I Speak...Love (A Different Road #3) (2 page)

Inside there were a few photos of Kate as a very tiny infant, maybe only one or two days old that I’d never seen before, several miscellaneous papers, and her birth certificate. I flipped through some of the papers and the one titled
Adoption Agreement
stopped my heart cold and
took my breath away. My eyes flew over the paperwork as my heart sunk in my chest. I didn’t understand. I was ten when Kate was born, and I vividly remember my mom being pregnant. I even remember the day she went into labor and left for the hospital. My dad was running around the house like a crazy person. He was over-the-moon happy that he would soon meet his first daughter. I also remember my mom and sister didn’t come home from the hospital right away. My dad said there were some complications, that they needed to stay in the hospital for a little while, and there weren’t visitors allowed under the age of eighteen. No one would say exactly why, but my mom and Kate didn’t come home from the hospital until two weeks after my mom gave birth. Once they came home, though, life went on as normal and my dad doted on baby Kate.

I flipped through the remaining papers and the very last piece of paper sent chills running up and down my spine. It was a death certificate. Now I really didn’t understand. I was a very smart kid, and it seemed blatantly obvious, but I just couldn’t believe it. My biological baby sister, the one my mom gave birth to, died during childbirth, then they quickly adopted Kate to make it seem like nothing had ever happened. What happened to my biological baby sister? How did she die? Back then, I didn’t know how long adoption proceedings took, but I knew it had to take longer than two weeks from start to finish. I know my dad was a powerful man with major personal and political connections, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Kate was adopted. I was fifteen, why the hell didn’t I know this? I put everything back as I found it, except for the Adoption Agreement which I folded up and put in my pocket, and then I went back to my room.

That night at dinner, while we all sat around the table, I couldn’t stop staring at Kate. The longer I looked at her, the more I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it before. She looked nothing like my parents, or my brother and me. She had olive skin, maybe of Mediterranean descent, high, prominent cheekbones, and her straight, pointy nose looked nothing like any of ours.

The day my parents announced we were going to Legoland, I pitched a fit and said it was for babies. I walked straight to my room, shoved the folded up piece of paper in my pocket, then marched into my father’s office and closed the door behind me. My father looked up at me with very proud, adoring eyes, like he always did and smiled at me. He was always so proud of me. I was on the fast track to becoming our schools starting quarterback, and I was in every advanced class the school had to offer. I had my sights set on attending Notre Dame, and even at fifteen, I was working toward a full ride football scholarship after I graduated.

I loved it when my dad called me
son.
It felt like ownership. Like I was something special to him. As I sat down, he set aside his work and asked,
What’s on your mind, son?
I sat down in the dark, leather chair across from him and started sweating bullets. I just
had
to go to this party. Sharla Dean was going to be there, and if I played my cards right, I was going to lose my virginity to that fine, sexy, hot, leggy blonde. I was prepared to play hardball with my dad if it came down to it. I tried the gentle approach by telling him I just didn’t want to go. I told him there wouldn’t be anything there for me to do. That didn’t work. It felt like the folded up Adoption Agreement in my front pocket was on fire, burning a hole straight through my thigh. I swallowed the lump in my throat, reached into my pocket and pulled it out, then unfolded it. I slid it across the desk with a shaking hand, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remove my finger from it. In my mind, I saw myself crumpling it up and running back to my room. I had never done anything so cold, heartless, and underhanded before, but it was my only ticket inside Sharla’s pants.

His proud eyes looked down at the paper, then they morphed into something I couldn’t place, something I had never seen before. It was every horrible emotion all rolled into one, and it was solely directed at me. I could see his disappointment, anger, anxiety, and loss of trust as his eyes left the paper and slowly came back to mine. His hand softly rested on the paper, then he slowly slid it out from under my finger, unlocked the drawer, and placed it back inside the folder. With a hard lump in my throat, my eyes followed him as he stood up without a word, then went into the kitchen where my mother was softly singing to herself as she prepared dinner. Her singing stopped cold as I listened to him tell her I was staying home and that it wasn’t open for discussion. She was upset and insisted I was too young to stay home by myself. She had her heart set on taking this vacation together as a family. He again told her it wasn’t up for discussion, but he assured her that his best friend Sebastien would keep an eye on me. I hung my head. Completely disgusted with myself, I locked myself in my room and knew I was never going to be able to get it up for Sharla with how I felt about what I had just done.

If only I had never found out the truth.

If only I had gone on vacation with my family.

