Obsession (Dangerous Love #1)

CHAPTER 22

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A FATHER’S LIES

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The next day, Harris didn’t come to school, nor did his friends.

And neither did Joshua.

I fought with every ounce of strength not to think about it, not to care about what they were doing. He had called me twice last night to make sure I was okay. When he called a third time, I didn’t answer.

He had offered to take me to school this morning, but I preferred to come with Kristen.

I tried to pretend everything was okay so I would not get sucked into any more drama in this town, but it was so fucking difficult after sleeping for a couple hours with the most horrible scenarios in my head.

Adam had called a couple times too, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him. I didn’t think he was a traitor, I didn’t judge him for what he’d done, quite the opposite. All the shit that had happened to him and his family was because of me. We’d had a brief text message conversation because I wanted to know if he was okay and safe.

Harris had kept his word and sent someone to take him to the airport.

It was pouring outside, and the atmosphere matched my feelings. The headache wouldn’t budge, and I had a stomach full of pills, but all I wanted was a damn joint or maybe a punch in the face to put me to sleep.

When I got out of math class, I thought about coffee and a cigarette. That was all I wanted because I wasn’t hungry and I wasn’t in the mood for dozens of stares thrown my way.

Besides, Amber was absent from school, and that was the only good thing about my day.

The commotion in the hallways intensified my headache, and I closed my eyes and breathed slowly as I waited for my coffee cup to fill. I hated the coffee from the vending machine from the bottom of my heart, but I had no other choice.

The loud voices slowly faded away, then blessed silence surrounded me and I opened my eyes.

I began to no longer appreciate silence when I had it. I had experienced firsthand that quiet settled only when monsters came out to play.

I turned around and saw them, and maybe they weren’t monsters, at least not to me, but everyone saw them that way.

Harris, Jay, Ty and Ken came through the doors. They all looked… God, they were more than this pathetic high school could handle.

They were all dressed the same. Black jeans, combat boots, and black turtlenecks. Harris was also wearing leather gloves, which for some reason made him look even creepier. I didn’t want to think about why he was wearing them, what he was trying to hide with them on his hands, because they definitely were not a fashion choice.

He looked like… an assassin who had just finished a job.

Of course, my gaze rested on him and only on him, for it was the first time I saw him like that, and I tried hard not to forget what was happening in our lives, in my life, and not to fall prey to the rabid thoughts he evoked.

They ignored every glance around them and scattered to their individual lockers, only Harris and Ken approaching me. The Asian guy probably knew more about my friend than I did. He just said hello and then walked past me.

Without saying anything, Harris smiled subtly and handed me a paper cup, which he was already holding when he walked in.

I blinked in shock.

“You brought me coffee?”

“I thought you needed a good coffee, and I think I was right,” he glanced at the machine behind me.

I had no way of turning down the divine Starbucks for the two dollars of disgust that machine offered.

I took the coffee from his hand and took a sip, feeling my neurons reactivate, and almost groaned with pleasure.

Harris smiled like a satisfied, beautiful con-artist. Caramel, vanilla, coffee, ice… heaven.

My serotonin levels rose instantly.

“Thank you, I really needed this,” I breathed out as I managed to calm down a little.

It was incredible how my taste buds played around my brain.

“You’re welcome,” Harris whispered, slowly moving closer to me.

My back was glued to the coffee machine, and he grabbed my hips.

I looked down at his lips and tried to concentrate. Fuck, this was hard.

“Why are you wearing gloves?”

“It’s cold outside,” he spoke over my lips and I frowned.

“You promised you’d never lie to me.”

His lips traveled to my ear.

“I’m not lying, it really is cold outside.”

I wanted to kick him in the balls, I would have thrown the coffee in his face if it hadn’t been so precious.

He held me tighter when I wanted to leave his side.

“And I wear them because I only want to leave my fingerprints on you from now on.”

I understood what I wanted from him, and it was clear I wasn’t going to get a better answer.

“Where’s…”

“Oh, fuck it, baby, I swear I’ll answer anything you want, but right now…” his lips pressed against mine and my serotonin levels skyrocketed until he managed to chase away my headache.

I hadn’t kissed him yesterday before he’d left and I’d regretted it all night, now I was getting it all up front and Harris was offering me more than I could bear.

