First Love (Complicated Love Book 1) (10 page)

I don’t want my dad to go to prison, but he needs to pay the price for what he’s done. He’s more pissed about losing the office than he is about losing my mom or me.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. There aren’t sexual harassment charges against me.”

“You can keep playing it that way if you want. I don’t care. I’m so done with you and your lies. You’ll get what you have coming to you, and it’ll be sooner rather than later. I’ll help Jolene and Bill with whatever they need.”

“Well, I see I’m going to have to pull out the big guns to keep you in check.”

I want to walk away, but those words out of his mouth stop me in my tracks. Please don’t let him say what I think he’s going to say. It isn’t true, but in a way, part of it is. I don’t want to hurt Donna, but if this comes out, I know it will.

“No, what you need to do is admit to your faults and let me live my life the way I want to live it. Let me be with who I want and stay out of my business. Also, you need to man the fuck up and take care of all of these claims.”

“I’ll never stay out of your business. I don’t want you around Donna and her family anymore. They’re trying to steal the company away from me. If you marry her, she’ll get your portion. I won’t let them take what is rightfully mine. Son, one day, you’ll thank me for this.”  With a smug look on his face, he turns to Donna and says, “By the way, ask my son where he really was on his eighteenth birthday when he was supposed to be with you but cancelled.”

I don’t want to look at Donna and see any pain. I have to remain strong until we have time to talk about this later. I won’t have that talk in front of my parents.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about losing the business to them because I quit! I don’t want anything to do with you or the business if you’re involved. As far as I’m concerned, you can sell it when you retire. I don’t want anything from you. That’s if Bill doesn’t take it from you, which I hope he does.”

I’m fuming mad right now. He has no right to be doing this. He’s not only hurting himself, but everyone around him. He’s willing to risk Bill’s part in the company. Bill is like a dad to me. I grew up being in their house a lot in the summer.

“How can you be so callous? You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You don’t care that you’re destroying Bill and Jolene. With Bill being part owner, he could lose everything too. His only saving grace is that you’re named the sole perpetrator on all the sexual harassment cases. He was pissed when Jolene brought them to his attention. What were you going to do?  Try paying off the women? It’s a good thing Jolene found out about them when she was helping Janice catch up on her workload. On top of all of that shit, you’ve never cared for Mom the way you should. You continue to sleep around when, really, you should come home and be with her. She doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. I don’t know why she stays with you and puts up with this shit. Now, you’re trying to ruin my life with Donna. I don’t know how I can ever forgive you for this.”

“That’s fine, but if you walk out that door, you’ll no longer be our son, and you’ll no longer be welcome in this house,” my father says with an evil laugh.

He thinks he’s won. He doesn’t believe I’ll walk away from it all, but he’s wrong. I’ll never walk away from Donna, but I sure as hell will walk away from him and from the business.

My mom starts crying. “Son, don’t leave yet. I will not let your father make the decision for me. He is not in control of me anymore.”  Then she turns to my father and says in a voice I’ve never heard her use on him, “Get the hell out of this house. You’re no longer welcome here. I don’t care where you go. If you don’t want to leave quietly, I will gladly call the police and have you escorted off the property.”

I’m so proud that she’s finally standing up for herself. She has always let Dad make the decisions for her.

“You can’t kick me out of my house. I pay all the bills here. No cop is going to make me leave my own house. If you want me to leave so fucking bad, then you should take your own advice and walk the fuck out of the door.  I don’t need your lazy ass around anyways. I’d be better off without you. Then I wouldn’t have to waste so much money on hotel rooms.”

I don’t even have a chance to defend my mom because she walks up to him and slaps him.

“I don’t know how I stayed with you and put up with you for so long. I thought I was doing Brian a favor by letting him have his father around. I can now see that that was the biggest mistake I could’ve made. I can only be thankful he had Bill to look up to and didn’t turn out a sleezeball like you.”

“You stayed with me because you were a money-hungry whore who didn’t want to have to work for herself. You’re a lazy bitch. You couldn’t have provided for yourself and Brian.”

I can’t believe he’s talking to her this way. I’ve never heard him speak this way before. Yes, he cheats, but he’s never been this nasty.

Without any warning, Mom grabs the phone. “Brian, we’ll fight over the house in the divorce, but I’m asking you to take your lying, cheating ass out of my house now. I won’t hesitate to call the police. You have one minute to turn and walk out that door.”

“Mom, I can’t stay and watch that man treat you this way any longer. Just call the police and let them come deal with his sorry ass. He’s not going to leave willingly.”

“You’re all a bunch of worthless pieces of shit. You’ll get what’s coming to you. I’ll make sure you end up living on the street, Marianne. Brian, you’ll lose all of your trust fund. You’ll both end up with nothing. Don’t think this is the last you’ll hear from me.” He grabs his bag and walks out the door.

“You’ll get your comeuppance, and hopefully that’s a jail sentence for being a creep and thinking you’re above the law,” my mom whispers to his back.

I don’t think she intended for anyone to hear her.

I sigh in relief. I really thought my mom would have to involve the cops to get him to leave.

“Mom, are you all right?” That’s a stupid question to ask right now.

“I will be. I have a lot to take care of tonight before your dad ends up stealing all of our money.”

“I’m sure my dad will help you, Marianne,” Donna says. “He won’t hold what Brian Sr. has been doing against you.”

“That’s who I was planning on asking for help,” she whispers.

“Would you like us to stay with you tonight? I don’t want you to be alone if you need someone.” I don’t know what else to do for her.

