Falling For Us Again

26. UNRAVELING

Chapter 26

UNRAVELING

Dylan

My fingers hover near the doorbell, suspended in a split second of indecision.

I shouldn’t be here. Not with how I acted the last time I saw her. Yet, here I am, standing outside Jenna’s front door.

The door opens before I have a chance to ring. Jenna stands there, her eyes narrowing slightly when she sees me.

“Dylan, what are you doing here?”

I shift to my other foot. “I was passing by. Were you going out?”

She doesn’t answer.

She hesitates for a moment, her hand still on the doorknob, and then steps back, wordlessly inviting me inside. I step into the living room, the faint smell of coffee lingering in the air, mingling with the musty scent of old paper.

Jenna doesn’t say anything; she just nods toward the couch. She looks like she hasn't slept in days.

“Are you okay, Jenna?”

She gives me a distant look. “What?”

“Is something wrong?”

She shakes her head. “No, nothing. I’ll get you something to drink.”

Before I can respond, she disappears down the hallway. I sit on the edge of the couch, my fingers digging into the fabric. My eyes land on a journal half-hidden beneath a throw blanket.

I lean forward, pulling it free from under the pile. The journal is open, and the handwriting is elegant and feminine. It’s not Jenna’s handwriting.

I’m about to return the journal under the blanket when Jenna reappears, carrying two mugs. She freezes when she sees the journal in my hand, her expression hardening, and I feel the temperature in the room drop.

“What are you doing?” Her voice is sharp, cutting through the air like glass.

I raise my eyebrows not understanding the sudden hostility.

She hastily grabs the journal from me, and a letter with some pictures slip from the thick journal, fluttering to the floor like a fallen leaf.

I reach down to pick it up, but my breath catches in my throat as my fingers brush against the corner of a photograph that has slipped free.

The image is old and faded; the colors muted with age, but the face is unmistakable. My father stands in the photograph, a younger version, sure, but there’s no mistaking that’s my father smiling in a way I’ve seen before.

And standing next to him is a woman I don't recognize, but she bears an unmistakable resemblance to... I glance up at Jenna.

What the hell is going on?

I stare at the photo for what feels like an eternity, my mind racing, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.

“Why do you have this?” I ask, confused.

Jenna’s footsteps falter as she sees the photo, her eyes darting between my face and the image. “It’s none of your business.”

“This—” I manage to choke out, holding the photo up, “This is my dad.”

Her face pales, and she takes a small, involuntary step backward, her arms wrapping around herself like she’s trying to protect herself from my words.

“What did you say?” She echoes, she’s white as a sheet, her voice a hoarse whisper.

I nod slowly, my heart pounding in my chest. “That’s my dad, and—" I glance at the woman beside him, the connection dawning like a punch to the gut. "And that’s your mom, isn’t it?”

“Why do you have my father’s picture, and why is he with your mom?”

Jenna shakes her head, disbelief etched into every line of her face.

“No,” she mutters, her voice trembling. “It can’t be. That’s not—”

“It is,” I cut in. “I know my father’s face. What’s going on, Jenna? Where did you find this picture?”

Jenna’s hands are shaking as she kneels, retrieving the letter. She flips through the journal frantically, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts, as if she’s piecing together a puzzle. Then she stops, her eyes widening. She thrusts the letter toward me.

“Read this,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

I stare at her for a few seconds before I take the letter from her, my fingers brushing the old, brittle paper. The handwriting is neat and methodical. Time seems to suspend.

It’s my father’s handwriting.

There’s no mistaking it. I’ve seen it a thousand times. I’d know it anywhere, and now it’s here, in my hands, in a letter addressed to Jenna’s mother.

The moment I begin to read, my stomach twists into knots.

The words blur together for a second before snapping into clarity, and I realize why Jenna is so shaken.

The words in the letter are from a man hopelessly in love with a woman that’s not his wife and full of things I can’t reconcile with the man I knew. My head spins, my knees weaken, and I sink into the couch as the implication of the situation settles over me like a heavy fog.

My father and Jenna’s mother. They had been together. In love. Then having an affair on our parents?

“Is this some kind of joke?” I wave the letter in the air; I can't keep the disbelief out of my voice.

Jenna watches me, her arms still crossed. “I truly wish that it was,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

My throat tightens. “My father wrote this letter... I didn’t know about any of this.”

“Neither did I. Until now.”

For a long moment, the only sound in the room is the soft rustling of the pages of the journal. My mind is stuck on the image of my father writing love letters to another woman, to her mother.

“How did they even meet? I can't believe this.” I mutter, more to myself than to Jenna.

“In high school,” she replies, her voice shaky but steady. “They were high school sweethearts. They only broke up because your fathers’ parents demanded that he marry your mom, and then my mother went on to marry my dad.”

I stand abruptly, pacing the length of the living room, trying to make sense of what I was hearing. My thoughts tumble over one another, a mess of questions with no answers.

“This makes no sense. My father was never unfaithful to my mom.”

At the mention of my mother, it all begins to make sense. I draw it a deep breath. “My mother knows about their relationship.”

Her eyes widen as realization also dawns on her. “That would explain why she hates me so much.”

She hands me the journal; the last entry was the day her mother died. She was trying to escape with my father.

“She died trying to escape.” I say softly.

Jenna’s shoulders slump, and for a moment, she looks small, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen before. “I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to remember anything about that day. I was in the car with her, and now I know that it was your dad driving.”

“I don’t know what to do with any of this,” she says quietly.

I cross the room in a few quick strides, taking her hands in mine. “I'm just as shocked by this too,” I admit, my voice low, my chest tight with emotion. “We have to go see my mother. She knows more about this than we do.”

She nods, her fingers tightening around mine. “I agree.”

We sit in the quiet of the room, the weight of our parents’ past pressing down on us, but somehow, in the midst of the chaos, there’s a fragile sense of understanding.

The past can’t be undone, but maybe, we can start to make sense of it.