“Mom, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
“This isn’t how I wanted to tell you,” she began, her voice trailing off. “I wanted to do this face to face.”
The knots in my stomach tighten and the world around me swims in and out of focus.
“You’re scaring me right now. Can you just tell me what’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you about your father.”
“My father? Now? What’s he got to do with anything?”
My mother blows out a breath, and her voice drops to a whisper. “He’s got to do witheverything. He’s the reason you need to stay away from the Slades.”
“What?”
“Miles Slade is your father. We met during freshman year at UCLA, and we were pretty crazy about each other. But you know how rich kids can be. After a while, I just realized we had different goals we wanted to accomplish in life, so I broke up with him.”
I barely hear anything after her revelation.
Her voice is a murmur, indistinguishable and drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears. Halfway through her explanation, I push the chair back and stand up. It falls backwards with a thud, and Jen comes racing out of the room, her hair still wet, gun pointed and ready. She takes one look at my face and lowers her weapon, frowning. I shake my head and point at the door.
She reaches for the car keys.
“You told me that my father wanted to be in my life but couldn’t.”
“I—yes, he couldn’t. Not with the kind of life he led, and the ambition he had. I knew you deserved better than that…”
“Why are you telling me this now? Did you just get tired of lying to me?”
“No, I never meant to lie to you. It just…it got away from me, and the more time that went on, the harder it got to tell you the truth.”
I am going to be sick.
“….you have no idea how hard it was to keep this from you….”
I want to take off in the opposite direction, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Instead, I scan the empty, half-lit streets around Jen’s apartment building, the blood still roaring in my ears. Jen and I set off at a brusque pace, hoodie pulled low over her head.
“Matt, I know this is hard for you to hear, but I have never lied to you before…”
I hang up, not ready to hear any more of this.
At the entrance to the parking lot, Jen leaves me and ventures in. My mother is still talking, but I’m no longer listening when Jen pulls up with the car, and I get in.
I cover the phone with my hand and give Jen a quick look. “We need to get to the Slade residence.Now.”
She presses on the gas and grips the steering wheel with both hands.
I hang up a short while later and squeeze my eyes shut.
Jen is saying something, but I keep hearing my mother’s words. Over and over, I see my younger self, begging and pleading for answers. I see my mom weave lie after lie about how my father wanted to be there but couldn’t, everything from being stuck somewhere remote, to joining a secure government facility that didn’t allow him contact with us.
Anything and everything but the truth.
She’s known this the entire time, and I felt like the world’s biggest idiot.
Eventually, I’d stopped asking and forced myself to accept the truth, never once thinking to find my own answers.