He held me tightly in his arms and breathed hard through my lips, his jaw was locked tight and I felt the cold leather gloves glide over my hips as he lifted my t-shirt a little.

We only pulled away because we were in public, but even that didn’t seem reason enough as Harris bit his bottom lip, still looking at my mouth.

“I want you to tell me everything you’ve done,” I whispered so only he could hear me.

He nodded and looked me in the eye.

“Am I… safe?”

My question hurt him, I could see it in his eyes, the fact that I had to ask that.

“Yes, you are. You and everyone you care about. I promise.”

That was all I needed to hear, and so I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Most of the students had already gone to the cafeteria.

“Are you hungry?”

It seemed like he was stalling, but luckily for him, I really was hungry. The calming effect his arrival had on me had got my body working again. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime and that felt awful now.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I want to go to the cafeteria.”

“We can go somewhere else.”

I looked at him and analyzed the option; the chances of us getting back to school, especially on time, were slim.

“No, you’ve skipped enough school already.”

I took his hand and pulled him toward the cafeteria, and he didn’t protest.

The excitement seemed to have moved here, and our arrival no longer silenced anyone, which felt good. As I laid eyes on their usual table, I only noticed the boys. None of them had anything to eat, just a soda or an energy drink.

“Where’s V?”

“She’s not feeling well.”

I looked at him, startled.

“Did something happen?”

“No, nothing you’re imagining, she just didn’t feel like coming to school. We can go see her after school if you want.”

I remembered that he had kept talking about her yesterday; every time he talked about Joshua, her name came up. We really needed to see her.

My friends stared at us intently, but Harris didn’t give me a chance to change my path. He carried my tray in one hand while the other rested on my lower back as he led us to his table.

“Hey,” I waved to the others because I hadn’t had the chance earlier. They all smiled and greeted me, which is when I noticed Jay’s knuckles were red, like he had punched something repeatedly.

Something or someone. I swallowed the lump in my throat and wanted to sit down, but Harris pulled me closer to him and seated me on his leg. It wasn’t different from how I’ve sat yesterday, but now the circumstances were different, I could feel it. The atmosphere had chanced.

And V wasn’t sitting on Jay’s leg right next to me. Now I was alone, on Harris’ lap, at a table with four boys who looked like they’ve been taken out of a modern Assassin’s Creed version. Harris opened his energy drink, and I finished the rest of my coffee. My legs rested between his, my back protected by his torso as he held an arm around me. Ken and Jay took the seats on our sides, and Ty in front of us. It didn’t take long for me to figure out it was a protection tactic.

Protection for me.

At the next table sat a few other friends of his whom I knew from the race track. It seemed I wasn’t that safe after all.

“You probably want to know what happened to Joshua,” Harris whispered in my ear after he pushed my hair to the side.

I looked at him wide-eyed, since I hadn’t expected him to bring up the subject, and nodded.

“He’s still in custody. Fucking Walker won’t let him out.”

He was alive.

That was the first thing that came to mind. Until that moment, I had subconsciously thought that Joshua… no longer existed.

I was shocked at the relief the news brought, despite everything that psycho had done to me.

“Why? Has he admitted anything?”

“No, but he knows what will happen to him if he releases him.”

The lump in my throat returned.

“Harris, you are not going to—”

“After what he did to you, I’m going to make him beg for a bullet.”

His grip on the can tightened, and I looked around inconspicuously, since this wasn’t a conversation you could have with other people around.

“He can’t keep him there forever. I’m patient,” he said with alarming calm, then took a sip of his energy drink, “please, eat something.”

I looked at the sandwich on my tray and my stomach turned.

“Pretty difficult after that information.”

I took a sip of his drink, which tasted awful after coffee, then bit into the sandwich, which was not at all what I’d hoped it would be.

“It’s going to be okay, Kath, he can’t get to you anymore,” Jay reassured me, his tone quiet and more serious than I’d ever heard him.

“We’re keeping a close eye on the precinct, he won’t have another second of freedom,” Ty added.

They had clearly misunderstood my reaction.

“What if he gets a restraining order?”

They all giggled at the same time, while Harris just smiled like a wolf that seemed excited to play with its prey.

“I’ll shove it so deep down his throat that it comes out the other side, along with his teeth,” Jay said, clenching his fist around his drink.

“And the other guy? Olsen?” I changed the subject as Harris picked up the sandwich and held it out to me.

