22. Confessions II
Confessions II
Zade
D ad and Siri scamper up the stairs after Dad excitedly drops his bags.
He’s clearly looking forward to checking on his “other children.” He made sure he’d placed enough food in their enclosures to last a few days, but I suppose there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself, and I hadn’t found the time to personally check on them.
“Alright, what’s going on? You and your sister are acting a little odd, and it’s making me nervous,” Mom says, lips tight with an insincere smile masking her concern. Siri had practically vibrated with nerves since receiving their message.
She couldn’t do it. I saw the defeat bowing her shoulders, and she’d insisted before they arrived that we not sneak around, that we come clean. And I agreed because I want that. I want her, and I want to love her openly, not behind our parents’ backs.
So, I’ll be the one to tell Mom.
Have a seat, please. And let me pour you a glass of wine.
I don’t wait for her response, rushing to the kitchen, beelining straight for the fridge and the half-opened bottle of wine she’d sipped from the night before she left.
“Okay, Zade, you’re really scaring me now,” she says, causing me to jump. I whirl around, and she’s standing in the doorway, hands on her hips and green eyes wide with fear. Dammit.
You’re going to want this after I’m done. No one died. Zephyr is fine. I actually spoke to him a couple of days ago, and he agreed to come home for Christmas.
Her brows rise high and higher with each word I sign.
Looking dumbstruck, she walks to the nearest stool and takes a seat, facing me.
Releasing a breath, I turn back around to hunt for a wine glass.
She doesn’t drink wine often as she doesn’t want to create a habit, but I’ve seen her come home sometimes from work, looking haggard and staring at nothing.
I used to like waiting at the top of the stairs to watch her come home.
And Dad would be on the sofa downstairs, jumping to his feet to pull her into a hug.
She didn’t come home looking like she’d been to war all the time, but enough for me to glean a pattern.
Dad would walk her to the kitchen, sit her down, and pour her a glass.
After her fingers wrapped around the stem, he’d kneel, remove her shoes, and massage her feet while asking her to recite the positives of her day and drink the negatives away.
They were only so in tune with each due to several years of marriage, raising twin boys, and tackling problems as a unit. I’d envied what they had, fervently wishing I’d find something similar. And then there was Siri.
Obviously, it wasn’t romantic at first. Hell, it still wasn’t until I saw the desire in her eyes when she walked in on me in the shower.
But when we were younger, she’d come into my room on the bad days when I wanted to hide from everyone.
Instead of peppering me with questions, she’d crawl into bed and hold me like I did for her whenever she’d have a bad dream.
It felt oddly reminiscent of what my dad did for Mom upon returning home.
Slowly, bit by bit, she became my haven. And then I installed the cameras after Zephyr moved out.
I nearly release a snort on my walk to Mom’s side, wine glass in hand.
Somehow, before that moment when I’d tasted Siri on my tongue, I’d convinced myself I wasn’t obsessed, like what I was doing was normal.
Clearly, I don’t know what the fuck normal is.
For years, I thought Zephyr was perfectly ordinary.
It’s been a week of revelations, and Mom’s about to have the shock of her life.
She takes the glass with hesitant hands, eyes never leaving mine as she brings it to her lips for a small sip. Her nod is the only encouragement I receive.
Siri and I are together. Romantically.
She blinks, staring at my hands like she can’t figure out what I’ve just signed.
“What?” she whispers, wine sloshing over the sides of the glass from the trembling that starts up in her hand. I reach for the glass, but she flinches backwards.
Ouch.
I step back, pulling my hands behind me when she leans forward in apology.
Don’t. That said plenty. I’m moving out, too. Might as well rip the band-aids off of everything if that’s your first reaction to what I said, like I’m some sort of predator.
My heart cramps behind my ribs, a million little pinpricks of pain dancing around the organ.
My own mother flinched from me. No, pain isn’t sufficient to describe this feeling and I’m so damn glad I didn’t let Siri do this. It would’ve destroyed her.
I already consider myself the defective son. What more damage can she inflict that my mind already hasn’t?
“Zade, baby, please. I didn’t mean?—”
“No,” I growl from behind clenched teeth. This time, it’s her turn to flinch, not expecting the sound. She stares at me, and I flick my eyes away from her. I’ve seen enough.
Do me a favor and just don’t say anything to Riah. She’s already tore up from Aunt Nat ? —
“Natalia knows?!” she screeches, placing the wineglass down and getting to her feet. I look at her coldly, lips pressed together. I have nothing left to say.
“Zade,” she whispers, voice lowering to below normal volume. “I am so sorry. I don’t think you’re a predator. I just—I’m allowed to be conflicted on this! I raised you both. I pushed you out and watched Soriah be born. This is hard for me,” she says, pressing a hand to her chest.
