Chapter Fifteen ~ Unveiled
*Edited
I spent twenty minutes pacing my room before I decided something needed to be done. I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to know what was going on. I didn't have a brother. I couldn't. It just wasn't possible. My mom would have never kept a secret this big from me.
I didn't even feel like myself anymore. A little while ago, I was telling Ian I didn't have any sibling, and then a brother pops up? What are the chances? If I'd known that my wish would have come true, I would have asked for something else. I'd have wished for a pony.
There had to be more. There just had to be, and if there was, I wasn't going to find out by pacing in my room. All the action was happening outside and this was my house. This was my family and I had a right to find out, even if it meant disobeying my mom.
If everything the guy had said was true by some miracle, some twisted event in time, I had a right to find out and I didn't want to hear it from a woman who might have potentially been lying to me all of my life about my family. What if I had a family? What if my dad was still around? What if I had more siblings? More brothers and sisters?
And what if it wasn't? What if everything I'd heard downstairs was a lie? It was possible that everything the guy had said was a lie and my mom only knew him by some coincidence. He might not even be her son.
If that was true, then I wanted to know, too.
With that in mind, I marched to my door and flung it open, determined. I silently went down the stairs, hoping to hear something, but I heard nothing. There was only silence. As I stepped down, I noticed that my mom was alone in the kitchen. She was pacing, muttering something to herself. The guy from before was nowhere in sight, but I knew he had to be around. He came in a cab. He couldn't have gotten another one so quickly.
"Mom?" I said. My mom froze with her back towards me. She took a visibly large breath before turning around. She looked genuinely worried. All the smiles and happiness from before was gone. She looked a thousand times more worried than she did when Dominic came. This was, like, a whole other level. "Is...everything okay?" I forgot about the guy for a moment, my mind only filled with concern for my mom.
"Eira, I'm sorry." She said. For a second, I felt like my heart froze at her apology. Why was she saying sorry? My mind immediately was filled with negative thoughts. Was what the guy said true? No, I told myself. Don't jump to conclusions. Listen first. Judge later.
"Sorry about what?" I asked her, telling myself to put some faith in my mother.
"Eira...Ari Berry, I have hidden some things from you and I think it's time you find out." She said, not meeting my eyes. The whole time, her eyes were glued to the floor in what seemed like shame and guilt. What was she being guilty about?
"What do you mean?" No judging.
"I never married your father." She said. I paused, shocked at the information. She never married my dad. She was single all of her life? Whoa. Suddenly, I didn't feel like trusting her anymore. All my life, she'd led me to believe that she and my dad, they were married when I was born, but suddenly, I felt disgusting.
"W-what?" I sputtered out, shocked.
"Alan and I, your father and I, we, Alan was never my husband." She said, a tear escaped her eyes as if she was recalling some painful memory.
"Why are you telling me this now?" I asked her, wanting to know. "You didn't have to tell me. I would have never found out. You could have gone on my whole life, letting me think that you were married. That I actually had a dad."
"Eira, I never wanted to tell you!" She snapped, meeting my eyes. My heart broke. Wow, she had really planned on hiding my reality from me my whole life? She never planned for me to find out? Her eyes were full of fury and pain, pain that filled the emptiness I sometimes saw in her eyes. It replaced the love with anxiety.
"What do you mean you never wanted me to know? Why are you telling me this now?" I asked her, tears filling my own eyes. "Were you waiting for some kind of occasion so you could destroy my entire existence by telling me that I'm an illegitimate child?"
"You're not. I loved Alan."
"Is that really his name?" I slowly said.
My mom grew silent at my question. "W-what?"
"Is that really his name? Alan? Are you sure you weren't lying to me about that, too?" I asked her. "I don't believe this, Mom." I said, unsure as to how to feel. Disappointed? Angry? Dirty? Confused? Broken? Hurt? Betrayed? I did feel betrayed, more than anything else, I felt betrayed. "When I came down, I told myself that there had to be more to the story. I trusted you."
"I haven't done anything to break your trust, Eira. It's never been anyone else than the two of us. There doesn't have to be. It's always been us. Nothing has to change. You're still my daughter."
"And what about the guy at the door? Isn't he your son?" I asked. "My so-called brother? That's him, isn't it? That's what he said."
"Listen to be, because I will only say this once. That boy is not my son. He is merely my responsibility." I scoffed at that.
"Then what am I? Another burden?"
"That's not true, Eira!"
"How am I supposed to believe this? I don't even believe this is happening!"
"Reese is not my son! He's Alan's son." My mom shrieked at me, suddenly letting out whatever feelings she'd had inside of her until now. She let it all out. "He's Alan's son! I loved Alan, but he didn't love me. He never did. He only loved Reese's mother! You want to know the truth? Do you? You were a mistake! A shitty drunken mistake! Alan never even knew about you!"
"Wow, Mom." I said, shocked. "You're an even bigger bitch then you were two minutes ago."
"You will not talk to me like that, young lady. I am your mother and you will talk to me with respect." She looked at me, furiously.
"Respect?" I scoffed at that. "You just told me that I was a drunken mistake! A mistake that my father didn't even know about! I spent my whole life with a mother who was always busy thinking that I could have had a father, too, who loved me and cared for me at some point in my life, but no! He didn't even know I existed. Good job, Mom. You just destroyed whatever self-respect I had for myself and you expect me to treat you with respect? Isn't that hypocritical of you?"
Suddenly, my mom grew concerned, as if she just realized what she said. "Eira, that's not what I meant. What I felt for Alan was real. I loved him. He was everything. He was the best man I'd ever met. I fell for him, okay? But he never felt anything for me because he had someone he loved more than anything else and when she passed away, he was lost. He had Reese and that's when I met him. I loved Reese when he was a kid, but he's changed."
