Page 137 of Wicked Minds
The way she choked over the words.
The very raw pain I could feel emanating from her.
My stomach rolls dangerously, the stress of the last hour taking its toll. What the fuck am I meant to do with this knowledge? What is it supposed to change? Somehow, everything and nothing.
It all feels surreal. Mylifefeels surreal. A nightmare I wish to God I could wake from.
A daughter.
One that is also my father’s.
That has half of my DNA.
A fucking half-sister.
The sound of the front door slamming startles me from my thoughts, and when voices reach me from outside, I step over to the window, peering down as Riley and Royce step onto the sidewalk. She’s saying something to him, her words too muffled through the pane of glass for me to hear, and as she steps around the far side of the truck, I catch a glimpse of her face as she smiles.
Fuckingsmiles.As though she didn’t just obliterate my entire world. Except, hadn’t it already crumbled to dust around me?
Gran’s words have been tormenting me for weeks.
The not knowing if her fears and paranoia were born from reality or made-up memories.
Without anyone to talk to about it, my thoughts have been spinning precariously in my head without giving any sort of insight.
Taunting me.
Torturing me until I find myself stopping in my tracks any time I spot Riley on campus, watching her from afar as I struggle to piece it all together. Questioning everything. Questioningher.Questioningmyself.
Then that sick little box destroyed any hope I had that Gran’s accusations were an Alzheimer ’s-driven paranoia.
The final nail in my coffin of naivety: Riley’s confession.
All of it is true.
Every. Fucking. Thing.
If there was any denying it before, there sure as fuck isn’t now.
The laugh that leaves me is wrought by someone who is slowly losing their fucking mind.
I collapse onto my bed, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling and too lost in my memories of back then to make out the white paint or still ceiling fan.
She said she’d been planning to… I swallow, the image of Riley lying dead in a bathtub of blood water, eyes glazed and sightless with her wrists slashed open, rocking me to my core. My stomach spasms so violently that, for a moment, I think I’m going to throw up.
Is that when she went to the police? Because she found out she was pregnant. Why didn’t she come to me? It stings that she didn’t, but equally, I know I’m being a hypocrite. Would I have believed her if she’d come to me teary-eyed and soul-weary instead of hearing the accusation from my father’s lips?
Fuck, I can’t even think of my father.
Closing my eyes, images of that little girl’s face embed themselves behind my eyelids. I didn’t get a good look at her, but I could hear the happiness radiating from her as she chatted to Riley. To—fuck—her Mom.
My teeth grind, boiling rage and wretched sorrow shredding me to pieces.
It was my only escape.
The only bit of control I had over my life.
I will never unhear those words. The way her voice broke over those syllables. The unending sadness in her eyes.
