by Blair Young
“It wasn’t terrible,” I said with a shrug. I hated that Susan was right, but I did like this one a lot more than the others. I would happily come back to Leslie if it meant I could dump the other therapists in my life.
“You did great. I know it can be hard to open up about some of the things that you’ve gone through in life, but you have to realize, you are not alone in any of this. There are a lot of people who are in pain and who struggle, so never feel like you are the only one who has to deal with any of this,” Leslie said compassionately.
“Thanks,” I said. “There are times when I feel alone.”
“And that can be one of the hardest feelings to get through,” she said. “There are many people who would rather feel sad or angry or anything else than feel alone.”
“I’m one of those people,” I said with a nod. “I would way rather feel like I’m not alone in my pain than to think that I’m the only person on the planet who had to deal with any of this stuff.”
“Well, I’m going to do my best to help you get through it. I know it’s hard, and it’s going to take a lot of work, but if you are willing to work with me on this, then you and I are going to work through the pain, and you’re going to feel normal again, would you like that?” she asked.
“It’s been so long since I’ve felt normal, I’m not even sure I know what that feels like,” I said with a laugh.
“It’s not unusual for adopted people to feel that way,” Leslie replied. I froze.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s not at all unusual for an adopted individual to feel like they don’t belong, but we can work through this, and you are going to feel like you do belong in your family, I promise,” Leslie said with a smile.
“Great,” I managed, still stunned. Adopted? How could I be adopted? What about my mom and dad? Wouldn’t they have said something to me about that at some point? And Susan? That had to have something to do with the fact that I lived with her, but why?
So many things were starting to make sense, but, at the same time, I was feeling more confused than ever. I didn’t want our session to end on that note, but our time was up, and I knew I had to get going so the new patient could come in.
I thanked Leslie, but I didn’t say another word until I was out in the car with Susan. She was eager to hear how it all went, though I had a hard time even looking at her.
“How could you not tell me I was adopted?” I blurted out at last. I had been trying to think of some way to ask the question that wasn’t so explosive, but it was entirely how I felt. “How could you keep that a secret from someone?”
“Oh, honey,” Susan said. I could hear the emotion in her voice, and she didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. I wanted to say all sorts of mean things to her. She had kept a lot from me, but this, this was too much.
“I’m so sorry that you had to find out this way. I didn’t know that would come up so soon. I meant to tell you, I was just looking for the right time,” she said at last.
“The right time. You don’t think any point in the seventeen years my parents would have found the right time to throw in the fact I was adopted?” I snapped. “Like I don’t know, at any point, really?”
“I know, it was hard for them, too,” Susan said.
“And what about you? There’s got to be some connection to the fact that they wanted you to be my guardian if they died if I was adopted. I’m sure that’s not just some coincidence of the three of you being the best of friends or anything like that!” I snapped again.
I could feel the lump in my throat, but with Susan already crying and apologizing to me, I didn’t want to add to the emotion of the moment. I wasn’t sad, I was mad. I couldn’t believe that my entire life had been based on a lie. I thought I knew who I was, now I wasn’t so sure.
Was my name even Sutton? Who were these people who had raised me? Who was this woman who was in charge of me now? What about my adoptive parents being murdered? And a mother who did nothing but drink wine on the couch all day?
There were so many more questions that were running through my brain, I wanted to scream and cry and vomit all at the same time. I wanted to get out of the car and run as far away as I could from Susan and the life that I had come to know. I wanted to forget that I had a life before now.
Nothing made sense to me anymore, and I didn’t know how to handle any of it. I felt like my entire world had come crashing down around me, and I was left to pick up the pieces. But, the only problem was, I wasn’t sure where any of the pieces went.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
“Who are they?” I demanded.
“Who?” Susan asked through her tears.
“Who are my real parents? If I was adopted, then you’ve got to know who I am and where I came from. You’ve kept so much from me, I’m not going to let you hide this from me, too,” I managed. It was hard for me to get the words out, but I was determined to hear the truth for once in my life.
Susan was quiet for a while longer, and I wondered what was going through her head. Then, she burst into tears all over again.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed.
“I just don’t know.”
Chapter 19
Sutton
There was a tense silence the entire drive home, but I didn’t nothing to ease it or break it. Susan was one of the last people on the planet I wanted to talk to, and I wasn’t sure what to say.
There were still so many things running through my mind when I thought about what I could say to her, but nothing seemed to fit. There wasn’t anything that came to mind that was strong enough to express how I felt.
I knew it wasn’t entirely her fault. I was also angry with my parents for not telling me I was adopted. They knew. They knew my entire childhood that I wasn’t their own, but they never said a word about it.
