I pulled off at the gas station with visions of finding her bleeding out on the marble floor, playing through my head. Who the hell could be in my house this time of day?
GENEVIEVE
“Y ou, what’re you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” I stepped back from the doorway without thinking when she brushed by me.
“I thought you were gone. Didn’t you leave with my dad?”
“No, I’m still here, now answer the question.” I followed her into the living room and waited.
“I don’t have to tell you why I came to my own house. Don’t think for a second that you belong here. It’s only a matter of time before he gets rid of you like all the rest. You, wait… your hair.” My hand went to my head, and too late, I realized that I hadn’t put my wig back on.
After Gregory left, I got violently ill and had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. That was followed by the shakes and nausea, which negated my going to work today. I called out sick and crawled back into bed until the doorbell rang sometime later.
Not knowing what time it was and erroneously thinking one of the household staff had forgotten their key, I’d come downstairs to answer the door before checking to see who it was first. Then I wondered why the person had rung the bell because the next thing I heard was a key.
I was just about to ask her how she got one when she mentioned my hair. I could see her going through the motions of trying to recollect. “It’s you, Genevieve Bolton. It’s really you.” She laughed, actually laughed in my face, and for a split second, I was back there again, back to being the sad little girl who was teased and ridiculed.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m surprised you remember.”
“Sure, you look different; you’re not the same fat pimply-faced slob you once were, but I’d recognize that ugly hair of yours anywhere.” How could there be so much hate in her eyes still?
“You haven’t changed at all.”
This was not the conversation I expected to have with her once my identity was revealed, but I was too sick and too tired to fight. I knew that life as I knew it was over now, that she’d run and tell her dad the first chance she got, but my stomach was just not in the game. I felt like I would keel over any second, and all I wanted was for her to leave so I could find the first flat surface and pass out.
All my years of planning and plotting were about to go down the drain because I just couldn’t find it in me to fight. The thing is, I felt almost relieved that it was coming to an end. The burden of living with my secret was becoming too much.
“So what’s this? Your version of single white female or some other B-rated drivel? Is this why you came here and jumped into bed with my dad? Wait until he finds out who you really are and what you’re really doing here, Jenna. That this was all just sick game of revenge.”
“That’s not true; it might have started out that way, but I love your dad, and he loves me.”
She smirked and walked away, but I got in her way. “You’re right; that’s why I came back here. I came back to make you and your mother pay for what you did to me. But I never expected to fall in love with your dad.”
“Oh please, that was a million years ago; who’s gonna believe you now? Besides, mom made you sign an NDA when she paid you off, so there’s nothing you can do. As for you loving my dad, who do you think he’s going to believe? You should know by now that he’s going to choose me. He always chooses me.” She smirked and tried to walk around me again.
Though her words hurt, there was a ring of truth to them. I’d seen how much he loves her, how he’d gone out of his way to make excuses for her time and again, and I guess I understand it. The love between a parent and a child should be like that, unconditional. But there was another side to this as well—the side where she’d tormented me for years and scarred me for life. She may still win in the end, I might lose her dad, but surely, she should at least have the decency to own up to what she did and show some remorse.
“That’s all you have to say? That it was nothing? Do you know how you almost ruined my life? What impact your actions have had on my life over the years?” I shook my head when all I got with a scoff and a scathing look that reminded me that she would always have the upper hand. That she’d always be better than me. And it stung.