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“What the hell does that mean?” I whispered, partially dumbfounded. “My father? Suddenly, I remind you of my father?”
Holy shit.
“Mom!” I yelled when she just stood there staring at me with a horrified look.
She gripped the counter so tightly in her hands I thought she might snap it off. “I wondered for so long whether you’d wake up one day, and I’d see him in your eyes,” she finally replied as tears dripped down onto her cheeks. “But you were so quiet, so sweet, and incredibly smart.”
I felt like my entire body was being fed some kind of electric current. My skin felt like it was alive, and there was this dull buzzing in my head. I couldn’t move like the signals to my brain were stalled. I could imagine this was how kids might feel when they were told they were adopted. Like everything you’d known up until that point could have been a complete and utter lie. Or like you were missing out on something important. A piece of you which was out there somewhere, a piece you didn’t even realize until that point was even missing.
“You said…” I finally managed to murmur, shaking my head, rattling around all those thoughts that were flying at a million miles a minute. “You said… you didn’t know.”
She brushed at the tears on her cheeks swiping them away. “I do know,” she replied, her voice cracking. “Meyah, listen, it wasn’t because I was trying to hurt you. It was to keep you from being hurt.”
That whole sentence was so damn cliché that I choked on a laugh. “My whole life, Mom, it’s all been about trying to control me. Trying to drive me in the direction you wanted me to go. Trying to protect me but never letting me experience anything.” I had to remind myself that this was the woman who raised me, who gave up her life to make sure I had everything I needed. Who always put me first and loved me more than anything on this earth. But right now, all those thoughts were being pushed to the side. “You were so scared of me becoming him that what? You decided to stop me from really living? Who the hell was this guy that you were so scared I would become like him? What are you so afraid of?”
I kept wondering how much I’d missed out on because Mom wouldn’t let me ride horses anymore, or go to certain friends’ houses, or watch some television shows. Or how she’d kept me away from the clubhouse for so long only allowing Uncle Leo to see us at home. How I’d constantly been too scared to stand on my own two feet wrapped in bubble wrap for far too long.
“Do you know what it’s like for a mother to see their children get hurt? To feel like there was a possibility that you could lose your entire world before your eyes?” she threw back. “When I found out I was pregnant with you, it was one of the hardest moments of my life. My parents were dead. I’d been given custody of my little sister and was expected to raise her.Youwere the only thing that made my days bearable.”
She braced her hands on the counter and hung her head between her arms. I could hear her taking several deep breaths as if she was trying to build the courage to discuss a time in her life she’d obviously spent a long time trying to block out.
“Then Kim died,” she sniffled, her breathing sharper and faster. “I lost my parents. I lost my sister. And you and Denver were all I had left. There was no way in hell I was about to lose the two of you. So yes, I did whatever I had to do to protect you, including keeping you from your damn father and his damn genes that are inside you.” Her voice became stronger the more she managed to convince herself that she’d done the right thing.
“Who is he?” I finally found the courage to demand. I heard what she was saying. I knew she was just doing what she felt was right to keep me safe when she’d already lost her entire family. But it still hurt, it fucking hurt really bad knowing that she’d lied to me this whole time. I wanted to understand, to feel like I knew what she was talking about, and that the way she’d handled things was completely sane, but I just couldn’t. It was like feeling a body part was missing and then finding out that the person you love more than anything had been purposely hiding it forcing you to get through life without it.
“Meyah…”
“No, Mom, just tell me!”
She shook her head, and my heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t going to tell me. She wasn’t going to stop this bullshit idea that she was protecting me.
“Fine,” I hissed, pulling my cell from my back pocket and dialing Uncle Leo’s number and putting it to my ear.
“Meyah, stop!” she yelled, reaching out to grab my cell. I ducked away, but her fingernail caught the side of my cheek. I turned my face away like I’d been slapped instantly feeling it begin to sting. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to stem the flow of tears along with blocking out the pain.
“Oh my God, Meyah,” my mom whispered. But I couldn’t look at her. I just needed to get the hell out of here before things got any worse.
“Meyah?” Uncle Leo finally answered. “Everything okay?” I could tell he was worried. I’d only just left there, and things hadn’t been great at that point.
“I need you to come get me. I can’t be here,” I told him, struggling to get the words out, my voice shaking and unstable. “I’m at home. Can you just come? Please?”
“Jesus! Yeah, I’ll be there in five,” he replied. I could hear him call out to Hadley before he hung up the phone.
“Meyah, this is ridiculous,” Mom started, but I was already heading for the stairs, my hand still pressed to my cheek, salty tears resting on my lips.
Unable to keep my pain concealed, I turned and looked over my shoulder at her determined to let her know how much she’d hurt me. “I can’t even look at you right now,” I responded, throwing her words back at her, my heart breaking into little pieces as I walked away, hurt, but determined. I needed to show her that I was older now. She couldn’t control me. She couldn’t lie to me or keep trying to protect me from everything. I knew there would be times where I would get hurt, where my heart would break, where someone would lose my trust, where friends would stab me in the back. But that was part of learning, growing, and standing on my own two feet. Standing for myself and being strong.
I needed to learn them for myself.
And maybe being here wasn’t the place where I was going to do that.
