by Naomi Niles
“I just… I can’t take it anymore,” I hoped that being evasive would put her off from asking too many questions. “It’s awful here. I hate it.”
“Look,” she had her diplomatic tone of voice on, which meant bad news for me. It meant that she was going to try and win me around somehow. “The wedding isn’t far off now. You don’t have to be there for much longer.”
“But, Mom,” I tried, but she was having none of it.
“You need to do this to prove to him that you’re the bigger man. He’s probably expecting you to quit, to run away.” How did I tell her now that Dad wasn’t the real problem? That I was the issue here? “You’ll be home soon enough, safe in the knowledge that despite everything, you’re a decent young man who puts his family first.”
“Mhmm…” I replied, half-heartedly. There was no way that I could tell her the truth after that impassioned speech. She would go mental after telling me that I was a good guy–the total opposite to how I’d just behaved. “Okay,” I eventually finished meekly, hating myself for being such a liar.
“So, I’ll see you in a few days.” She was already wrapping up the conversation, safe in the knowledge that she had me backed into a corner. The worst thing was that she was right. I had no argument to give her; I was going to have to stay no matter what I wanted.
I just didn’t know how the hell I was supposed to face Danica ever again. How could I face the girl I was falling for, knowing that she hated me?
“Bye, Mom, see you soon. Love you,” I sighed dejectedly.
“Love you.”
Then she was gone, and I was alone, with nothing left to do but face the music.
I stepped out of the car, and walked slowly towards the house, whishing that I’d argued, or that I had the courage to go home anyway, but for now, I was tied here. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go with things so up in the air anyway. It didn’t seem right. I might have been acting cowardly, but I wasn’t entirely convinced that I would have actually been able to follow it through.
As soon as I walked through the door, I spotted my dad and Lyla sitting at the kitchen table at the end of the hallway. They saw me right away and did their best to get my attention. Perfect, I couldn’t even wallow in misery in peace.
“Hi, Rhett,” Lyla called from where she was sitting. “Are you okay?” Her tone was too bright and breezy for someone who was annoyed at me, so clearly she hadn't seen her daughter yet. How the hell did Danica manage to sneak in without getting the third degree? “Did you have a good day?”
“Erm, yes, thanks,” I lied, trying to ignore the satisfied smirk that my father was shooting me. He looked like he could see right through me, and that he knew exactly what I’d done, and in his mind, I’d proven him right.
I hated myself even more. I didn’t think that it was possible to feel this much disgust at my actions.
“You’re just like your old man, you.”
I hated that he could get so far under my skin after everything he’d done to me. He hadn't even been around and he’d managed to shape me. If only he wasn’t in my head, I wouldn’t have been such a shit to Danica. If he’d just either been in my life, or left me well alone, then none of this would have happened.
“I’m a bit tired, though,” I finished, wanting to wrap up this conversation without any difficult questions. “So, I’m going to head to bed.”
“All right, goodnight!” Lyla called with that warm smile on her face.
“Yes, son, sleep well.” Just hearing my dad speak to me in that self-satisfied tone drove me crazy. I had to pump my fists by my side, and literally force myself to walk away to stop myself from doing something stupid. I felt like he wanted a reaction from me, and I really needed not to give him one. Especially not when he was right.
As I slumped up the stairs, passing Danica’s bedroom door, I fought the urge to knock on it and to see her. I feared that I would just make things even worse than they already were, which was the absolute last thing that I wanted. I seemed to be a hurricane, causing destruction everywhere that I went, and I really wanted to put a stop to that. I didn’t want to cause her any more pain than I already had.
I needed to lock myself in my own room, away from the rest of the world, so I couldn’t upset anyone else.
I lay down on my bed with my head in my hands, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I was so desperate to not be like my dickhead father that I’d somehow become him anyway. How was that even possible? How the hell did that even happen?
Danica didn’t deserve me like that–she didn’t deserve any of it. In fact, I knew for sure that she could do so much better than me.
If I weren’t in the picture, then she’d be free to fall in love with someone who didn’t contain the dreaded Fronton DNA. She could find someone that didn’t have all of the complications that I offered, that she could fall in love with, without tearing her entire family apart. She could find the person that she was actually supposed to be with, rather than embroiled with someone who could never offer her a future.
There was only one thing for it–I was going to have to back off. Rather than apologizing for my idiotic behavior, I was going to have to embrace it, to allow Danica to hate me so that she could get over our thing that much quicker.
I wouldn’t do anything horrible, I didn’t want to really hurt her, but I would back off for sure. I would stop interacting with her as much as possible, and just get through this until I could leave her alone forever.
She was the one who had originally started the whole not talking to me anyway, and maybe she had the right idea. Maybe I should have just gone with that in the first place and saved myself a whole load of trouble.
I would just get through this shit storm of a wedding, then I would go home and forget about any of this: the wedding, my father, and Danica. I would forget about all of them and I would go back to the life I was always going to lead before any of them came into my life.
