Page 100 of Bring You Back

“I suspected,” she tells me, neither of us surprised. Cheaters recognize cheaters. Know the signs.

I shove down the bitterness and move a couple steps closer, pulled in by answers.

“It took one hug at the right—orwrongtime, to know.”

Mom’s bypassing all of her suspected moments to get to the meat she knows I’m hungry for. It moves me closer.

“He smelled different,” she continues, busying her hands with transferring dirty dishes from the island to the sink. Mine are still at my sides. “Not like me. Not like him.” She stalls with her back turned, then faces me again. “I asked him flat out. He told me.” She nods like she’s impressed, relieved he didn’t try to lie his way out. But it fades the longer she holds my stare. “Then we told you. Buthedecided to tell you the rest,” she accuses, the words tinged with an anger that makes my bitterness return.

“You mean thewholetruth? That he’s not my father.”

“Heisyour father,” she says in earnest, and I wince at the word. It’s hard to hear no matter how many times she tries to drill it in. I’m retreating and she reaches for me across the island. “Thatis the truth. And he’s been a damn good one.”

I can’t deny that Brent knows how to take care of his family—when he’s not trying to make another one. He did everything a father should. He took a child who wasn’t his and loved him like he was. He made sure I didn’t see my father as a deadbeat. He made a choice, and he chose me.

Until he knocked up Tiffany.

“Blood doesn’t always make a family,” Mom says, repeating another truth that my dad has forgotten.

“It does now,” I remind her on a scoff.

Mom shakes her head, at a loss. It’s a point she can’t exactly argue. Where is he?

Where is he when someone’s nottellinghim to be here?

“I’m not mad at your father for what he did to me,” she says, emphasis onfather. “Frankly, I probably had it coming, but he didnothave to bring you into this.”

“Then why did he?” As soon as I hear the plea in my voice, I realize that’s part of my problem, too. That’s part of my anger, too—the fact that he had to treat me like a secret. Lop me into another confession. Like for my whole life, he couldn’t forget that he was simply playing a role instead of being one. Like I had to feel ashamed.

That’s the worst part.

My mom’s face slackens at my shift in tone, at another loss. “I don’t know what he was thinking.” She shrugs, points her stare. “That’s for you to find out.” She’s encouraging me to talk to him. After the pain he’s caused her, the strain he’s put on our family, she still wants me to have a relationship with him. She still wants him to be my father.

I meet her at the island with a sigh. “You could’ve just told me.” My voice is low, talking to both of my parents, even though just one can hear me. “From the beginning.”

“Would that have really made a difference?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Because I don’t know the answer. Maybe I’d feel the same. Maybe I’d be too little to understand. Maybe it would’ve fucked me up more than it has now. Maybe not. Kids are often better equipped to deal with change. To accept things for how they are instead of how they should be. I mean, if someone treats and loves you like you’re their kid, how can you say you’re not?

I’m thinking too much. The fact is, my dad and I wouldn’t have been what we were if they had told me sooner. Neither would me and my mom. So, while I don’t know what sort of a difference it would’ve made to have already known, if I had the chance to go back and change it, I don’t think I would.

I just shrug with that realization, my breathing tight through the ache of it.

Mom sighs. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m really, truly sorry about all of this.”

“Yeah,” I say, voice strained. “Me, too.” That’s the best I can give her right now. I head back to the door, stopping and turning around without hesitation when she calls my name again.

“Let her back in,” she says with a soft smile. “You got her back. You’ve been given the chance to have things right again. Not many people do.”

You haven’t actually lost anything or anyone.

Yet.

I still have everyone. Camille doesn’t. She’ll never see her brother again.

At least not for a very,verylong time, if I have anything to say about it. My head goes back to her scars, to that possibility of more. She let things cut her once. If something bad happens to her. . .

“Her mistakes are nothing compared to mine and your father’s,” Mom continues, pulling me out of my sudden worried thoughts.Compared to mine,I think without her having to say it. “And when you think about it, we’re all just doing what we think is best, whether or not it’s right.”

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