Chapter 36
Guinevere
T here’s a light dusting of snow on the ground, and the cold November air burns my cheeks as I make my way out of Mallory Center and toward Café Grind.
A few students sit at the small tables against the windows. I find an open table in the corner and when I take a seat, I immediately look at my phone, noticing a text from my mother.
Mom 3
Mom
Guinevere, please call me!
Mom never texts. In fact, she hates it. She says it’s less personal and you can misconstrue what people are saying since you can’t actually hear them. I guess she’s not wrong, but it’s so much more convenient than calling, especially when you don’t love talking to people in general.
I stare at mom’s contact name for a few moments before taking a deep breath and pressing the call button. It only rings once before my mother’s panicked voice fills my ear.
“Gwen? Honey, finally. I’ve been calling you. Where have you been?” she asks, her voice laced with worry.
“I’m at school, mom. I was in a meeting with my professor,” I take a breath before asking, “What’s wrong?”
I can usually tell how my mom’s feeling by her tone. She has very specific tones for each mood she’s in. When she’s angry, her voice goes down at least two octaves. When she’s happy, her voice goes up to an annoyingly high pitch. When she’s sad, she speaks slower and it’s a pitch higher than when she’s angry, but lower than when she’s happy.
But right now, I can’t tell if she’s pissed off or devastated, and that’s slightly concerning.
Mom lets out a shaky breath. “It’s your father.”
My heart sinks. My father? Did something happen to him in Germany? Is he okay? How would I feel if he were gone?
“Is… is he okay?” I ask as nervousness takes over my entire body. My mom laughs sardonically.
“Oh, he’s fantastic. He married his twenty-seven-year-old assistant in Germany. Oh, and somehow we completely missed the fact that they had a child two years ago.”
Her tone is bitter and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she sounds jealous. But that’s not possible because they really haven’t spoken much in years. So why does she sound so upset about it?
My blood runs cold at the memory of the phone call I had with my dad on my birthday. How he’d spoken to someone named Viv, and then he had told her to tell ‘him” he’d be there in a minute.
He must have been talking about their son. My brother. A brother I didn’t even know existed until just moments ago.
I guess I knew there was a chance of my parents moving on and one day marrying someone new. But what I didn’t expect was not being invited to my own father’s wedding and not knowing he had a freaking kid.
“I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone,” my voice is barely a whisper as I digest the news I’ve just received.
I shouldn’t even be surprised, but a small part of me really thought that even though he’s practically been absent since I was nineteen, that he’d at least tell me, his only daughter, that he was getting married.
My father married a woman only a few years older than me. Bile rises in my throat just thinking about it. I never pictured my dad being that kind of guy. I think that’s the biggest shock of all.
“Neither did I. I knew he had a new assistant, but I had no idea they were actually together. I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from the news outlets,” she explains, her voice soft.
“Are you okay?” I wonder. My mom is strong, but this is some next level shit.
I hear a deep sigh on the other end of the phone.
“I’m okay. I just can’t believe he didn’t say anything. I can’t believe he didn’t even mention it to you. I’m so sorry, honey. I… I don’t even know who he is anymore,” she sounds like she’s on the verge of tears, her voice wavering.
I hate when my mom’s upset. She’s always been my rock and to see her breaking, it fucking hurts. I would do anything to take the pain away from her. She doesn’t deserve this.
“You’re still coming home in a few weeks, right?” she asks, hope clear in her gentle voice. I’ve already told her I’d be coming home, but she always needs reassurance. Thanksgiving break is coming up, and then there’s only a week and a half left of classes when we come back.
I nod, even though she can’t see me. “Yes, mom. I’ll be home.”
Mom lets out a breath of relief, and when she speaks again, her entire demeanor has changed.
“Good. I can’t wait to see you, Gwenny. I’ve missed you,” she tells me, and my eyes suddenly feel the burn from unshed tears.
“I miss you too, mom. I have to go, I’ve got class,” I lie. I don’t have a class for the rest of the day, but I need to get out of here. I need to go home and curl up in a ball and cry. “I love you,” I tell her, my voice as soft as a whisper.
“I love you, too, honey.”
My eyes squeeze shut as I attempt to tamp down the tears threatening to spill out, but it’s too late. A single tear falls from my eye as I press the end call button.
Taking a look around the café, I realize that it has become more packed with students trying to avoid the cold weather outside and warming up with hot chocolate and coffee.
I wipe my cheek quickly, grabbing my things and heading out of the warmth and into the brisk cold winter air. It’s cold enough to where you can see your breath, but I have so much pent-up sadness, so much rage, so much confusion building up inside me that I don’t even feel the chill.
