“I’m not -” I sighed. I needed answers now. I could always try to justify what I did to her later. Can you?
“Look at me,” I commanded and she did, almost immediately. She was always so good at that.
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a step forward.
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort. “Amber, Amber Collins, Opal’s younger sister.”
I nodded. “I should have known. It was so evident.”
Anger flared in her eyes. “Why? Because of the lame sex and blowjob?”
I pale at the realization of her words. I’d never even considered that part of the issue. I’d thought she was an over-experienced prostitute. Memories of how I’d treated her, of how I’d degraded her came back with a vengeance. I winced as a wave of disgust filled me.
“I - was not your first, was I?” I asked with dread. No, I couldn't be her first. She hadn’t bled. She hadn’t felt like a virgin. No, but she hadn’t felt like a prostitute either, had she? I remembered how much I’d marveled at her tightness around my cock.
She shook her head, but the way she looked away and broke eye contact, didn't settle well with me. She was hiding something else.
“Tell me. I deserve to know.”
She sighed. “What do you want to hear?”
“The truth. That’d be a nice change.”
She nodded. “Second. My high school boyfriend, we’ve learned as we went, so sorry if I didn’t meet your expectations. We only had sex a grand total of three times.” She snorted. “However, the blowjob was my first, so I think I deserve an A for effort.”
Fuck me! I was stunned by the revelation and how bitter she sounded. Something had changed between last night and today, but I wasn't sure what.
“How -” I took a deep breath as shame and dread settled in my stomach. I was almost scared to ask my question. “How old are you?” She looked so young, but I’d never imagined she actually was.
“I’m legal.”
“Not what I asked.” Still a fucking relief.
“Twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one…” I huffed. Talk about getting kicked in the crotch!
We had a thirteen-year gap. Thirteen years! That was basically a lifetime of experience. She was so inexperienced in everything, in intimacy, in relationships…in sex. My stomach dropped. I had always been so rough with her, degrading, even mean during sex. I’d used it as a not-so-passive-aggressive way of punishing her for making me feel so much desire, so much want. I’d punished her for just being her, because I couldn’t get enough of her.
I shook my head. I had missed all the signs.
Now I realized that all the times her fists had clenched or she’d gasped, had been due more to pain than pleasure. God, what have I done?
“But-” I took another step into her room and took a deep breath. I was finally close enough to smell her enticing perfume. Would I ever look at the cherry trees in the Garden the same way? “You…you wanted it, right? The sex?” I asked hesitantly. For the first time since I was a teenager, I wasn’t sure what to do or say.
She looked at me for a few seconds; it seemed like an eternity. Please say yes, I begged, already feeling the cold sweat beading on the back of my neck.
She sighed, sitting down heavily on her bed. “I did,” she replied, but she looked away and I hated that. Her eyes were like an open book.
I tried to sit beside her on the bed, but she shook her head.
I nodded and sat at the other end instead. “You know, it’s not supposed to be like that. Sex is not that rough - at least not always. It’s enjoyable for both parties. I-” I was at loss for words.
Why was I even trying to defend my actions? She was the one who’d lied to me. She was the one who’d let me believe she was an experienced hooker.
“I didn’t hate it,” she finally replied with a small shrug.
In any other circumstances, that would have been an insult, but right now, it was music to my ears.
“You should have told me,” I accused as some of the guilt finally eased, replaced by the pain of betrayal.
She snorted. “Please, we both know you would have taken Timmy from me without a second thought.”
I looked down at my hands silently. I would not insult us both by denying it. If I'd known the truth at the time, yes, I would have taken him.
She jumped up from her spot on the bed and started to pace the room. “In the end, it shouldn’t have mattered if I was Opal or not. She didn’t deserve to be treated like that either.” She stopped in front of me. “Did you ever stop for one second to wonder why she was who she was? We’d lost our mother when Opal was only eleven and I was four. My father forced her to assume a motherly role, which no eleven-year-old should have to do. A year later, she got her period and my father decided it was time for her to assume my mother's role completely and satisfy him sexually.”
Nausea hit me again. As my self-hatred increased, I made a vow to myself. If that man was still alive, and I'd track him down and kill him.
After taking a deep, shaky breath, she resumed her pacing. “When it was my turn to get my periods, my father started to look at me differently. Opal was only seventeen by then but she had collected evidence of his abuse, which she used to take me away, just the two of us.”
Her eyes filled up with tears. I hated seeing her suffer. How peculiar. “She was good to me. The drugs and prostitution - they weren’t reasons for you to do what you did. Some things I can forgive, but-” She shook her head.
“But?” I asked, hating that I was taking the bait. But I hated even more the dread settling in the pit of my stomach at the idea of her not forgiving me.
“Did you hire a dealer to tempt me?”
I jerked back, then stood up. I hadn’t seen that one coming. I’d done that out of anger after seeing her with Jeremy. It was something that I was not particularly proud of.
“Have you?”
“Who told you that?” I needed to know who I had to kill.
“So you’re not denying?” She shook her head. “You went out of your way trying to get a recovering addict to fall off the rail, all this just to take a child you don't even care for? A child I'm sure you know I love more than life. “
“I care about Timothy. He is my nephew and it’s more complicated than that. It was-”
“Yes or no.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled up with tears, cutting me like a knife to the lungs.
“Stay.” I couldn’t believe I’d uttered these words. “Stay with me, here. I know you want to.” At least, I hope she did.
She shook her head and resumed packing. “No, I can’t. No matter what you thought of Opal, you did something despicable, and I’m not sure I can forgive you for it.”
“I won’t beg you to stay,” I said with anger. I’d come very close to it just now but no, I would never beg anyone and never a woman. I’d seen how my father had begged my mother. He’d gone to his knees and kissed her feet when she’d been on one of her psychotic trips. I would never become my father. Nobody could hold my happiness in their hands.
She gave me a weary smile. “I don’t want you to. It’s not in your nature.” There was no heat behind her words, only a great sadness. “No man is an island except for Dean Beaumont.” She let out a tearless sob as she zipped her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Just show Timmy love, even if you have to fake it. Let him know that it’s okay to cry, to be imperfect, to try.” Tears fell down her beautiful face as she reached for the suitcase. She walked to the door. “Tell him that it’s okay to do everything right and still fail, that life is made up of as much love as there is pain, maybe even more. And tell him, please-” She let out another sob that hit me right in the black hole in the middle of my chest. “Tell him that I love him more than anything in the world. And you were right, I don’t know if she got pregnant on purpose. She might have. My sister was not as innocent in all this as I’ve wanted to believe.”