The Quest for Epic

Chapter Twenty Three

After a couple of minutes of just lying down there and crying, I heard someone start coming down the steps leading to the basement.

I managed to pull myself up into a kneeling position and I hastily wiped at my face but the tears just wouldn't dry up.

"Ellie?" it was my mom's voice and she sounded worried. "Ellie are you down here?"

I didn't reply but she kept on coming down anyway. "Trent said he saw you coming down. You shouldn't ... you shouldn't have come here alone"

By the sound of her footfalls halting, I could tell that she had gotten to the level ground and could now see me kneeling over the boxes.

"Why?" I gritted out, my voice angrier and more hurt than I had ever heard it.

"Ellie..." my mom wasn't stupid. She had probably put two and two together by now.

I stood up and walked up to her, anger radiating off every pore on my body. "So I wouldn't discover all your secrets in a box?! Well too late, mom. Too fucking late!" I flung the letters and her diary at her.

The devastated look on my mother's face made me feel like my heart was shattering in pieces. Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to cry which only made the dam in my eyes burst and I began to sob again.

So it was true, it wasn't all some sick joke I had hoped it was.

"Oh, Ellie I'm so sorry. I..." she hiccupped "I never meant for you to find out this way"

"Did you ever mean to tell me, mom? Oh my God, I can't believe this. I can't believe this!" I ran my hands over my face and through my hair

"I was going to tell you... I swear I was going to tell you when you turned eighteen. But then, look at how great you turned out. You didn't need him. You didn't need all the disappointment he would have eventually caused you", my mom tried to reach for me but I stepped away from her.

"That was not your decision to make. Here I was thinking my own father was the most awful person on the face of this planet because he had never one day come back to check on his kid. But he's not, you are!"

My mother burst into raucous sobs then. She was such a strong woman; I had never seen her cry this hard before. "Honey, please I was only doing what I thought was best for you"

She reached out and grabbed at my arm but I pushed her away.

"You have been lying to me all my life, mom. I don't think I will ever forgive you for this", I spat at her. I turned and walked away from her, jogged quickly up the stairs just so I could get away from her.

This had to be the worst betrayal I had ever experienced in my life.

"Ellie, where are you going? Ellie!" my mom screamed trying to run up the stairs to catch up with me.

I got to the top of the stairs and grabbed my keys from the table in the foyer. Walden and Trent just stood by watching in shock.

Walden had a guilty kind of look on his face.

"Did you know about this too?" I yelled at him, tears still streaming down my face uncontrollably.

He only nodded once with remorse in his eyes but that was more than enough for me, I stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind me. I needed desperately to get away from that house of lies and secrets.

I got into my car and stepped on the gas, peeling out of the driveway before my mom could catch up to me.

Still crying and breathing hard, I pulled out my phone out of my back pocket and dialled Maya with one hand.