“I’ve been trying to tell you this for what feels like forever; the timing was just never right. But you need to know. I’ve always felt it was the truth…I wasn’t sure. I know it now, though. Without a doubt, I know.”
“Spit it out, Adele.”
My stomach is churning as I wait. Fear makes my palms clammy and I clutch at my knees, scared out of my mind at what she’s about to say.
“Vanessa wasn’t your sister, Andrew.” Adele pauses, the smile she shoots my direction devastating. “She was your daughter.”
Chapter 15
Day 7 (Departure), 1:30 p.m.
Where there is love, there is pain.
—Spanish proverb
Fable
More than four hours later, and I still don’t know what to say.
I’m in a perpetual state of shock over Adele’s devastating confession. I’m not the one who’s most traumatically affected by it, either. I’m scared to death by the way Drew is taking it. Which is zero reaction whatsoever.
He’s cold as ice. Expressionless. Emotionless. Void of anything and everything.
I’ve spent six full days and nights with him. I’ve seen him at his lowest and highest points, his most angry and his most caring, yet I’ve never seen him act like this.I don’t know what to do for him. And he won’t talk to me.
It ends up being the longest, quietest four-plus hours of my life. Traffic was brutal, the weather shitty, with slick roads and heavy rain, making it nearly impossible for him to see through the windshield.
He flicked on the radio at the very start of our journey, a clear indicator that he didn’t want to talk, so I didn’t press. But I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to! There were so many questions and I had no answers.
Was Adele telling the truth? Had Vanessa really been Drew’s daughter? Did his father—her husband—have any sort of clue? Had he been aware of their affair? Exactly how long had it gone on, anyway?
From my calculations, she’d done this to him for a long time. At least four years. In the bits that he told me about the day Vanessa died, I have a feeling Adele dragged him into the house and had her way with him. So while they were fucking, Vanessa drowned.
Brutal, but the truth—I can feel it. Hence that extra heaping dose of guilt he piles on himself.
I’m not angry at him, though, and I can’t hate him for what happened. It’s not his fault, no matter how much he thinks it is. She trapped him into this crazy, sick relationship, and he didn’t know how to get out of it. He was a child when she started playing her twisted game.
It’s a wonder he was able to be with me at all last night.
I slept fitfully the last hour or so of the drive, and I wake up with a jolt when the truck comes to a complete stop and he shuts off the engine. I lift my head and peer out the window, discovering we’re in the parking lot of my apartment complex.
Yay. I’m home.
“We’re here,” he says, his deep voice deathly quiet. “Need help with your bag?”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Is this really how we’re going to end it?”
His gaze meets mine and it’s full of so much pain, I almost look away. But I refuse. He’s not going to win. I refuse to let him drive me away. “You heard what she said, Fable. No way do I expect you to stick around after that.”
“You really think that little of me? Really?” God, he infuriates me! I want to smack him and hug him, all at once. “Fine.”
I reach behind me and grab my duffel bag, then throw open the door, climbing out of the truck so quickly I almost fall on my ass.
“Fable.”
The sound of my name makes me pause, my fingers gripping the edge of the truck door that I was so eager to slam only a second ago. “What?”
“I—I need to process. I need to figure this all out.” His eyes implore me to understand. “I need time.”