There wasn’t ever anything in my mind that jumped out at me that indicated that I might be. I wanted to believe that it was a lie, but Susan confirmed what the therapist had said – and she told me straight that I was adopted. But now, that led to even more questions.
Not only was I dealing with the death of the two people whom I thought were my parents, but I was also unsure of who my parents actually were. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know where I came from.
And the worst part of it was that I didn’t know how to even begin to find out. I wanted to know the truth about my past, that was for sure, but how did I even begin that search? With Susan not even knowing where to start and my parents dead, how was I supposed to know where to go or who to turn to.
I knew their last names. I knew who some of their relatives were, but we weren’t close to anyone, and my mother was always fine with that. She made it clear that she didn’t want to be closer to any of them than we already were, which was part of the reason I was convinced I had to come live with Susan when they passed.
But, that still didn’t clear up who Susan was in my life. That didn’t mean anything to me, and I still didn’t get the impression her being a good enough friend of my family for them to want to give me to her if something happened.
Why not give me back to my birth parents? It seemed to me that my birth mother might want to know that her daughter was an orphan all over again, and she might be in some need of some help. It wasn’t as though she was going to have to take care of me – at all really.
I could take care of myself, I just had to have a place to live. I could even start looking for my own place if she really didn’t want me in her life that badly. But, why wouldn’t she? What had I ever done that would have made her want to give me up like that?
It didn’t make any sense to me, and I once again felt as lost as I had the day I was going to take a knife to my own neck in the bathroom. I wanted answers, and I needed them now more than ever.
I wasn’t going to put up with all this crap about people not knowing where I came from or who I was. There had to be someone out there wi
th the answers, and even if it was going to be painful for me to hear, I was going to find that person, and I was going to get the answers out of them if it was the last thing I did.
When we got back to the house, I went straight to my room and slammed the door as hard as I could. I never would have done that before. It didn’t feel like my house, and I didn’t want to do anything that would damage the walls or the door.
But, being as angry as I was with the world, I didn’t care what anyone thought. I was glad Damon wasn’t home. he was one of the last people I wanted to talk to right now, too. For all I knew, he was in on the whole thing. He might well have known from the beginning that I was adopted and that was why he was so mean to me in school.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t feel like I could trust Susan, and I ignored her when she tried to come knock on my door to talk to me. I didn’t have anything nice to say to her, and I wasn’t going to pretend like I did. I knew she was upset, but I had the right to be more upset.
At least she knew who she was in life. She knew her own identity. I felt I was having such a crises, I didn’t know what to even consider myself. I always thought the name Sutton was chic, but was that even my real name? Was that the name that was on my birth certificate? Did my parents have it changed when they adopted me?
There were so many thoughts racing through my head, the only person I could think to talk to was Abby. She would know what to say. If anything, she could just be there for me as I dumped on her the worst news of my life. I knew it wasn’t right of me to pour it all out on her when she was also going through a lot. But, I had to have someone to talk to, and it certainly wasn’t going to be either of the people I lived with.
I was surprised when Abby answered on the first ring, and even more surprised when I heard her crying through the other end of the phone.
“What’s wrong?” I managed through the tears of my own.
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?” she sobbed.
“You go first. I’m sure yours is worse than mine,” I said.
“My dad just got arrested,” she sobbed. “The cops came and took him away in cuffs not an hour ago, and he’s down at the police station right now and I’m not sure if they’re going to let him out or if he’s going to be stuck in jail until a trial or something. No one is telling me anything.”
“What?” I gasped. “How on Earth did that happen?”
“I think Peter had something to do with it,” she said. “He was mad at me and he said that he knew my father was doing illegal things. I tried to tell him he was crazy, but he said he was going to go to the cops and when he broke up, I bet that’s exactly what he did. They just came in and said that they had a warrant for his arrest and he had the right to remain silent and all that stuff.”
“What the heck?” I said in disbelief. “And what do you do now?”
“I don’t know. We have to figure out a way to get him out of jail and prove that he wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said.
“Are you sure he’s innocent?” I asked. The words were out of my mouth before I even realized I was saying them, and they brought a new round of tears out of my friend. I didn’t want to be harsh, but I wasn’t so sure if he was myself.
I only met the guy a couple of times, but there was something about him that just didn’t sit quite right with me. And, it didn’t help that Abby had been acting so strange lately. I had a feeling she knew more than she was letting on about her father.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I want to believe that he is. They are accusing him of money laundering, and my mother and him have been fighting a lot, but they always get really quiet when I’m around and they tell me to leave the room. I’m not sure what to do or think.”
“You can come here if you need to,” I offered. I was sure Susan wouldn’t mind, especially after all that had been going on between her and I. I was bound to get practically anything I asked for if the guilt she felt was enough.
