Page 26 of Truths

The fact Sutton stopped the worddadbefore it could fully come out of her mouth breaks his heart. “You okay, kid?”

Kid. He's always called her that, but it makes her flinch.

“I just... things are so messed up right now.”

Talk about an understatement!“Yeah, kind of.”

“I know you didn't know.”

Cannon tilts his head. “What?”

“I know you didn't know the truth. You know... that I'm not a Cannon.”

“No, I didn't know the truth, but even if I had, it wouldn't matter.”

Laughing, she looks away from him. “I don't know how you can think that. It does matter. I'm not your daughter.”

“Sutton, you listen to me,” he says and stands. “No matter what happens or what was found in that disaster area your mother calls her home, youarea Cannon. Youaremy daughter. The rest of it... it doesn't matter.”

“I'm so mad at Mom,” she says as she looks at him with glassy eyes filled with unshed tears. “How could she do something like this?”

He shrugs. Even though he has a few choice words to say about Grace, he doesn't think talking badly about her mom will get him very far right now. “I don't know. And I was really mad at her,too, but then I thought back to our life together. You and me. If she told me her child wasn't mine when she was pregnant, I might not have had this relationship with you. She might not have had a reason to keep me around, especially when things ended with us, and I would never change the time we have together.”

“I met him,” Sutton says.

Her blinks send the unshed tears cascading down her cheeks, but she's not sobbing. “Met who?”

“My father. Ryan Hennessey. He works at that taco place off of Broadway. Just released from prison a month ago and lives in a halfway house. So, you know, total winner. That's my gene pool right there.”

If he told her he hadn't also looked up where Ryan was after finding everything out, he'd be lying. He knew what the man looked like when he learned Grace was sleeping around, and he knows what he looks like now and where he lives. It also crossed his mind to come across him in a dark alley at night and make him disappear to fix the problems his existence has caused them.

“What did he say?” Cannon asks.

“I didn't tell him who I was. I chickened out when he started bashing Mom. Not that I disagreed with him, but I had this weird image of what life would have been like with him in it instead of you. I mean, how would I have turned out? And then I started wondering if maybe having me in his life could have turned his life around. Would he have had a reason to get his life together? I look like him, and it got so overwhelming that I just ran away.”

“He must be decent looking because you're beautiful.”

Shaking her head, she looks away. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Being so nice. This whole situation has me all messed up. Confused and just messed up,” she says. “I look like him, but hisdrug use has scarring on his skin and teeth missing. But we have the same nose and mouth.”

He takes a chance and reaches out to touch her shoulder, but she steps back and away from him. “Sutton-”

“My world feels completely upside down right now. Mom's a liar. A slutty liar. My dad isn't my dad, and my real dad is a deadbeat. A drugged out, felon, deadbeat. The guy I was seeing has lost his mind, and we're not together anymore, not that we were really all that together before, and I don't know what's going on anymore. I can't tell up from down or left from right. I need space, and I need to process everything.”

His eyes cast down to the floor, and he just nods because the lump in his throat stops any words from coming out in that moment.

“I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, and the last thing I want to do is hurt you. I just... I don't even know what I need right now, so it's really hard to be around you. There feels like expectations, and I just... I need to breathe. Space to breathe and scream and cry and deal. Does that make any sense?”

“I understand,” he chokes out. “I'm here... when you're ready.”

Nelson walks into the clubhouse, and he looks relieved to see her. “Sutton, I've been trying to reach you.”

“I'm done, Nelson,” she says, surprising Cannon. This is her sort of boyfriend? Or was?

“Sutton-”

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