Chapter 30
Ren
Untangling myself from Myles and Blake to sneak out of bed was proving to be an impossible feat. I was caged, both men finding a way to hold me and radiating so much body heat that it was only a matter of minutes before I combusted.
I wiggled down another inch, but Myles grumbled and held me tight like you would a stuffed animal.
“Myles, I have to get up,” I gave in and said, giving him a little poke in the side.
“No, yer never allowed to leave again,” he mumbled, kissing the top of my head.
“Although that is a sweet sentiment, I need to pee, and I’m supposed to be meeting Sabastian.”
“Feck Sabastian, just stay in bed with us all day,” he said, not relenting an inch. “I’ve missed ya, Snowflake.”
Smiling, I kissed his chest. He was truly the most adorable and ridiculous of all the guys. It was endearing.
“The sooner you let me up, the sooner I’m back.” I kissed his chest again. “And you can show me just how much you’ve missed me,” I whispered, making him groan.
“Ya drive a hard bargain,” he said, finally letting me go.
I quickly stood before he changed his mind and decided to keep me captive for the day.
Pulling open the drawer that had been cleared out for some of my things, I wasn’t even sure why I had my own room in the girls’ dorm any more.
Between Blake and Myles, Liam and Theo, and now Nash, my week was taken up playing a game of musical beds.
My clothes were spread between all three, and I now had three toothbrushes, hairbrushes, razors, makeup bags, and everything else.
I grabbed what I needed and then looked at the bed.
Myles was already back asleep with his arms over his head, and Blake was lying on his right side. They were entirely too sexy and far too tempting.
In the washroom, I showered and changed, excited and nervous about spending time with Sabastian.
We had a very complicated past, most of which I still didn’t remember.
Should I be the one to tell him about his mother?
The fact that Christov had lied to him for years about who his mother was…
it was troubling to say the least. He still believed we were related.
What would happen to our relationship when he learned the truth, or that I had kept it from him?
Pulling my hair up into a ponytail, I stepped out of the bedroom. The guys were still fast asleep. My eyes bounced between them. Blake and I had never finished the conversation we started about his kiss with Myles, and Myles hadn’t mentioned it at all.
Was there something brewing under the surface, or had it been the one-off that Blake insisted? I didn’t have an issue either way. They’d look hot together.
These Kings of mine were corrupting me.
I grabbed my backpack and slipped out, making my way down the hall to Sabastian.
Wayward was always eerily quiet on Sundays.
Most students traveled home to visit family or slept the day away.
It was an opportunity to relax and rejuvenate.
I didn’t see or hear anyone, and yet today felt ominous.
Reaching Sabastian’s door, I looked around for the source of my unease, but there was nothing and no one.
Pushing the feeling aside, I knocked.
“Coming.”
Sabastian opened the door wearing only a pair of grey sweatpants. I looked past him and saw Ivy on the bed, wrapped in a sheet.
“I suddenly feel like that may have been too much information,” I teased, making him smirk.
Ivy blushed and laughed as Sabastian stepped back to let me inside. His roommate was nowhere to be seen.
“So, I assume this means you two have made up.”
Ivy beamed, making me smile along with her.
“We’ve decided to try again and put what happened behind us,” Ivy said as she picked her clothes up off the floor.
“We can do this another day if you want,” I said, gesturing to the door.
“No, that’s okay. I was just going down to get us something to eat. That is, if you’re okay with me sitting in on your conversation,” Ivy asked.
“Of course, you’re always welcome.”
“Okay, give me five minutes to put on something more than this,” Sabastian gestured to the grey sweats.
“I appreciate that,” I said, walking over to his roommate’s window.
Their chatter while they changed became background noise as I stared outside. The windows here overlooked the forest, and even though I was done with the cold, I could never be sick of this view.
The snow on the trees hung heavy. The mix of white and green, layered with the morning fog, was stunning and felt mystical.
Wayward had always felt like that. Secret to most of the world, it held a quality reserved for movies or books, and yet here I lived it every day. Sometimes it hardly felt real.
Three more months until graduation, until we left Wayward for good.
It was strange how much a single year made you feel about a place.
I had been so angry when Neil dropped me off and left me here.
