“You can’t go around saying stuff like this. What if someone actually believed you?”
“You’re supposed to believe me! Just stop and listen—”
“No,youstop it!” I recoiled at the vehemence in her voice. “Ever since I moved home, you’ve been unbearable. Sniping at Mom and being unconscionably cruel to Dad. And I don’t get it. Is it me? Am I taking something from you by being there that’s making you act up like this? I mean, you’re seventeen, Dana.” She shook her head in disgust.
“This isn’t about you! Of course, you would think that—”
“Uh-huh,” she said, like I was making her point for her.
The instinct to grit my teeth was fleeting. If any part of her believed any part of what I was saying, she’d be dying inside, hurting the same way I had. The thought shattered me. “It was the DNA test, Sel.” My voice trembled, and I didn’t stop it. “That’s when all this started, not when you moved home.”
So quickly that I almost missed it, Selena’s eyes flew to mine and there was a flicker of something other than annoyance. I took advantage of her momentary silence.
“Brandon McCormick came up as a match with Dad, a nearly 50 percent match, Selena. That means he’s either Dad’s father or his son. Did he look like a member of AARP?”
“Dana. Stop,” she said, in the kind of voice used to talk people down from bridges.
“Why don’t you believe me?”
“You told me the results were a bust, no real matches.”
“I know, but I was lying then because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“And this isn’t hurting me?” She huffed, more a sound of exhaustion than anything else. “So the first thing was a lie, but this is the truth? Why shouldn’t I believe it’s the other way around?”
I stepped toward her, reaching for her hand even as she pulled back. “Because I wouldn’t lie about something like this—you know I wouldn’t.”
“No? You’ve gotten really good about lying about everything else.”
“I don’t want to believe this any more than you do, but it’s true.” I pressed my clenched fist to my stomach and forced her eyes to stay locked with mine. “I have been going insane holding all this inside. I’ve barely been able to be in the same room with Dad, and looking at Mom makes me want to cry. And then I’ve been feeling so guilty around you, because I was stealing more time from you knowing your brother on top of the years you already missed. And Chase—” I closed my eyes when I said his name, my throat working before I opened them again. “You just have to believe me.Pleasebelieve me.”
But she didn’t. I could see it in her face.
“Why did that guy take off, then?”
“Because it’s hard. Every bit of this is hard.” I drew out the last word. “Brandon’s mom died right after giving birth to him, and he doesn’t want to hurt the man who raised him by acknowledging us.”
She started blinking too fast at me. Then it was like she shook it off. “No. How am I supposed to believe any of this? He’s lying, and Dad’s lying, and you’re lying some of the time but not all of the time.” She leaned toward me. “And I’m supposed to believe you now because this is one of the nonlying times, right?”
“You’re right,” I said, and the frown crept back onto her face. She hadn’t been expecting me to admit that. “I have been lying about a lot, to you and Mom and Dad. But I’m not lying about this. Look, I’ll pull up his picture on my phone and you’ll—” My hand slid over the flat back pocket of my jeans, and then I was frowning too.
“I’ll what? What do you want me to do here?” Her lips compressed, and I saw the hint of a quiver in her chin. “Just go home, Dana.”
“Will you talk to me at home?” The quiver in my chin was much more than a hint, but Selena started shaking her head while I was still talking.
“I’ll stay over at Whitney’s. I seriously can’t even look at you right now.” She pushed open the door to Lava Java and was gone.
And that wasn’t even the worst part. When I looked away from that shut door, I saw Chase standing not ten feet away, holding the phone I’d forgotten at his house.
CHAPTER 36
Iwanted to shrink away at the sight of Chase moving toward me. Not because he looked angry or cold, like the last two faces I’d seen, but because he looked like I’d hurt him when he’d never have done the same to me. Any hope that he hadn’t heard us vanished.
He stopped a few paces away and stared at me. He didn’t say anything. Selena had yelled and Brandon had seethed, but Chase’s silence was somehow worse. I had no altruistic excuse for the pain my actions had caused him. I wasn’t introducing him to a sibling; I’d used him, and now he knew it. Brandon had begged me to stay out of his life, and I’d done the complete opposite. I’d dug myself into it as deeply as I could, through Chase and even his mom.
And I knew I’d lost him.
Bruising pain gushed through me. I should have walked away that first day we met. I should have let him leave me crying in the parking lot.
