Page 4 of Greased

I scoff and shake my head. She can’t be fucking serious, can she? I feel like I stand there for hours as my gaze bounces around to the three faces staring back at mine.

My brain slowly starts to process what I’ve been told.

My brother and father arealiveand they are standing in front of me right now.

What?

I shake my head before my eyes dart between the two men in front of me. Again.

My brain starts to throb at the information as it filters in amongst the mix of emotions that begin to plague me.

There is just no way.

For ten years I have been told these people were dead. How could they possibly be alive? How are they standing in front of me right now?

An intense feeling of betrayal pulses through my being.

Amongst my confusion, I know one thing for certain, I have been lied to.

Is anything I have come to believe real?

For years I had been convinced that I had lost two members of my family. Two people I had to re-learn were important to me, judging by the photos I was given.

Nothing knows persistence like a nine-year-old who has been told that she has a father and twin brother that died in an accident that she also should have. I remember carrying those photos around with me for months trying to re jog my memory. Like if I held onto them long enough it all would have just been some kind of nightmare.

“My sister. It’s really you.”

The guy apparently named Rhodes begins to step towards me as though to pull me in for a hug. My hand shoots out at the last minute to stop him and he quickly halts his advance. The smile on his face instantly dropping.

I take a further step back and begin shaking my head.

“No. No.”

The tears that have begun creeping up on me, escape. Even if I wanted to stop them, there is no way that I could. Not now. Not when everything I had once believed has just come crashing down.

“I don’t know what kind of sick game you are playing right now but my brother is dead. My Dad is dead. An-and I should be too.” I shake my head, unable to hide the way my voice starts to shake.

“Fuck this.”

I turn and bolt straight back out of the front door. They each call my name as I let flight takeover, but fuck them. Mum and I have never turned down a good opportunity to play a prank on each other, but they have always been light-hearted. Whoopee cushions and cling wrap over the toilet seat. Never something like this. What the fuck is she thinking? Pretending that those two yobbos are my family.

Mydeadfamily.

I don’t even have to think of where I’m going. I eye my dirt bike that sits just outside the garage. I throw on my helmet, not even botheringto do up the buckle. It can wait.

I kick up my stand and start the bike. Taking off down the driveway, I don’t bother to look behind me. All I’ll see is my mother’s betrayal. The raw feeling of grief almost blinds me. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to get on my bike in the state I’m in, but I don’t care.

The ride down the Farmborough beach is short. While I would have much preferred going up to Five Rocks, this late in the afternoon without a big group isn’t a smart idea. I don’t particularly feel like going head-to-head with a kangaroo that wants to play chicken.

Icollapse onto the soft sand as a scream of pain rips from my throat. I clench my hair in my hands as I pull my knees up to my chest just as another scream is torn from me.

How could they?

How could they do this to me?

Rip apart everything I knew.

My entire life has been a lie.

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