Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Tell me,” I implored. “Tell me what you can’t tell Aria. I promise it will never leave this room.”
Seventeen
Allegra
As I contemplated confiding in Jared the way he’d confided in me, sweat gathered under my arms. Only one person knew my story, and she didn’t count because she was a mental health professional. I’d told no one, not a single friend or lover, about what happened to drive me completely off the rails. The truth was, I wasn’t proud of that person for so many reasons, but now that I was older, I ached for that kid. I’d put so much on myself that I shouldn’t have. Yet, there was still a part of me that feared censure from anyone I cared about.
Staring into Jared’s eyes, I thought about the man who had vacillated between casual friendliness and outright cold indifference. Could I trust someone like that? An hour ago, I’d have said unequivocally not. Even with all the evidence I’d witnessed of his kindness and care toward Sarah and his friends over the years, I could only have said no because of the way he’d treated me these last few weeks.
But then he’d gone and told me a story that I knew, from the shaky way he’d confessed it, he really had only told very few people. He’d offered me his trust.
And maybe I was just desperate enough to unburden myself for the first time in ten years. I was so tired of being the only one who carried the truth. “You have to promise me that what I tell you … you never tell Aria. No matter what.”
Jared’s brows drew together in curiosity, but he nodded. “I promise.”
Sick nerves awakened in my gut as the words hovered at the base of my throat. Just do it. “Everyone thinks my parents’ relationship is the stuff of dreams. Even Aria. Even my mother. She’s deluded herself into it.” I kept Jared’s gaze because it anchored me, and I began to calm more as I spoke. “When I was fifteen, I got angry at Mamma because she’d promised me a spa weekend before school started. Like always, she bailed for a last-minute job. It wasn’t about the spa. It was about time with her. Time she never seemed to have. My dad was busy a lot too, and he would text me every day if he wasn’t at home. At that point, he was filming in San Francisco, and I was mad at Mamma. So I got it in my head to just go surprise Dad for the weekend.” Blood whooshed in my ears with my thundering heartbeat, remembering how it felt … “Dad grew up in San Francisco. He had just bought an apartment in the city, and he told us it was because he missed it, and he wanted to spend more time there. I’d come to realize there was a specific reason he wanted to spend time there.”
Jared frowned. “What happened?”
“We had an apartment in Brooklyn and we always kept a key in a hidden lockbox, in case of emergencies. I assumed Dad would have set things up the same way in San Francisco. He had. Same code for the lockbox. So I let myself into the place and I walked in on my dad fucking another woman.” I still felt sick at the memories. “He was so angry at me. Like, I’ve never seen my father that angry. I fled. By the time I got back to Malibu, Dad had alerted Mamma to my spontaneous little trip, and she’d flown home. I told her what I’d walked in on.” Tears filled my eyes. “She slapped me.”
“Fuck.” Jared reached across the sofa for my hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry.”
“She told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and that if I repeated it, she’d make me sorry. It was like both my parents became totally different people that day. I … I’ve done some investigating since, and this woman is not just some person Dad randomly fucked. It’s a long-term affair. They’re still seeing each other. She was his high school sweetheart. She’s an anonymous widowed nurse.” Pain for my mother, despite how she’d treated me, flared across my chest. “I think he loves them both. Her and Mamma. He just didn’t want to choose. And Mamma loves him so much that she pretends it’s not happening. I mean, she’s never raised a hand to me or Aria in her life, but she hit me that day. And she looked at me with such hatred and fear, like I was about to rip everything away from her.”
“Fucking hell, Allegra … that’s so much for a kid to carry.”
I wiped at tears now leaking freely down my cheeks. “That’s not the half of it.” Taking a shuddering breath, I continued, “I knew I couldn’t tell Aria. Mamma messed my sister up good just by constantly nitpicking at her appearance and making her feel like shit because she wasn’t a size 2. Dad was Aria’s safe place. He still is. I can’t take that away from her.” I gave him a hard look. “And I never will, so this stays between us. There’s no need for her to know. What good would it do? For so long she thought men cheated. Dad was her beacon of hope, and I think knowing how much he loved Mamma was what allowed her to give North a chance too. I don’t want to take that from her. And I don’t want it to fuck things up for her and North.”