I hate Dad and Jeanine.
And now, I have to hate Kim.
25
Kimberly
Present
My mouth hangs open. I couldn’t close it if I tried.
The whole time Xander has been telling me his version of that day seven years ago, he hasn’t looked at me.
Not even once.
He’s the only one I can look at, though. I feel like if I don’t use him as a visual anchor, I’ll have some sort of a breakdown.
The wound at my wrist itches, tingling and scratching for a touch. I clutch it with my other hand, not wanting to feel that need for pain.
If I let it loose, it’ll just devour me alive.
“After that,” he says in the calm voice he’s been using since he came here. “I had to stay away because I didn’t trust myself around you.”
My nose tingles, but I ask anyway. “Trust yourself around me, how?”
His ocean eyes meet mine. They’re dark, desolate, as if he’s hanging at the bottom. “You’re my sister, Kim.”
He says it with harshness, like he’s trying to jam that information in my head.
He’s trying to hit that fact home.
And he should.
Because even as I hear those words out loud, I can’t believe them.
No – I don’t want to believe them.
Xander can’t be my brother. He just can’t.
“Maybe you heard wrong,” I say. “Maybe they weren’t –”
“I heard them again a few years later. Dad always gave Jeanine shit for the way she treated you. He made it his job to threaten her for not taking care of his daughter, of you.” He runs a hand through his hair. “You never noticed how he looks at you?”
“I-I thought it was Kir and that maybe he was Kir’s dad.” God. I didn’t even want to think about that option, but now, it turns out to be way worse.
Xander is my brother, half-brother, but it still counts as a blood sibling.
I kissed my brother.
I had oral sex with my brother.
I’ve fantasised about my brother my entire life.
Oh, God.
Oh. My. Freaking. God.
I think I’m going to throw up.