Wrong girl, p.31
Wrong Girl, page 31
“What exactly happened, Aaron? When I left to use the bathroom you weren’t even on the phone.”
“As soon as you left the room I got the call from him. It was all pretty normal at first. He told me he had just managed to escape and bring an end to the most boring lunch of his entire life. He asked if I was free to go and play a round of pool and that’s when I told him I couldn’t because I was hanging out with you and he just flipped. He started firing questions at me and demanding that I put you on the phone. I refused and that’s when he really went crazy on me. What the hell is his problem?”
I had no idea what to say. I could hardly explain Zack’s behaviour to his brother and I also didn’t like the thought of deceiving Aaron. I was at a loss when it came to handling it all.
“Like I said… you should really talk to him.”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to.” He spoke decidedly, snatching his phone from me before reaching for his jacket.
“Aaron, please don’t start anything with him. He’s still your brother.”
“This is between me and him, Sam. It’s a confrontation that’s been on the cards for a while. I guess it’s going to happen now. I’ll see you later.”
He left me alone in my apartment, emotional and alone. I felt like I had no one to confide in and no one who would understand the pain I was going through. Little did I know it was about to get even worse…
My landline phone rang, startling me with its piercing noise. I knew it couldn’t be Zack because I’ve yet to give him my home number and the knowledge of this is what convinced me to answer.
“Hello?” I tried to sound normal, hoping the fragile tone of my voice would give nothing away.
“Samantha, I need to speak with you. Come over to the house as soon as you can.”
My mother’s shrill demand gave me chills. I had no idea why she was phoning me or why she suddenly wanted me to go and visit her.
“What? Why? What’s happened?” I asked, the panic rising within me as my mind raced with possibilities.
“I’ll explain everything to you as soon as you get here.” She replied coldly, hanging up the phone before I even had a chance to respond.
I stood still for several moments, wondering what on earth had happened to force her to summon me like she did. I knew I wouldn’t rest until I found out and hastily left my apartment so I could ask her for myself.
It only took me a few minutes to get there. I walked so fast I was practically running, adrenaline and anxiety providing me with the speed I needed to confront her. I hammered on the door with such urgency, certain that something was terribly wrong.
“I would really appreciate it if you didn’t cause damage to my front door.” My mum spoke dismissively, glowering at me in distaste.
“I’m sorry.” I apologised breathlessly, clutching my side which was developing a stitch.
“You best come in. What I need to say to you should be said in private.”
She turned her back on me and left the door open. I had to close it myself and follow her as she made her way into the kitchen. My own curiosity and fear increased with each step I took. There was no one else home and the eerie silence was enough to scare me. My mother’s high heels echoed against the hard flooring, forcing me to remember a time I used to hide underneath my bed. I only did this whenever I heard her coming, frightened of the verbal punishment I was about to receive.
“I’m going to make this quick.” She placed a hand on the kitchen worktop, turning to face me. “What I have to say to you is not pleasant, nor is it something I wish to repeat.”
“Ok…” I said uneasily, preparing myself for the very worst.
“I know about you and Zack.”
Her revelation stunned me. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe I was so shocked.
“What do you mean?” I finally asked. “There’s nothing to know.”
“Don’t play games with me, Samantha.” She sighed impatiently, folding her arms across her chest. “You can’t fool me. I know the truth.”
I could tell she was certain. There was no doubt about it… she knew the truth.
“How do you know?”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. The stolen glances across the dinner table when you think no one else is looking, the tension in the air when either one of you comes within close proximity to the other. The way his eyes wander, seeking out your presence when you leave the room. I’m surprise no one else has noticed before now.”
“H-have you spoken to him?”
“No and I don’t intend do. This is going to stay between us.” She said decidedly.
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to put an end to it and you’re going to be discreet about it.”
“I can’t do that, Mum.” I confessed, fighting to remain strong and defiant.
I was not about to let her tell me what to do. I would not allow her to dictate my life.
“Oh, yes you can and that’s exactly what you’re going to do. I am not going to stand by and allow you to break your sister’s heart. It’s never going to happen.”
“I love him.” I whispered, mustering every single ounce of determination inside of me.
“Do you really think I care about you or your feelings in any of this? You don’t matter to me. You never have done. When are you going to get that through your thick head?” She grabbed a hold of my hair and pulled, twisting my neck until the pain of it made me cry out. “Look, at you, Samantha. You’re pathetic. You dye your hair the exact same colour as hers and you still fail. You don’t measure up and you never have done. She’s superior to you in every single way and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Why do you hate me?” I whimpered, grasping hold of the hand which was still curled around my hair, forcing her to let go. “What did I ever do to you to make you despise me so much?”
“Do I really need a reason to hate you?” She spat contemptuously. “Isn’t your pathetic existence enough for me to loathe everything about you?”
“You’ve always hated me, ever since I was a child. You’ve always disliked me and I want to know why! What did I ever do to deserve your contempt?”
