Page 79 of Diluted Truths

Samuel stood and was eye to eye with me. He may have been older than me, but it was obvious where Kai got his size from. I wasn’t the least bit intimated. When it came to Jackie, I would move fucking mountains for her, no matter the size.

I glared at her father, almost daring him to speak.

It was MaryBeth who continued on the tirade. “I will speak to my daughter however I please. It is my right as her mother.” She turned to Jackie and Theo. “You two went off and had your fun. It’s time you come home and fulfill your role.”

“What role?” Theo asked. “What is this plan you’re talking about?”

It wasn’t Theo’s outburst that caught their mother’s attention, it was Jackie’s whispered defiance.

“No.”

“What?” MaryBeth asked.

Jackie looked up meeting her mother’s eyes before rising to stand. “I said no. We aren’t coming back. You have no control over me anymore.”

MaryBeth looked dumbstruck by her daughter. I smiled with pride.

Thiswas the Jackie I knew.

“You will listen to your mother,” Samuel yelled at Jackie as he began to advance towards her but I quickly held him back by his arm.

“No, I won’t,” Jackie stated with more confidence. Kai and Theo looked at her with pride. “You have no right to speak to me this way. I’m not coming back. Why do you even want me here? You didn’t even want me in the first place.”

Samuel looked at her, almost impressed?

“You’re right. We didn’t, we still don’t. But you were necessary.”

I saw Jackie’s heartbreak at her father’s admission. “Why not? Why did you have me if you didn’t want me? Why couldn’t you just love me?”

MaryBeth rolled her eyes at Jackie. “Ophelia, enough of the dramatics. We had to have you, had to have four. But you weren’t worth our love.”

Jackie recoiled back as if she had been slapped. Kai mentioned that Nate experienced the worst of the physical abuse, but it was obvious that Jackie experienced the most mental and emotional abuse.

“Stop,” Jackie whispered to her mother, but it didn’t stop MaryBeth’s tirade.

“You should have fulfilled your purpose, instead you killed Nathaniel and took him away from us. Away from the family. It would have been easier if it was you. We could have replaced you.”

I let go of Samuel and started toward MaryBeth when Kai stopped me.

“They’re not worth it,” he whispered.

“But she is,” I responded.

We stared at one another for a moment before we were distracted by Jackie.

“I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for either of you to be my parents. I get it, okay! You don’t love me! I was too hard to love, too hard to care for. But I didn’t ask for it,” she yelled while tears began to flow down her cheeks. “I’m supposed to be your daughter. You’re supposed to love me. But you never did. Want to know who did?” She asked, obviously not wanting an answer. She turned to Theo and Kai and pointed at her siblings. “They did! Nate did! They loved me, raised me, when you two failed miserably.”

“Ophelia, stop!” Samuel stated, trying to get her to stop.

She turned to him and screamed, “Fuck you, dad! You say I wasn’t worth it? Well, neither are you!”

She marched towards the front door and grabbed a pair of keys off the entryway before turning back towards her parents. “It wasn’t my fucking fault! If it wasn’t for your complete and utter failure at being decent parents, he wouldn’t have been put in that situation. So guess what? That means it’s your fucking fault Nate died!”

And with that, she stomped out the front door and started one of the cars and drove away.

We all stood silently, the tension heavy in the air. Samuel and MaryBeth were obviously affected by Jackie’s words. How? I wasn’t sure.

I watched as Kai turned to his parents. “You need to leave, but I think she took your car.”