My heart bottomed out while the rest of me hung on to every tingle of nerves. “Keep what a secret?”
“You’re a smart girl. You can’t tell me you’ve never questioned it.”
“Questioned what?” My voice grew louder despite the blank expression on my face. “Stop bullshitting me and spit it out already.”
“You’re not my blood, Mia, and it’s time that you know the truth.”
An incredulous laugh belted from my lips, and my father snapped his furrowed brows together.
“You … ” I paused and shook my head, “You came all this way to tell me that? You could have saved half a day of your life and a thousand bucks.”
“Mia, stop this.”
“No”—I stood— “a simple phone call would have sufficed.”
“I’m not done talking with you. Don’t you want to know the rest?”
I stretched my arms out to my sides. “Oh, please … tell me dad, or should I start calling you Bruce? I can’t wait to hear this.”
“You were never born in the United States, Mia. You were born here … in Surrey. Your mother took you back to the US after you were born, so you have dual citizenship. The reason I was able to convince the judge, to get you into Dolor, in the first place.”
Another disbelieving laugh escaped me. I couldn’t help it. It was all too much. “Okay, I’ve heard enough.”
“I’m not done!”
“I am! Basically, what you’re saying is, I’m not your daughter, and I’m not welcome back. How am I doing so far, Dad?”
“Don’t say it like that. It’s not what I meant.”
“What exactly did you mean?”
“I was never cut out for this, but I did the best I could! Of course, you’re welcome back at any time. I want you in my life, but I want you to want to be in my life too, all while knowing the whole truth. And the truth of the matter is, we both somehow ended up together, but we made it this far. Diane will come around. She just needs some time. She doesn’t understand you and can be closed-minded by all this mental illness shit—
“Mental illness shit? Fuck you!” And I left him standing there as I marched back to Ethan in front of the building. What my dad really was saying was I was his past, and he wanted to move on without me. Ethan stood about sixty yards away, but each step I took away from my dad didn’t feel as if I was adding enough distance between us. My brain turned to mush, unable to sort my thoughts on how I felt, and tears never poured when I thought they would.
“You alright?” Ethan asked as he studied my face.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, Mia. I can see it on your face.”
“Just take me back inside,” my voice hitched. “Please.”
My mask was slipping and trying to stay strong for this long turned into a struggle.
We walked back through the double doors of Dolor, and as soon as they closed behind us, Ethan grabbed my hand and tugged me through a side door on the right until we were out of sight. His long arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me in for a hug and I didn’t resist. I threw my arms around him, and as soon as my face hit his neck, I broke apart.
“He’s an arsehole,” Ethan said calmly, cradling me in his arms.
“How did you know?” I asked after pulling my head away and searching Ethan’s eyes. “How did you know why he came?”
“I talked to him when he first arrived.” Ethan pressed my head back into his neck while his other hand ran up my back as he fell back against the wall. His stubble grazed my cheek as he held me tighter. “The number of people who love you doesn’t determine your worth. Remember that.”
Through my dinner and shower routine, I stayed quiet as I tried to get a grip on everything that happened. The remainder of the night, I took my restlessness and anger out on my journal, writing everything out as if it were a punching bag. If I said I wasn’t hurt, it would have been a lie.
The truth was, I was hurt because it was all a lie.
My entire life had been a lie.
Bruce was never my father, only an acting participant in my life because he loved my mom—not me. Never me. Probably the same reason why he blamed me for her death. Most likely why he never took the time to understand me. He never cared. Since my mom had died, all I became was baggage. A fucking obligation.
The lead tip broke while writing out the last sentence, and I threw the pencil against the cement wall before leaning back into the chair. My gaze landed on the clock above the door to read that it was almost midnight.
I slipped out of my hoodie and sweatpants, and threw myself over the mattress.
Pain ripped through the skin of my back. I cried out and jerked my body against the bed, trying to get up, but the pain only sliced deeper, driving my screams. The one foot hanging off the bed couldn’t find traction to the floor and my arms stayed pinned at my side as the burn in my back expanded with every sudden movement.
Afraid to move any further, I laid frozen as my screams turned into soft moans and tears fell from the corners of my eyes, unsure of what was happening to me. As long as I didn’t move, I would be okay. I had to lay still.
Ethan barged into my room and rushed to my side with wild eyes. “Jett? What’s wrong?”
Uttering a single word grew to be a challenge when all I could think about was the pain, and all I could do was let my silent tears flow freely.
“You’re scaring me. Talk to me!” Ethan demanded again, his hands gripping my shoulders.
When I didn’t speak, he pulled me up, and another scream clawed up my throat.
“What in the hell?” Ethan asked, examining my back. As quickly and carefully as he could, he picked me up off the mattress and carried me through the dark halls of Dolor to the nurse’s station. His lips landed on my forehead as he tried to console my cries the entire way.
“Ethan,” I tried to get out. “What’s in my back?”
Ethan ignored my question as he muttered threats and curses under his breath. “I swear I’m going to kill whoever did this.” He kicked the door open and laid me over my stomach in the first available bed as his footsteps frantically sounded all over the marble floor. “Rhonda!” The jarring pain simmered as if it lived inside me, and I laid as still as possible as I bit my cheeks to fight it off. Ethan’s face appeared before me again. “Rhonda isn’t working. What do you want me to do?”
“Make it stop!” I cried out. “Whatever it is, get it out of me!”
Ethan’s face fell before he left my side. A series of bangs and shuffling sounded around me, and then he returned to my side with tweezers in his hand. Ethan pulled a chair next to the bed and took a seat. “It’s glass. This is going to hurt.”
My eyes went wide, and the second he removed the first piece of jagged glass from my hip, my eyes clamped shut as I screamed.
After Ethan removed the bigger pieces, he peeled my tank top from my back, taking smaller bits along with it. He tossed my blood-soaked top in the trash before he got started on the smaller pieces, which took hours through the night. At one point, I passed out from the pain.
“This is from lightbulbs,” Ethan muttered to himself as he plucked small pieces from my shoulders, disposing of the contents in a nearby tray. The large fluorescents were turned off, leaving a spotlight over the place on my skin he was working on. He said he needed to see the glare from the glass, and it was better this way. “I think that’s the last of it. I’m going to clean up the blood.”