“Taken care of,” Jay replied, and I looked at him in shock.

Ken sighed softly.

“He means you don’t have to worry about him anymore, Kath,” he explained, giving Jay a nagging look.

“That’s what I said.”

“It’s clearly not the same,” Ken grumbled as he twirled a lighter between his fingers, probably wishing he could light a cigarette.

I would have liked one too.

“Please, eat something.”

Harris whispered the same request in my ear, but my eyes went straight to his gloves. I couldn’t stand him touching me with them, no matter how sexy he looked. I knew it wasn’t okay to do that, not here, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to see it. I needed to know.

I took his hand in my lap and covered it as best I could. When I undid the button on his wrist, Harris clenched his fist.

“Don’t!” he breathed into my hair, and I squeezed his hand tighter.

“You promised,” I whispered without looking at him, and he didn’t budge.

After a few seconds, he loosened his fist, and I subtly pulled the glove down on his right hand.

I felt the same way I had felt when I had taken out his contact lenses, but instead of discovering paradise, I discovered an inferno.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy to look at him, that he was hiding something, and that the explanation earlier about his fingerprints wasn’t true. I had prepared myself to show no reaction, but that proved difficult and a shocked whimper escaped me.

The back of his hand was ruined, each knuckle covered in bleeding gashes far worse than Jay’s. They looked like he’d punched a hard surface.

“I didn’t just get them because I punched someone in the face. I lost control yesterday after I brought you home and hit a wall. Pain calms me, it helps release the anger that drives me to kill everything around me.”

I looked at him, noticed the sincerity in his eyes, and then looked again at his destroyed hand. I was sure he was in pain even now, it was impossible not to, especially as he had not cleaned his wounds. I couldn’t help myself and examined his other hand, which was less bloody but still very injured.

After I had removed his gloves completely, I wiped the blood away with a tissue.

“Say something,” Harris whispered, resting his chin on my shoulder.

There was sorrow in his tone, and I knew it wasn’t because of the injuries.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what. I didn’t want to think about what else he had hit besides that wall. I wiped away the clotted blood as best I could and let him believe whatever he wanted.

***

We had no further classes together, and it became quite difficult for us to see each other and have a serious discussion. He would wait for me after each lesson and lead me to the next, but our conversations ranged from inconsequential to non-existent.

He put on gloves again, and it was for the best.

At the end of the day, I got a very unpleasant surprise when I saw my father waiting for me in the parking lot. I had skipped detention, but I realized pretty quickly that it hadn’t been a good idea.

Harris stopped at the exit. It was drizzling outside, and the atmosphere was as depressing as a funeral.

“Did you call him?”

I shook my head.

“No way.”

My dad flashed his lights, and I exhaled through my nose because I wanted to go somewhere safe with Harris and get some serious answers from him.

When he realized I wasn’t coming out, he called me.

I hung up and looked at Harris.

“I’ll get rid of him and call you later. Promise me we’ll meet up and talk.”

Not caring that my father could see him, he took my face in his palms and stepped closer to me.

“Call me whenever you want. I’ll pick you up.”

Satisfied with his answer, I nodded, and he leaned down to softly kiss me.

He was aware that my father was watching us, and so was I, but I couldn’t find the strength to care. At least he was respectful enough to give me a gentle kiss.

I broke away from him and walked through the rain to my dad’s car. My leather jacket held up, but I couldn’t say the same for my hair. I reached the door and yanked it open angrily, got in and goosebumps covered me as the cold hair stuck to the back of my neck.

“What are you doing here, dad?”

“Hello to you too,” he mumbled, still looking straight ahead through the windshield.

I knew who he was looking at; Harris was still in the same spot, talking to Jay, but I knew he was calmly waiting to see if I could get rid of my dad and get back to him.

“Hi,” I mumbled, “what are you doing here?”

“Can’t I just pick you up from school?”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

He looked at Harris again.

“Really, dad? You couldn’t find a better moment to scold me about Harris? Couldn’t you wait until I got home?”

He snorted and started the engine.

“You say that like you’ve been home a lot lately.”

We had left the parking lot, and I gave Harris an apologetic look. Our chance to talk had passed.

“I was home after class yesterday, you weren’t there. And when I got home last night, you were still gone.”