She looks like her world is shattered and nothing can be fixed. I hope she’ll finally get the peace she needs. It’s been a long time coming.

“No. I’m going to call Bill and see what he suggests I do. Then I’m going to head to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day with getting the bank accounts frozen so he can’t take all the money. Plus, I need to finally file for divorce. I also want to see what Jolene needs me to do about the sexual harassment cases. I don’t know if he’d keep anything in his home office or if I could even hand that stuff over or not. But that’s not something I want to deal with now. Why don’t you and Donna head home, and I’ll be in touch with you guys tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say as I walk over and hug her. “Please don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything tonight. I’ll be here for you whenever you need.” 

We haven’t had the best of relationships, but that’s because I couldn’t handle watching her let my dad walk all over her. I’m hoping we can finally have a stress-free relationship.

“Goodnight, Marianne. I’m sorry about all the pain you had to go through tonight. Let me know if I can do anything for you. I love you,” Donna says as she hugs my mom goodbye.

“Goodbye, sweet girl. Please don’t go too hard on Brian tonight. He didn’t have a choice on his birthday. His dad threatened him if he went out with you. Give him a chance to explain.” Mom kisses her on the cheek. “Love you too, beautiful,” she says and walks us to the door.

“Brian, are you all right?” Donna asks as we get back to the car.

That was not the first question I was expecting her to ask. Which only means one thing: I am so fucked.

“As good as I can be. I was prepared for the worst, but you can never prepare for how it feels to be the one to tear your mom’s heart out. I’m hoping, with time, she’ll get stronger and we can have a healthier relationship, but for now, I have you, I hope, and that’s all I need.”

Donna, Frank, and Shawna are family enough for me. And, one day, we’ll have kids and they’ll build our family. I know that my mom will eventually find happiness. She’s going to need time to heal and learn who she is as a woman.

W
hy I didn’t ask him the question burning in my mind, I’ll never know. I’m not sure I want to know what his dad was talking about, but I need to know.

Marianne told me to give Brian the benefit of the doubt, so I will. I really don’t think it’s as bad as I’m imagining. I’m sure it was a ploy by Brian Sr. to deflect attention from himself and onto his son. I might as well get it over with so I know what we’re dealing with.

“Brian, I know you’re hurting, but I need to know what your dad was talking about. I can’t sit here and wonder any longer. It’s killing me, thinking of all of these things that could’ve happened. I know you said you never cheated, but that’s all that’s running through my head right now.”

  He wouldn’t. Please, please, please don’t let that be the case.

“Donna, you have to know I was young and I wanted my dad to be proud of me. Plus, I didn’t want to lose my car. Then I wouldn’t have been able to see you all the time. He wanted to make me a real man. He knew I was waiting for you to get home so we could spend the evening together. He knew I wanted to be with you and only you. He said, for me to be able to please you, I had to have experience. I didn’t want experience—I wanted you. The night of my eighteenth birthday, he and some of his friends hired strippers to come to a hotel. They were going to enjoy them while one of them took me back to a room and showed me how to pleasure a woman, and . . .”

Why is he stopping? He told me he hasn’t cheated on me. We were definitely together when he turned eighteen—the next night was our first night together.

“Please no. No. No. No. You didn’t. How could you do this to me? To us?” I can’t help but break down.

He’s a liar just like his father. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“No, I didn’t sleep with her. I couldn’t. I didn’t even want to. She tried to get me interested, but all I could see was you and the pain it would cause you to know that I was with another girl. I couldn’t and wouldn’t do that to you. So I finally got the stripper to dress. We ended up talking all night. She respected me for turning her down. She said no man, even married, had ever turned her down. I should have told you the truth about that night, but I was embarrassed for the longest time. But I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. I didn’t cheat. I was an eighteen-year-old looking for his dad’s approval.”

“I don’t know why this is happening to me. I feel like the universe is trying to pull us apart. If nothing happened, why does your dad think something did?”

“I told her I couldn’t leave the room without making my dad believe I slept with her. If I didn’t, he would only find me someone new. She knew I wasn’t interested, so we made it sound like we had sex. We came out and she only paid attention to me. Dad ate it up and didn’t question it.”

“Wow. I’m not usually speechless, but I don’t even know what to say about your dad doing this. He really is a piece of work.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t have to worry about him anymore. I doubt he’s ever going to change. I’m hoping my mom is going to stick with her decisions and follow through with the divorce.  She’s been following my dad around for almost forty years. I imagine it’s scary for her to picture herself alone.”

“I bet it’s scary, and change is hard on anyone. She hasn’t known anything else but life with your dad. I can’t even imagine the pain she’s going through right now. Hopefully, she won’t take him back. She’ll be better off in the long run.”

“I hope so. I don’t want to live without my parents in my life, but I will if I have to. If she goes back to him, I won’t be able to have her in my life, either. He would find a way to try and control me again, and I won’t go back to that. I want you, and you’ll always be my number one. You mean everything to me.”

“You mean everything to me also.”

These last few days have been filled with so much drama, but I’m ready for it to end. I’m ready to start my life with Brian. Now, I need to get my parents on board.

“Brian, we need to tell my parents we’re going to elope.”

“Ummm…I don’t know if I can handle any more drama right now. Do you think they’d hate us if we went to Vegas and told them when we got back? You know, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” 

“That’s a great idea. Too bad I didn’t think of it. Let’s head home and call Shawna and Frank and see if they can meet us there. We can have some fun while we’re there.”

When I call Shawna, she is excited I am finally putting my needs ahead of “The Moms.”  She says that I deserved to have my happily ever after the way I want it to happen.