SHE (Book #1)

Chapter 50

****Tempest POV****

The flight is at 10 p.m.

I will have to get to the airport by nine or earlier.

I have two and a half hours left until I can leave.

My grandfather sits at his usual seat and eats his dinner. I sit next to him, not touching a single thing. Just watching him.

He senses my eyes and looks at me, confused, "What?"

Since the last time I saw him, he seems a bit paler. I think he lost some more weight too, but at an alarming rate. I guess he is getting older and forgetting to take care of himself. 

"Do you have anything to tell me, Gramps?" I ask.

His eyes widen, as he wipes the corners of his mouth.
There is something. Of course.

He clears his throat, "What makes you ask?"

"I don't know. It seems that you keep a lot of secrets around here, don't you? I just want to know if there is anything you haven't told me yet," I push my plate forward and lean my elbows on the table. Mrs. Margaret would have me hung for not using table etiquette. 

"Well..." he looks away, "There is something I have been meaning to tell you since the day you arrived, actually,"

My breath is taken away. I hope he is talking about the same thing I am. Has he been trying to tell me about my past this whole time? It sure doesn't seem anything like it. It seemed like I was being prepared for my future, being pushed into the life ahead of me so I don't dig into my past. 

"Go on..." I say, "Tell me what you've been hiding,"

The dining room goes silent.
If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear the conversations outside the house by the many guards that patrol at night. You can hear the faucet drip water from the kitchen or the clinking of metal silverware.

I slam my hand on the table causing an eruption from everything shaking. My grandfather turns his head to me, wildly surprised at my sudden outburst.

"Is it so hard to confess your sins?" I ask, "Is it so hard to tell me how you have manipulated my entire existence? Is it so hard for you to tell me that nothing about our first time meeting was a coincidence?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Do not raise your voice at me!" he says.

I laugh at his attempt to get control, "Oh please. You are lucky a little shouting is all you are getting, you psycho! Do you have any shame?! You are so disgusting-"

There is a sting on my cheek as his hand slaps me across the face.
The dining room door opens, and Frank enters to assess the situation.

"Sir," Frank says.

"How dare you bite the hand that feeds you, you ungrateful twat. Just like your mother," my grandfather states.

Just like my mother.
My mother.

"You mean your daughter. The daughter you watched get abused all for what?" I turn to him, without soothing the pain on the side of my face, "For WHAT?! You wanted her to come running home to her father, to tell you she was wrong about the man she loved? WHY?! Why did you do it?!!!" I scream.

My grandfather looks at me as if he is just now discovering his deceitfulness. "You will never understand the measures I took to make sure you were safe. She was so convinced that her boyfriend will protect her from all harm when they were barely making enough to feed you. I was willing to do anything to make sure YOU were safe. I wanted my family back, I didn't care how I got them,"