The Hardest Fall

“What did you just say?”

“Chris…he was at the apartment last night, with one of Dylan’s friends, JP. I think they were worried about him.”

“What did you tell him, Zoe?”

When I’d first come in, Mark hadn’t invited me to sit down, so I was still standing in the same spot. My hand tightened on the strap of my bag and the edge of the leather bit into my palm. It felt like the bag was my only protection against him, though in reality, it meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t think he’d actually hurt me, but he’d never looked at me like he wanted to end me right then and there either.

Hadn’t my dad warned me on multiple occasions to be careful around him?

“What the fuck did you tell him!” thundered Mark when I didn’t reply fast enough, and this time, I visibly flinched.

I hated the fact that he had the ability to hurt me. He shouldn’t have, I knew that, and the fact that my voice was small when I answered him bothered me even more.

“Nothing,” I forced out. “They didn’t stay for long.”

“Sit down and tell me everything.”

Maybe I had made a mistake in mentioning it to him. “I didn’t come—”

His palm hit the desk with a sharp crack. “I said sit your ass down and tell me everything!”

My heart hammering, I forced myself to walk with stiff legs and sat on the edge of the chair farthest away from him. A result of the anger I felt toward him, my fingertips bit into my palms the entire time. When I was finished telling him about the night before, making sure to keep the parts about me and Dylan out, he started pacing—angry steps, angry eyes, sharp, angry words.

“He doesn’t know about your mom. How many times do—”

“Our mom, you mean,” I muttered.

His eyes narrowed at me. “Danielle has never been his mom. We adopted him. His mom is Emily.”

It was right on the tip of my tongue to say something, but I decided to let it go. When it came to Mark, I knew it was better to pick my battles. I wanted to reason with him. Technically he was my father and I wished I could manage to call him by that title one day, but every time I thought about doing exactly that, I felt like gagging. This was one of those times.

“Mom called you before she passed away and told you about me. I wasn’t the one to call you. You said you wanted to meet me, you said you wanted to get to know me. You were the one who invited me to come here, so I came. I came because I wanted to get to know you too, not just Chris. My freshman year, you said it should be just us for a while, said we should have the time to get to know each other, and I agreed because I was already nervous about how and why—”

“What are you getting at Zoe? I don’t have time to go over the last three years.”

“Don’t put all this on my mom. She was your wife’s friend and you both cheated behind her back. She didn’t get pregnant on her own, and twice at that. I have no idea how you talked your wife into adopting Chris—I guess maybe she was really desperate to have a kid and forgave you for cheating on her—but I know the lies you told my mom to convince her to give him up.”

He just stared at me, anger burning in his eyes. I rose from my seat and forced my hands to relax at my sides.

“At first, I thought you liked me,” I said in a controlled voice. “I might have been a surprise that came, what, eighteen, nineteen years later, but you acted like you cared about it, cared about learning more about me. I thought we were getting closer. I never assumed I’d be like a daughter to you, but I thought we would have some kind of relationship.” I gripped my bag tighter. Why did I think he’d interrupt me to say something to ease my hurt? Surely he could see it with his own eyes, but he said nothing. “Never mind. I already have a dad, right? I couldn’t ask for a better one. You don’t have to like me, I don’t mind that at all”—that was something I no longer cared about—“but I want to get to know Chris. That’s what I said from the very beginning. Other than my dad, I have no family. No one. He is my brother, not half-brother. He is my brother, and I want the chance to get to know him.”

Something must have made it through because his eyes softened, the angry lines on his forehead slowly decreasing, at least I thought so. “We can’t tell him about your mother.” He sighed. “And Emily doesn’t know about you. She won’t handle it well if she learns that Chris knows she’s not his mother.”