Islammed the car door shut and locked myself in, furious and heartbroken at the same time.
How dare Colleen do this to me?
How dare she do this to Amelia?
What a vile, wicked, heartless woman. A horrible person, an unfaithful wife, and an uncaring mother.
I should have seen this coming, and I blamed myself. She had been coming on to me for a while now, but I had been trying to brush it off as drunk behavior that didn’t mean anything, telling myself it was all in my head. That was what I wanted to believe, so I did.
I was wrong.
I should have been strong enough to put a stop to her advances ages ago. To tell her I wasn’t born yesterday, and she had better knock it off. I had been in denial, even though deep down I just knew she would seize the chance to go further with me if the opportunity presented itself.
Now look where it got me.
Colleen’s behavior had been inexcusable, but it was me paying the consequences for her actions, when I had my own family to worry about. My own future.
With the woman I loved, and our baby.
The future I thought I would never have, until Amelia came along and changed everything.
Colleen had just decimated the lives of her whole family in one fell swoop, while simultaneously ostracizing me from my growing family. After everything had finally begun to click into place, and things with David were looking positive–how could she do this to us?
My eyes were full of tears, my heart thumping rapidly in my chest with the onslaught of emotion that was threatening to boil over.
I loved Amelia. She was my life. Everything that meant something to me had just been ripped away, and I wasn’t sure if I could contain the grief and rage inside.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement. The front door of the house opened, and Colleen hurried out with an overnight bag on her arm. David was nowhere to be seen, but Melinda and Larissa appeared shortly after Colleen, shouting at her from the portico to leave.
I had to get out of there. Turning the ignition and stepping on the gas, I started steering out of the driveway, but then braked hard when Colleen rushed to my car and threw herself in front of it.
“Hey! Stop, wait!” She shouted, hands in the air, preventing me from moving. “I need a ride, get me out of here!”
What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she taken the hint yet? Hadn’t she ruined enough people’s lives tonight?
I had reached my threshold.
The anger took over, and I yanked the car into park before getting out, leaving the door open, exploding with white hot fury.
“You’ve done enough, Colleen! Are you out of your mind? I’m not taking you anywhere. I’m not doing a goddamn thing for you, understand? What the fuck were you thinking? I’ve never been interested in you. I’ve never even looked at you. I should have told David about all the times you tried to fling yourself at me. I should’ve told Amelia that her mother was an insane, unhinged bitch!”
Colleen sucked in a gasp, then smiled; an unusual reaction, until I realized that she was embarrassed, and was trying to shrug everything off like it was no big deal. She started in on me again. “Nathaniel, come on,” she said in a pouty voice, making her way around the car. “Admit it. Youwantthis. You’re a playboy. Amelia will never–”
“Don’tsay her name. Do you hear me? Don’t even try to compare yourself to her.” She lunged for me again like she had in the cellar, but I didn’t want to hurt her, as rotten a person as she was. I caught her by the arm, dodging her.
Blood started running down her arm, and suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my hand.
I had sliced my palm in the cellar, failed to notice it in the aftermath, and was now bleeding all over Colleen.
“Nathaniel, you’re hurt, let me see–”
I didn’t care about the blood.
“Get out of my way, Colleen,” I said, my voice lower and full of exhaustion. I felt lightheaded–could be the bleeding, could be the shouting–and Colleen finally backed off, stepping away to the side.
Letting out a dramatic grunt of frustration, she stepped away from the car, giving in. She folded her arms at first, then started fishing frantically through her bag to no avail. “My cell phone…”
The creepy grin on her face returned when a window on the second floor of the house slammed shut.