“I’m not sure if I should go or stay,” Abby said. “I feel like I should be close in case they need me, and if my father is found guilty then he’s going to go to prison for a very long time. I can’t imagine that.”
She broke down in tears again, and I seethed against Peter. I knew he had something about him I didn’t quite like, but with the way he and Abby had hit it off, I thought it might just be my imagination. But to know that he had done this to her was too much.
I wanted to hang up the phone and talk to Damon, telling him to get Peter in the ring and give him the same ass kicking that he had given Chad. But, I didn’t want to drag more people into this than already were, and I was going to find out from Abby how many people already found out about it.
I did my best to keep the conversation on Abby as much as possible. I didn’t want her to think that I had just called her to complain about my own life, but it wasn’t long before she turned the subject back to me. Through her sobs, she managed to ask me what was going on with my life.
“You sounded pretty upset when you called,” she whimpered. “Is everything all right?”
“I went to therapy today,” I told her. I paused. It was hard for me to find the words after what she had just told me.
“What did she say?” Abby asked. She sniffled again through the phone, and I wished I could be there for her. But, I was at home, and I wasn’t going to go over to her house if she was dealing with the cops and her mother being upset. The last thing I wanted was for her to have to deal with Susan, even if I was sure Susan wouldn’t mind if she came over.
“She told me that I’m adopted,” I said bluntly.
“What?” Abby now sounded shocked, the emotion out of her voice.
“Yes. She said that I was adopted, and she asked me how I felt about it. I went to Susan afterward and Susan burst into tears and told me she was sorry that I had to find out about it this way. I don’t know what to do or even what to think. I’m not sure who I even am right now,” I said.
“You’re still the same person,” Abby said quickly. “Who your parents are has nothing to do with that.”
“My parents are the ones who turned me into the person I am today!” I shot back. I wanted to point out the issues she was having with her own parents, but I bit my tongue. There was no need to make this any harder on her than it already was.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I was so sure I was going to find the person who was responsible for killing them, but now I know that the people they killed weren’t even my parents to begin with. That doesn’t make it any better, either. It only makes it all the more confusing. And I don’t know how to find my real parents, either.”
“I don’t, either,” Abby admitted. “But there’s got to be a way. You have to talk to Susan, or to that lawyer you were talking to when you were placed with Susan. I’m sure he would have some sort of idea at least of the last name. Then you would have something to go on.”
“With my luck, it’s going to be something so common there’s not going to be a chance in Hell that I get to find them,” I sighed again. “I feel like my parents were murdered, but now they’re back from the dead, and I don’t know the people who were murdered at all. I mean I grew up with them, but they lied to me the entire time.”
“And so did Susan,” Abby reminded me. “She had to know that you were adopted. She had to have. Even if she was just a good friend of the family, she had to know.”
“I think there’s more to Susan than meets the eye,” I admitted. “I think she knows a lot more than she’s telling me, and I’m going to get it out of her one way or another, even if I have to use Damon to do it.”
“Good luck with that. I want you to keep me posted, but I’ve got to get going,” Abby said with a sigh. “We’re going down to the police station to see if we can get some of this worked out.”
“Keep me posted on what’s going on,” I told her.
> “I promise,” Abby hung up the phone and I stormed out of my room. I’d heard Damon head into his room while I was having the conversation, and I now pounded on the door.
“Good God, what do you want?” he asked when he opened it. “I thought you were mom.”
“We need to talk,” I said. ‘
“What now?” he asked.
I explained to him what Peter had done to Abby and her family, and he shook his head. “I can’t believe that. I thought he was the better of the two, but it seems to me that he and Chad are just the same.”
“I want to know why he would do just a thing and what we can do about it now,” I told him. “I’m not going to let him get away with this.”
“I’m not sure there’s a lot you can do. I mean, it’s going to come down to whether the guy is innocent or not,” Damon said.
“I don’t care about that. I care about the fact this asshole ratted out my best friend’s family, and I need you to back me on this. I can’t do anything about it alone, you know that,” I said. I didn’t want to snap at him, but I was tense, and he could sense it.
He nodded. “I know you can’t, and you know I’ve got your back in any way.”
Damon took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. I’m not able to make any promises over what’s going to happen, but I can promise you I’ll try to get something done, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, taking a breath of my own before sighing. I knew he was going to do his best, but I felt discouraged. I knew there was only so much any of us could do right now in any part of the situation. I would have given anything to help Abby get through this and prove that her father was innocent. I didn’t believe for one second that he truly was guilty, and I would fight for him in any way that I could.
But, I also felt that my own plate was now full. I had to find out who my parents were, and I had to figure out why my adoptive parents were murdered. I didn’t think there was any connection to the two in my mind, but I was going to keep working at it until I had the answers I needed.