Number 13: The Door With The Cat Flap.

Chapter 37: This is not a soap opera

The next instant I was grabbed off the stairs, and literally carried (I mean it, my feet didn’t touch the ground) by Carlisle, into the middle of the front line. Great

Jacob was on my left, and Carlisle was on my right, Edward, Emmett and jasper were directly behind me. I thought I was going to be crushed by them they were so close to me.

Jacob had a vice like gip on my wrist, and was turned slightly to face me so he could keep his other hand on the small of my back. Edward and Emmet had a hand each on my shoulder and Carlisle had my other arm in another vice grip.

I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.

I turned to look at Jacob and was about to ask him what the hell was going on when -

“Catherina” my head snapped forward.

“Holy fuck!” I shouted, Carlisle squeezed my arm in a warning gesture.

Their eyes! They were blood red! A man with jet black hair was studying me intently.

“Catherina…” he had a thick accent that I couldn’t place. He inched forward a little and I was pulled back by every hand that was touching me.

“Who the hell is Catherina?” I locked eyes with the man in front of me. My eyes travelled to the man next to him who was staring towards the back of the room.

“You of course” he smiled at me.

“Ahhh no, my name is Kate” he looked like he was thinking about something for a moment then he smiled again.

“Kate” his arms widened in a gesture that kind of reminded me of Jesus.  “You’ve changed so, so much.”

“Um, do I know you?” I’d never seen this man before in my life.

“Why of course! You would not remember after all these years. Cath – Kate, I am your father”

I was in shock; I think I might have even inched backwards a little. I couldn’t think of anything, instead everything in the room became a thousand times clearer. The clock on the wall was ticking loudly; I could see the trees swaying gently in the breeze through the glass window beyond the man in front of me. I could see all of Esme’s exotic ornaments scattered around the room - things that never got moved or touched in years.

Then everything focused in again, and I looked back at the man in front of me.

And then someone started laughing, that someone was me. I was laughing hysterically. I couldn’t stop.

“You are joking!” the laughter continued, and then when he didn’t admit that he was joking it didn’t seem as funny anymore and I stopped laughing.

When I looked at him, I mean really looked at him; his hair was the same colour as mine, but he had a widow’s peak and I didn’t. He had a chiselled face, nothing like mine. Our eyes were not the same shape, our mouths were different – everything. I had inherited nothing from this man, apart from his vampire genes.

Then a new emotion took over me, replacing the shock. Anger - I liked this emotion it was familiar I knew how to use this to my best ability I could destroy people when this was what I felt. My eyes narrowed dangerously.

“You are not my father” he looked a little shocked.

“Catherina I am-“ I cut him off

“My name is KATE!” I shook my head back and forth “No, you’re not my father. My father’s name was Michael Shipman; he raised me for 5 years. And my father now is Carlisle.”

“Kate, Carlisle is not your father. Do you think he would have known or cared about you if it were not for us” I shot a look at the man who was standing next to him “We came to Carlisle and asked him to take care of you, we gave him money to provide for you. I could not bear to see you live the way you were any longer. Do you think that Carlisle would have taken you into his family and acted as your father out of the kindness of his heart – what with the way you were behaving?”

He studied me, gaging my reaction. I knew what he was doing; he was trying to make me doubt Carlisle, and make me fall for his loving father act. Trying to plant the idea that he was the only one that cared for me and that Carlisle had only done it for the money.

It wasn’t going to wash.

“Well maybe you should have thought about who and who was not my father before you abandoned me. And I know that if Carlisle had known about me, he would have taken me into his family with or without your request. You can’t make me doubt him”

“So young and yet… so smart” his hands were now in kind of a praying motion just below his chin and his eyes were scrutinising every inch of me “I see a lot of myself in you Kate”

I snapped “No I don’t think you do! Im nothing like you! You’re a killer; you’re an evil, vile little creature who even tried to kill Renesmee even though you knew! God damn it you knew! Vampires could have children but yet you still tried to destroy her. What you just brushed aside my existence because to you I wasn’t what you wanted? I didn’t meet the criteria so I no longer existed.” I breathed deeply.

“We only claimed that we had seen nothing like her, we did not claim that we had never seen a vampire-human hybrid” he was trying to justify lying to everyone. Edward snorted telling me that he was lying; he must have claimed he’d never seen anything like her period. What a bastard.

He stepped forward a little and extended his hand towards me “May I?” his disgusting eyes never left mine. May he what?

“Aro can read every single thought you’ve ever had, with one touch” Edward filled me in and he gently squeezed my shoulder.

Without thinking, I reached towards his hands, then I realised what I was doing, and snapped my hand back before he could touch it. Carlisle was the one to release my hand, of course it wouldn’t have been Jacob.

“No. No you can’t see. If you wanted to whiteness my life then maybe you should have stuck-“

I cut myself off before I said anymore.

I stood there for a few more heartbeats, before I completely cleared my voice of any emotion what so ever and said

“This isn’t a soap opera; 18 years can’t be put to right with some intense convocation, raised voices and tears. You can never put right what you did. But im glad you abandoned me, because it’s made me the person I am today. I don’t need you, and I certainly don’t need anyone else. You made an offhand decision to discard me from your life, and your decision was my life and I had to live with the carless choices you made”

I stepped a little closer to him “Any man can make a baby, Aro. But it takes a real man to be a father. I guess you were just not man enough for that”

His eyes flashed, and he reached out and grabbed me.