And it isn’t for me? Look at me!
I fling my hands wide, tears brimming to the surface
What do I have to offer her or any woman? I’m fucking mute and a schizo at that! Who the fuck would want me? Do you think it makes me feel good knowing that if she leaves me, no other woman will have me? That I’ll die alone?
“Zade, baby—” I shake my head, tears spilling and cutting her off.
Don’t patronize me. I’m a twenty-two-year-old recluse who can barely function outside of this house.
And I am lucky that Soriah is even giving me a damn chance at making her happy.
So, spare her and save your anger and judgment for me.
I’m used to it. I know exactly what the world sees when it looks at me.
“Fa-ra-eek,” I stutter out, the word coming out wrong and sounding mangled even to my ears.
I jump back as Mom launches herself at me.
She doesn’t let me escape, crowding me and pulling me close even as I try to evade her touch.
Warm skin presses into my face and my tears stain my mother’s neck, her hands rubbing up and down my back like I’m a damn child all over again.
My hands clutch at her back, arms trying to absorb her into my body like she could heal me, fix me.
I didn’t ask to be born this way and I’ve done the best I fucking can to manage, but it is so. Damn. Hard.
And exhausting.
I sag against her, closing my eyes and letting the soothing hum from her lips wash over me.
How did we get here? And where do we go from here?
Soriah
I pace the length of Zade’s room, hands fidgeting at my side.
I can stay in Dad’s “pet room” for only so long.
After Sheba swallowed down her prey and Dad began his rounds with the other critters in their enclosures, I made a hasty retreat, yelling over my shoulder that I’d forgotten something in Zade’s room.
Now, I’m waiting for him to walk through the door to tell me everything’s okay, that Mom took it well. I rub my eyes, wondering why I haven’t thought of Dad’s reaction. He’s just as important as Mom.
But I don’t think Dad has a cruel bone in his body.
He’d probably give Zade a wider berth than they already give each other, but I don’t see him behaving any differently with me, his baby girl.
Technically, Lauren is his daughter by marriage, but I’m the one he raised, whose diapers he changed and tears he’d wiped away.
To him, I think, I’ll always be his baby girl, and I don’t know why I feel so secure in that knowledge but so anxious that Mom will react differently.
Maybe it’s Aunt Nat’s words haunting me, her implication that Mom would throw Zade out onto the street.
We’d discussed him finding an off-campus apartment so we could still be together without the long-distance factor.
And he confirmed my suspicion that he would’ve kept spying on me if we hadn’t gotten physical.
He’s impossible. But also charming. And thoughtful. And sexy. Fuck, is it bad that I want him again while our parents are home?
I could barely keep silent at Uncle Zac and Aunt Nat’s house.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I rush to the door, pulling it open and freezing. It’s Mom. Zade hovers just behind her, face blank. My heart races at the empty expression. I’d never seen him look like that before.
“Zade—”
“He’s fine. Or at least as fine as he can be, all things considered.
Can we talk? The three of us? I’ll fill your father in.
I don’t want to interrupt his calming time.
He didn’t enjoy the flight,” she says, several emotions flowing across her face before falling away while I was still deciphering them.
I step back, my quizzical gaze trained on Zade. He looks shell-shocked, numb.
“What did you say to him?” I demand, immediately going on the defense. How dare she? He’s her flesh and blood. I’m the outsider, the one deserving of her ire.
She levels a glare at me.
“I reacted poorly, but I didn’t say anything harmful. And I definitely didn’t threaten to throw him out like my sister implied I would. You’re my children! I’m just—” She lifts her hands in a gesture of futility.
“Can you just explain it to me? How this—” she waves her hands, using them to speak for her once more. She must really be flabbergasted. I’ve heard her coworkers at socials we attended with her compliment how well-spoken my mother is.
“It was me,” I say, blurting it out before Zade can demonize himself in our mother’s eyes.
“I seduced him and—” Her laugh brings me up short. I stare in bewilderment as her laugh goes on and on and eventually dissolves into hiccups, tears streaming down her face. I’m taken aback when she lunges toward me and pulls me into a hug .
My own tears slip down my face, burying it in her neck and letting her hold me. We rock side to side, and I gasp from warmth at my back, Zade stepping forward and hugging me from behind, his arms extending to our mother so we’re all hugging as a unit.
We stay like that, the three of us. Each moment feels like sand dripping into an hourglass, taking my anxiety with it.
This is Mom. We’d forever be her children.
Maybe not today or the next day, but eventually, she’ll come to terms with us as a couple. But for now, hugging and being hugged, we’re just family.
Mother, daughter, and son. Three individuals processing sudden changes in our lives the best way we know how. As a family.