You’ve treated him like shit. It takes two to tango.My conscience interrupted.
Pulling my hoodie back on, I grabbed my backpack and filled it with the recent additions to my collection. I needed to take them to that secret place where I stored all my trophies.
And where was that? Under the floorboards of my old bedroom at home, well, what was left of it, the one at Radcliffe Manor. My room was in the only wing that had survived the fire.
My mother died there, and it was theonlyplace I could go to feel near to her.
PHOENIX
I had a brother?
As I had read through my file, the anxiety I experienced when I first withdrew the papers from the drawer in my nightstand tripled.
At first, I only had my mother’s new married name,Leibrock. Luckily, it was a unique surname in the States. After searching through Whitepages.com and a couple of other online directories, I found her and details about her kid and husband. What could I say? I was smart. I excelled at the tech stuff.
Fuck!
Half-brother.I corrected myself, but still, a connection with another human being who shared some of my DNA.
The emotions thumping through my head were still indescribable. There were so many, all wrapped up together in one confusing lump.
I exhaled shakily as I stared down at the papers in my lap. This was the second time I’d staked out the house. I rechecked the address and glanced back up at the large electric gates into the estate where my birth mother now lived with hernewfamily.
The last two days after college, I had been there. My curiosity to know more about the man my mom had ditched me for kept growing. She had walked away and left me with social services so she could start another life without me.
The biggest question being, why?
Relaxing my body against the plush leather of Reed’s Jeep, which he’d lent me this time, I scanned the picture postcard street. The annoyance in my belly continued to stir.
The fucking Waltons could live there. The Waltons were this perfect family who all kissed each other’s asses and never had to deal with any real beef. It was an old show Ma liked to watch on TiVo. Too vanilla for my tastes.
The houses were large, and so there were only eight of them in the street. They all had big ass gates which led to a long driveway up to a huge house. I got the gist as one was open, and I could see into the grounds where an old dude was washing one of the many cars parked there. All expensive types with shiny paintwork that screamed, beware; pretentious cunts; like the Storm Summers of this world.
It was quiet, leafy, and nice, and I didn’t belong anywhere near it.
I had parked behind a large Red Maple tree and was skulking down, watching the fort that kept my mother from me.
Two old ladies in jogging gear walked past my car on the sidewalk, staring in, clearly wondering who the big tatted dude in the parked car was. I smiled and gave them a curt nod, and they turned away. There should be a law against old women wearing spandex. Totally gross.
I’d made it as far as the sidewalk in front of my mother’s gates twice before jogging back to my car. I get it was doubtful, but what the fuck would I say if theydidlet me in?
Hudson had suggested I put a note through their post box, asking her to contact me.
I wondered why the foster agency or social services hadn’tforcedmy mother to take responsibility for me. There were so many questions that I wanted answers to.
It didn’t say much on the internet about the dick she married—the father of my half-brother Alex. My mother had native American ancestry, it was distant, but it was there, hence the name Phoenix. I read that their surname was German, so I assumed she married a German dude. Not that it bothered me where he was from, I didn’t dislike Germans per se; I dislikedpeople, period.
When I thought about Alex, I felt a surge of protectiveness. Shit, I’d only learned of his existence a couple of days ago, and yet the curiosity I felt to meet him was huge. Like he could fill that piece of me that was missing, like no one ever had. Well, apart from Harper, if only for a short time. Now that the gap was wide open again.
After wondering fleetingly what the kid's father did for a living, I told myself I didn’t care. It wasn’t about him; he was no one to me. He certainly wasn’t my father; he was tall and thin with sandy colored hair and looked too young.
I took a moment to reflect on the identity of my real father, whom I doubted my mother would even remember. There wasnothingin the file about him. Like he was a ghost. I had been told that my mother had been a user, which was why I was taken away from her in the first place. My dad was probably some faceless dude that she’d fucked whilst she was high.
As I sat there, sweating my tits off with no air conditioning, I waited, my jaw clenched. Only Hudson knew where I was, well, and Molly, who’d been with him at the time of that conversation. Hudson was the one who’d put pressure on Reed to give me his keys. He’d still been sore about me taking the Jeep the other day and emptying the tank. I gave him full marks for realising that this time it wasn’t a trip to the gym or the store, it was important.
I’d spoken to Hudson at Molly’s house the day after I’d opened the file. He was keen to know what I had learned, and I told him everything. As I’d become choked up, bearing in mind this was in our old principal’s house, he’d taken me outside. Hudson admitted that he’d seen my file when he’d first come to live with us. He joined the family around a year after I did, when he was fourteen. I didn’t take offense at him not saying anything. It wasn’t up to him to spill that shit, and I wouldn’t have been ready to learn about it then anyways. Fuck me, I wasn’t ready now.
God, I was tired. Stalking was hard work.