He hadn’t seen me, I’d managed to avoid him, but now that I was sitting next to him, he noticed the bandage on my forehead.

“What happened?” he asked worriedly.

“I hurt myself at cheerleading practice. Nothing serious, don’t worry about it.”

The lie came naturally because I’d been thinking about it since yesterday. There were a few other scratches on my face, but I’d managed to cover them up with a lot of makeup. My palms were still burning, and I tried to hide them from my father.

“So that’s… Harris.”

The way he said it made me smile, amused me even, then I realized he wasn’t driving to our house.

“Dad, where are we going?”

He just sighed without giving an answer, and that started to worry me.

“Dad…”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you lately and I now realize that was a mistake.”

I didn’t respond, mostly because I wasn’t able to process another shock. My dad looked at me and then sighed when he couldn’t read anything on my face.

“I didn’t just come back here because I wanted to get back to my family.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“Then why?”

As he didn’t answer and became more and more embarrassed, I began to understand on my own. The corner of my mouth tilted up in amusement.

“Dad, are you seeing someone?”

When he didn’t say anything and just looked at me like a shy teenager, I started to laugh.

“Okay, you’re taking this better than I expected,” he stated with relief, and I struggled to suppress my laughter.

“Dad, you’re single, young, why should that bother me? It’s not the same situation as with… Mom.”

That sobered me up, because I couldn’t be amused when it came to her, and my dad just gave me a gentle smile.

“I am dating someone, but it’s not that simple.”

I frowned again, my head spinning. Why did something so simple have to be explained in such a complicated way?

“Can there be other ways to find a new girlfriend?”

“Well, yes, if the girlfriend isn’t exactly new.”

That didn’t sound good. In fact, it sounded pretty damn bad.

My dad took a deep breath as he rubbed his forehead with his fingertips while driving through a neighborhood I hadn’t been to yet.

“Just wait a little longer, okay? It’s better if we tell you the whole story together.”

“Together?”

He stopped in front of a house, and I turned my head.

“Please, just promise me you’ll listen.”

I looked around, analyzing the neighborhood, which was very similar to ours, except here the houses looked bigger, then I looked at my father. I knew another mental blow was about to follow, I could feel it approaching so slowly it was almost static. This wasn’t just a new post-divorce relationship, this was something else entirely, and my dad’s face proved it. And I thought he was just spending a lot of time with his family.

“Now you have really made me curious,” I whispered, a hint of threat in my tone as I narrowed my eyes at him.

I could understand that he had a new relationship, I could accept that, but if said relationship existed since before my mother left… then we were going to have a huge problem.

When I got out of the car, all my hair stood up, but I couldn’t feel anything.

My father walked into the alley, and I followed him. He stood next to me like I was a bomb he couldn’t stop in time, and that’s exactly how I felt.

When we reached the door, he looked at me.

I raised my eyebrows, a gesture that silently told him to get it over with, because delaying the inevitable wasn’t going to make me feel any better.

He knocked, and I analyzed the house while we waited for the door to open. It seemed older than ours, the white paint on the outside walls was cracked and the lawn hadn’t been mowed in a long time.

I tapped my foot restlessly, stress prickling my skin as my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a text from Harris asking me if everything was okay.

I don’t know yet.

I sent the reply, then the door opened. I was about to sneeze, but my breath caught in my throat when I saw who appeared in the doorway.

“Christopher!” the blonde woman exclaimed, startled, looking first at my father and then at me.

“Hi, Roberta.”

I felt my knees go weak as my father leaned down to kiss this woman – he was bending a lot - considering she was in a wheelchair. I watched the whole thing, perplexed, frozen in the doorway.

My father straightened up and looked at me as if praying that I wouldn’t explode any time soon.

We entered as she invited us in, having moved back a little.

I had expected many things, but not this. Her situation automatically made me soften, but not completely.

My father was single, spending his time keeping me in the house and constantly under control. A new woman in his life was actually a very good thing for me. I didn’t think of her as my new mother, and I definitely wasn’t going to call her that, but as long as she kept my dad busy and left me alone, maybe I wouldn’t be as much of a bitch as I had planned to be before I met her. But of course I had to find out the circumstances of their rekindled love first, because it all seemed too suspicious.

We followed her into the living room, and I noticed that her whole house was white, from the paint on the walls to the furniture.