There, decision made. Easy-peasy.
Of course, I knew that it wasn’t going to be simple–in fact, it was going to be one of the biggest challenges that I’d ever had to face, but I would do it.
I had to.
For Danica.
It was the least she deserved.
I would be at college soon anyway, starting the life that I’d always wanted, so if I just focused on that future rather than the endless distractions that threatened to sidetrack me, then everything would be fine.
It sure as hell didn’t feel like it at the moment, but I was certain that in the end, all would be okay and I would congratulate myself for making the right decision.
Chapter Twenty-One
Danica
As I lay in my bed, my mind was buzzing with a wide range of emotions, meaning that it was very unlikely I’d get any sleep. I felt guilty for giving into temptation yet again, oddly excited by how much fun it had been, and full of rage for how things had turned out in the end. It was extremely confusing, and I wasn’t entirely sure which emotion was more powerful.
It was clear that Rhett felt bad for having sex with me knowing that we were about to become stepbrother and sister, but why didn’t he just talk to me about it? Why did he shut down and give me the cold shoulder, instead? It was so annoying, and it would end up killing us before we could even get started.
If we could get started…
Did I even really want us to get started?
Oh God, my head was a mess.
On the one hand, I really wanted to be with Rhett, I wanted to give us a go. I wanted to just be able to tell him about the baby and have his input on what happened next. No one had ever made me feel as special and amazing as he did, and I didn’t think that they ever would. It felt like he was literally perfect for me, and if our situation had been different, it was likely that we would already be together.
But on the other, it was going to be far too complex for it to just happen. It was wrong, and I really could do with remembering that. It would cause our family to implode from
the inside out, probably ruining all of our relationships.
There was only one thing for it; I was going to have to get him alone to sort things out. A big part of me was tempted to creep into his room tonight, to air out all of our problems–well, almost all of them, as I certainly wasn’t ready to bring up the unborn baby yet–and then to have a snuggle under the sheets, but in the end, I thought better of it. I didn’t want to risk getting caught, and I also wasn’t sure if Rhett needed some alone time.
I didn’t want to blow things already. If he needed space, then I would give him space. I could do that.
So I slid under my own bed sheets, with only his face on my mind. Tomorrow, I would speak to him, and I would make everything better. No matter what.
***
The positivity and the smile were still spread across my cheeks the next morning, and I walked down the stairs with that buzzing, secretive feel to me. It was kind of nice to have this one thing that was just for me in among all of this wedding madness. I couldn’t wait to see where the day would take us. I was certain that Rhett would have gotten over his little mood by now and that we would be able to sort things out.
But I was very, very wrong.
As I got into the kitchen, I didn’t get the smile that I expected to from him at all. In fact, the way he was acting was still positively cold. I could only assume that it was because our parents were sitting at the dining table, eating breakfast. Maybe he felt too weird around them now to act normal. Maybe he didn’t even know how to behave anymore. I certainly didn’t.
I tried not to let myself get too disheartened, I tried to just tell myself that we would speak whenever possible. But the way that he was completely avoiding my eyes really did hurt.
“Morning,” Mom called out in a tone that was too enthusiastic for my liking. “How are you feeling? Did you enjoy your day yesterday?”
I managed to avoid the questioning when we got home–which was a good thing considering the foul mood I was in–so I figured that I better answer them now, before things became too weird and suspicious.
“Yeah, it was good,” I said distractedly. “And I feel much better; thanks.”
“What are you up to today?” Her eyes were flickering between me and Rhett, which wasn’t good news. It meant that she suspected something. My face flamed as I realized what this could mean for us both.
“Nothing,” I jumped in quickly, wanting her to only look at me. “Do you have anything that you need me to do?”
“Well, I have to meet Victoria this morning.”
“Okay, that’s great; I’ll come with you,” I grinned, needing the distraction. Sure, it meant that I wouldn’t get the time I needed with Rhett until later, but that was a sacrifice that I was willing to make.
“No, that’s okay,” she stood up from the table, and Brad copied her. “I want you to take the day off. You’ve done enough to help, and to be honest, it’s only finalizing details, anyway. I need to do this alone, really, so I can focus better.”
“Right, okay,” I replied dejectedly, annoyed that she was finally starting to take a real interest in her special day when I no longer wanted her to. “That’s fine.”
As Mom and Brad walked from the room, talking only about themselves, I shot my eyes nervously back to Rhett once more. This was it, the moment where I would be able to determine if his weirdness was only to do with our parents.
But nothing. His eyes remained only on his feet.
This wasn’t good.
“Morning?” I said shyly. “Are you okay?” I knew that I should be still furious with him for his behavior, but I couldn’t be because I understood it. I knew that our only problem was communication, and I was ready to rectify that. I was ready to get over the rest of it for the sake of us.
“Mmmm,” he replied distractedly. “Sure.”
I flicked my eyes around, but Mom and Brad were nowhere to be seen. We both knew that, so why was he still being so off?