My heart is beating a million miles per minute, my thoughts are jumbled and racing, and my legs feel numb as I run toward home.
I hurriedly unlock the front door, toss my boots off and run to my room, passing Haley on the couch in the living room. I dive onto my bed, bringing a pillow to place under my face as I let out a scream. The muffled sound doesn’t take the pain away, but it certainly helped get some of the anger out.
There’s a small knock on my door, and then Haley is peeking her auburn head in. Her face is etched with concern as she takes in my position on the bed.
“Gwen… you okay?” Haley asks cautiously.
“No…” I mumble as I switch to sit up, holding the pillow in my lap. I hate admitting that I’m not okay. I try so hard to be strong. To not let things affect me. But this? This is messing with my head. My own father.
Haley pushes the door open wider before slowly making her way over to my bed and climbing on to sit across from me. She crosses her legs and sets her hands in her lap as she plays nervously with her fingers.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asks hesitantly, keeping her eyes focused on her hands. She seems nervous, like I’m a bomb that could go off at any moment. We’ve never really done this before, talked about our feelings with each other. Lainey is usually the one I complain to and she either tells me to suck it up and move on or holds me while I cry.
Haley also doesn’t know anything about my relationship with my dad, so she won’t fully understand what I tell her, but I need to talk to someone.
“My dad got remarried and had a kid he never told me about,” the words spill out of me. I peek up through my lashes to assess Haley’s reaction.
Her eyes are wide and she’s no longer playing with her fingers.
She gulps. “Wow,” she wipes her hands on her thighs before looking at me. “That’s really messed up. I’m sorry. I-”
I cut her off because she looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” it’s not fine, but whatever.
Haley shifts uncomfortably. “Do you… do you need anything?” I shake my head. I don’t know what I need. I don’t know if anything will make this better. I feel betrayed, forgotten, insignificant. Is there anything anyone could do or say to fix that? Probably not.
“I’m just gonna take a nap. But thank you for talking with me,” I say with genuine appreciation. I know this made her uncomfortable, and it was probably the last thing she wanted to be doing. So it means a lot that she still came to try to help.
Haley nods in understanding. “Okay. Well, let me know if I can get you anything,” her lips turn up into a sad smile.
“I will,” I flash the best smile I can muster as Haley walks out of my room, shutting the door behind her.
I throw myself back onto my pillows, completely wrecked and exasperated. It’s only noon and I’m already spent.
If I’m being honest with myself, a small part of me always hoped that my parents would get back together. That dad would come to his senses and get over his midlife crisis and realize that he loved my mom so much he couldn’t be apart from her.
That he loved me so much he couldn’t bear being so far away.
Sometimes I think it would have been easier if they got the divorce when I was younger, so I’d be able to get used to it. But by the time they split, I had grown up watching them love each other. I’d based any relationship I had or wanted on them. I wouldn’t settle for less than the kind of love my dad showed my mom.
I’d gotten used to having my parents together. To seeing them happy and in love. And then at nineteen, I had to just accept that all of it was fake? That they’d actually been fighting for years.
The sound of my phone vibrating against my nightstand pulls me out of my pity party.
Arrogant Asshole (Ryker Steele)
Arrogant Asshole (Ryker Steele)
You okay? You looked upset when you
left.
My stomach flutters and my heart immediately speeds up. This reaction must be unhealthy, right? I wasn’t expecting him to check in. I know he says I’m his, whatever that means, but we’re not officially together, and he probably thinks this whole thing is just sex.
But if he thought it was just sex, would he text to make sure I was okay? That seems like something you do for someone you actually care about, right?
I’m not good with casual releationships. I’m a hopeless romantic. I believe in love and happily ever after’s and Ryker Steele? He’s the king of casual relationships. What if that’s all he wants from me? I don’t think I can do that. No, I know I can’t. I was jealous over some woman talking to him at a bar.
If I knew he was having sex with other women while he was also sleeping with me? I couldn’t handle that.
Rolling my eyes, I type out a response .
Arrogant Asshole (Ryker Steele)
Me
Dad drama. I’ll be fine.
Arrogant Asshole (Ryker Steele)
Do you want to talk about it?
My heart skips a beat. He actually wants to talk to me about it? Shit, what is happening right now?
Ryker Steele doesn’t do feelings. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. But no matter how much I tell myself these things, I can’t help wanting to tell him everything.
However, I don’t feel like going over it again right now. I just want to sleep and forget everything for a while.
Me
No.
I lock my phone before Ryker can answer. I know he’ll probably argue, and I don’t have the energy to fight with him. After setting the phone on the nightstand, I roll over and close my eyes, drifting off quickly as sleep takes over.