The woman stopped by the couch, but my father didn’t sit down, instead standing vigilantly near me, analyzing my every reaction.

“Katherine, you probably already figured out that Roberta…”

“Yeah, yeah, your girlfriend, I get it. Well then, mazel tov or something, I hope your house doesn’t have too many stairs.”

I bit my lip, realizing my words as soon as they came out. Could I have not made a sarcastic remark about her?

Remember, Katherine: be nice and let dad be, otherwise he’ll find out what you have been doing the last few days and you’ll attend his wedding locked in a closet.

He gave me an angry look.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“It’s okay, I get that a lot, and you’re right, I hate stairs.” My father’s new girlfriend – possibly my soon-to-be stepmother – gave me a warm smile.

I believed her that she was crazy about my dad, and she also understood that he came with a foul-mouthed daughter.

Well, at least that was out of the way.

“Yes, we’re together,” he confirmed, trying to get the conversation back on track, “but we’ve known each other for ages.”

And that’s where the suspicious part came from.

“Roberta was my first wife.”

A few seconds of silence followed as my breath caught and I looked at my dad, expecting him to tell me he was joking, but he didn’t.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He was serious, she was serious. No one was joking.

“What?!”

I raised my voice this time, realizing what he had just told me as I felt my legs weaken, and it wasn’t just a feeling, because soon my knees buckled.

I tried to regain my balance before my father caught me. Wait for the explanation, my mind reassured me, even though I was about to explode.

“Your first wife?!” I repeated, giving him a criminal look I couldn’t control.

This was worse than I’d expected, worse than anything.

“Katherine, please, listen to us…”

“You shut up!” I let out, yelling at the woman standing in front of us.

It had been too good to believe that an experience like this would have a happy ending.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I yelled again, unable to calm down, and immediately heard footsteps behind me as someone joined us in the living room.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

I froze.

I couldn’t turn around to put a face to the voice, but I already knew who it belonged to. That sound was a migraine that wouldn’t leave me alone. The voice came closer and the hair on my head stood up as if I’d been electrocuted when I saw Amber next to me. Her hair was a mess, her makeup was ruined and running down her chin, and her eyes were red from crying.

Wake up, abandoned princess, we have problems.

“Mom, what are they doing here?” she screamed, looking at my father with the same anger as she looked at me.

So she already knew him.

Everything soon fell into place in my head, making me dizzy. Amber Wrise… first wife… no, she couldn’t be…

“Dad, please tell me she’s not my stepsister!” I gritted my teeth, panting and trying to keep my balance.

As soon as the words left my mouth, Amber seemed to throw up in her head.

“Yes, Katherine. Amber and you are stepsisters and you are both my daughters.

“I am not your daughter! Don’t you dare ever call me that again, you motherfucker!” Amber roared deafeningly.

Her mother scolded her to calm down.

I was aware that the news was causing me to overreact, but I couldn’t control it. I gripped my hair, wishing I could scream out my anger.

“Please, let me explain…”

“Explain what? That you abandoned me before I was born? That you abandoned my mother and ran off with a whore?”

I exploded.

Like in our first psychology class when I snapped the pencil in half, without realizing my actions and without Harris around to stop me, I turned and slapped her across the face.

Maybe she wasn’t the best, but I couldn’t let anyone talk about my mother like that in my presence.

“If you say anything like that about my mother again, you’ll be sharing a chair with yours,” I said through clenched teeth, leaning down to her face because our height difference worked to my advantage.

“Oh, really?” Amber straightened up, full of superiority. “Then you tell me. What do you call a woman who works in a nightclub as a pole dancer, seduces men, eats their money, and then changes them like they’re used socks?”

I seemed to burst a vein in my temple, especially since no one was contradicting the amount of shit Amber was spewing.

I went to hit her again, but my dad caught my wrist and pulled me towards him.

“Kath, stop it. I know it hurts you to hear it, but… Amber’s telling the truth.”

I turned to my dad with a shocked look on my face.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but before and even when I met Amanda, she was a stripper.”

I tore myself from his arms, my temples throbbing with anger as tears fell from my eyes in streams.

“Are you all trying to kill me? Are you planning to ruin me completely?” I shouted at them, my hands still clasped in my hair.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take all the blows anymore. It was too much.

I had been stalked by a psychopath. I had seen death with my own eyes just a day prior, and now this.

