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SUNNY

“G o clean yourself up—you’re disgusting!” Charles makes a revolted face as he looks at me, standing there in the middle of the living room.

“Yes, all right,” I say mechanically. I feel like I’m in shock for now but any minute I’m going to break down. It’s like someone shot me through the heart and I haven’t quite realized I’m dead yet.

I wander out of the living room in a daze. I can’t believe this—it can’t be true! But it is—it feels like a terrible dream but every time I pinch myself I don’t wake up. Because I’m already awake and this is the awful reality of my life.

It hits me as I step into the shower— I don’t even know his real name. The man pretending to be Kane — I don’t know who he is. And now I guess I’ll never know.

How could he fool me like that? I was such an idiot, believing he was my brother! Whoever he is, he’s been lying to me for years. Stealing the letters I sent to the real Kane and answering them. How could he do that to me? What kind of sick bastard pretends for so long to be someone else?

I remember Charles’s other accusation—that the man is a murderer and that’s why he went to prison. The thought makes me shiver with fear. To think, I was sleeping with him— I had him in my bed! He could have killed me in my sleep!

As I wash myself off and watch the stranger’s seed get washed down the drain, I feel sick. I guess there’s one bright spot in this whole mess. If I do turn out to be pregnant, at least it won’t be my brother’s baby.

Actually, I can’t believe everything I did with him while thinking he was my brother. What the Hell is wrong with me? It’s like I was under a spell. I went further and further with him—let’s be real, I actually let him fuck me! Why would I do that? Why did I think it was okay?

Because he never felt like your brother, whispers a little voice in my head. And it’s true. I felt an intense attraction to him—to the stranger—but my emotions for him weren’t familial in any way. Maybe deep down, I knew he wasn’t really related to me. I guess that’s why I allowed myself to go so far with him.

But what if I’m pregnant? Pregnant with a murderer’s baby? All that crap he told me about how I probably couldn’t get knocked up unless he was “knotting” me must be a lie too, right? And then saying I was one of his “people”—whatever that means—while I was kicking him out. Another lie. All of it, lies.

I feel like I might puke.

By the time I leave the shower, Charles is gone. At least he locked the door behind him. I’m guessing he and I are over now—not that I care. I just hope he doesn’t start spreading rumors about me around town. What would the rest of Singing Rock think of me if they knew I’d been fucking a man I thought was my brother? My life here would be over.

I have to stop thinking like this. I wish I could stop thinking at all. I take out the bottle of sleeping pills I usually only use once in a while. I pour a whole handful out into my hand…

Then I put all but two of them back. I’m not going to let this break me! Other women have been fooled by con artists before. I watched a whole documentary last week about a woman who sent her entire life’s savings to some guy who contacted her on FaceBook and pretended to be in love with her. She didn’t get a cent of it back, but she didn’t kill herself.

“I’m not going to let this break me,” I say out loud. “ I will get through it.”

I take the two pills and get into bed. I’m not going to cry, I tell myself. I’m just going to go to sleep. When I wake up tomorrow, it will be a new day and I’ll be fine.

But the bed feels so big and empty without him—without the stranger who pretended to be Kane . He was only in my life for a few days—less than a week—so why does it hurt so bad now that he’s gone? Why does it feel like he carved out my heart with a dull knife and took it with him when he left?

I can’t help myself— I start to cry. I sob myself to sleep, wishing I was dead, knowing I’ll never see him again.