Page 231 of Obsession

I took a few steps back, not sure I wanted to hear the rest. He stepped closer, but didn’t touch me.

My soul broke in two again. I knew my father wasn’t lying; his face expressed all the sincerity I no longer wanted to see.

“We kept seeing each other after that, and a few weeks later we found out she was pregnant.”

“So that’s what I am? An unforeseen event? The consequence of that night of drinking where you wanted to forget everything?”

My words came out as hiccups, and tears clouded my vision. I closed my eyes and tried to suppress them, but I couldn’t, and I cursed my existence.

“No, honey, it’s not like that.” My father added desperately and tried to hug me.

I pulled away, nauseated by him.

“You didn’t even know her! You were drunk! How can you sit there and tell me it’s not like that? Did you pay her, or did you force her to sleep with you?”

“Katherine, stop!” he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Even though I didn’t know your mother back then, I fell in love with her from the moment I met her. We both consented, I didn’t pay her for it. I kept seeing her even before I knew she was pregnant. You were an unexpected surprise, but an extremely beautiful one for us. I was crazy about your mother, and I know for a fact that she was crazy about me, too. She quit her job, and we moved to New York. I ran away from my past and left it all behind for you, Katherine. Her past was much darker than mine, she worked there because she had to, not because she liked it. You became our sole purpose, and your mother and I loved you from the first moment we found out you were coming.”

That’s why they ran away, why his family never accepted them.

“Yes,” I replied with a bitter smile, “I can see how much you both loved me. How did she come to life?” I asked, pointing at Amber like she was the most disgusting thing in the world.

“After my parents forbade me from seeing Christopher anymore, they had to move me away,” Roberta spoke this time, “They owned many properties all over the country, my father was in real estate, so I ended up hundreds of miles away from Christopher in isolation. It was impossible for me to reach him, and after a while, I found out I was pregnant. Luckily, my parents were not as cruel as I thought and allowed me to keep the baby, it even warmed their hearts. After some time and a lot of begging, I managed to convince them to give him another chance. After a few months, I returned to Seattle and I couldn’t wait to see Christopher again, but I couldn’t find him.” Her eyes dropped, and I noticed the pain written all over my father’s face.

“I found out that he had moved to New York and married another woman who was also pregnant with him. I was devastated; I didn’t know what to do anymore. I couldn’tinterfere in his life. He already had a new family and had started over. If I had walked back into his life, it would have been like stabbing a wound that had already healed. I’m not sure how the accident happened, I was blinded by pain and remember driving around with no destination, looking for something to end my suffering. And I found it. I collided with another car, and at that point, my life was completely destroyed. I was one step away from losing the pregnancy, and keeping it proved to be even more difficult. The accident had affected my spine and my womb was putting a lot of pressure on it, making it impossible for me to straighten or heal it in time. I was on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy, which proved to be very difficult after the accident, but I managed and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who brightened my life.”

She finished her story with a warm smile on her face, which didn’t make me feel any better. She’d had a pretty ugly life, the fact that she hadn’t remarried after my father and had even kept his name was proof of it. I was the mistake that had ruined the fate of two people, and much more than that.

“After she gave birth to me, my mother was never able to stand on her own two feet again. She waited for you the whole time. I hated seeing her cry and knowing you were happy somewhere else with your whore while my mother waited for you.” Amber’s words came out with a hatred I didn’t think her capable of. “I never wanted you to come back. I have always hated you for the suffering you caused my mother, and now you come back with your offspring to take away everything I had.”

Through Amber’s tears, I could hear the reference to Harris.

“At least you weren’t living in a lie. You had a parent, but at least she loved you and didn’t hide who you were from you. What good did it do me to have both of them? To realize that everything my family stood for was a mistake? That I wasa mistake! That my mother was even more deceitful than I thought, and my father a liar? At least you were born out of love, out of a serious relationship, not a one-night stand.”

I shouted at her and felt my control slipping away. My father no longer had the courage to protest against my words.

I rubbed my forehead, feeling sicker and sicker, and gritted my teeth. I was breaking down, physically and mentally.

“You know what? Stay together. Be a big, happy family like you couldn’t be because of me,” I said bitterly and turned to walk out of the house.

My father ran after me and grabbed me by the shoulder.

“Leave me alone, I never want to see you again!” I shouted in his face and broke free from his grip.

I went out of the house and slammed the door behind me.

“Katherine, stop!” he called after me as I got into his car and started it, driving away from that damn house.

I opened the window and let the cool air hit my anger and despair.

I had no idea where I was going, what I was going to do, but I didn’t want to stay in this town another second, and I found myself taking the same route Adam had taken yesterday.

My father’s Opel couldn’t cope, the engine began to vibrate unnaturally, and the car shook. The needle exceeded 100 miles per hour. It couldn’t go any faster, but that didn’t bother me too much, I wouldn’t have cared if it exploded with me in it.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter and stepped the accelerator pedal to the floor. A light came on the dashboard indicating that the engine was overheating, but I ignored it. I passed the other cars and made dangerous maneuvers until my vision blurred.

The tears wouldn’t stop.

I couldn’t care less about his new girlfriend, wife, or whatever the fuck she was. I couldn’t care less about what my father had done in his past or what he was doing now.

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