“No, Katherine, honey,” he moved closer to me.

“Stay away from me!” I shouted, feeling my breathing getting heavier and heavier.

“Katherine, just let us tell you everything from the beginning, then you can judge us however you want,” the blonde woman begged, but I already hated her with everything I had.

“What truth? Now you want to tell me the truth? After lying to me all my life?” I threw the jacket off me angrily.

Suddenly I felt really hot. I was boiling inside and wanted to hit everything. Hit, and scream, and destroy everything and everyone.

“So, tell me, dad, have you been living with two women all this time? With two children? Did you keep changing us so you wouldn’t get bored?”

I mocked him hatefully. Amber kept her mouth shut, and for the first time, she seemed to be on my side.

“Katherine, it’s not like that…”

“That’s why you wanted to move here, right? You had it all planned out.”

I concluded sarcastically, every detail now settling in my head and everything making sense.

“Katherine, listen to me!” he yelled this time, which only angered me more. “I wasn’t with both of them at the same time. Roberta was my first wife, but her parents never accepted me. I loved her, so we got married in secret and that’s how she got my name. When her parents found out, they forbade me from seeing her. I was a poor student and couldn’t do anything about it.”

He was breathing heavily, the memories seemingly causing him pain. And it was obvious that they did, he had lost his first love. It hurt me to my core to realize that my mother hadn’t been that for him.

“I was alone, waiting for her to come back, but that didn’t happen. One night I lost my temper and wanted to forget everything, so I went to a club with some friends where I got drunk and met your mother. She was a dancer there and blew me away in seconds,” he paused and looked at me urgently, “I slept with her that night.”

I was unable to move.

From the first night… My God!

She never wanted to dance with me, even though her love of dancing was clear in her voice every time she spoke of it. She never explained why she stopped dancing.

She always told me that her dream was living “clean” through me.

I never understood what that meant…. until now.

I took a few steps back, not sure I wanted to hear the rest. He stepped closer, but didn’t touch me.

My soul broke in two again. I knew my father wasn’t lying; his face expressed all the sincerity I no longer wanted to see.

“We kept seeing each other after that, and a few weeks later we found out she was pregnant.”

“So that’s what I am? An unforeseen event? The consequence of that night of drinking where you wanted to forget everything?”

My words came out as hiccups, and tears clouded my vision. I closed my eyes and tried to suppress them, but I couldn’t, and I cursed my existence.

“No, honey, it’s not like that.” My father added desperately and tried to hug me.

I pulled away, nauseated by him.

“You didn’t even know her! You were drunk! How can you sit there and tell me it’s not like that? Did you pay her, or did you force her to sleep with you?”

“Katherine, stop!” he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Even though I didn’t know your mother back then, I fell in love with her from the moment I met her. We both consented, I didn’t pay her for it. I kept seeing her even before I knew she was pregnant. You were an unexpected surprise, but an extremely beautiful one for us. I was crazy about your mother, and I know for a fact that she was crazy about me, too. She quit her job, and we moved to New York. I ran away from my past and left it all behind for you, Katherine. Her past was much darker than mine, she worked there because she had to, not because she liked it. You became our sole purpose, and your mother and I loved you from the first moment we found out you were coming.”

That’s why they ran away, why his family never accepted them.

“Yes,” I replied with a bitter smile, “I can see how much you both loved me. How did she come to life?” I asked, pointing at Amber like she was the most disgusting thing in the world.

“After my parents forbade me from seeing Christopher anymore, they had to move me away,” Roberta spoke this time, “They owned many properties all over the country, my father was in real estate, so I ended up hundreds of miles away from Christopher in isolation. It was impossible for me to reach him, and after a while, I found out I was pregnant. Luckily, my parents were not as cruel as I thought and allowed me to keep the baby, it even warmed their hearts. After some time and a lot of begging, I managed to convince them to give him another chance. After a few months, I returned to Seattle and I couldn’t wait to see Christopher again, but I couldn’t find him.” Her eyes dropped, and I noticed the pain written all over my father’s face.

