Karma

Chapter 12

The world stops.

My heart stops.

Everything stops.

Everything but my mom.

"Isn't that something? Bet you didn't know that." She sighs  dramatically before plopping down back first onto my bed. Her eyes never  leave the ceiling, refusing to look at what she's destroying. "Your  Abuela on your dads side never thought you were his, so when you were  two we got the DNA tests done just to shut her the hell up, only she was  right."

She keeps laughing.

Laughing and laughing and laughing.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that when I open them she'll be drunk. That would make this a hundred times easier to swallow.

This couldn't-

Her reaction couldn't have been comical like this. She must have been heartbroken too. And my dad. Was he his usual brooding calm when he found out that he wasn't a part of me anymore?

He stayed for years after. They hid this for years; seven to be exact. Then he left my mom to keep the secret for herself. She's picked a hell of a time to tell me too.

"Well?" She blows out a tuft of air, annoyed that I'm deathly silent. "Now what? Nothing to say anymore?"

"Stop." I've felt myself break before, but this is different. It's not the same pain as when I found out about Dean and Jaclyn. It's miles away from being close to the way I felt when I saw my dad with another family. It's nowhere near as heartbreaking as knowing that all the men I've ever loved hurt me then leave me. "Just stop."

No, this is worse. A million times infinity worse. Like someone has just gutted my heart out without numbing me first. My life is on the edge of a downward spiral, and this is my tipping point.

"Now you see why he left right?" Her smile turns translucent as she sits up on the bed. She's hurting. She's hurting so much that this is the only thing to make her feel good. "Right?!" She screams and presses a hand to her face like it'll make me see this more clearly.

"No." I try to flip through old memories, trying to figure out when things started to change. He was a good dad. Before things got out of control. I was his little pumpkin and he was my world. I was a die hard daddy's girl until he broke my heart. Now I'm no one's.

I don't want to cry. I feel too drained for something so trivial.  What I really want to do is scream. Scream so loud that our ear drums  bust, and we're no longer able to talk to one another.

So I do.

I hunch over, hands cradling my face, and scream until my throat burns and I have nothing else left in me.

"You're lying!" I grab the empty jar from my desk and chuck it  against the wall. The drywall dents in and gives way. "Say it! Say  you're lying!"

When I move to dart towards my mom, someone wraps their arms around my waist and yanks me back. "Let me go!" But they don't.

"Calm down. Please."

Then I realize that the only thing standing between me and my answers is Cameron. "What the hell's going on?" His breath  tickles my ear, and it's like we're the only ones in the room.

The lull of his voice drags me down with him, and my body goes limp in his arms.

I don't want to be calm though. Calm is what makes people think it's okay to hurt someone. "Tell me!"