“He almostdiedbecause of you!” Dad booms like thunder. “If you hadn’t been so fucking wasted, you would’ve noticed he’d slipped off. If I hadn’t come home when I did, he would’ve drowned.”
“Are you going to punish me forever, Trey? It was a mistake. He’s fine now.”
“Fine? Are you kidding? He hasn’t been fine since that day. No. You’re not staying. You’re not getting another chance to hurt him. I have to protect my son.”
“He’smyson, Trey. I have a right—”
“You have no rights! You forfeited those rights the day you dropped him off at my doorstep and vanished! You left him without so much as a second thought, and Amanda and I had to take care of a newborn that was going through fucking withdrawals. You couldn’t even be bothered to take him to the damn hospital.”
I couldn’t have stopped the gasp that escaped my lips if I had wanted to. The entire room began spinning, and I thought the floor under my feet was about to collapse. My eyes darted back and forth between my dad’s suddenly ghostly face and Jewel’s smirk.
“Maddox,” my dad breathed, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t subjugated to his harsh glares of disappointment but a look of absolute terror and remorse.
“What did you say?” I asked, my voice cracking with each word as tears threatened. But I knew better than to let one fall.
“Madsy, I’m your real mom,” Jewel said with excitement. Like the revelation would send me straight into her arms.
I shook my head, backing away slowly.
“Maddox, you—you’re my son, Maddox. Always have been. Always will be,” my dad said as he walked toward me. “Youaremy blood, even if I didn’t create you.”
I couldn’t hear this. No. I didn’t want to think about what it meant. Because what it meant was that my momma was not really my mother. It meant the woman who made me feel like the most important person in the world didn’t really belong to me.
It also meant my dad had never actually been mine either. I was just a souvenir of how his sister fucked up her life. Because I knew if Jewel was my mom, she couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen when she had me.
Jewel had always been a train wreck. She ran away the first time when she was thirteen, only to do it again when she was brought home. She went to rehab five times before she was twenty-one. She disappeared for weeks at a time, with no one knowing if she were dead or alive.
Then I understood why my dad couldn’t look at me most of the time. I was the reminder of her mistakes and the burden left behind for my dad to take care of. Another mistake for him to have to clean up.
I bumped into a post about the time my dad reached me. He grabbed each side of my face, forcing me to look at him, but I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything but the millions of thoughts running through my head. So many things made sense now. Why I was always so different from Chris, and Callie too. Neither one of them seem to have the issues I did. They were normal.
“Maddox, look at me,” my dad demanded, and for the first time in what felt like ever, my dad was actually looking at me too. “This does not changeanything. Do you understand me? Breathe, Maddox.”
My eyes finally focused on him as I tried to do what he said. I focused on his words and not on what felt like fifteen years of rejection.
But it all finally made sense. I was the fuck up,always causing problems for him. I was the reason his wife died. I was the constant reminder of his baby sister that he’d tried to help so many times over the years, only to be disappointed over and over.
“Trey, let him go. Come on, Madsy. You can come with me now.”
Dad whirled around to face her, keeping himself between us. “Have you lost your mind? He isn’t going anywhere with you.”
“Don’t you think that’s up to him now?” she said with a smile. Like she thought the world was that simple.
“No, Jewel, it’s not up to him. He’s fifteen years old. He’s not going anywhere with you.”
“You can’t control him anymore than you could control me, Trey. Give it up.”
I’d moved from behind my dad to stand closer to Ryder. I needed to be near someone I could trust. Someone I knew wouldn’t fuck me over.
But Jewel was deranged. Truly deranged. Not because of anything she said, but because she believed it.
She reached for me, I suppose,in an attempt to get a hug. I really don’t know.
“Don’t touch me,” I belted out as I jumped away from her.
Her face fell, for the first time realizing that her big reveal didn’t have the effect she wanted. “Madsy, I’m your mom.”
“No,” I spat. “My mom died. You’re the aunt that forgot about me at the zoo. You’re the woman that tried to sell me off to her drug dealer.”
