Page 124 of Bide

“Because I think twenty years ago my dad fucked your mom.” A bitter laugh escapes Pen as my world attempts to crash down around me. “Or should I say our dad?”

I laugh. I actually laugh. Because my brain can't comprehend what she's saying, can’t label it as true, convinced Pen's just been drinking the conspiracy theorist Kool Aid or something.

But then I look at my mom.

I look at Professor Jacobs.

I catch the look they share, one that definitely does not scream strangers.

And suddenly I think that I'm going to be sick too.

* * *

I'm drunk.

I have been for a while.

A month, give or take.

A month since the bombshell of the century was dropped on me. A month since my life imploded. A month since I stumbled into a bar with Pen, with my sister. A month since I started going there almost nightly.

It's the only thing that helps drown out that gut-wrenching conversation playing on a reel in my head. The only thing that overwhelms the image of my mom's face as the awful truth came to light.

Andherface. Jacobs' wife. My stepmother, technically. The woman whose life, marriage, heart, I had a role in destroying.

I had to meet her. I had to sit there and listen to my mother apologize, listen to Jacobs' bullshit explanation, listen to her fucking weep. She was heartbroken. Destroyed by the knowledge that her husband had,has, a child with someone that isn't her, by my existence.

And Pen.

Really? You look alike.

It's laughable now, remembering the interaction that seemed hilarious to me at the time but now feels like the universe was mocking our ignorance. Toying with us. Dangling the truth in front of our faces but never quite letting us see.

My sister.

The daughter he wanted.

I was never supposed to exist. He paid my mom to get rid of me, for her silence. Gave her a fat wad of cash and said 'take care of it.' He just assumed she did, never took the time to check. He didn't care enough to check if he had another daughter wandering around. I don't even blame him.

Get rid of the secret love child made during an illicit affair with a student or ruin the family you actually want and your reputation?

Not a hard choice.

Isla Evans didn't agree.

She kept me, obviously. Fled the state with me growing in her belly. Florida, that's where I was conceived. Where I would've grown up. Where Pen would've grown up if I hadn't turned her life upside down too. I wonder if Ma would've settled in New York if she'd known the man she was running from ended up only a state over, hiding in Boston from the secret life he led.

I have grandparents in Fort Lauderdale. Two sets. Neither of them knew I existed. Or know. I'm not sure. I doubt my mom or Jacobs wanted to call and drop a twenty-year-old dirty little secret on their elderly parents.

I always thought my father was the bad guy. And he is. He's a cheating, lying dick.

But now my mom, the woman who raised me, my fucking hero, is the bad guy too. The other woman. A liar.

And me. The other child. Made of lies and deceit.

A mistake.

The apartment is quiet as I stumble inside, the key sounding way too loud as it scrapes in the lock. The girls are probably out. I think they're avoiding me lately and I don't really blame them. I'm like a ticking time bomb always on the verge of going off. I snap and I push and I make sure it's impossible to be near me because it hurts to be around them.

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