Southern Storm (Southern 3)

“I told him what I had to discuss with Liam was private.” She looks up now, and I see the broken girl who was there eight years ago. The girl who thought she was nothing and would walk with her head down to avoid eye contact. The girl she’s fought every single day since then not to be. “I can still hear his bitter laughter in my head, and when he guessed I was pregnant, he stood and walked around the desk. I held my breath, not knowing what he was going to do, but then he put his hand in his pocket and took out two hundred dollar bills.” My heart speeds up, and my blood starts to boil. “He threw them at me and told me to take out the trash.” Watching her say the words, I know they cut her deep.

“I’ll fucking kill him.” The words fly out of my mouth, and I don’t know who I’m going to hurt first—my father or my brother.

Chapter Four

Savannah

“I’ll fucking kill him,” he hisses. My heart almost explodes in my chest when he flies off the couch. I sit here in shock as he paces in front of me. “I can’t …” he says and pulls his hair. “I can’t even believe.”

My heart has been in overdrive ever since I started telling my story. I had to take sips of the whiskey in order to continue because thinking back to that time in my life is not something I like to do. It was a dark period when I had no idea what I was doing nor did I realize the consequences of my actions to the people around me.

“Beau.” I say his name softly, wanting to get the rest of the story out so I never have to say it again.

“There can’t be more,” he tells me, and the hurt fills his eyes as the tears fall. “They just wrote off their flesh and blood.” He sits next to me, placing his hand on my knee. I know that it’s just to comfort me, but I didn’t know how much I needed his touch until then.

“I ignored your father and then finally got ahold of your brother.” I swallow now and look at the empty glass and wonder how crazy it would be to pour another one. My head is already starting to spin, and I don’t know how much more I can drink without blurting out everything.

Telling him that I love him isn’t something I want to do on the same night I share my biggest regret. I don’t regret Ethan for one single minute, and I never will. The only thing I regret is who the sperm donor was. I lean forward and put the glass down on the table, hoping he doesn’t remove his hand from my knee. “I found him the week after. He was coming into the country club, and I told him I needed to speak to him.” I close my eyes, ignoring the pain gripping my stomach as I think back to that day. “He looked at me like I was dirt.” I avoid his eyes, not ready for him to see that it still affects me.

For my whole life, I’ve been looked at like I was dirt. Either that or a charity case. Not once has someone or anyone looked at me as just another person. I was always talked about in whispers. “She’s the one who Mary Ellen feels sorry for.” I would hear that one a lot when I walked into school, and some of the other moms would see me. The pointing was always evident. I tried to ignore it and tried not to let it bother me, but I would always go quiet and not make eye contact. “She’s her daughter,” they would say of my mother. God, that one would get me every single time. I would have to blink away the tears so fast that sometimes they would sneak out, and I would suddenly have “allergies.” But my favorite has always been, “She’s the one who ruined everything.” That one has been at the top for the past eight years along with the finger-pointing, the rude stares, and the blatant hatred worn on their face.

“When I finally told him …” My hands start to shake. “He told me it could be anyone’s, and it can’t be his since it was only one time.”

“What a fucking moron,” Beau hisses. Leaning back on the couch, he scratches his face with his hands and then looks at me. I have to stop talking for a second because all I want to do is lean back into his arms. I want him to wrap his arm around my shoulder like he does during scary movies. But instead, I take a deep breath and tell him the rest.