“I found out that he had moved to New York and married another woman who was also pregnant with him. I was devastated; I didn’t know what to do anymore. I couldn’t interfere in his life. He already had a new family and had started over. If I had walked back into his life, it would have been like stabbing a wound that had already healed. I’m not sure how the accident happened, I was blinded by pain and remember driving around with no destination, looking for something to end my suffering. And I found it. I collided with another car, and at that point, my life was completely destroyed. I was one step away from losing the pregnancy, and keeping it proved to be even more difficult. The accident had affected my spine and my womb was putting a lot of pressure on it, making it impossible for me to straighten or heal it in time. I was on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy, which proved to be very difficult after the accident, but I managed and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who brightened my life.”

She finished her story with a warm smile on her face, which didn’t make me feel any better. She’d had a pretty ugly life, the fact that she hadn’t remarried after my father and had even kept his name was proof of it. I was the mistake that had ruined the fate of two people, and much more than that.

“After she gave birth to me, my mother was never able to stand on her own two feet again. She waited for you the whole time. I hated seeing her cry and knowing you were happy somewhere else with your whore while my mother waited for you.” Amber’s words came out with a hatred I didn’t think her capable of. “I never wanted you to come back. I have always hated you for the suffering you caused my mother, and now you come back with your offspring to take away everything I had.”

Through Amber’s tears, I could hear the reference to Harris.

“At least you weren’t living in a lie. You had a parent, but at least she loved you and didn’t hide who you were from you. What good did it do me to have both of them? To realize that everything my family stood for was a mistake? That I was a mistake! That my mother was even more deceitful than I thought, and my father a liar? At least you were born out of love, out of a serious relationship, not a one-night stand.”

I shouted at her and felt my control slipping away. My father no longer had the courage to protest against my words.

I rubbed my forehead, feeling sicker and sicker, and gritted my teeth. I was breaking down, physically and mentally.

“You know what? Stay together. Be a big, happy family like you couldn’t be because of me,” I said bitterly and turned to walk out of the house.

My father ran after me and grabbed me by the shoulder.

“Leave me alone, I never want to see you again!” I shouted in his face and broke free from his grip.

I went out of the house and slammed the door behind me.

“Katherine, stop!” he called after me as I got into his car and started it, driving away from that damn house.

I opened the window and let the cool air hit my anger and despair.

I had no idea where I was going, what I was going to do, but I didn’t want to stay in this town another second, and I found myself taking the same route Adam had taken yesterday.

My father’s Opel couldn’t cope, the engine began to vibrate unnaturally, and the car shook. The needle exceeded 100 miles per hour. It couldn’t go any faster, but that didn’t bother me too much, I wouldn’t have cared if it exploded with me in it.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter and stepped the accelerator pedal to the floor. A light came on the dashboard indicating that the engine was overheating, but I ignored it. I passed the other cars and made dangerous maneuvers until my vision blurred.

The tears wouldn’t stop.

I couldn’t care less about his new girlfriend, wife, or whatever the fuck she was. I couldn’t care less about what my father had done in his past or what he was doing now.

What really tore at my soul was my mother. Her, once again, and getting the missing pieces of a puzzle that I had fought so long to finish. I never understood why his parents hated her, why he ran away to be with her, why she always talked about dancing like it was a shattered dream, why she changed the subject every time I had questions about her past.

All I had ever known about my mother was that she was a simple girl, with no friends, a sick mother and an older sister.

Everything about her was a lie, and I had no idea who the woman who gave birth to me was.

My rearview mirror was suddenly obscured by a large car.

My heart pounded in my chest as I relived the horror of yesterday.

It wouldn’t happen again, Harris had assured me he’d taken care of it.

The car was right behind me, but it didn’t overtake me, even though it had the chance to.

It wasn’t a gray Range Rover anymore. It wasn’t that stupid car, and I was struggling to keep my paranoia in check so as not to go mad. This time it was a black Lamborghini Urus, huge as a monster behind me, its windows tinted too.

I slowed down to give it another chance to overtake me.

It didn’t.

“Fuck!” I cursed and punched the steering wheel, then stepped on the gas pedal until the car began to smell of burned oil and rubber.

Smoke billowed out of the hood, but I didn’t stop. Under no circumstances would I be caught again.

I fumbled for my phone and realized it was in the jacket I’d left at Amber’s.

I cursed through my teeth and looked in the rearview mirror. It only took a second for it to flash past me like a lightning bolt. It wasn’t that hard, because I couldn’t go over 150 in my dad’s old car.

My heart leaped with hope as the car moved further away and no gun came out of the window.

