Page 155 of Rules

My eyes stay glued to the ground, at the thing she threw at my feet.

I can hear Jeanette murmur something beside me, but her words are background noise as everything Josephine Taylor said to me goes on repeat in my mind.

It can’t be true. She has to be lying. John is a lousy father but he would never…

I rub my hand over my face, strangled laughter breaking free.

Of course he would. He doesn’t care much for me, his legitimate son he had while married, so why would he care about a white trash daughter? Somebody who he fucked on the side when he needed a little bit of fun, but would never take seriously?

“Andrew?” Jeanette’s fingers touch my shoulder tentatively. “Are you okay? You don’t believe it’s true, do you? That would mean…”

Running my fingers through my hair, I turn around to look at Jeanette. Her gray eyes are wide, fear and confusion mixing in their depths as she looks at me with a weariness I haven’t seen there in a while.

Cupping her face, I brush my finger over her cheekbone in hopes of calming her. “That would mean that Brook Taylor is my father’s daughter. My...” I swallow hard. “Sister.”

How fucked up is that? All my life… I’ve known her all my life. We went to school together. I saw her every day, and I never knew. Never evensuspected…

“Maybe she’s lying. You saw her. That woman isn’t stable…”

I can hear footsteps coming closer, so reluctantly, I let her go. Squatting down, I grab the token Josephine left behind before straightening to my full height just in time for John to come back.

“She wasn’t lying, was she, John?”

He lifts his head, surprised to find us still standing in the hallway.

“Was she, John?” I repeat, this time a little harsher.

“I told you to let it go and get out of here.” He tries to get past me, brushing me off, but I stand in his way, not backing down. Not until I get my answers.

“Not until you tell me what kind of relationship you had with Josephine Taylor and why she thinks you had anything to do with Brook’s disappearance.”

Her words still haunt me.

While you were here dining on a silver platter, she was going through garbage to find something to eat.

All those times I teased her about the ratty old clothes. All the times she “skipped” lunch in school. That too-big leather jacket she wore even in winter because she didn’t have anything else to wear.

All those memories I didn’t even know I had start coming back one by one, the guilt I didn’t know I was able to feel eating at me.

And now she’s out there somewhere alone again. My hands grip tightly into fists, and then I remember the thing I’ve been holding on to. Unclasping my fingers, I look down.

White stick.

Fuck no.

It can’t be.

I want to reject it, I want to deny it, but it’s like déjà vu.

“Where is she?” I take a step forward, so we’re toe to toe. Fury and fear swirl inside of me like a tornado, and once it breaks loose, there will be nothing that will be able to stop the destruction.

I thought there was only one person who could bring all these emotions inside of me, but I guess I was wrong.

“Andrew, this subject is done. I already told you…”

Letting the stick fall out of my hand, I grip his shirt and lift him in the air.

“Andrew!” I can hear Jeanette’s surprised shriek when I shove my father into the wall, but I don’t care. She would do the same if she knew.

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