Zep chuckles. “Compared to a drug dealer who likes to smack around his girlfriends?”
“Fuck you,” Ben spits.
Okay, the rap sheet comment begins to make sense. I’m about to ask what exactly he’s been arrested for, but Bernie’s next statement knocks the wind out of me.
“Dad said he didn’t want me to be born. That’s why he’s never been home.”
I can’t breathe. The world fades to black as I realize the secret I’ve kept for her entire life is now out in the open. “You… said that to her?”
“That’s what he did to get a beating,” Zep says, his arms crossed with a satisfied smirk.
“You lied, Mom,” Bernie says, and her gaze shoots daggers at me. “I don’t want to go with him. He’s not my dad.”
She storms inside, slamming the door behind her, and I feel like I’m drowning. A current has me and drags me further and further from the surface. I can’t take a breath, and I have to sit on the porch.
“You never told her?” Ben asks.
“Why the fuck would I tell her that, Ben?” I snap. “I never wanted her to know!”
“I thought you already told her!” he shouts back.
Oh, it’s my fault he told his daughter he never wanted her and that’s why we’ve been alone. My bad.
“You called her a mistake, asshole,” Zep says. “That girl is anything but a mistake.”
“What else would you call having a defective kid at sixteen?”
“Defective?” I nearly shout. “Fuck you, Ben. I suggest you get out of here and never come back.”
He snorts, and he looks ridiculous. Trying to look smug when your eye droops doesn’t quite hit the mark. “I have a right to my daughter.”
“You want her for your own benefit. Don’t think for a second that I don’t know the real reason you’re in Gravelton. It sure as fuck ain’t out of the kindness of your heart,” Zep says.
Zep’s been looking into Ben? He never said anything. Then again, why would he? I would’ve told him not to, but I’m kind of glad he did. There’s clearly more going on with my daughter’s father than I ever would have guessed.
“What exactly do you think you know, asshole?” Ben asks.
Well, he clearly hasn’t gained common sense since we were kids. His broken face hasn’t yet proven to him he doesn’t stand a chance against Zeppelin Molloy.
“Did you talk to Butch?”
Butch? What the hell does Zep’s father have to do with this?
But whatever this means hits its mark because Ben’s face falls more than just literally. “Yes.”
“He told you to fuck off, and that’s why you came over here. Think it’ll look good to a jury when that warrant catches up to you.”
Warrant? “What the hell are you two talking about?” I ask.
Ben shakes his head. “It’s nothing. He’s making up shit as losers do. Take a look at what I drive and then what he drives.”
“Yeah, looks like you could’ve afforded child support for the past eight years no problem. But then again, the IRS has no record of your income because it’s not exactly legal, is it? Technicalities are your saving grace, aren’t they?”
Butch? Legal? “You sell drugs for the Venom?” I hiss. “Do you really have a death wish?”
“It’s worse than that,” Zep says. “He’s running from the cops. Got a warrant out for murder because the drugs he sold killed a teenager. He’s not here to be a dad to Bernie. He came to talk to Butch to get the charges dropped. When that didn’t happen, he was going to take Bernie to get sympathy.”
There’s so much to unpack in that statement, and I’m not sure where to start. So I start with the obvious. “You killed a kid?”