Maybe it wasn’t…

Suddenly it braked and turned on its side, blocking the whole road.

I screamed a curse and slammed on the brakes, also pulling the parking brake to make sure I didn’t crash into the car. The engine shook, and the pedal slipped, a sign that something had happened to the brakes. I stepped on nothing a few times as my heart climbed in my throat. The wet road wasn’t much help either.

I came to a halt a few feet from the Urus.

My car was filled with smoke. I was panting and didn’t have time to think about anything else before I opened the door and got out.

I started coughing and leaned against the car, my nostrils burning because my dad’s car was smoking like a firecracker about to explode.

The other car wasn’t moving.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” I shouted through the rain.

There was no answer.

The rage still pulsing through my veins gave me the dangerous courage I didn’t need, and I headed for the other car.

I was so sick of the cat-and-mouse game. I had had enough. Little did I care if I ended up with a bullet in my brain, I just wanted to see who was behind those stupid tinted windows.

Before I reached the car, he revved the engine menacingly.

I didn’t stop.

At that moment, he accelerated and suddenly turned, not to run me over, but in the opposite direction. A few seconds later he was gone, and I was standing in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the road, angry and mentally exhausted.

The honking of a passing car brought me back to reality, and I went back to my dad’s car, which was no longer smoking so badly, but it seemed quite dangerous to get in.

I had no other choice.

I opened the hood and let it cool down, because that was the only thing I could do. I checked the water tank, which was empty, but I didn’t have any to replace it. There was plenty of it falling from the sky, but it wouldn’t do any good.

I waited a few minutes on the side of the road and sat down directly on the asphalt. I propped my head on my arms and tried to calm down, just then feeling that I was soaking wet and shivering.

The cold helped soothe the heated anger, then I relived the events that had just happened and realized it wasn’t the same as yesterday.

This wasn’t an attack, quite the opposite. It overtook me and blocked my path, it was the only reason I stopped, otherwise I would have driven like a madwoman until I met my maker.

Harris had told me that he would protect me all the time from now on, that there was someone near my house since yesterday after he left. I didn’t see anyone, but why did I feel like I had just met him.

Why didn’t he get out of the car? Why did he disappear so suddenly? If Harris had asked him to protect me, he was no mystery.

“Miss, do you need help?”

I winced and lifted my head when I saw an older man right next to me, and I hadn’t even heard his car stop.

My dad’s car was no longer smoking, and I stood up and slammed the hood.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

I didn’t have the strength to ask for help, to explain what had happened to me, to lie.

I got behind the wheel and tried to start the engine. At first it didn’t work, it coughed and smoke came out, but when I tried again, the car vibrated and started.

I managed to turn around in the middle of the road and waved my thanks to the man who had offered to help me. He looked at me as if he had just met a crazy person.

It was a true guess.

I managed to drive slowly back into town, the smoke growing thicker as the car signaled that it needed cooling water. I stopped in front of the first supermarket I found, and slapped my face on my palms.

What the fuck was my life?

How did I end up here when I had left New York to get back on my feet? It felt like I’d left a cursed city and landed in unmistakable hell.

I started coughing again, not sure if it was smoke or vapor, but it smelled progressively worse.

At least my backpack was still in the car, because I’d left it behind when I went into Roberta’s house. I dug around for my wallet and got out of the car.

I had no idea what the car needed, and that was going to be my dad’s problem. All I needed at the moment was a pack of cigarettes. Besides, I needed my phone back, but there was no way I was going back to that house today under any circumstances.

To say I was dizzy would have been an understatement. My head was throbbing with pain, and I got two Lion bars. You couldn’t call it food, but I needed a blood sugar boost. Before I went to checkout, I passed the cosmetics aisle and stopped in my tracks when I saw hair dye.

I took my blonde locks between my fingers and analyzed them. It disgusted me. I had dyed my hair in an attempt of removing my mother’s image, but I ended up looking like my father’s lost daughter.

For a moment, I was tempted to get a crazy color that would set me apart from everyone else, but I’d had enough of trying to change just to numb the pain.

I grabbed three boxes of the darkest black I could find.

It was time to get back to myself .

To the real me.

To the Katherine that had once been a fighter, because the one I was now needed all the strength she could get.

No matter how cursed my life was now, I knew this was just the beginning.