businessman, but one slip up, one mistake that shed a negative light on our family, and we could've lost it all. It was a different time. What happened in the dark never saw the light. It was a game of politics and it had to be played a certain way."
"So you did it for yourself, not me."
"I did it for us."
"No." I shook my head. "You did it because you love power, but you love money more. If your slip up"—I almost choked saying the word—"got out, you'd lose everything. I was a risk you couldn't chance. You needed the picture-perfect family to keep everything intact, and Mom was willing to give it to you."
Something dawned on me and my chest hollowed out.
"Even though she hated me for what you did, she covered up your mistakes because she loved you and believed in you. But what did you do this time that she refuses to play along? Why is she taking her resentment out on me?"
Dad's mouth pulled down. "I tried, Adrianna. I really did. I tried to make up for it by giving you everything you ever asked for."
"You wanted to buy me."
"No, it isn't like that."
"Then what's it like!" I yelled. "Everything I've known is a lie. I deserve to know the damn truth. If anything, it would've all made sense had I known."
My blood was boiling faster than it ever had. My fingers tingled, and my heart was about to beat through my ribs. I was a fusion of hurt and rage, fire and ice.
"Mom's hatred toward me. The way she's never supported me or my dreams. How she would incessantly nag me over my weight. I was never good enough, and the worst part of all, you watched it happen. You knew the reasoning behind her behavior and never did anything to stop it. "
I stepped back and turned in a circle, giving them my back, thinking about all the ways she’d treated me over the years. Tears burned the back of my eyes and I didn't want them to see that. I tipped my head up to stare at the ceiling, I refused to let them fall.
"She's hated me since the day I was born…and you know she has, and yet you never did anything to protect me from her wrath."
I wasn't sure how much more I could take before I broke. I was supposed to remain a lie until I died, and long after. I tried to speak again but the knot in my throat prevented me. I placed my hand on my hips and bit the inside of my lip to fight the emotions clawing inside me, begging to spill out.
I was strong, but this…this was a sucker punch that nearly knocked me out.
"Aid," Xavier said gently. "Dad loves you more than anything in the world. He’d never purposely hurt you. You know that."
I put my arm up and gave him the back of my hand. "I have nothing to say to you," I spat. "Of all people, you just had to have my best friend too." God, I was sick to my stomach. I couldn't handle that confession too or else I'd surely break.
By some miracle compelling me, I strode from the dining room, found my car keys, and left.
* * *
It took less than a handful of minutes before I was sitting on the ivory sand, staring at the roaring teal waves and white caps crashing on the shore.
The beach was my savior, my serenity. The smell of sand and salt was my tonic. It was the one and only place I felt could remedy anything I was going through.
Salt water cures everything are words Floridians lived by. Words I lived by. Anytime I was dealing with something—grave or minor—I found myself sitting at the beach and staring at the water. Every burden, every grain of anxiety washed away with each kiss and retreat from the waves on the powdery shoreline. The sand over my toes and the wind in my hair revitalized me. It was a place where I could find myself when I felt like I was at a fork in the road, a place that would help guide the way at the sound of crashing waves.
I sat with my elbows perched on my pulled-up knees, gazing at the beauty of the sea, trying to process what just happened. Goose bumps covered my arms. The wind was chilly today, but I didn't feel it. I was too numb, overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions to handle them.
My mom wasn't my real mom, and Avery and Xavier were together. So together they made a baby…then aborted it.
I was embarrassed to admit that I didn't know which one hurt more.
Joy not being my real mother should cause more of an impact than Avery lying to me, but it didn't. And what kind of person did that make me? I loved my mom, but I was never close with her. I had never confided in her. She was never the first person I ran to with a dilemma or looked to for advice. There was always some sort of disconnection between us despite being related. I'd made the effort for years, but we never had that mother-daughter bond. I always figured I was too much of a daddy's girl for anything else, but after today…
And I was oddly okay with that, which made me feel even more like shit. It should affect me, yet it didn't.
Or maybe I was blocking it out.
What she had said to me, the harsh way she delivered it, I'd never forget it. She was deliberately cruel. Revenge was a piping hot, bitter coffee served in a foam cup, and that's what she had planned for me. She wanted to burn me and watch me dissolve through a flimsy barrier.
