Shock - Marie Johnston Page 0,6

finished medical school but left medicine before I started my prestigious residency. Mom needed me more.

I might not be a doctor, but I’m out there busting ass every shift to help people. I am a good role model. But maybe I have too much of my own dad in me to be a good father.

Chapter 3

Ford

“I need you to come to Karoline’s wedding with me next weekend.”

The sounds of silverware tinkling against plates fades as Mom drops that little bomb on me. Going to my stepsister’s wedding is akin to shaving my entire body with a dull razor and then dousing myself in cheap aftershave. “Do we have to go at all?”

“They’re making an effort.”

I can’t believe Karoline invited us in the first place. It’s probably her brother Ryan’s doing. The peacekeeper. He acts all altruistic, as if it’s so easy to forget how they treated me and Mom.

I get that they were just kids and didn’t see their dad’s pattern of treating women like they were interchangeable. Karoline and Ryan were too busy hating on me, their new stepbrother, to pay attention to how abysmally their dad treated me. And when he started traveling for “work” and messing around on Mom, she let him. Life was more peaceful when he was gone.

Before Karoline and Ryan’s dad, my dad ran out on her when she was pregnant with me. He left her barely out of school with a baby to raise and parents with no interest in supporting her. To this day, I assume she figured staying married to my cheating asshole of a stepfather was better for all of us. Karoline and Ryan wouldn’t have to demean another stepmom, and at least this guy would bring home a paycheck.

She paid for that decision. Literally and figuratively. With my help, she’s almost paid it all off.

“Do you think you’ll bring a date?” Mom asks, hopefulness lacing her tone.

Back to the wedding. I don’t want to go. I haven’t wanted to go to anything less.

Karoline and her soon-to-be husband, Sergei. Ryan and his wife and kid. Happy. Untouched by their father’s bad decisions, while I gave up my career and then my chance at a happy family because of the guy.

No. I can’t think of it like that or the resentment will take over. I did it for Mom. I gave up my dreams of being a doctor for Mom. She needed my help and she had no one—again. Cass gave up on me, on us, and I can’t control her decisions.

Cass wanted the perfect life and when she realized she was pregnant, both of us assumed marriage came next. Cass pictured marriage and a baby and me making a healthy six figures. I blew that up when I moved us to Sunnyville before Jayden was born.

If we couldn’t withstand the test of moving here before Jayden was born, then a marriage wouldn’t have lasted long anyway. Cass felt like she wasn’t a priority and I thought my life partner should still accept me when I turned down fancy initials behind my name.

That I didn’t uproot myself, beg for her back, and move to LA to finish my residency cost me my name on Jayden’s birth certificate.

I’m going to be alone raising this baby. Why shouldn’t my name be the only one on it?

“I’ll see what I can do,” I say noncommittally, unable to disappoint her. Mom’s still rooting for me, thinks I can find a girl, settle down, have babies.

I tried. The girl’s tampering with my ability to be a dad. She relegated me to nothing more than a sperm donor, no better than the one who left Mom when two lines appeared on the pregnancy test. So I’m really careful now, to the extent some would call me a manwhore, but that’s all right. I don’t have to stay home thinking about how it all could’ve been and my date doesn’t get her hopes up that we could be more.

Going to a wedding would definitely get my date’s hopes up. Maybe I can find someone and talk to her first. The wedding would be a one-and-done deal. There’s gotta be a commitment-phobe lady out there for me, someone who gets not letting down a hard-working mom who takes too much responsibility for my single status.

I scan the restaurant—the country club. Mom’s new boss gave her a gift card here, an appreciation bonus for her first year on the job. The restaurant portion of the club isn’t exclusive to members,