Ripple

Chapter Two

"Brooke, you're adopted."

Her father's words echoed through her head as everything seemed to slow down around the dirty blonde. As she slowly processed those three words, her heartbeat pounded loudly in her chest as the blood in her veins started to boil. Her parents (ex-parents) were trying to speak to her. Brooke couldn't hear them though. The only sound she could make out was the sound of her heartbeat and a dripping noise.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Brooke wasn't exactly sure where the noise was coming from. It didn't sound close by and there were sinks around the Summers family. Though it was distracting her from the thoughts that were trying to run rampant in her head. Thoughts that sounded like:

"I'm adopted?"

"Why am I just finding this out?"

"What does this mean?"

"Why?"

Different variations of the same questions ran through her head as she closes her eyes to try to block out her thoughts. None of it made any sense. Why hadn't her parents told her when she was younger? Why did they wait until she was almost twenty-one years old? Did they not believe she could handle the truth? Well, maybe they were right on the last one. Her brain had quit telling her how to breathe and she was sure she was having a panic attack.

Right when Brooke starts to focus on catching her breath, a droplet of water falls onto her head, then her shoulder, her hand, her face. Before she could realize what was happening, water pours over her and the rest of the room, earning screams of complaints from surrounding customers. Brooke shoots up in her seat and glances up at the ceiling, noticing that water sprinklers were on despite there being no fire alarm.

Brooke glances at her parents who were watching her wide eyed. She didn't give them time to say anything else to her as she grabs her purse from the table and darts out of the restaurant. Her emotions were everywhere as she runs down the stairs, the outside being dry and hot as a typical summer day in Florida. Fishing her keys out of her purse, she runs to car on the other side of the parking lot and rushes inside of it after she unlocks it. She didn't take a breath to calm down as she starts the engine and backs out of her parking spot and speeds out for the parking lot onto the road.

Once she's a few minutes down the road, Brooke fondles around for her cell phone. At the moment her emotions were out of controls and she desperately needed a drink. Or two. Or maybe more. It didn't matter to her how many drinks she needed but only that she needed to forget the nightmare that was going on around her.

How could she be adopted? She was Brooke Summers, daughter of Daniel and Irene Summers. She was the girl born into a rich family. She was the girl who could be whoever she wanted to be. She was the girl that was labeled spoiled, entitled, prissy, Miss All That, and more. And she was the girl who desperately wanted to be normal instead of the girl with rich parents.

Or at least she was supposed to be.

Though now she wondered how her old friends would react to her being a "fake" Summers.

Her fingers finally type the message to her best friend asking him whereabouts the beach party would be at. It only took him a couple minutes to text her back the details along with ten excited emoji's about her actually coming to the party. Though that night she wasn't going to be Jake's wing-woman like the many party nights before. Brooke just wanted to forget what her parents, ex-parents, had just told her and to do that she planned on getting flat wasted. Yes, it was pretty irresponsible to deal with the news she just got in such destructive manner but at that moment she didn't know any other way to deal with what she'd just learn.