This confrontation had been brewing between us for so damn long. I was resolute in my decision to find out the truth and knew I was close to hearing it.
“You were born.” she answered, once again turning her back on me.
“So was Rachel!” I cried, grabbing her by the shoulder, needing her to face me. “She was born first! Why didn’t she ‘destroy’ your life? Why is it me that ruined everything?”
“Because you’re not his!”
The silence that fell between us is something I will never forget. I’ll never be able to rid myself of that memory and I’m really not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.
“Because I’m not whose?”
She shook her head, refusing to answer my question. I was absolutely determined to force it out of her if I had to, even if that meant shaking her until she cracked. Luckily for us both, it didn’t come to that.
“Because you’re not Harry’s.” She whispered softly, meeting my gaze for the first time since her confession.
My stomach lurched as nausea consumed my entire body. My palms were sweaty and I felt faint, trembling uncontrollably as I tried to digest the life-changing information just told to me.
“Harry is Rachel’s dad?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes.” She sighed wearily, slowly taking a seat at the kitchen counter.
“But how? When?” I demanded to know, shaking my head in denial. “Who knows about this?”
“No one. No one knows, not even Harry.”
“You slept with him? You slept with him behind my dad’s back?”
“I loved him.” She answered, lowering her head. “I still do”
Her words made me feel sick. How on earth could she love that monster?
“I don’t understand”
“He was my first love. My first and last.” She declared, nervously picking the loose skin on one of her nails. “I was only sixteen when we first got together, before I even knew who your father was. I was with him for a while but Harry was five years older than me and remarkably ambitious. I knew he wouldn’t stay around for long. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep a hold on him.”
“So, you got pregnant?”
I took a seat on the other side of the counter, refusing to back down from this, resolute in my quest to uncover the truth.
“Yes.” She finally raised her head, all of a sudden bold and fearless in our showdown.
“At sixteen?”
“No. I was nineteen by this time and knew that if I wanted him to stay then I would have to give him a reason to. I thought it was the only way to keep a hold of him. I remember I was two months gone before I worked up the courage to tell him about it. I had it all planned out, hardly able to contain my excitement. It was when I turned up at his house and asked to see him that his mother told me he had gone. He had left the country for work and hadn’t even told me he was leaving.”
“He walked out on you?” I said incredulously.
“He didn’t even know about Rachel.” She said quickly, trying to make up excuses for his behaviour.
“But he still left you!”
“I never told him about her. I never even came close. Your father eventually put two and two together and confronted me about the father of my baby. I broke down on his shoulder one night and told him everything. I was eight months pregnant at the time, emotional, terrified and alone. My own mother kicked me out as soon as she found out, I even had to stay in a hostel for a while.”
I could scarcely manage to absorb everything she was saying, confused, angry, indignant and… sad.
“What happened next?” I inquired, prompting her to continue.
“Your father offered to take care of me and take on the responsibility of the child. He said she was his niece and he wanted to do the right thing by her. We decided to raise Rachel together and never told anyone the truth.”
She wiped away the single tear that had fallen and stood, making her way to the cupboard before reaching for a glass.
“And that’s why you hate me?” I asked, preparing myself to hear the hideous truth.
“Your father eventually wanted to have his own child and refused to let the matter go.” She poured herself a glass of water whilst continuing to stare out the kitchen window with her back to me. “I didn’t want another baby. I was happy with my beautiful little girl. However, I eventually ran out of excuses and decided to go along with his idea about having another baby. I prayed for you to be a boy, needing to keep Rachel as my only daughter. Of course you weren’t the son I thought I could tolerate… you were the second daughter I never even wanted. Your brother came along a few years later, surprising us both. Especially me.”
“Why? Because you actually felt something other than resentment for him?”
“Yes.” She admitted, turning around to face me. “You are the one I wish I could erase, the mistake that never should have happened. I was young and naive, foolish in my decision to listen to your father. I went against my instincts, ignoring them to the point of denial and agreed to have you.”
She stared at me with those dead eyes, narrowing them in disgust and revulsion.
“And Harry?”
“I waited for the day he would settle down, marry and have his own children. That day never came and that’s what makes my first born even more sacred to me. She’s my one accomplishment, the one thing I would not change.”
“Why did you never tell Harry? There was nothing to prevent you from being honest with him when my father died.” I stated, struggling to understand why she would have still kept it from him.
“I might have done if it weren’t for your lies.”
“Lies?”
“The disgusting lies you told me when you were twelve years old, the ones you made about him… the man I love.”
Suddenly it all made sense to me. I understood the reason why she chose to turn me away when I told her what had happened to me. It wasn’t because she didn’t believe me, it was because she couldn’t bring herself to. Knowing that someone has hurt your child must be agonising, an unbearable pain that no mother should ever have to experience… but to actually know that the man you are in love with is the bearer of that pain must be inconceivable, especially to someone like her.