Now…I couldn’t picture what my life would’ve been like without this place or those that I’d met here.
The guys, lifelong friends, and even Dean Henry all held a special place in my heart.
I had reconnected with my father and found peace among the chaos. Wayward Academy had marked me forever.
I jumped at the reflection of someone standing behind me.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, but you weren’t responding to your name,” Sabastian said as I turned to face him.
“It’s okay. I was just lost in thought.” I glanced around the room. “Ivy left?”
“Yeah, she said she knows what you like to eat and how you take your coffee.”
Ivy had become an incredible friend, and I didn’t know what I would ever do without her.
“Come sit down. I pulled out all the pictures I have.”
Following him over to the communal table in the room, my eyes bugged out at the dozens of photos sprawled on the surface.
Picking up the closest to me, I traced over our happy little baby faces.
We were dressed in white, with little bonnets on our heads.
I’d never seen a photo of me this young.
I’d never questioned where my baby photos were in our house, which, thinking back now, was odd.
Maybe a part of me knew deep down that we’d left all these memories behind.
“We were so little,” I said, sitting down, unable to take my eyes off the photo.
“Yeah, it’s kind of freaky and hard to believe.”
You’d never know looking at this photo that we weren’t siblings.
We both had dark hair, and while his eyes were blue and mine gray, they were similar. I was smaller than Sabastian but not by much. We could’ve easily passed as twins.
My eyes snapped up to Sabastian.
Jesus…twins.
That was what they did. We were born close enough together to pull that off. Pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. Questions I hadn’t asked Eddie yet, because talking about Mum seemed to upset him as much as he smiled and said that he loved reminiscing about her.
I swallowed down the guilt as Sabastian smiled at the picture. He deserved to know the truth.
“Um…Sabastian.”
He looked up from the photo he held. “Yeah.”
“Have you thought about what it means that we are the same age but have different fathers?”
His smile slowly fell. He had either chosen to ignore that fact or it hadn’t dawned on him yet. Sabastian stared at me.
“Are you sure Edmundo is your father?”
I nodded.
“But that means we don’t have the same mother. It’s impossible to get pregnant and have another child that fast.”
I sat there quietly, waiting for him to put all the facts together.
“So, if Yuliana is not your mother, who is?”
“Yuliana is my mother, she’s not yours,” I said softly.
Sabastian pushed the chair away from the table and shot to his feet.
“Lies. Why would you say that to me?”
“I’m not saying it to hurt you, Sabastian. You had to know the other day when my father showed up, that you hadn’t been told the truth about who you are. Who we are.”
He ran his hand through his chocolatey hair and began to pace.
“No…this can’t be real. Why would my father lie to me all this time?”
He stopped and turned to face me, his features twisted in anger and betrayal. I understood those emotions all too well.
“My guess is to keep up appearances. From what I’ve been able to piece together, you are the son of your father and his mistress. I am the daughter of Yuliana and Edmundo. But because your father and my mother were married, they pawned us off to the world as siblings.” I held up the photo. “Twins.”
“How long have you known?”
“Before I knew who you even were,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m sorry that I didn’t come clean sooner, but it was…awkward.”
“So, you lied to me, too.” His hands balled, and his jaw ticked. “You let me believe that we were family and pretended to care about me? That’s just sick, and you call my father an asshole.”
Grabbing a handful of the photos, I stood and faced him.
“I do care. We still grew up together, just like step-siblings. Not being related doesn’t suddenly mean I don’t care for you like family.”
“Like…that is the important word in that sentence. At the end of the day, I’m not family, and you’ll never care for me the same way.” He rubbed his eyes.
“I get that you’re angry, Sabastian, but I’m not the one you should be angry with.
I’ve only known a handful of months and didn’t even know who you were until after my accident.
But your father chose to lie to you for all these years.
What else hasn’t he told you? What lies did he twist about my mother? ”
“Are you trying to turn me against my father?”
“No, I’m trying to get you to see that he’s not perfect and that maybe there is more to him that you don’t know. Your anger toward me is misplaced. We are both victims of their lies and deceit, no matter what their intentions.”
“So, you’re saying that I’m illegitimate.”