She flinched at hearing me admit that I’d lied. More tears streamed down her face and the guilt inside me grew exponentially. I wanted to apologize for ever lying to her, but an apology wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted an explanation. She wanted the truth.

She shook her head at me, still not having a clue, and I let out a heavy sigh. There was no easy way out for me. I was just going to have to tell her. I closed my eyes and prayed for strength. “She told me that she wanted me to meet…her father.”

Just saying it tore me open, and I could feel the tears springing to life as I looked up at Kiera. She still seemed confused. “Father? That’s…odd.”

No. The way I phrased it was odd. Again, I was being a coward, trying to tell her without actually telling her. Annoyed at myself, I gave her a sad, sarcastic smile. “Yeah, well, she seems to think that…he might be my father too.” And he is. Fuck me…he is.

I could see Kiera’s confusion slowly shifting to realization. But because I’d said it so weirdly, it took her a few seconds to get there. “Your father too? So, she’s your…? Wait, your father? Your biological father? Is he? Is she…your sister?”

Every word, every question…it was a sword through the gut. I wanted to walk away, no, I wanted to run away, anything to stop talking about this, but I knew I had to stay. She needed to understand, so she didn’t leave me. “Yes, she showed me an old picture of him and even if the resemblance didn’t make it painfully obvious…I’d seen the same picture before. Mom showed it to me once…”

My eyes filled to the brim as the memory of that moment seared me. Mom, drunk, screaming at me as she held the photo an inch from my face, telling me who he was and how I’d messed up their relationship by having the audacity to be conceived. “You ruin everything!” she’d yelled at me. And she was right. I did ruin everything. But I wasn’t alone in that first one. Gavin started this. Gavin left her because of me. Gavin left me.

I swallowed back the pain as I held Kiera’s gaze. “And I can’t, Kiera, I just can’t see him…I can’t do it.” I won’t do it.

Kiera just looked at me for a moment, shocked, but then she leaned forward and cupped my cheeks. I felt trapped as I stared at her, and I had to resist the urge to scramble away from her. I knew where this was going, I knew what she was going to want from me. It was the entire reason I didn’t tell her in the first place.