"Are you with Dex?"
I sucked in a deep, ragged breath. "No."
"Where are you?" he asked in a gentle voice.
"Driving to his house."
There was another infamous pause. "By yourself?"
Damn it. I couldhave lied to him or at least not mentioned the earlier incident but I didn't have it in me. If he'd finally confessed to the existence of our other half-sibling then I could at least tell him something. "He's pissed off at me." My voice was still too ragged. "I left Pins and stopped by your house without him. He got really mad."
The only response I got was a long, low groan. He was trying not to blow his lid. Sonny knew I didn't need or want to hear him bitching at me. "Goddamnit, Ris," he sighed. "Don't do that again."
"I won't." God, I sounded so meek.
Another long pause filled the line. A million thoughts being processed by two different brains, I could only imagine. "Look, I'll let you know how everything goes. I want to find him as soon as possible, and Trip's helping. Once I get back, we'll figure shit out."
I didn't know what shit there was to figure out but a small voice told me that he was probably referring to the child in Colorado that, at least at the moment, neither one of us were fans of. I'm sure that once I wasn't so mad anymore, I'd come to my senses. From what Sonny had said, our dad hadn't stuck around there for long either. That man was a creature of habit.
Damn it. I could feel myself getting pissed off all over again. Even more so than before.
"Okay, Sonny." I wanted to bang my head against the steering wheel, but there was still another five minutes of driving left ahead of me.
"Are we gonna be okay?" he had the nerve to ask.
My heart swelled, only momentarily eclipsing the fury I felt toward our asshole sperm donor. My vow to not call him an asshole had apparently disappeared at some point.
Will might not answer my emails or bother to pick up a phone and call me, but Sonny had always looked out for me. It had always been an even give and take between us. We weren't forced together byobligation, but instead he'd gone out of his way to be in my life and I'd gladly accepted it.
And I hoped—I knew—I always would.
"I love you, dude. We'll always be fine."
The long sigh he answered with was relief for both of us. He promised to call me again soon and let me know what he found out, and I promised not to do anything stupid again. If he only knew.
I pushed all thoughts of my dad out of my head over the last minute of my trip to Dex's. I didn't think of him as I parked the car and made it in. I didn't think of anything as I grabbed clothes out of my duffel and headed into the shower.
But about a minute after I'd stepped into the stall, I thought of him.
And I screamed.
Not like a horror-movie scream, but the same kind of scream I'd expelled when I knew without a doubt that there was no hope for my mom. It physically hurt me.
The tears that followed afterward were just as painful.
Sonny had told me once that I'd felt everything more with our dad because I was the one who'd had him thelongest. More than Sonny by far. Will was only five when he'd left us, and I doubted he remembered much about the bearded man that used to tuck him into bed. The man he'd cried over for months. I'd been the one with the most memories. The kid who had cried over him for longer than a few months.
Those memories, right then, I damned. Because I was too old to feel so territorial, so betrayed. I had no right. I had no reason.
I couldn't help it though.
The fact that he'd had another kid while we'd gone through so much made me feel insignificant. Whatever issues I think I'd secretly harbored with abandonment flared up.
I thought of Will. Of my poor mom, and I wondered if she'd known about Colorado. The idea that she might have found out killed me a little inside.
Before I knew it, the tears had turned into sobs, then the sobs had turned into whimpers, and the anger and sadness was replaced with cold indifference.
By some miracle I managed to turn off the water—I hadn't bothered with soap or shampoo—and I tugged my clothes on, fighting back those pathetic tears that were ready to commit suicide again. The reflection in the mirror showed me that I was a mess. I didn't have an appetite and all I wanted was oblivion for the night.
