The Hardest Fall(107)
The little bell over the diner door chimed and drew my attention. A second later, Chris slid in across from me again. His face looked slightly flushed, his eyes wide and stunned, though it might have been because of the wind. I didn’t ask him where he’d gone, but…
“You didn’t call Mark, did you?”
His head tilted as he tried to read me. “No.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I moved back in my seat a little and reached for my water.
“You said you have more to say. Tell me,” he ordered.
I placed the glass back on the table and licked my lips. “I’m not sure where I should start.”
“You’re my half-sister—start from there.”
“Actually…” I winced. “Actually, I’m not.”
Over the next few minutes, I told him everything—everything that had been told to me, everything that had happened after I came to Los Angeles. The second I started, I couldn’t hold any of it back. He listened without asking a single question.
Chris was rubbing his temple with the fingers of his left hand while the other held the edge of the table in a white-knuckle grip. Once I was done, I kept quiet and watched him try to process everything. He reached for the mug and downed half of the lukewarm coffee in one go.
A few minutes of complete silence had passed when he finally spoke. “Why are you telling me this now? Why would I even believe you?”
“Why would you believe me?” I shrugged and stopped playing with the salt shaker I had latched onto at some point. “This isn’t how I imagined it would happen, trust me, and I wasn’t the one who wanted to wait. I came here three years ago and I was ready to tell you then. Your father—”
“Don’t you mean our father?” His voice was harsh, and I hoped his words were not intended to hurt.
I shook my head. “Not really. Sure, he is on paper, but that’s about it. He’ll never be my dad. He doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I’m fine with that. I already have a father, and he is more than enough.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t want you?”
“He doesn’t want to have a relationship with me. After everything we’ve been through—after everything I’ve been through, thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want a relationship with him.” I paused and looked up. “He wasn’t the main reason I wanted to come here in the first place, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“But you two have been talking this whole time. He was spending time with you.”
“Yes, but not really—”
“Does my mom know? Does she know about you? About everything after the adoption?” His voice rose as he sat up a little higher.
“No, not about me. I don’t mean to say anything bad about your mom, but from what I can tell, they were basically having an affair right in front of her. I have no idea what was going through her mind, but from what she—from what my mom told me, they stopped speaking after she learned about the affair, but she was completely on board with adopting you. Maybe she already knew about it and when the pregnancy came up, she jumped at the idea because she couldn’t have kids? I seriously have no idea, but I do know Mark told my mom they would be together eventually, said he’d leave his wife and they’d raise you together.”
I lifted my tense shoulders in a shrug and gazed outside.
After a short pause, I continued. “It sounds so stupid when you say it out loud, doesn’t it? After adopting you, why would he go back to her? I’ve learned firsthand how convincing he can be, so I get it to a degree, but at the same time, I don’t. Mom said he told her it wouldn’t be good for his career if he had a personal scandal like that, but I don’t think she was giving me everything. I still don’t understand how she could give you up like that.” I winced and averted my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’d rather not go into more detail because it wasn’t really fun hearing it the first time. Mom told me their marriage was just for show—I think your mom is his old coach’s daughter.” I huffed and leaned back. “She was just so in love with him, and so sure he was in love with her, I think she believed anything he said. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting all the blame on him. I hate that they were cheating on your mom and that’s how we came to be.”
“And you? How did you happen? How old are you?”
“Twenty-one. You’re only a year older,” I replied with a small, pathetic smile. “I was the mistake, you see—Mark’s mistake at least. Mark wanted my mom to have an abortion, gave her the money to do it, but I think that’s when she realized he was never going to leave his wife. Skipping out on the abortion, she moved away.” I let out a humorless laugh and raised my hands. “Obviously, since here I am. She got married to my dad, but I think she always held out hope that Mark would return to her. We didn’t have the best relationship in the world, so I think I’m just a big fuck you to Mark, if that makes any sense.”
We fell silent for a few beats.
“I thought Mark didn’t know about me—that’s what he said in the beginning, and that’s what my mom said. Turns out he did, and I just learned about the abortion part. I guess he didn’t know she hadn’t gotten rid of me.”
When the silence grew uncomfortable and Chris just kept gazing outside with his jaw ticking, I looked down at my hands and swallowed thickly before speaking again.