Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(2)

My mom was Sara Hale.

My dad was Jonathan Hale.

I was no one’s son.

After the truth became painfully clear, my father always brought up Loren. He always asked the same f*cking question, and I didn’t want to hear it today.

He swished his glass. “What’s made you into such a *?”

My nose flared. I couldn’t believe I thought he was f*cking cool when I was nine years old. He had acted like we were bonding, letting me drink his whiskey. Father and son. Like he loved me enough to let me break some f*cking rules. But I wondered if it was all just some ploy to make me as miserable as him.

“I got into a car accident,” I suddenly said.

He choked on his scotch and cleared his throat. “What?” He glowered. “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

I shrugged. “Ask Mom.”

“That bitch—”

“Hey,” I cut him off, fire in my eyes. I was f*cking sick of hearing him degrade her. I was f*cking tired of listening to my mom denigrate him. I just wanted them both to stop. They’d been divorced since I was a kid, not even a year old. When was the fighting supposed to end?

He rolled his eyes, but he looked serious again, more concerned. If there was a heart in Jonathan Hale’s chest, it was f*cking submerged beneath an ocean of booze. “What happened?”

“I drove into the neighbor’s mailbox.” I have no recollection of how I arrived home. I apparently ran four red lights. I f*cking knocked over a fence. I basically passed out at the wheel, and I woke up when I crashed.

I wasn’t driving home from a f*cking party.

I had been drinking alone on the soccer fields of Loren’s prep school. I f*cking hated Dalton Academy. I was forced to go to Maybelwood Preparatory, an hour from where I lived because my mom didn’t want me to see Loren’s face every f*cking day. And because no one could know that I was her son.

So Loren had gone to the closer school, where I should have been, while I was banished and cast out.

And I f*cking hated him. I f*cking loathed him to the core of my f*cking body. My mom helped stir this sickening wrath. She constantly said, “Your brother is full of himself, swimming in our money. You want to be surrounded by Jonathan Hale’s brat, then you’ll be headed nowhere good.”

I’d nod and think, Yeah, that f*cker.

And then days would pass, and I’d begin to question everything.

Maybe I should meet him.

Maybe I should talk to him.

But he’s a spoiled rich kid.

Like me.

Not like you.

He doesn’t care about anything but himself.

Like me.

Not like you.

He’s a drunk loser.

Like me.

Yesterday, I thought about going to my mom and saying something. I thought about telling her to just get over this moronic feud, to stop ranting about Jonathan Hale’s infidelity and to quit being consumed by the life of his bastard kid.

“Loren Hale got suspended for missing too much class, did you hear that?” she’d ask me with a sick gleam in her eye. His failure was Jonathan’s failure. And to her, that equaled f*cking success.

But I couldn’t say anything. Who was I to tell a woman to forget something like that? She had been cheated on. She deserved to be mad, but I had to watch that hate eat at her for almost two decades. There was no justice in her pain. There was just loneliness.

But deep in the pit of my f*cking heart, I just wished she would let go, so I could too.

So yeah. My father, he f*cking ruined my mom. And maybe if she was stronger, she could have moved on. Maybe if I was a better son, I could have helped her.

I’d driven past Dalton, and I was ambushed with this hot rage. Because nobody knew the real me at Maybelwood. They saw Ryke f*cking Meadows, an all-American track star, an honor student, a kid who got detention for cursing almost every other day.

Loren had both my parents on paper.

He had the last name.

He had the billion-dollar legacy.

I didn’t even know how much they told him—whether he knew about me or not. I didn’t fixate on that. I couldn’t get over the fact that all this time, he stole them from me. I had nothing but the yelling and screaming of a complicated divorce. I was the real f*cking child of Jonathan and Sara Hale.

So why the f*ck did I have to pretend to be the bastard? Why was Loren given the life that I was meant to live?

On the field, I had chugged a bottle of whiskey. I was numb to the burn. I had broken the bottle over the goal post, hoping Loren was a soccer player, hoping it’d cut up his f*cking feet, and every time he felt pain, it’d be my doing.

And then the next morning, I woke up after nearly killing myself and anyone in the wake of my swerving car, drinking too f*cking much. I was cold inside. Just f*cking dead. I didn’t want to be like that. I made a promise to myself. My father wasn’t going to destroy me, and neither was my half-brother. Or my mother. I was going to get my shit together.

I’d run.

I’d go to college.

And I’d find my peace.

Fuck. Them. All.

My dad relaxed. “A mailbox isn’t a big deal. Your brother has done worse things.” He shook his head at the mental images. And then his eyes flickered up to me, and I knew the question was about to come. “Do you want to meet him?”