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Actual.
Hell.
I let my head fall against the wall, choking on the lies and betrayal that have defined my life. David is my uncle? Which makes the brother he hates... my father.
“But then there were the kids.” Mom’s voice rises in panic that forces open my eyes. “I should’ve said yes when you wanted to marry me. Let you be their dad.” Sobbing, she throws her arms around me. “Tell me you love me. Tell me it’s not too late. Take me home with you.” She latches onto me—tighter, tighter, tighter—like she’s been treading water for years, and I’m her deflating life vest. “David, please.”
I’m still reeling from her revelation when I say, “I can’t.” I don’t want to keep holding her. I don’t want to let her go.
“You have to forgive me. You have to. Say it. Please. Say you forgive me.” Her voice bends with the need for absolution.
The whole damn thing is so pathetic, the words come out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I forgive you.”
She shakes against my chest. “Will you tell Gabe something for me. I can’t find him.” Sliding out of my arms, she looks around the room almost frantic and then gets down on her knees and looks under the bed and the coffee table like she expects me to fit somewhere that small. “I can never find him.” Her voice drops as she stands up, wringing her hands.
I want to slap my chest and shout—I’m right here. I’m standing in front of you. But I know she won’t see me. I grind the toes of my shoes against the carpet. Focus on her favorite books on the coffee table. Pretend this is a set and any second the director’s going to call—Cut!
But nothing stops my heart from bleeding out.
“David.” She grips my shirt. “Gabe has to know I love him. Will you tell him?”
Those tears I didn’t want to own with Coley fill my eyes until I can’t ignore them. It’s all I can do to say, “He knows.”
It takes me a long-ass time to get my shit together by the exit before I stumble out to Coley waiting on the bench outside The Oasis.
She sits statue-rigid, like she’s been holding her breath the entire time I’ve been gone.
I stop on the sidewalk just outside the shade from the overhanging trees. “Did you know about Mom and David? About us and David?”
Her face gives it away.
“How long have you known David’s our uncle?”
“Gabe—”
“How long?” I rub my forehead. My head hurts. I hurt.
“A few weeks after we brought Mom here.” Resignation flattens her voice. “She freaked out. Kept begging for David. Spilled the whole story.” She glances away, cheeks red. “In details I didn’t want to know.”
The wrongness of Mom touching me like IwasDavid drops like concrete in my gut. Slumping next to Coley, I lean over my thighs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t even tellhimthat I know.” Her voice is so low it almost drowns on the breeze blowing through the branches above us.
“I don’t have a problem telling him.”
She stretches invisible wrinkles from her pants, pulling so hard I expect to see holes. “And if I ask you not to?”
“You should’ve said something to him months ago. I don’t get why you didn’t.”
“You wouldn’t understand.” She pushes off the bench and heads toward the parking lot.
Damn if I’m going to lose my sister the same day I got her back. I take her elbow just as she clears the curb. “Try me.”
Letting me pull her to a stop, she turns, but her gaze sticks to the asphalt. “What if David knowing that we know ruins everything?” She lifts her head. “Mom raised you onRyder. She left me with the nanny half the year. Which is fine, because I wanted to be here, but David’s the one who’s always been there for me. When you... checked out, he was all I had. I needed him.” Her long exhale speaks loud and clear, no mic needed. “I still need him.”
A guilt-shaped bullet tears through my chest. “You have me.” I curve my hands over her angular shoulders. “I won’t let you down again.”
“The whole never having a dad thing, it’s different for a girl.” Her eyes beg me to understand. “Do you know he showed up for Dinner with Dad every year in elementary school? Took me to the Polo Club Cotillion junior year? Moved me into the dorm this fall when you were gone and Mom couldn’t?”