I’ll never forget the sad look in my mother’s eyes the day they left. She was completely devastated and her heart was shattered because we wouldn’t be going on the trip as a family. She attempted one more time to get me to go, but I yelled at her and, more out of anger at myself, I called her a bitch. A little piece of my heart died as I watched her face crumble right before my eyes. I regretted saying it the instant it was out of my mouth, but it was too late, I’d said it and the damage was done. She wasn’t a bitch, far from it. I hated myself for saying it, but more so, I hated that it was the last word my mom ever heard my voice say.

After they left, I picked up the phone and called my best friend, Jay, who was sixteen and already had his driver’s license. I told him my parents had left and he could come pick me up. We had planned on hanging out together before the party. He said he needed to wait until his parents left, but he’d be there in a few hours.

Jay never came to pick me up that day.

Before Jay could arrive, Sebastien came to the house. I assumed it was to check in on me. But that wasn’t why he was there. Instead, he told me that my family had been in a horrible car accident, that both of my parents were dead, and that River and Kate were in the hospital. That little piece of my heart that died earlier suddenly burst alive with guilt, and it spread like a flesh eating virus until every little piece of my heart and soul had turned black and died.

My head started to spin and I couldn’t breathe. I ran to the bathroom and threw up until my stomach was as empty as my heart. All I could think about was that I had disappointed my father and I had blackmailed him, all so I could get fucking laid. I also broke my mother’s heart by not going on our family vacation, and worst of all, I called her a bitch. Oh my God, the last words I ever said to her weren’t
I love you,
or
you’re the best mom in the world.
No, I called her a bitch, and I was never going to be able to take it back.

I couldn’t function or forgive myself knowing that the last things I said and did to my parents, caused them so much pain and disappointment it broke them.

I had hurt my family enough. After the initial shock, the first thought that crossed my mind was to honor my parents’ wishes to keep the death of my baby sister and Kate’s adoption a secret. I raced into my father’s office and stole my sister’s file. I hid it under my mattress in my room determined to take their secret to my own grave.

Sebastien drove me to the hospital and when I walked into River’s room, he was lying motionless on the bed. His lifeless body was hooked up to several machines, tubes, and wires. I’ll never forget the sterile scent that permeated the room. River’s head and eyes were wrapped in a white bandage, and my little sister, Kate, lay sleeping with her little hands clutched in a death grip around his side. Even though he was unconscious, River’s hand was laced protectively through Kate’s fingers, and I instantly felt like
everything
was my fault. The weight of the world crept up my back and lodged between my shoulders as my dead heart shattered into a million pieces. My parents’ death, River’s blindness, and the destructive life that Kate ultimately led, was all my fault.

I’ve lived with this guilt for so long now that I’ve distanced myself from the people I protect. I brought this on my family, and I’ve accepted it as my daily punishment for what I did. Kate is twenty-three and still to this day does not know she is adopted. I’ve tried so many times over the years to tell her, but then I see my father’s disappointed eyes and my mother’s hurt face. It never seemed like the right thing to do. How do you tell someone, an adult, that everything they thought they knew about their life is a complete lie?

Kate is in such a good place in her life right now. Though, things are still so fresh. She was so fragile. She’s struggled with her own guilt over our parent’s death, and the need to commit suicide almost all of her life. I could never hand her the final nail to her coffin by telling her something I know will only destroy her.

The burden is heavy, but it’s not the worst secret I keep. I hold an even deeper, darker secret that if my brother and sister knew . . . they’d disown me and never want to see me again. It’s easier for me to hold them at a distance because the truth will eventually come out. The truth always comes out; it’s only a matter of time when it does. The dam will eventually break, and it will be easier on my cold, dead heart if they’re both already at arm’s length.

“I’m just going to poke my head in and say hello,” I hear a muffled voice say outside my closed office door.

That sounds like Maddy. What’s she doing here this early in the morning? My stomach flips upside down in my gut just at the thought of seeing her. I don’t know what it is about this woman. Since the first day I saw her, something is drawing me to her. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like an invisible tether trying to weave my broken pieces back together. She makes me want to break my number one, cardinal rule . . . to never let anyone get close to me, because ultimately, I’ll only end up hurting them or worse they’ll end up dead just like my parent’s.

Madelyn Malone, why are you even doing this?
I ask myself, as I sit in
California Chef’s
catering van in the parking lot at
Kate Mason Yoga,
at six AM on a Monday morning. I’m always second guessing myself. Do these people really like me? Am I forcing a friendship that’s all in my head or the better question is when will it all be taken away from me? Like everything else in my life, it will always, always,
always
eventually be taken away from me. Like you can count on the sun to rise in the East each morning and to set in the West each night . . . I can count on everything good in my life to be ripped right out of my hands, no matter how tight I try to hold on. Sure, I talk a confident game, but it’s the lie I’ve perfected over the years. Growing up the way I did, I had to be a fearless, emotionless badass on the outside, while secretly cowering and crying on the inside.