"No, Mom." I said. "You changed."
She smiled a little at that, but it was a broken smile. "I guess I did. It's just that when Alan was gone, too. I found out I was pregnant and my family was shocked. They couldn't believe that I was pregnant and that I was still single. Not only that, but I had custody to Reese, too. They wanted me to abort you and put Reese for adoption, but I couldn't. They kicked me out and I was all alone all of the sudden. I felt like I had lost everything and I felt like it was all because of Reese, but I couldn't let him go. You guys were my only link to Alan." She paused, wiping the tears that she just realized were falling out of her eyes before her eyes fell to the floor, her hair covering her face."Reese looks just like Alan, and the more I was around him, the more he reminded me of what I'd lost." She said, almost whispering at this point.
Suddenly, I didn't feel anger towards the woman. Just pity. I couldn't believe it, but I actually pitied the woman. She had really lost a lot. The was probably the strongest woman I'd ever met. She always was an idol to me. She was strong and independent, even though she was alone. I realized, it was always something I admired about her. But now, all of her walls were down. She was completely vulnerable, and I didn't like seeing her like that. I wanted for her to be the strong woman I'd always envisioned her to be. I couldn't imagine it. Now that I had Ian, I was starting to see how she must have felt, loving a man who probably didn't care what she did. How must have Ian felt when I rejected his advances? Karma was a bitch. He wasn't a bad person. In my mom's story, nobody was.
Not her. Not my dad. Not the woman he loved. Not Reese. No one was the bad guy. It was just a story that was meant to end in heartbreak and despair.
"I didn't want to leave Reese." My mom spoke again in the silence. "He was my responsibility. And then you were born. Suddenly, I had the two of you and I didn't want to abandon either one of you, but Reese is different, Eira. You won't understand. He's not your brother. He's your half-brother and he has a half that you won't be able to understand. It's something you can never be a part of and something you can never know about." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "Just do one thing for me. That's all I ask. Avoid him."
That shocked me more that anything she'd said, but maybe my mind was a little numb because of everything she'd told me in the past ten minutes. Could it only have been ten minutes? My whole life, my entire existence changed in only a time span of ten minutes. That was unbelievable.
"He's my brother." I said more to myself than anyone else. "I can't believe I have a brother. Where has be been this whole time?" I asked her, wanting to know, too. I don't ever remember even remotely seeing the guy in the whole time span that I'd been alive. Where exactly had my mother put the guy?
"He's twenty-two years old, Eira. He's in college." My mom said.
"And before that?"
"He was living in a boarding academy for boys in New York." She said, sounding empty and weak, like she was too tired to refuse me answers or hide anything else from me. I felt like she would have answered any question I asked her with complete honesty.
"New York?" I asked, remembering how many times my mom had gone to New York for 'work purposes.' She'd left me at home alone so many times so she could spend time with her son? Was that really why she was going to New York? "Is this why you go to New York so often?" I asked her.
"Not just that." She said. "I do have a lot of business in the city. It was where I met Alan. Where I fell in love with him. It's where my family lives. My whole life was in that city." She told me. I nodded, taking in the new information.
For some reason, I believed her.
"I need some alone time." I said after a few seconds. "I'm going to my room."I said, turning around and heading for the stairs. The whole time, the only thing on my mind was that I had never seen any of this coming.
Until now, the only interesting thing in my life was that night with Ian, but now, I was questioning myself. I was questioning who I was, and that night with Ian and what he had tried on me all seemed so small, so irrelevant compared to what I felt right now.
As I was walking towards my room, I passed a closed door and I knew that my brother was inside of that room. I paused in front of the door, trying to decide what to do. From what my mom had told me, she had no relation with him, but I did. He's my dad's real son and I'm his real daughter. So what if we have different moms?
We spent so much time without knowing about each other. Was it time to make a change?
With that in mind, I knocked on the door. I felt nervous. Why the heck did I knock on the door? Why would he want to talk to me? He probably doesn't even care.
Turn around and go, a part of me said. Leave. He won't know you were here.
Another part told me to stay and deal with it. I waited a little longer before I realized he wasn't going to open the door.
This is your chance to get away. Go. Talk to him later. Tomorrow. Go to your room and lock the door. I knocked on the door again, a little more loudly.
I heard a frustrated grunt from the other side of the room and then footsteps approaching the door. I flinched as the door flung open and my brother stood in the door frame. He looked at me.
"What do you want?" He asked, looking at me with anger.
"I'm Eira." I said, with confidence that came from nowhere. "Welcome to the house." I paused. "Look, I know that things are very complicated and messed up. I had no idea who you were and I feel horrible. I want to get to know you. To fix things. I had no idea you existed until today and I know that you might not want anything to do with me, which is completely legitimate, because I'm the illegitimate one." He raised an eyebrow. "But I promise that I'm not all bad. Do you need help with anything? Unpacking?" I asked, hopeful.
He eyed me for a second. "I"m used to doing things on my own." He finally said, slamming the door in my face, crushing my hopes.
Suddenly, I wanted to cry again. This was it. Rejection. In big, bold, capital letters. There was no hope for me. He doesn't want anything to do with me.
I was about to turn around and return to my room like a dejected warrior when the door to the room opened again and my brother stood there with a somewhat confused expression and somewhat reluctant. "I'm Reese." And with that, the door closed again.
I grinned. That was not a acceptance, but it was a small step. My whole life was messed up, but somehow, Reese was going to give our brother-sister relationship a chance.
I returned to my room no longer an only child.