Night Air

Chapter 25

*Alyssa's POV*

It wasn't mine- it couldn't be! I had too many similarities between my mom and dad for me to be anybody else's child. I looked at a few of the official looking papers behind it and saw my parents signatures scribbled everywhere, along with a different couple named Sara and Robert Davis who lived in California.

I cannot believe my parents would lie to me. Why would they tell me that my brother died instead of just telling me that he was adopted? I angrily shoved the papers back into the folder and stormed out of my father's room and then out the back door. I quickly eyed my dad mowing and driving the lawn mower around a tree. I huffed out my nose and started for him. "Dad!" I yelled louder than the lawn mower.

He looked up at me concerned when he noticed the scowl and anger on my face. He stopped the lawn mower and turned it off all together. "What's up, princess?" He asked concerned and I kept stomping over to him through the tall and green untrimmed grass.

"This!" I shoved the envelope in his sight and his eyes widened. The look on his face told me he had no intentions of telling about this anytime soon, if at all.

"Oh, this? Th-this is... uh..." His hand nervously grabbed the packet from me and he opened it up running the tips of his fingers over each and every one of the papers inside.

"My brother's adoption paperwork?" I finished for him in a snapping tone. He didn't say anything and ran his fingers through the papers for the fifth time as if he was observing this for the first time in his life; I knew better. "Why would you guys hide this from me for my entire life?!" I fumed, not caring if I was being loud and was being heard by every resident in the edition. "My own fucking brother! I went all nineteen years of my life being told that I was saved while my brother died at birth! But no! What really happened? My parents put him up for adoption and then decided to lie to me and tell me instead that he died!"

"Alyssa, we had to." My father spoke softly and harsh all at once. I knew this tone of voice. This was his tone of voice he had when he was trying his hardest not to blow up and remain calm. It didn't always work out as planned, however, and he would end up making a scene. Usually when he got to this point, I tried to be neutral with him and avoid an arguement, but not this time. This time I was betrayed by my own flesh and blood and I would be damned if I was going to let this slide and just walk back into the house without another word.

"Why?! Why did you have to?! I could have taken it! I could have taken being told that my brother was put up for adoption once I was old enough to understand stuff! However, I can't take the fact that I've been lied to for all nineteen years of my life by my own fucking parents!" By now I had tears in my eyes, but that didn't stop me from noticing the windows on neighboring houses open up to see what all the noise was about.

My father just continued to sit there opening and closing his mouth as if trying to figure out what to say, but I was done. I had just confronted him about something serious and the best way he could respond was just him staring at me while opening and closing his mouth like a damn fish.

I didn't stand around long enough for him to eventually find something to say, however. Instead, I sent a glare to our old, fat, and bald neighbor, Mr.Ritchie, who had his head out the window listening to us, and stormed back into the house.

An hour. Maybe two, hell, maybe even three. I wasn't sure how long I had been up there in my room crying; but by now, I was all cried out. I sniffed and lifted my pillow to see my old and worn notebook still sitting there, untouched from the last time I was home. The cover was torn and the green pigment on the front was faded in multiple places from being used too much. I wiped away the snot under my nose with the sleeve of my mother's sweater I was now wearing, and then reached for the notebook. I opened it and flipped through all the worn and damaged pages that were covered in blue ink from my favorite pen, until I finally found the next blank page. I sighed and grabbed my blue pen from the spiral part of the notebook.