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“Would you like me to ask nicely?” Mom spat venomously. “I found you in my child’s bed after you promised to look after him. Have you been seducing him before that? Since when? Since you lived in my house? Since you moved in with me?”
“Eileen, enough,” George snapped.
The casual disregard of years of happiness in that marriage that my mom displayed was enough to make even my heart shudder for George.
“He is only twenty, for the love of God,” Mom cried, spinning to face her husband. “He was supposed to have a role model. A big brother to help him grow. Not…this. Not someone who would come into my home and seduce my boy.”
“I wasn’t seduced,” I snapped.
When she looked at me at last, I realized her eyes were brimming with tears. “Of course, you would say that. But I don’t trust your judgment, Asher. And I don’t think you knew.”
Frustration boiled in me.
Mom shook her head. If she believed Jordan had been preparing me for this for years, she was terribly mistaken. If anything, he had done all in his power to push me away. He had sacrificed his desires to protect me from this exact moment.
She didn’t care about my explanations. She was convinced of Jordan’s guilt and my gullibility that I couldn’t dismantle that logic with words. “I treated you like my own child, Jordan. Did I not? I treated you no differently. I adopted you. I made you into his big brother. And this is how you repay me?”
“We’re not children,” I protested. “And we didn’t grow up together, for fuck’s sake.”
“Hey,” George said as if my language was the worst of our problems.
I pressed my lips into a tight line and inhaled slowly. “For all your attempts to force us into being a family, we never wanted that. I never asked for this. I never wanted a brother. And I never wanted anyone to look after me.” What was the promise she was talking about? “You both know how much we avoided each other. You know how many fights we’d had since you two decided to make us what we were never meant to be. And what does it matter? Once you’re divorced, we’ll be no more related than two people who’d never met each other.”
Mom pursed her lips. “Is that what you’re waiting for? Our divorce? So you two can pretend like you weren’t brought up together. Like you weren’t exposed to him since you were thirteen. Like he didn’t have a chance to impress you and lure you in.”
“Enough!” George snapped. “Eileen, I won’t stand here and listen to these accusations.”
“Then don’t,” Mom said flatly. “Run to the other woman and cry.”
My heart lurched. The other woman?
George’s face darkened. “You are saying horrible things with no proof.”
“I don’t need proof,” Mom said. “It all makes sense now. The strange behavior, the sneaking, the hours at the lake.” The corners of her lips dragged down. “It was already happening when we spoke,” she told Jordan. It wasn’t a question. “You looked into my eyes and lied. When I asked you why Asher was acting strange, you lied, telling me there was nothing strange. What were you doing, Jordan?”
Tension was radiating from Jordan’s posture. When I looked at him, there were veins showing in his neck. Before he could say anything — if he was going to speak at all — George stepped closer to Mom. “They’re right, Eileen. It’s not like we’re reconsidering this. A month from now, they won’t be related even on paper.”
“I don’t care what the papers say,” Mom seethed. “They were raised as brothers; all the while, one was luring the other. What else did you make Asher do, Jordan? Did you put Northwood into his head, too?”
He had, but not the way she thought. “I can’t listen to this anymore. I’m not a little boy anymore, Mom. I made this choice.” My voice cracked. I was so near breaking that I had to stop myself from speaking. I wouldn’t show such weakness.
“We both made this choice,” Jordan said. “This summer. Now. We chose to be together.” He lifted his head a little. “And nothing anyone says will change that.”
Mom stiffened and straightened her back. “Seeing you in my son’s bed and seeing you with your stepbrother will always make me shudder. I am disgusted, Asher. I can’t hide it. And I can’t change anything. But I don’t have to look at it, either.”
Mom turned away from us, not sparing another look at me, and walked away. George was rubbing his forehead, and Jordan stood still, completely motionless as if he was made of stone.
I wanted to break free and run from this. My mother…
My mother couldn’t stomach me, couldn’t look at me, couldn’t see me without the hurt and betrayal on her face. She couldn’t be in the same room as me. And she refused to understand.
I wasn’t sure where George stood on it all. He wanted to protect Jordan, of course, but he might be as disgusted as Mom, only smart enough not to show it now.
Slowly, I turned on my heels, and nobody stopped me. I walked away from them, climbing the stairs. My back was stiff and straight, my pace was steady, and my breath was held in my lungs until I was in my room. When I exhaled, it was a shudder that rocked me almost off my feet.
I shut the door and turned the key to lock myself inside.
Her last words were ringing through my head and I couldn’t even start recognizing the emotions that swirled through me. In the eye of the storm, there was nothing. It was hollow and peaceful in there.
