Page 75 of Feels Like Falling
And she’s obviously around my age.
What the fuck is going on?
“I’m so sorry you found out this way,” Arden says. “I’ve had longer to come to grips with it and?—”
“You’re sorry?” My voice is practically hysterical. “You didn’t do this to us,”—I motion toward my father—“he did. And what the hell, Dad? I have a sister and you never told me?”
“Ellison,” he starts but I shake my head.
“You just—believe me?” Arden asks, her lips parted, her eyes wide and glassy like this wasn’t something she’d really considered coming here.
“What? Of course I do; you look just like me.” And she does. Our resemblance is uncanny, but more than that, just seeing her has already started to heal so much of my heart that was broken from my childhood. There are so many things I want to say—toscream—so much time wasted when I could have been loving my sister and feeling not as alone in the world.
“It’s the eyes, right?” Montana says, and I turn to glare at him before facing mysister.
“Do you have your phone on you?” I ask hoarsely and she nods, opening it and handing over the device without hesitation. A strange sense of comradery hits me, like maybe she gets it too. She’s trusting me with a heart as fragile as my own, and I make a silent vow to protect it—to protect us.
With shaking fingers, I enter my name and number before sending myself a text and handing it back to her.
“I’m not mad at you, but I don’t want to start like this.” I swallow and she nods, relief on her pretty face even as her eyes fill with tears.
“We’ll be okay,” she says with a half smile and just enough hesitation that I can’t stop myself. Taking a step, I reach out and wrap Arden in a hug, her arms instantly returning my fierce embrace.
I don’t know how long we stand like that, but all too soon she’s pulling back, her smile wavering. I miss her already.
“I’ll call you,” I whisper, and she nods before squeezing my hand and letting herself out of the house.
Tension-laced silence fills the cavernous room. It feels suffocating, and there’s nothing I want more than to run screaming from here and never look back. To catch up with Arden and leave this mess with our father for another day.
But I can’t. I can’t spend my whole life running—hiding—not being myself.
“She contacted me in Savannah,” my father says, breaking the silence. “I told you I’d fallen for another woman—had plans to break things off with your mother for good. Monroe didn’t know she was pregnant when I told her things were over. Your mother and I were married not long after, and when Monroe came to tell me about the baby, she got your mother instead.”
And your mother is worse than we thought.
His words from his first night in town slam into me, and the thought of what my mother said to that poor woman makes me sick.
But still…
“Did you know?” I turn on Montana, the last twenty minutes coming back in a rush. “Did you know about this?”
It’s the eyes, right?
“I saw them at the coffee shop the day we went to the falls.”
“What?!”
Montana’s face is hard and unyielding and he looks at me and then my father. “I gave him a week to tell you, because this”—he waves his hand toward the door—“should come from him. Like the other thing.”
My father’s expression is murderous, his hands fisted at his sides.
“We’re not doing this now,” he murmurs, the warning clear in his tone.
“What other thing?” It’s a whisper, but I can tell by the way that both men flinch that they hear it, as if they’d forgotten I was even in the room.
“Don’t—”
My father’s objection is silenced when Montana says, “After you left for college, I went and asked your father’s permission to marry you.” He turns and looks at me, his expression still hard. “Told him I’d support you while you went to school. That I’d go there or wait for you to come home. That I wanted nothing more than to build a life with you.”
