Xander told me. That’s not even what Petra told me.
“We were best friends from the day we met. Inseparable. She was my stars, my moon, my everything…I loved that woman more deeply than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I believed we’d be together forever.”
“Wait a second.” I wiped at my eyes, straightening. “Then why did you leave her for Selena?”
“It was complicated, Sher.”
“Patronizing, much?” I narrowed my eyes. “Riley and I almost killed each other over a boy. I understand that relationships are complicated.”
At the mention of that godawful night, his face went all twisty. “God, don’t remind me. You girls put me through hell and back—”
“My point is,” I frowned, realizing we were getting off topic fast. “I’m pretty sure I can keep up.”
He let out a long, heavy sigh. “I know you can. It’s just hard to talk about.” He looked up at the sky again, drifting away for several moments. The next time he spoke, I felt the pain in his voice. “We had a fight, a big one. It ended with both of us screaming and saying things we didn’t mean. The thing is, Petra and I were both too stubborn for our own good. We were prideful Ares descendants; apologies and expressing emotions were like a foreign language to us. After we broke up, I would’ve done anything to stop thinking about her…”
He looked down at his hands in his lap, and I patiently waited for him to continue. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about this, but he was doing it for me.
“My days were spent training, and my nights were spent forgetting. I did everything I could to forget—drinking, partying, and yes, I suppose I did my share of manwhoring.” He briefly glanced at me. “You see, Selena was never supposed to be permanent.”
First of all, ew.
Hearing about my dad’s promiscuous history weirded me out on so many levels. It was not in character with the straight-laced guy I’d known my entire life.
Second of all, his story did not line up with the one I heard.
“So…you didn’t fall madly in love with Selena?” I said, trying to get a clear picture of what happened.
“What?” He vehemently shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, she was—and probably still is—a lovely person, but Petra always had my heart.”
I let that sink in for a few moments, realizing Xander told me the story backward. Guess that was bound to happen when love triangles went through gossip mills.
“But…” I thought back to the night Grandpa hooked Xander to the ollidipher, trying to remember everything he said. “Selena is alive and well, working as a psychic in the Hollowed Castle. Grandpa said when you found out, it would destroy you.”
“Yes, that was hard to hear. But not because I was in love with her. Because I assumed, like everyone else, that she was dead. And because I left them both in the Underworld, trapped, and I never once tried to help either of them.”
“Explain.”
“I’m getting there. Like I said before, Selena was supposed to be a one-night stand.”
I scrunched my face together. “Yep, I’m ready to move on from that.”
“Then she told me she was pregnant. You want to talk about being blindsided? That one hit me hard.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted to do the right thing. So, I gave her my grandmother’s ring. We planned to marry after graduation. I had no idea Petra was also pregnant."
“But that would mean…” The wheels turned over in my mind. “Wait—I’m the older sister?”
He nodded, smiling for a moment. “Only by a month or two at most. As a toddler, Riley started speaking before you did, so I decided she would be the eldest. I told everyone your birthdays were a year apart to keep our backstory believable.”
All my life, I’d been looking up to Riley, believing she was the older, wiser sibling. I couldn’t wait to throw that back in her face.
“So, you got two women pregnant at the same time,” I said, trying to put all the pieces together for once and for all. “But if you loved Petra, why did you choose Selena?”
“Petra came to speak to me, shortly after I proposed to Selena. In retrospect, I believe she came to tell me about her pregnancy, but I couldn’t bear looking at her. She was everything I wanted, and in my mind, everything I couldn’t have. Not if I wanted to put my unborn child first. So, I shut the