Page 91 of Karma
“No, this deflecting blame has to stop. Yeah, Zane’s made mistakes, but who taught them to him? Who showed him it wasokay to act this way? This is not on the child when the parent failed. If you’d been half the parent he needed, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
VP blinks between the two of them. “I guess I’m just the asshole, huh?”
“What happened to you, Dad?” Zane asks.
“Everyone sees me as a terrible father and person, so I guess that’s up for interpretation. Maybe I should see Lex’s therapist and get their opinion.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” he says. “You’re not right in this situation no matter how you try to spin it. You picked a favorite child, and that was wrong. Parents should never love their children conditionally.”
Bending down, Emma picks up the box of VP’s late wife’s things, and she gives him a small smile before walking away. Everything in VP shouts to run after her, but he knows it’s over. There’s no coming back from it this time.
“Go home, Dad. Figure out how to move forward. Maybe you can figure out how it can make you a better person before it’s too late.”
Maybe I am the asshole.
Chapter Thirty
Griffin’s Beach
Lex
Walking into the clubhouse, Lex freezes when she sees the birthday banners, balloons, cake, and presents. She assumed she was stopping by to pick up the kids. Not because today happens to be the day she was born.
“What the fuck?” Lex mutters and glares at Colt.
Colt’s hands fly into the air. She’s felt quite a bit of betrayal from him lately, and now she has another reason to have him make it up to her in the bedroom. “This was not me.”
“I did it,” Zane says. He stands next to the present table with her mother and the doctor from the hospital, and he hasn’t broken anything yet. “Happy birthday.”
Her heart races, and her feet refuse to move. She flashes back to the last birthday party she had in this room, and it turns from this lovely, simple display to a completely destroyed room with cake on the walls. Broken presents everywhere, and a brother screaming how much he hates her and wishes she wasn’t born.
The part of the memory that makes her sick is the fight between her parents out back. She’s right back on the roof listening to her father say she wasn’t worthy of a party.
“Lex, breathe,” Colt says, hurrying over to her. “Someone, get a bottle of water. Baby, you’re white as a sheet. Come, sit down.”
The Prospect, Booker, hurries over with a bottle, and Colt opens it, forcing it into her hand as he guides her to sit.
“Drink,” he orders as she just sits there. “You’re going to pass out. Drink it.”
Why is drinking water going to stop me from passing out due to shock?
She decides it’s easier to comply, even if she finds it silly. “W-why? I… I don’t know what to think right now.”
“What do you mean?” he asks with a laugh.
“Well, by now, the place would have been… you know… kaboom. Party over. Presents destroyed and the cake with my face on it plastered on the wall.”
“We’ve had a party for you before,” VP says. “Many of them.”
Rolling his eyes, Colt shakes his head. “Yeah, and they were all ruined by Zane and his big feelings.”
“No, they weren’t—”
“What fucking birthday did I not go fucking ape-shit crazy for?” Zane asks. “Seriously, do you have early onset dementia? I feel like that’s more short-term problems than long-term when it comes to memory. Or did you hit your head? Repeatedly?”
Lex can’t stop her snort as Diesel steps forward. “Selective memory. It’s nothing terminal, unfortunately.”
“No, I remember having a party for Lex. Right here. There was a cake with her face on it, which I remember because I find it weird having to cut into and eat my daughter’s face,” VP says. “God, what year was it?”
