“I will rip you out of her fucking pussy myself if you don’t do it yourself. You’re disgusting.”
“Brett.” Madeline’s mom wiggled underneath my father, and my head sliced to the left as I peeled my eyes away. I felt sick. And angry. Really fucking angry.
My poor mom.
The rustling of blankets and loud, exasperated sighs from my father had my voice climbing.
“I’m not hiding this shit anymore. This is taking it too far. Fucking the neighborhood slut—again—before crawling back in bed with your loving wife?” I met his dark stare head on, which was infuriating because I was certain my expression mirrored his: dark, furrowed brows; sharp, taut jawline; inky hair rustled at the top; steel-blue eyes armed and ready to attack. I was a carbon copy of him.
“I hate you. I hate you so fucking much. Mom deserves so much better than you.”
I hadn’t always hated my father. Up until recently, he was my idol: hard worker, charismatic in the way that others moved out of his way without even being asked, made my mother blush on occasion, intimidated those that needed to be put in their place. But then, I grew the fuck up and started putting two and two together.
My father looked away for a moment as Madeline’s mom pulled the satin sheets up to her chest. I glared at
her. She was just as much at fault as my father. It takes two to fuck. They were both fucking assholes.
“We will talk about this outside.”
I scoffed, my sarcastic, dramatic laugh cutting through the air. “There’s nothing to talk about. You’re going to walk your sorry, pitiful ass home and tell Mom what a piece of shit you are.”
My anger was still there, boiling underneath my skin, but I’d have been lying if I said there wasn’t a moment of hesitation on my part as I saw my father’s brow line deepen. Amongst the other attributes that I’d listed, he was also arrogant. My father didn’t like to be embarrassed in front of others. I’d watched, in full disclosure, how intimidating he could get when threatened.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that.” He paused, zipping up his pants as I stood with my arms crossed over my chest. My jaw ticked as I held back a snarl. “I’m not telling your mother anything. This will only hurt her.”
“I’ll fucking tell her myself then, pussy.” The word spit out with so much distaste and raw anger that I caught the slight startle from Madeline’s mom. I turned around, my arms hastily falling to my sides, ready to tear a path down the hallway on an unfortunate mission to break my own mother’s heart, but I halted at the last second.
“Mom?” Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.
Her glistening eyes softened for a moment as she sighed, looking up into my face. The anger floated away instantly. Shit. “Mom… I’m so—” Her hand was like a feather brushing my chest. “You, my sweet boy,”—tears continued to fill her big, chestnut-colored eyes—“are my greatest love.”
“Heather.” My father’s voice was rushed, a gasp lodged in the back of his throat.
My mom’s hand fell swiftly from my chest as she blinked away her tears. She turned around and walked back over to the stairs and descended them one by one. Her light-pink robe swayed as she continued down the stairway and all the way to the door, not looking back once.
A loud grumble tore from my father’s throat as he rushed after her, calling out her name with every stride he took. I stood rigid in the same spot.
I knew I needed to move, especially before Madeline came out of her room with all the commotion. The last fucking thing I needed was to see her.
I dropped my gaze, wishing the anger would come back so I didn’t feel the guilt of having kept the secret that my dad was a cheating bastard for so long, but it was there, and it was heavy. A held breath clamored from my mouth as I rubbed the gaping hole in my chest.
“Well, it’s about time,” a feminine voice floated around me as I reluctantly brought my chin up.
My eyes flicked over to her even though I begged myself not to look. And fuck me. Long, blonde hair fell down in waves over slender shoulders and a perky chest, leading down to too-short cotton shorts and bare feet with purple nail polish on the ends. I made myself stare at her legs instead of her face, because I couldn’t fathom seeing her expression.
“What the fuck does that mean, Madeline?”
My chest heaved, and I was thankful because that meant my anger was coming back.
A light laugh tumbled out of her, and I couldn’t help it. I zeroed right in on that pink, pouty mouth. “I mean, it took you long enough to catch on.”
Did she…did she fucking know this whole time?
I crept along the hallway and made my way over to her, finally locking onto those sky-blue eyes that held so much depth that she always tried to hide. For a moment, I saw the old Madeline. The one that once made me a get-well card when I’d caught the chicken pox in sixth grade. The one that dropped off freshly baked cookies when I’d first moved into the neighborhood. The one that made me a friendship bracelet one summer evening after we’d stayed up until midnight playing basketball in my driveway. I got a mere glimpse of the fresh-faced, sleepy-eyed, no make-up Madeline. The one I used to crave before everything changed. The fleeting, distant feeling of losing her flew through me, making me even angrier.
My head dropped into her personal space, and I softly pressed her back into the door jamb, angling her dainty chin up to meet my stare. “You knew?” I made no move to hide the utter disgust in my tone.
“Of course I knew. Your dad has been fucking my mom for years, Eric.”