Page 128 of Altered

Like I was a stranger to her.

And maybe I was.

She didn’t know this version of me.

The real me.

Tears filled her eyes and she gently shook her head. "If you didn’t want to be with Jordan, there were other ways of doing it. If you wanted to be withhim, there wereotherways ofdoing it,Hope!"

When she left the room, I looked down at my hands in despair, though I couldn’t make them out through the tears that were blinding me.

"I'll talk to her," I heard my father say.

"Don’t waste your breath," I replied wearily. I walked over to the table and slumped down on a chair. "She'll never understand."

"I do," he surprised me by saying. "I understand."

My head shot up. "You do?"

Dad nodded. "Where you are right now? I've been there. I've been in your shoes, sweetheart, and I know your pain."

"You cheated on Mom?" I exclaimed, horrified. "When?"

Dad cocked his brow at my remark – at the accusatory tone in my voice – and I balked.

"Sorry. Pot kettle black, huh?"

"No, Hope," he finally replied. "I did notcheaton your mother." Pausing, he added, "I did something far worse."

"What?"

"It's complicated."

"I want to know." When he didn’t respond, I added, "Please, Dad. I need to know."

"Let me tell you a story," he finally said. "About a guy I used to know. This guy was backed into a corner, saddled down with more responsibilities than he knew what to do with. This guy was screwed up, Angel. A fucking mess. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders and the guilt that came with a life of terrible choices. There was this girl," he added before running a hand through his hair. "And the guy, he was so fucking starved for love that he believed the girl when she told him she loved him. What he felt was lust, but he didn’t understand that at the time."

I watched my father as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Turned out she was a bad fucking woman," he continued to say. "And when the guy found out, he did something that would haunt him for the rest of his life."

"What?" I asked.

"He got in a car wreck with the girl. She was pregnant at the time, or so he thought, and she lost everything that night – her chance at having a future family, everything. And so did he. Because he blamed himself for what happened to her, for not being able to protect her."

"Jesus," I muttered.

"She was a broken girl now and he felt it was his fault," Dad added. "He took her pain and promised her he'd stay. He promised her he'd never leave her. But then something happened –" He paused and smiled almost reverently. "A different girl walked into his life, into his house and threw everything off kilter. And that new girl made him reevaluate everything in his life. The guy didn’t expect her, he didn’t want her there, wrecking everything he had built." His voice broke off and he exhaled heavily before adding, "But she stayed. And without even realizing it, the new girl brought the boy back to life, showed him a different way of living. She was like a breath of fresh air in his lungs." He smiled as he spoke. "They became friends, best friends, but he couldn’t stay away from her. He wantedmoreand he took it every chance he got. He felt trapped and torn between the right thingto doand the right thingfor him."

"What did he do?"

"Nothing," Dad whispered. "And because he didnothing,he ended up breaking that girl just like he had broken the other girl."

"What did he do?"

"By then he was in so deep, he was drowning," he replied. "But then he decided which one he wanted to go down with, and he worked harder than he had for anything else in his life. The end."

"The end?" I cocked a brow. "What the hell kind of bullshit ending is that?"

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