Page 120 of Between Now & Heartbreak

“My biological mother. Susan Kendicott,” Phil says calmly.

The world comes to a screeching halt. I grasp the chair closest to me, but otherwise don’t move.

“She was pregnant when she killed her husband. She hid it because she didn’t want the real father to find out and take that baby like he took me. She thought him better off dead than with you.”

I peer at Phil, seeing him now without the filter of lies, secrets, and deceit. That cleft in his chin, I ran my finger over one identical to it just this evening.

Oh my God…Carter.

My ears start to ring.

“That is anabsurdlie.” My father shouts, but he backs away like a cornered animal.

“Of course it is.” I hurl the words with confidence that is entirely feigned. Inside, I feel as if a fundamental piece of myself has gone rogue and is trying to destroy me. I close my eyes against a surge of dizziness.

“Oh, it’s not a lie,” Duke says with the voice of a man who is enjoying his enemies’ bloody defeat.

“You have no proof.” There’s a tremor in my father’s voice. He looks like he aged a thousand years in just a few minutes.

His face is one of a man defeated.

Phil walks up to him.

“Carter Bosh is my brother.Yourson. And now, all of your chickens have come home to roost.”

As the implications of what he’s saying start to sink in, my legs give way. I sit in the chair I’ve been using for support and press one of the linens to my mouth.

And then, I start to scream.

This scream is an apocalypse - full of anguish and rage and disgust. I shudder as it washes over me, burning me from the inside out. The napkin the only thing standing between the flames of my anguish and the annihilation of everything around me. It uses all of my oxygen and in seconds I’m light-headed. I hear the sound of my name being called, but it’s very far away.

Carter is my father’s son.

Carter is my brother.

I am no dragon.

I am a fool.

And I am ruined.

38

NOT REAL

NOT REAL

CARTER

“Ten minutes away.”

Beth’s text flashes on my phone and I immediately start to panic. My palms are sweaty, trepidation thunders through me like an out of control locomotive and my heart drums like it’s tied to the tracks.

I am not ready for this conversation.

Or any conversation. I’m sleep deprived, starving, thirsty and in a fucking dangerous mood. The last few days have been an endless, unmaking nightmare. The unbearable suspense has made sleep impossible.

That Andrew Wolfe isnotlying is a reality that I find incomprehensible.

---