Page 94 of Sweeper
“Yes, we do,” Link interjects, tucking his hair behind his ears and grabbing the envelope off the table. “We’ve watched you struggle with this since day one. Just finish the job you set out to do. You didn’t use Daphney to score an invite to that Harris family dinner for nothing, right?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice cracks because hearing him throw my own words back in my face is like a dagger through my fucking gut.
“Seriously!” Link exclaims, slamming the envelope against my chest. “This is your answer. This is why you took her on a double-decker bus tour—to get close enough to grab a DNA sample of Vaughn. Now you have to open this shit and deal with it, or you’ll feel like you’re living a lie the rest of your life.”
“I already feel like I’m living a lie,” I shout, my voice ringing in my ears as I slam the envelope back down on the table. “I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore. I feel like I’m lying to everybody. My mom, my manager, my teammates, my girlfriend. Hell, I even feel like I’m lying to my own father!”
“What girlfriend?” Link asks, his face contorting with confusion.
I rake my hands through my hair and look up at the ceiling, my head spinning. I don’t want to talk about this with these guys. I know they mean well, but I should never have opened up about all this to them in the first place. I made the mistake of opening up to Jude in Seattle, and he’s the one that got me into this fucking mess. Now I’ve doubled down on that mistake with these guys. Maybe telling Daphney about my dad was a mistake last night too. I’m better on my own. I always have been.
“Look, thanks for coming over, but I’m not dealing with this in front of you guys.”
“Why not? We’re your friends,” Link barks, his voice the most serious I’ve ever heard.
“If you’re my friends, then you will respect the fact that I need you to fucking leave.” I stalk over to the door and open it up.
“You’re kicking us out?” Link laughs, his face the picture of stunned.
I shake my head slowly. “Thank you for the support, but I got it from here.”
Link looks over at Knight to see if he’s going to argue. Knight gestures to the door.
“So much for teammates,” Link scoffs once before storming past me.
When Knight reaches me at the door, I can barely make eye contact with him as he pauses directly in front of me. “It gets lonely on an island of self-loathing, my friend. Just don’t forget you’re the one who pushed us away.”
When I close the door behind Knight, I feel sick and dirty about the mess of my life. I go from dreaming about my father, who was a good man, to questioning everything about him in the blink of an eye. And the fucker is too busy being dead to even be here to answer the millions of questions I have for him. I’m fucking lost, and I don’t know what to do.
I stomp into my shower in hopes that I can wash some of this stink away and find some clarity. As the water rushes over me, I know only one person can take this pain inside me away.
Daphney.
I dress quickly and shove my phone in my pocket, damn near aching to see her again as I make my way down the hall. My brows furrow when I go to turn her doorknob and find it’s locked. I thump on the door and call out her name, but there’s no reply. I wiggle the doorknob again, but it won’t budge.
“Daphney, are you in there?” I call through the wood and press my ear to the door to listen for the shower.
I’m met with silence, so I frown and pull my phone out of my pocket to call her. As I pull her name up, I see a text message from her.
Daphney: I thought I could trust you…I was wrong.
My stomach roils at those ominous words. What the fuck happened? What does she mean she doesn’t trust me? Chills crawl over my entire body as it dawns on me.She heard everything we said.
“We all heard you!” the voice of Miss Kitchems calls up the stairs.
“Fuck!” I exclaim out loud and whirl around to kick the damn mouse house in the hallway. It breaks into several pieces, mirroring the swirling vortex of my insides.
“Heard that too,” Miss Kitchems calls up again.
I cover my eyes, my mind a foggy mess of horror and guilt. So, so much guilt. She heard what Link said about me using her. She heard everything. I was going to tell her about all of this. I wanted to tell her. I should have told her last night.
Fucking hell! This can’t be unfixable. Surely, she will understand once I explain it all to her.
I rush downstairs barefoot to see that her car is gone. Where did she go? I press call on my phone, listening to the line trill over and over again.
I thought I could trust you…I was wrong.
This is really fucking bad. And sadly, it’s only the cherry on top of the shit sundae that is my life.
