She leans back, massaging her temples as though they ache, while I try to keep my balance.
“You knew they were sleeping together, but you didn’t do the math on Krysta?” I ask hoarsely.
“I saw the way Cassie looked at him. I saw the way he consoled her. I’m not blind. Then he figured out Cassie’s ploy for his attention. He realized she was endangering her own daughter just for scraps. He stopped coming to the hospital after the fourth episode Ruby suffered, but Cassie didn’t stop trying. As for Krysta, maybe I just lived in denial, refusing to actually do the math.”
She sighs, suddenly looking every bit her age for the first time in my life.
“A few months ago, I saw Krysta at a party. She smiled at me, and I saw it then. It was glaringly obvious, and I spent the next few days in a daze. Her smile is exactly like his. Just like it.”
She wipes a tear away, and she clears her throat before continuing. “I confronted Hershel, and he told me everything. It’s why he hasn’t been home in a while. Something like this would stain his saintly reputation, and it would negate all the good he’s done.”
“Something like hiding a child for eighteen fucking years?”
She looks up at me, and I see more tears. She never cries, so it leaves me feeling uneasy.
“And having an affair with a woman who willingly endangered her first daughter’s life. It’s all a stain. On him and on us. We’re all in the public eye in this town. Our family is prestigious, and something like this could ruin it all.”
I snort again, finding her hidden meanings.
“You worked hard to fuck up my relationship with Ruby from the start. She was right about you figuring it out. It’s why you’ve been pushing me toward all those women, knowing I had no interest in anyone else. You knew about Chole, too. I don’t know how you knew, but you knew. Is it because you didn’t want me learning the truth about Krysta? Or is it because you’re determined that Ruby isn’t good enough?”
A sadness fills her eyes. “Chloe told her mother the second she came back from that weekend. I’m sorry I used that knowledge against you. She didn’t realize her mother was so loose-lipped, and neither of them realized I would know whom they were speaking about when they referred to a girl you chased. It was an attempt to get Ruby to see the fact you’ve been keeping secrets from her. It’s the way Hershel always did me.
“I told you; I pity Ruby. The thing you have between you two is electric. Anyone can see it. But passion runs cold eventually, son. Opposites attract; it’s a known fact. It’s how your father and I came to be. It’s intense, it’s powerful, and it’s so seductive. But it fades. When all that passion dries up, all you’re left with are differences, and there’s nothing left to bridge that gap between you. Then what?”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “We’d never be you.”
“I said the same thing. After all, Margaret and Paul Colton made it look so easy. But not everyone is that exception, Corbin. The truth is that opposites only attract; they don’t stay together. Your friends keep indulging in the sudden sweep of fairytale romances, but let’s face it. No one is going to last besides Rain and Dane.
“Raya and Kade won’t even make it down the aisle. She’s already sick of wedding plans, and that’s just the start of our world. Kode and Tria… That boy is a volatile explosion just waiting to happen, and she’s too damaged to ever stand up to him. Rye and Brin? Their juvenile relationship depends on their fun little antics, but even that will fade. Allie and Wren… That girl has had a worse hand than Ruby, and Wren seems like her knight in shining armor. But he’s just a man, and eventually the new will wear off. Tag and Ash? Need I say more? He’s never been a one-woman-man. He’ll go back to being the same man he was, just like Hershel did. Just like you will, son.”
She gives me another sympathetic look, but I feel like she’s just stabbed me.
“I wouldn’t cheat on Ruby.”
“Hershel once told me that. I believed it until the third time he cheated on me. I quit living in the land of unicorns and rainbows after that and faced reality. Somehow I’d become a shell of myself, and I had no idea where to go. So I stayed. Now… now I don’t even recognize my own shadow, let alone my reflection. Is that what you want for her?”
I lean against the wall behind me when my legs refuse to support me the way they should. Mom stands and goes over to an old table, pulling out a drawer. She pulls something out before walking over to me.