Page 102

“Yeah, I found your secret hide away. Well, actually, Mason found it. He told Daxon, who told some friend, yada, yada. You get the idea.” She winks at me and then points at the wall.
I turn and look at the birth certificate.
“Oh, and look at here, no father listed on the birth certificate. Now, that’s weird. If he was your father, why wasn’t he listed? Well, see a couple years later, it looks like they started adoption paperwork for Mr. Trevor Hayes to legally adopt you. But then they never finished it. See? He didn’t even want you then.”
My dad isn’t my dad. He was going to adopt me? Why didn’t she tell me? My life’s been a lie. My entire fucking existence is a lie.
I push up from the floor. I’m trying to process everything. How can they be this cruel?
“Why are you doing this?” I sob. “Why?”
“We have been telling you since day one, we don’t want you here. Your family destroyed another. My fiancé’s family is broken because your dad couldn’t keep it in his pants. Which turns out it’s because your mother was spreading her legs around town. You are slut trash just like your mother,” Bianca spits.
My hand flies to my chest, and I look around. No one is stopping this, no one is coming to my defense. Not even the kings. But I still don’t see them.
Where are the kings?
Fuck them. No, fuck me. This is why they hate me. My family broke his. My family single handedly destroyed his. My dad took his and her life.
Was this why my aunt wanted me here? Does she know this? Is this why she hates me? She’s just as bad as these people around me. She threw me right into the lions’ den.
She threw me into hell.
I stand, my feet and legs barely keeping me upright. I start to walk backwards and when I finally find my balance, I turn, bursting through the ballroom doors and out of that hell. No one comes after me, no one stops me. I run through the lobby and out to the front. Stopping only when I get to the taxi waiting area.
“Ma’am are you okay?” A gentleman asks me.
I shake my head, “I need to go home. Now. Please. I need a cab or something. Fast,” I say through gulps of breaths.
I hear him call over a cab, and I hop in without even thanking the person.
“Darkwood Academy, please,” I say to the driver.
As he takes off, I don’t turn to look at the hotel. I don’t want to see that place. I don’t want to see anyone that may have followed me out to continue the laughs.
I close my eyes and try to take a steady my breathing. Tears continue to stream down my face. Then I realize that at some point, I lost the roses, and that’s probably for the best.
“Miss, are you all right?” The driver looks at me through his rearview mirror.
“I will be,” I assure him, my voice wavering. My mind is reeling from everything.
My mother’s gone, the man I grew up loving as my father, gone. And now I find out there is someone out there who is my father, and he has no idea I even exist.
The lies. The fucking lies. What did I do to deserve all this? Why lie to me? Look what the lies led to. It led me to heartache. More fucking heartache. And another reminder that everyone I know doesn’t want me.
I’m alone.
There is nothing left for me. They win. I’m leaving. They finally get what they want. Me. Gone.
By the time we make it back to Darkwood, I’m in a state of just existing. I pay the driver and get out, looking up towards the sky. The wind blows my hair in my face, the coolness drying my tears.
“This is the mess you both left me. This is the life you chose for me. Because of your ways, your actions, now I’m suffering. I will always suffer. Your mistakes have defined me.”
I head towards my dorm, the campus quiet and eerie. But most everyone is at homecoming. Dancing away, taking photos, making memories. And I know that my downfall will be memorable for them.
No one stopped it. No one came to my rescue. “Adults” sat there and ignored the onslaught on me. My roommate even backed away, not wanting to associate herself with me.
I guess I don’t blame her.