AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sure.”
“Okay,” Matthias says with a shrug before running back to the pool.
“What is it?” I ask as my mom walks up behind me.
“We should go to your father’s office,” he replies.
“Here you go, sweetheart,” my mom says as she hands me my sundress.
Taking it from her, I pull it over my head as my stomach flutters with anxiety. “What’s going on? Why are you back? Is something wrong?” I fire questions at all three of them but none of them answer.
“Come on, angel,” Jax says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “We’ll explain everything.”
I walk with him to my father’s office, fighting the urge to throw up the entire time.
Once we’re inside the room, Jax guides me to a chair and then he sits beside me while my mom and father sit opposite.
“Why do I feel like you all know something that I don’t?” I whisper.
“Your dad got something this morning. He asked me to come home so we could deal with it, baby. I only got here a half hour ago.”
“You’ve been here for a half hour and you didn’t come see me?” I whisper. “What were you doing?”
“Talking to your dad,” he says and then he looks at my father who nods his head, as though giving him permission to do something. “About these.” Jax hands me a brown envelope.
I take it from him with trembling hands. “What is it? Is somebody sick?” I look between the three of them.
“No, nothing like that,” Jax says as he brushes my hair back from my face. “Just take a look and then we’ll figure out how to fix it.”
“Okay,” I swallow hard as I pull the contents out.
The image that I’m confronted with makes me want to curl into a ball and die. My cheeks burn with shame as tears sting my eyes. It’s Jax and me with Toni. Somebody took pictures of us. Why would somebody do that?
“Have you all seen these?” I ask, my voice not even a whisper.
“Yes,” my father replies.
I swallow down the sob that is lodged in my throat. “You both saw these this morning and you never said anything until now?” I look to my parents.
“I wanted to speak to Jax first,” my father replies.
“Why? Why did you need to speak to Jax? Why didn’t you come straight to me?” I ask, finding my voice now as feelings of anger slip in between the cracks of the shame and guilt.
“I wanted to know if we could deal with them without you being involved,” he replies matter of factly, while my mom sits silently by his side.
“You weren’t going to tell me?”
Jax reaches for my hand and squeezes it, but it doesn’t offer me the comfort that it usually does. I have never felt so humiliated in my life and the fact that they were all going to deal with this without even telling me makes me feel like a silly little girl. “How could you even think about not telling me about this?”
“Your dad was trying to protect you, angel,” Jax says, and I turn my anger on him.
“Don’t defend him. I do not need protecting from the truth. How many times do I have to prove myself to you all before you stop treating me like a child?”
“You will always be my child,” my father snaps. “How do you think I felt seeing those pictures?”
“How do you think I feel knowing that you’ve seen them? You and mom? That was a private moment that nobody should have ever seen,” I snap.
“Clearly not all that private,” he snaps back. “Because it’s not just you two on there, is it?”
