Damage Control

Chapter 81

Suddenly everything clicked.

All the secret phone calls he would take in the middle of the night when he thought I had fallen asleep already.

Even recently, the secret call at the bowling alley, during our couple's trip, and again at Stella's wedding. That also explains the man he was arguing with outside of the reception.

Then something else clicked. A conversation of Nathaniel's I overheard a few weeks ago when he thought I was sleeping.

"He made me promise not to tell her."

Was he talking about me that day?

"This does not concern you, and if you even think about telling her yourself, that'll be the last thing you do."

Was the man at the wedding the same man he was talking to on the phone that day? Did that man come to the wedding to tell me about my mother because Nathaniel hadn't?

"This is what's best for her and her m--"

Her and her mother.

Mother was the missing word he never said that day because he sensed I was up but never in a million years would I have guessed that until today.

Still, none of it made sense. I had so many questions, the three most important ones being, "How?" "Why?" and "Where is she?"

If there was a possibility I could meet my mother after all these years of torture, fulfill my lifelong dream of holding her in my arms, I needed to know.

"How?" Was all I could manage to get out as I sat there on the floor, my eyes trained on the beautiful picture of my mom I was clutching in my hands.

"Can we talk about this somewhere else, please?" Nathaniel asked lowly, inching towards me still.

"Answer me," I demanded through clenched teeth. The last thing I cared to do was change sceneries as if it would soften the blow that was about to be thrown.

Nathaniel sighed heavily once he was a few feet away from me and slid down the nearest wall to sit on the floor like me, running his fingers through his thick hair. "I only know what your father and mother both told me."

I sat there in silence, wondering how he had managed to have a relationship with both my father and mother while I stayed completely in the dark, oblivious to everything.

"Your mother never died in childbirth," he began once I didn't say anything, already knocking the breath out of my body with that single sentence. "It was a lie your father came up with to protect you."

He lazily slid his eyes in my direction, trying to see my reaction, but when he saw no change in my face, he continued his story from the very beginning.

"Your parents dated when they were in their teens and got married when they were twenty, then two years later, your mother got pregnant and had you. Everything was fine up until after your first birthday, when she started getting into drugs because of depression. He tried to help her get her into rehab, but she refused and continued hanging around all the wrong people. Around this time, your father was just starting up Faye Industries, and he had a reputation to uphold, so he made the decision to cut her out of his life and yours, which is why he came up with the idea to pretend she died in childbirth for your own good. Your father paid her every month to stay out of your life, to stay "dead," and that's exactly what she did."

I choked back a sob, finally hearing the truth, and it felt like my heart was getting ripped into pieces even though the story was far from over.

Nathaniel glanced over at me again, his arms forward, itching to hold me, cradle me in his arms as I cried on his shoulder, but he clenched his jaw and clasped his hands together instead and continued.