fake-ish :: bws

Three

PART ONE - THE BEGINNING

v

"So... my dad, huh?!" I said.

"That is correct," he nodded, smiling.

You know when you can just feel when someone's being fake? That man didn't have one single honest movement. It was all carefully pre-planned. I knew it in my core.

I nodded again.

"I see," the tension in the room was so clear I could almost touch it. "Naturally, I've got some questions."

"Of course you do. I was expecting that. I'm willing to clarify all your wanderings," he moved to sit on the couch next to the window. Bruce patted the place beside him, but I sat on the chair in front of him instead.

I cleared my throat.

"So. First of all... how can you be sure that you're really my father?"

"Well. I knew who your adoptive parents were. So it wasn't that hard to track you down."

Oh. So he knew who I was this entire time and never thought about showing up to say hi, even after my parents died? Yeah, right. He definitely wanted something from me. And his situation was just getting worse by the minute.

"Alright. And why did you wait so long to... contact me?"

He took one deep breath and looked down.

"Listen, Victoria... when you were adopted, it was part of the agreement that I wouldn't try to meet you or talk to you. So I couldn't, even if I wanted to," I just nodded. He still wasn't looking at me.

"Even after my parents died?" this made him look up and look me in the eyes.

"Yes." He just stared at me for a few seconds and then nodded. What changed, then?!

"Okay. I could ask you that one question that I'm sure you're waiting for. But I don't really wanna know." I really didn't wanna know why he left me. No no thanks. But he seemed surprised.

I looked over at Olivia. She was leaning against her table, with arms crossed and looking like she was about to cry. I tried to smile at her.

She knew how I felt about my birth father. She knew I never searched for him and didn't really wanted anything to do with him. So the real questions I was saving for her, later. I just didn't understand why she was putting me through all of this.

"I'm just gonna ask you one more thing then," I walked over to the window, opening it and feeling the breeze on my face. I turned around back to him. "Why now? What happened that, suddenly, after 18 years, you felt the need to reconnect with your long lost daughter? And what changed about this 'agreement'" I made quotation marks in the air "that now you can reach out to me?"

He took a while to answer. I sat back on the chair, analysing him and my surroundings.

He was sat straight up, his posture just perfect and all professional, with his hands wrapped around each other on his lap. He was looking at his hands now.

Nicole was sitting on a chair near Olivia, frenetically typing on her phone, with a frown on her face. The perfect business woman.

I was still trying to understand what was happening in that moment, trying to figure out how in the living hell I ended up in that situation. One minute I'm happily sleeping in my comfortable bed while on holidays, and the next, my whole life is being twisted upside down right in front of me. My brain was having a hard time processing all that.

I was staring at Nicole, watching her every moves when I heard Bruce sighing. I looked back at him, raising my eyebrows, still waiting for my answer.

"I suppose it's better if I simply tell you the truth."

"I'd appreciate that," I tried not to sound too sarcastic.

"My wife found out that the relationship I've had before her... resulted in a baby." He paused. I didn't say anything. "And I had to wait until you turned 18 to try and contact you."

"Oh. I see," I paused, nodding. "So she demanded to meet me? Or told you that you needed to come and look for me like the father you should've been?"

He took a deep breath, not looking at me again and pressing his hands against each other so hard that his knuckles turned white. I suppose I was pissing him off.

"I suppose you could say that," he said, controlling his voice. I glanced at him, smirking.

"Well, Bruce. I think now it is my turn to say a few things to you," I said, dramatically, as if I was rehearsing for a scene, not taking the smirk out of my face.

I got up from the chair and paced back and forth a couple of times, my hands placed on my hips, and taking several deeps breaths. I was building an expectation, as the good actress I was. And I was also stalling, cause I wanted to annoy him.

"So, Bruce. The thing is: I am 18 years old. And, in those 18 years of my life, I have never, ever - not even once - tried to find out who my birth father was. See, I was adopted. And I was very much loved my whole life," I lied. Nobody actually knew how my grandparents turned against me after the accident. And no one needed to know. "And that's why I've never felt the need to search for the person who, let's say, was a huge part in making me exist in this world," I smirked. "Also, lemme just say that I had no interest in getting to know who was the horrible person, the monster, who would leave for other people to raise a newborn little baby who had no mum and then just run away."

Olivia was just shocked and holding her breath, with one hand over her chest. She was looking at me like I had gone completely crazy. I really didn't know what she expected. I never wanted to meet my father, she knew that, and, just because he showed up out of the blue in front of me, it didn't mean that I'd suddenly be filled with joy and willing to give him a chance. No. Actually, it was quite the opposite.

Nicole and Bruce were just staring at me with no reaction. They probably never thought I'd say something like that.

"So. I hope I'm not being too rude when I say this, but I'm really not interested in building a relationship of any kind with you. I don't care that you're my biological father. I truly don't. I've lived 18 years without you and can live many more the same way. The fact that you suddenly felt that it'd be appropriate to "reveal" yourself to me, god knows why, it just doesn't change anything in my life. I. Don't. Care. And! the fact that you knew who I was this entire time! Oh my god, aren't you ashamed to tell me this? How do you think this makes me feel? Why would you think that it'd make me happy? If anything, it just makes me feel even more disposable and insignificant. And rejected. Okay? I'm not thanking god that I finally have you in my life. To be honest, all of this" I moved my hand in a circle "just makes me feel sick and angry. Oh, and all the respect and admiration I had for you, Mr Bruce Patterson? It's completely gone."

I took a deep breath, staring at Bruce. To tell you the truth, I had no idea where the courage to say all that came from. It was like I didn't even think, I just spoke and let my tongue do the job of my brain.

And then, all of a sudden, I turned around and left the room. I took the lift and walked out of the building, everything that was happening now finally sinking in, and the feelings coming to the surface. So when I arrived at Starbucks - I spent so much time in there that it felt kinda like my home - I was crying so much I could barely breathe.

I sat in my usual spot, in the corner next to the window, where it was away from people, and put my face in my hands, letting everything out. I hadn't realised how much that whole thing disturbed me.

I really thought I wouldn't be affected. After all, I really did not care about Bruce Patterson being my father, cause I didn't want him to be. But, clearly, I'd never been so wrong in my whole life.

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