Page 24 of Letting Go

He finally, finally jumps back.

Like his body just got the memo his brain’s been too damn slow to read.

There’s a clumsy tangle of limbs and sheets and cheap gasps as he scrambles off her like that’ll make any of this better. Like putting distance between his body and hers will somehow rewind time and erase the moment I caught my husband balls-deep in my baby sister.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

His face is flushed, frantic, stupid with guilt. “Leni, wait, I can explain-”

Oh. Oh, we’re doing that?

I actually laugh. A full, loud, deranged laugh that sounds like it belongs in a padded room with soft walls and no sharp objects.

“Explain how you fell into my nineteen-year-old sister, Michael,” I snap, voice climbing so high it threatens to split the goddamn ceiling. “Jesus, how long has this been going on?”

He stammers. One foot tangled in the sheets as he scrambles to make himself decent like that’s the problem. Like covering his dick is going to un-fuck my reality.

“You’ve known her since she was ten.” My voice shakes now, with rage, betrayal, nausea. “Have you been preying on her this whole time? What the hell, Mike? What the actual hell?!”

“No! No, God, Leni, I would never, I didn’t-” he’s fumbling, red-faced and pathetic, reaching for the nearest pair of boxers like a man who thinks pants can preserve dignity. “It just happened, okay? It wasn’t planned. I swear. It was, this was the first time—”

And then.

“Since Christmas,” Keira says.

Calm. Barely a whisper.

Like it’s not a fucking nuclear bomb going off in my chest.

My head whips to her so fast I see stars. “What?”

She won’t look at me. Won’t even pretend to be ashamed. “It’s been… since Christmas.”

Two months.

Two. Months.

My whole body goes cold before the heat rises, volcanic and blinding and unholy.

“You’ve been fucking my baby sister for two months while I-” I can’t even finish the sentence. The fury eats it whole.

Instead, I start grabbing whatever I can get my hands on.

A pillow. A picture frame. A lotion bottle. A lamp.

I throw it all.

Screaming, crying, breaking apart at the seams as I hurl betrayal back at the people who carved it into me.

“You fucked her in our bed,” I scream, aiming a throw pillow at his stupid, ducking head. “On my goddam pillow! You looked me in the eye and lied! Both of you!”

They duck. They scramble. They fucking flinch. Good. I want them to flinch.

Because I flinched every day, I suspected something and convinced myself I was being crazy.

Not anymore.

Keira tries to speak again, tries to justify it maybe, but I cut her off with a raised hand.

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