“Are you…up to much today?” I asked lamely. “Got any interesting plans?”
“Nope,” he snapped back, popping the p. “Just stuck here for another day in this hell.”
Hell?
What was that supposed to mean? Sure this wasn’t the nicest situation, but things hadn't all been bad had they? Yesterday was fu…wasn’t it?
Oh God, was it only fun for me? I tried to think back but was drawing a frustrating blank. I’d certainly thought that Rhett was having a great time with me.
“Okay,” I practically whispered. Silence resumed, and it was so painful that in the end I felt like I needed to speak out again. “Are you being weird with me to pay me back for how I treated you when you first got here?”
It was a possibility, and we needed to start opening up to one another somehow. Our communication needed to start somewhere. He didn’t answer, which bristled my defences even further. “Okay, look, I’m sorry about that, I really am, but it was all really strange. I didn’t know how the hell we were supposed to act around one another, you must understand that.”
“Look, it is weird,” he snapped. “You know it is. We’re family, so we can’t really be any more, can we?”
What the hell? Did he not think that was a decision he should have made before we slept together again? I couldn’t help but feel a little used–how dare he make his choice like that? Did he think that he was in control, and that I didn’t get a say? He hadn't even asked what I thought about it all. That was an arrogance that I’d never noticed in Rhett before. Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.
“We need to accept that we can’t be together and be a family, too, and since our parents are getting married, we don’t exactly have any choice, do we?”
I knew that his words were right, but that sure as hell didn’t make me feel any better. I knew that he was being logical and smart, but that didn’t make it any less painful to hear. I hung my head, trying to disguise the tears that were pricking in my eyes. I didn’t want him to see how hurt I was because I knew it wouldn’t do anything to change his mind. He’d obviously made that decision yesterday as soon as we’d slept together, and even having the night away from me hadn't managed to make any difference.
He didn’t want me. Maybe he never had.
“Right.” For a moment, the baby filled my mind all over again. To be honest, our unborn child was on my mind all the time, but at moments like this, it came to the forefront of my thoughts. How was I supposed to raise a child with a man that didn’t even want to know me?
Maybe the best thing to do would be to pretend that the father was someone else, just to save the family. Sure, that would be wrong, but at the same time it would help prevent the constant arguments. Rhett would look at me in a very different way–he would probably wrongly assume that I gave it away easily to any boy that looked my way, but that was a side effect that I was just going to have to face.
Just to make things easier for everyone else.
“Right, fine,” I held my head high with a determined look in my eyes. “If that’s how you feel, then we won’t talk anymore.”
“No,” he whined as I turned my back on him. “I don’t mean don’t talk anymore.”
“So, what do you mean?” I snapped, spinning back to stare right at him. There was a deep anger burning inside of me now, and that showed across my face. “We can’t be family; we’ve proven that we can’t be friends. Civil? You want to be fake in front of our parents? Fine. You’ll be gone soon enough, anyway.”
And then I spun on my heel and stalked from the room before he could get another word in edgeways. As I got back into the privacy of my own room, I felt my world fall apart. This had been hard enough before, but now I felt so much worse about myself. I’d succumbed to Rhett knowing deep down that it was going to end this way. What did that say about me?
Nothing good, that was for sure.
I remembered Rhett’s final parting words as we left Camp Woodtree, and I wished that I could transform back into that moment
, just for a few moments. As we’d stood in the parking lot, just before his mom turned up in the car not long before mine, he held onto my hands and looked deeply into my eyes. Then he said:
“Thank you for a wonderful week. I’ll never forget you and what this means to me–it’s been an experience like I never imagined. When I see you again, I hope it’s just like this.”
Those words had been etched into my memory, and I wept for the fact that it had gone the complete opposite direction. It was so unfair that I was left with all of that from nothing.
How could he just decide to turn his feelings off and be done? Unless he didn’t feel as deeply as I did? Maybe his words just didn’t really mean anything–maybe I’d been reading things into emotions that just weren’t there. Maybe this had all only been about sex for him, even from the very beginning.
My mind spun violently round and round in circles, making me dizzy with it all, until eventually, I had to run to the bathroom to be sick all over again in what was slowly becoming a never ending, unbearable cycle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rhett
I wanted to go home. I was really done with this place, with this family, and with the entire goddamn wedding. Now that I had royally fucked everything up, I was just done. I knew that I’d done the right thing by blowing Danica off, however shitty it felt, because I couldn’t keep leading her on knowing that we could never go anywhere, it wasn’t fair to either of us.
But the right thing felt like shit.
I was so tempted to call up my mom again, to tell her that I was leaving no matter what she wanted, but I just couldn’t quite face it. I hated feeling like a coward, and that was exactly how she made me feel last time. That bigger man nonsense had really gotten to me–especially after my dad saying that I was like him–and I couldn’t face that conversation again.
It really wasn’t long until the wedding now, maybe I could get away with hiding in my room until the day arrived. As long as I didn’t see anyone, I could hardly cause any more damage, could I?