One-hundred and ten percent. They were the complete opposite of one another.
But in the end, it turned out they had one thing in common.
They’d both betrayed me in the worst possible way.
Sometime later, I woke up to the sound of raised voices. Disoriented, I sat up, rubbing my dry, sore eyes. I’d cried so hard I wasn’t sure there were any tears left.
“You were fucking her long before Mom left,” Jason roared, the anger in his voice evident even from my bedroom.
“Jason, you need to rein it in, now,” Kent sounded calm, composed, as I crept out into the dimly lit hall. “You had no right telling her.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t tell her. She overheard a conversation between—”
“You think I care how she found out, Son? This wasn’t the right way…”
“You think there’s a right way to find out your mom is a homewrecking who—” The sound of skin cracking pierced the air and I flinched, tiptoeing down the stairs.
“Touch me again…” My step-brother’s voice was low. Deadly. And for a split second, I feared for Kent’s wellbeing. But for as much as an asshole as Jason was, I didn’t truly believe he would hurt his dad.
“Jason, I didn’t… I’m sorry. I just don’t appreciate you talking about Denise in such a way. This is a mess, Son. If only you had come to me sooner—”
“You would have what? Ended it? Tried to fix things with Mom?”
“That’s not—”
“Didn’t think so,” Jason ground out. “Mom left. She left because of you. Because of her. And you wonder why I can’t fucking stand her.”
“Enough,” Kent snapped. “Denise is my wife, Jason. Nothing you could have said or done was ever going to change that. I love her. And I’m sorry things happened the way they did, I truly am, but life isn’t always easy, Son. It’s messy and hard and sometimes it hurts.”
I was rooted to the spot, my fingers curled around the bannister. I’d never heard Jason and his dad argue before. They weren’t always warm with one another, but I figured that was down to Jason. He was detached, devoid of emotion. But now I realized there was far more to my step-brother than met the eye, and for as much as I didn’t want to feel sympathy for him, I couldn’t help it.
I’d known the truth for a few hours—he’d lived with it for years.
So why had he never told me? It couldn’t have been to protect me, that made no sense. He’d expressed his contempt for me on more than one occasion. But a tiny part of me couldn’t help but wonder if he wanted to spare me the pain that came with knowing.
A door slammed, jolting me from my thoughts, and I ran back upstairs, locking myself in my room. I might have felt sympathy for Jason, but Flick was right, I was hardened. Because although I knew he was in pain, although I knew he probably needed someone as much as I did right now, I couldn’t be that person for him.
I couldn’t forgive him.
By the time Monday morning rolled around, I was exhausted. I’d barely slept last night. My conversation with Mom, and the one I’d overheard between Jason and Kent, replayed over and over, until my dreams became a skewed reality; lies and truths becoming a tangled web of uncertainty. Jason hadn’t returned home and I assumed he’d stayed over at Asher’s, or his latest hook up’s. I’d overheard Kent reassuring Mom things would blow over, as if the truth was just something we could all brush under the rug and ignore. But whatever they needed to tell themselves for an easy life.
“Good morn—you look like crap.” Flick’s brows knitted together. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got precisely,”—she checked the clock on the dash—“eleven minutes, hit me.”
So I told her what happened, from the moment Cameron showed up at her house yesterday, right up to when I’d heard Jason and Kent arguing last night.
“Okay, let me get this straight,” she said, pulling into the school parking lot. “You had hot delicious sex with Cameron; found out your mom and Kent had an affair behind Mrs. Ford’s back, effectively ending their marriage, and Jason knew all this time?”
“Don’t forget the bit about Cameron being a jerk to me all these years because my step-brother made him choose between us.” My lips flattened into a tight line.
“I don’t even know where to start. Let’s start with the sex.” Her