“Mum, I’m not saying this to hurt you. Despite everything you have said and done to me I still love you… but you need to know that I wasn’t lying. Harry did those things to me and I think you know that. Deep down you know and that’s the real reason you can’t even bring yourself to look at me right now.”
“You’re wrong! I know him! I know he would never, ever do that.” She cried, throwing her glass of water in a rage.
The glass shattered, making us both flinch. I stared at the irreparable, broken glass, shattered and damaged beyond repair. Just like us.
“How old were you the first time you had sex with him?” I questioned her, standing up as I slowly closed the distance between us. “How old were you, Mum?”
“That doesn’t matter!”
“Doesn’t it?” I challenged her. “Because it matters to me. How old were you?”
I thought she wasn’t going to answer, I was convinced she would not dignity my question by telling the truth.
“Fourteen.” She eventually murmured, moistening her lips as she grasped onto the worktop for dear life.
“And you’re still telling me that an eighteen year old man who chooses to sleep with a fourteen year old girl is not capable of hurting me?”
For the first time in my life I saw her doubt. I saw it in her eyes and I have to admit that it did provided me with some comfort. She believed me, even if it was just for a single second. She knew.
“You could have been there for me when I found out I was pregnant. You knew how it felt to be alone and scared, desperate and lost. You could have helped me, you could have supported me. Instead, you left me to it and then accused me of murdering my baby when I was still grieving. What kind of woman does that make you?”
“And what about you?” She snarled viciously. “How can you stand there on your moral high ground and accuse me of failing you and being an immoral person? You’ve been sleeping with your own sister’s fiancé, the man she’s chosen to spend the rest of her life with, the man she loves.”
“You don’t think I know that?! You don’t think that I’m in agony every single moment of the day because I have to live with the guilt of what I’ve done? If I could change it, I would! I would do anything to change how I feel about him but I can’t! I love him, Mum.”
My warm tears fell, cascading down my cheeks in their unceremonious journey. The possibility of losing Zack was inconceivable, the ache in my chest was excruciating, unbearable and for lack of a better word… heart-breaking.
“Don’t call me that again, Samantha. From this day on we are through. I feel nothing for you now and I never will. If you want to do the right thing by your sister, the one and only person in this family who has ever stood by you then you will end it with him now. You will step aside and let them be happy.” She replied indifferently, cold and unfeeling.
“How can you ask this of me?”
“How can you even think that you and Zack would be able to make it work? You and him are hardly compatible, are you? I mean, he’s so far out of your league… it’s not even funny.” She scoffed, a heartless smirk contorting her face.
She was laughing at me.
“You are a cruel, heartless and bitter woman. You are someone I will never, ever turn into. I wish you weren’t my mother and if there was anything in my life that I would change… that would be it. You are beneath my contempt, you’re beneath my hatred and if I could have one wish it would be to never have to set eyes on you again.”
I shook my head, struggling to believe that the woman standing before me was really my mum. I walked away from him and did not turn back, resolute in my decision to move forward, away from my mother, my past and the person I used to be.
Remembering the events of what happened causes me to sob even harder. It’s been an hour since I left my mother’s house and an hour to comprehend everything that was said. My phone has been ringing since I got back home and I know it must be Zack wanting to discuss the argument we had earlier about Aaron.
How am I going to tell him about my mum? How am I going to tell him that she knows about us? It feels like my whole world is crumbling around me and all I can do is sit there and watch. I could lose everything, everything in my life that I care about. Zack and Rachel, even Jason when he finds out the truth.
With no idea where to go and with no idea who I should turn to, I decide to flee. I run. I get the hell out of there and run for my life.
For the second time that day I don’t look back. I keep my head held high as I make my escape and leave it all behind. I don’t look back and unfortunately for me, this turns out to be the greatest mistake of all…
Chapter Sixteen
Two weeks later…
Fourteen days. That’s how long it’s been since my emotional breakdown on the floor of my bathroom. Fourteen days since I spoke to Zack and fourteen days since I last saw him. Fourteen days since the confrontation with my mother and fourteen days since I fled.
I’ve been hiding out at Audrey’s for the past two weeks, refusing to get in contact with anyone. It’s as though I’ve somehow managed to cut myself off from the rest of the world, I’ve isolated myself to the point that I’m now too terrified to return.
I left my apartment two weeks ago and came straight here. I turned up in the middle of the night on my boss’s doorstep, frozen, destroyed and utterly bewildered as to how I even got there. She ushered me in and ran me a hot bath before forcing me to eat something small. She then put me to bed and let me sleep for twelve hours. I woke up the next day around noon wondering where the hell I was.
Audrey sat with me for the remainder of the day, offering me her kindness, understanding, compassion and empathy. She proved to me what a remarkable woman she really is and I know I will never be able to repay her kindness. She eventually convinced me to send Rachel a text, letting her know that I’m ok and not to worry about my whereabouts. I really didn’t want to contact anyone but knew that if I didn’t there was every chance that Rachel or even Zack would phone the police and report me missing.
