AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I regret giving you up like that.” He clears his throat and motions for the waitress to come over. “I thought you’d be better off. I tried to make sure you had a good home. I wasn’t in a good head space to take care of you.”
“And I was?” I choke back my tears. “I was so miserable when she passed away. I wasn’t in a good head space either, but at least I had a home. I still had a family, until you met Rachel.”
“Rachel had nothing to do with my decision.” He shakes his head.
“It was Rachel’s idea.” I take a sip out of the coffee I ordered before he got here. “She thought I was trying to seduce you.”
“She wouldn’t…” His face scrunches up. “I would never do anything like that. You were a kid.”
“I know.” I start fiddling with my napkin and wait for the waitress to leave when she brings his drink over. “And I wasn’t, but she made comments and told me that’s what she thought. She’s your wife and the mother of your children, you chose her over me.”
“I couldn’t take care of you.” He rubs at his temples. “You were wild and all over the place. I thought it was my fault, because I couldn’t be the father you needed me to be. After Meredith,” he clears his throat again. “I was depressed. Rachel helped me out of that and I had no idea she said any of that to you.”
“I know.” I nod. “I never told you. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to get you to break up with her.”
I was twelve years old, no one would’ve believed me. I was lucky to even have a home.
“If I'd known, it could’ve been different.” He takes my hand on the table, reassuring me that he cares. “She feels bad about how she treated you.”
I scoff and look away, pulling my hand from his to wrap over my chest.
“It’s true,” he assures me. “She never really said why, but when we talk about you or I mention you, she’d say she feels horrible for how she treated you. Having her own daughters changed her. She’s a good mom.”
I try not to roll my eyes. Rachel was always a bitch to me.
“She’s the one that wants you to meet our daughters. We told them about you. Showed them pictures and called you their big sister.”
“Peter, that’s horrible.” I look at him in disbelief. “A sister that’s never there for them.”
“They’re too young to understand why.” He laughs. “We didn’t know what to say when they saw you in pictures, and they started asking questions. We decided to be honest.”
I wipe at my face and my fingers come away wet. I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t cry.
“You don’t have to meet them if you don’t want to.” He looks down, trying to hide just how much he wants me to. “I’d like you to be part of our family again. You’re the only thing I have left of her.”
Peter isn’t even my birth father, but he was the closest thing I had to one. My mom, Meredith, met Peter when she worked in marketing for the San Jose Quakes and I was three. My biological father passed away before I was born. Peter fell in love with my mom and raised me as his own alongside her for seven years. Before she had a brain aneurysm.
She passed away right after my tenth birthday. I miss her every day. I have to actively try not to think about her and have thrown myself into taking care of others to distract my thoughts. I turned to drugs and then it was sex to feel anything but the grief I still had about how unfair it all was.
To lose my mother without any warning and then be cast away by the only father I’ve ever known. It’s unfair, but it’s life and I dealt with it the best way I could.
“I’ll think about it.” I promise.
I have a lot to think about and a lot to get through. I don’t want to make any rash decisions or any promises I can’t keep.
“Come on, Kandi. It’s only two days!” Penny begs me for the hundredth time in two hours.
“Is that lavender your burning?” Callie asks as she checks out the incense burning on my nightstand.
“Yes.” I answer Callie, but immediately turn to Penny. “It’s two nights and three days and we have way too much to do before our gala.”
I will them to understand how serious I am. They’re incapable of taking anything seriously. Callie and Penny are sitting on my bed, begging me to go with them for a ski trip this weekend. They’ve been asking all day.
It’s the Kappa’s charity event. A ski trip where a lousy twenty percent goes to the charity they chose. Our event gives everything minus expenses. The other eighty present goes to more Kappa parties.
“Exactly, you need a break.” Callie eyes me from across the room while I sit at my desk, going over the spreadsheet for the millionth time to make sure everything is done. “You confirmed everything already, and all we need to do is set up. You’re overworked.”
“And sexually frustrated.” Dani pokes her head through my door.
