Page 79 of Tell Me Softly
“I hate your mother, I hope you know that,” he said, cutting me off coldly. “Just as much as my father. I wish they both were dead.”
That shook me inside.
My mother dead.
I didn’t want that.
I loved her despite how she was.
And this was Thiago’s way of telling me we couldn’t be together?
I took a deep breath and looked straight ahead.
“Will you take me home?”
Thiago started the car and didn’t say a word on the way home. By the time we arrived, the rain had let up. My porch lights were on, and I could see my brother’s head in the living room as he watched cartoons. We got out and Thiago helped me put the wheel back on my bike.
“I want to ask you something that’s been eating at me ever since I got back to Carsville,” he said then. I noticed his eyes were glued to my living room window. I knew what he was going to say.
“He’s not your dad’s,” I said, and he looked at me surprised.
“I thought…”
I shook my head.
“My dad made her take a paternity test. Cameron’s his.”
Thiago nodded, and I think he was a little sad.
“He’s amazing.”
“He is,” I agreed. “He’s the one good thing to come of all that destruction.”
Thiago seemed to want to ask me something more. But whatever his intentions were, he covered them up with his next question: “What’s with the bike? Did you get tired of driving a convertible?”
I smiled miserably.
“My dad’s bankrupt. He had to sell it.” I took my bike from him, careful not to accidentally touch his hands. “Karma, you know…” I shrugged and turned around to keep him from seeing the sadness overcome me again.
My life was going to shit. But it was time for me to accept the consequences.
Chapter Thirty
Taylor
Looking out my window, I saw Kami getting out of my brother’s car. I felt powerless. Powerless because I loved Kami and couldn’t believe she and my brother could ever actually be anything. And yet I had seen the way they looked at each other. Lookedforeach other, really, because no matter where they were, each always seemed to be wondering where the other one was.
Ever since my sister’s death, I had always tried to be the best at everything. The best student, the best athlete, the son who did everything that was asked of him, the guy who made everyone happy, who took advantage of every opportunity, who got over every difficulty. The guy who had gone on with his life.
I clenched my fist. I was tired of smiling. Tired of just accepting whatever came along.
Fine. My brother had held our family together. Fine. My brother had saved us during the accident. I understood that life had changed after our sister died. But I was tired of feeling guilty. Guilty for what I had, for what I had achieved. Guilty because I’d managed to make myself happy while my brother wallowed in despair.
Whatever was wrong with him, it wasn’t my fault.
Kami left her bike in the yard and went inside. Her clothes and her hair were soaked. My brother’s too.
What had they been up to?
