Page 24 of The Stepbrother 2: Noah

He opened his mouth to protest, but I raised a hand to stop him.

"We’re done. This whole mess has shown me exactly who you are. Go be with Maine, or don’t—I don’t care. But don’t ever think about coming back to me. Whatever we had, whatever we could have had, it’s gone."

I pushed past him, and slid into the driver’s seat of my car. I didn’t wait for him to respond. I shut the door and started the engine. As I backed out of the driveway, I caught a glimpse of him standing there, looking lost, maybe even hurt. But I wasdone with his excuses and his guilt-tripping. He’d made his choices, and so had I.

As I drove away, my phone buzzed on the seat beside me. I glanced down and saw my father’s name on the screen. My chest tightened.

"Daddy?"

"Creed." His voice was strained, and in the background, I could hear my momma crying.

Scarlett-

“I don’t care anymore, Scar. You can't bribe me with pussy. I’m not scared of your anger. I’m telling Creed that I didn’t know anything about DJ being Devon’s until the same day she found out.” He wouldn’t stop pacing the length of our bedroom. I watched him from the chair in front of my vanity.

“No, you aren’t going to do that.”

“Why not?” he yelled. “My own daughter won’t even look me in the eye right now.”

“Because it's not the right time, Troy. My mother is in the hospital. And I understand why you’re upset. I know you don’t realize it and never did it on purpose, but everybody else knows Creed is your favorite. Your tether baby. The only one you can look at and not have to think about drama.”

His eyes locked onto mine, his expression a mix of anger and disbelief. “Are you accusing me of loving my kids unequally?”

I shook my head. “That's not what I said.” He was purposely being difficult.

“Creed is just your favorite. She was the one you absolutely wanted. You tricked me into having her. You're the reason she acts the way she does. The way Maine acts is a direct result of how you've treated Creed. Jason didn’t need to be coddled, so he didn’t care about the extra time you spent with Creed, or how you gave her special little gifts, or went out of your way to make her smile. You used to walk around holding her like she was a baby doll. You rarely put her down. For God’s sake, you cried like a baby in front of all of us when we had to leave her with my parents for a tour. Maine saw all of it. She also had to deal withthe stigma of who her mother was. Kids used to tease her about what happened between you and her mother. They called her a rape baby. So, of course, she has some issues.

“Tiffany, I had a fucked-up past. I still don't like her, but I never mistreated Maine, and I poured as much of myself into her as I did Creed. Even if I didn’t, that doesn’t excuse Maine’s behavior. Creed's been good at turning the other cheek when it came to her siblings. She shouldn’t have to in this situation.”

I shook my head. “I’m not excusing her behavior. I’m explaining it.”

He shook his head. “Maine is the way she is because she's manipulative, just like her mother. I would never say this in front of her, but she is. Look at the Devon situation. I sat down with him and refrained from hurting him because I wanted to hear his side. He said he told Maine he didn’t want her, told her he planned to pursue Creed. Went on a date with Creed, only for Maine to tell him Creed wasn’t interested without ever talking to Creed. That doesn’t sit right with me, and it shouldn’t with you. But you always overcompensate when it comes to Maine because you don’t want her to feel left out or neglected. By doing so, you’ve unintentionally fostered an environment where she feels entitled to everything and manipulates us. Like when she moved out. We bought her and Jason that duplex. She turned down our help to pay for movers to move her furniture from her college apartment, saying we’d done too much and she'd do it herself, just to turn around and ask us to furnish the whole place with new furniture. And when I said no, what did she do, Scar?”

He didn’t give me a chance to answer, he did it for me.

“She cried to you, and you gave her a furniture allowance, and we still had to pay someone to move the previous furniture we’dbought her only seven or eight months earlier. She's a brat. A bigger one than Creed ever was.”

He stared me down, daring me to say anything, and I wouldn’t, because he was right. I wouldn’t tell him it out loud, but sometimes I felt like I was the reason Tiffany had abandoned Maine. The feeling was irrational. She had done the same to Noah, but I always felt the need to make up for it.

Troy nodded, as if he’d made up his mind and it couldn’t be changed. “As soon as Creed gets back, I’m telling her, “He said before he left the room.

I was left alone to dwell on what would happen next. His anger and frustration were justified, and I couldn't fault him for wanting to tell the truth, but I just wished he’d wait. Yes, it was for purely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to have the type of standoffish relationship with Creed that I had with my mother, and if Troy told her that I knew about Devon and he didn’t, that’s exactly what would happen. What’s messed up is that I’d known since the day DJ was born. I walked into the room while Maine was asleep, and the paperwork for the birth certificate was just lying there and Devon had signed it. I honestly didn’t know what to do or say, so I did and said nothing.

I shook my head. I couldn’t believe the mess Maine had made of our already dysfunctional family. The ringing of my phone pulled me out of my thoughts. I rushed to grab it from the nightstand. It was the hospital. I said a silent prayer that they were calling to tell me my mother had woken up and was going to be okay.

Noah-

"What the hell are you doing here, Tiffany?" The mention of my mother’s name sent my eyes flying from the floor in the direction of Troy's voice. Everyone in the room had gone quiet because everyone knew about the situation with Tiffany and Troy. I was sitting too fat across the room to see the expression on Scarlett’s face, but I knew she wasn’t happy.

But I could see my mother clear as day. She was wearing self-satisfied smirk on hers. She had come simply to cause trouble. Tiffany was angrier at Troy for outing her than anyone would know. She saw him as a payday, a way to legitimacy, and when he didn’t choose her and exposed her for what she did to him, he became her mortal enemy. Some nights she would get drunk and talk about ways she could get back at him for ruining her. I was supposed to be one of those ways when she dropped me off at his home. She had hoped that I would be the straw that broke the camel's back of Scar's and Troy's marriage, but I had been welcomed and treated kindly. Which is why just seeing her face at a time like this, in their home, made me feel protective of them.

I had been sitting in the corner, trying to be invisible. Either I had accomplished that, or everyone was too occupied with Tiffany to notice me when I stood.

"I came to check up on my children in this trying time," Tiffany responded, her answer sounding rehearsed.

Troy's voice boomed through the house. "Everybody that doesn't live here or has never lived here, get out!"

The last time he’d seen Tiffany was three years earlier at Christmas. She had called Scarlett a bitch at the dinner table. Troy, while holding Scarlett back, had told Tiffany she was no longer welcome in his house. Us children were too old for him to continue with the fake niceties.

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