FIONA | ✔️

Chapter 42

I’d finally stopped crying and was sitting in the living room of the pool house.

Alex had lead me there when I settled down the first time because he didn’t want to let his family see me like that and I was glad. I didn’t want them to see how much of a crying mess I was.

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t sign up for a cry baby when you asked me out.” I told him and he shook his head before handing me a bottle of water he’d gone to grab from the fridge.

“Don’t ever apologize for being human.” He told me before taking a seat on the table in front of me so he could face me fully.

“When you’re ready to talk babe, I’m here.”

I opened the bottle and drank half of it before placing it down.

“Dylan is my half-brother,” I started and waited for his reaction but his face didn’t give anything away, “and I think my parents might be getting a divorce.” I finished with the thing I’d feared the most.

I wasn’t mad that Dylan was my brother. I knew deep down, that a part of me felt glad because even though he wasn’t Ethan, he was still my brother. We had a great relationship and that just made the whole idea of him being my brother more bearable for me.

I was mad at the fact that my dad’s mistake from eighteen years ago— which could have been avoided if he had just told my mum— had come back to bite us in the ass.

It was one thing to cheat but to have a child as a result of it and hide it from your wife, from your family, was a lot.

My parents had gone through a lot, right from their constant arguments to the incident that happened to me and Ethan but they were going to therapy and they were finally getting better until this happened and I feared that it was something they could never come back from.

I loved my parents individually and I loved them together. My family was just getting back from so much hurt and now this happened. As much as I loved my father, I couldn’t help but be mad at him because everything that happened led back to him.

He hurt his wife, his kids and Dylan who just wanted to have a father in his life.

“Let’s take it from the top okay? Tell me about Dylan.” Alex said and I nodded and told him everything.

From when I first met him and saw the resemblance between his eyes and Ethan’s down to when I got to his door a few minutes ago.

“You know now that I think about it, there were so many things that we spoke about and I should have pieced two and two together but I was just too stupid.”

“Hey hey hey, don’t do that okay? Don’t be hard on yourself because none of this is your fault. You couldn’t have known so don’t start with the self-blame.”

He used his hand to raise my head so I was staring at him.

“You hear me? I won’t sit here and let you do that okay?” He asked and I nodded.

“Now why do you think your parents are getting divorced?”

“Their fight started again today and this time around, I’m scared they won’t be able to get back from it. You should have seen the look on my mum’s face, she was heartbroken and she looked at my dad like he was a total stranger. My family is just getting back from a really difficult time and I’m scared we won’t be able to fix what’s broken this time around.”

He got up and sat beside me before wrapping his arms around me fully.

“It’s okay baby. Let’s hope for the best here alright?”