Wrong: A Stepbrother Romance

Not me.

“You shouldn’t be here. What are you doing here?”

“I’m just trying to buy a bottle of wine. Just like you.”

“You don’t live here. You know we do. There’s no other reason for you to be here, so why are you here?” I demanded shakily, forcing myself to look at him again. He had to be in his mid-forties now, but to my dismay, he looked the same. His evil hadn’t manifested into his appearance as I once imagined it would. He still looked like a nice man. Like everyone’s favorite neighborhood dad who coached baseball, drove a truck and manned the grill at barbecues. He still wore the same grey fleece zip-up, dark jeans and Timberlands. His sandy hair was still cut short, worn neat. Only his beard was showing age, peppered with a little bit of grey.

My stomach turned as I remembered how those bristles felt against my neck.

“Did you come here to find me?” My voice trembled barely above a whisper.

“I didn’t come to find you.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Sweetheart, I swear I’m not lying.”

“Yes you are.” I was losing my composure, if I had any to start with. I told myself to find Riley but I couldn’t move. My legs defied me, and my tongue blurted the words I told myself to suppress. “You’re full of shit, and you don’t care what that means for other people. You don’t know how they have to live with your lies.”

Owen shook his head and gave me a wounded look. “Geez… look, Sasha, I don’t want to talk to you until you’ve calmed down. Okay? You’re confusing me. You’re making me feel like I’m some kind of monster here.”

“Aren’t you?” I felt out of body now as I stared him down in shock. “How could you believe that you’re anything but a monster?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetie,” he whispered pleadingly. “I think you’ve remembered something incorrectly.”

“You are out of your mind.” My heart pounded so violently I thought it would knock my weight over. “But good for you. Good for you living so freely these past ten years, but you should know you lived at my expense.” My voice was finally coming out of hiding, rising from the bottom of my throat. “I was fifteen, and you were almost forty. You lied about everything to my mom, and then you harassed me for years after that with all those letters, because you still got off on talking about it. I still have them, you know.” I soaked in the expression of his panic. “I do. I have your letters. I have your diary entries. I have the one where you said you knew you had to have me the first day you met me, so don’t talk to me about remembering incorrectly because you’re the one who refused to let me forget.”

Owen breathed deeply through his nostrils. His pleasant features contorted to a grotesque look I found much more fitting for him. Steady on my feet, I glared at him – at the man who had damaged my family beyond repair. I took satisfaction in the fear on his face, and I savored every word I was about to say to him.

“You’re sub-human, Owen. And once you’re done living with the despicable things you did to my family, you’re going to rot in Hell.”

Owen blinked at me for a second, speechless. But then his ugliness returned. “Alright, now you listen to me, sweetie,” he said through his teeth. But just as he started toward me, a shrill voice came from behind.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Owen blinked past me. “Riley. Hey. Hey, hey, take it easy, alright? I’m just – ”

“You need to get the fuck out now.”

Riley’s voice was so crystal clear it practically echoed throughout the store. For that moment, time stood still. I saw Owen’s look of panic. I saw everybody stop to stare. Then I turned to see Riley fly past me in a flash of shimmering blonde. And suddenly, she was shoving Owen, wailing on him, screaming for him to leave. Her closed fists landed with powerful thuds to his chest, and it wasn’t long before staffers came running. I watched in shock as the scene unraveled around me. Blood rushed in my ears, and the sound combined with my sister’s shrieking deafened me.

“Piece of shit, get out! Get the fuck away from us!” she screeched, mascara smudged under her lightning blue eyes as someone yanked her off of him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

The apology came from a manager. To Owen. He stood between him and us, creating a wall as if we were the danger. He told Owen to take the wine he held in his hands. He was sorry, so the wine was on the house. My mouth fell open when I saw the bottles of Chardonnay he had his in his grip.

“Cunt.” Riley’s voice was so guttural she sounded possessed.

But I didn’t blame her because in that second, I was realizing the same thing. We hadn’t run into Owen by chance. He wasn’t here just because. He had come to see my mother. He was buying her the wine he knew she liked. It was no stretch to imagine that she’d invited him. Her weak spot for him was debilitating, and it always had been.

“I swear to God, come near my family again and I’ll have you killed,” Riley threatened Owen on our way out. He stood still, just staring at us with big, innocent eyes, letting the manager heap apologies upon him while his staff threatened to call the police on us, angrily shoving us out the front doors.

I didn’t resist it. I wanted out. I wanted to be as far away from the situation as possible. So I held Riley tight as I pulled her to the car, taking her keys and hugging her as hard as I could for as long as she cried. I stared out at the empty parking lot, at the main road and all the quaint wooden signs with their striped awnings. This was the town I thought I’d start anew in after Mom moved us away from Owen. I’d spent so many days of my summers across the street, under the red and white sign of the Italian ice shop. It was closed now, but we were always there every first day of the summer, when it opened its doors. I stared out at all of it. But as I did, I finally realized I was done trying to call this place my home.

When we finally climbed into the car, I got behind the wheel while Riley got in on the passenger side. We sat in silence for what felt like another eternity, and it felt like I could hear both our hearts pounding under our chests. But when Riley finally broke the silence, her words surprised me.

“I handed Travis divorce papers yesterday.”