by Tillie Cole
Spotting the cabin, I practically jumped out of the truck while it was still moving. The cramped space of the seats, too small, claustrophobia fucking choking me.
Barging through the cabin, my childhood place of salvation, I began kicking and lashing out at anything in sight, thinking back over every detail of tonight…
“Mother. Always a pleasure,” I said as she opened the door and immediately started on the fact that we were late.
“Shame the same can’t be said for you,” she’d bit back.
Gripping an old lamp, I lifted it off the floor and launched it against the wall, enjoying the sound of it smashing to smithereens.
“You kept us waiting on our invitation for dinner tonight, boy. Not acceptable!” my daddy had snarled the minute he saw us. I couldn’t fucking believe it. Where was the man who was telling me he wanted to build bridges? Where was the bastard olive branch? His smirk at my obvious shock said everything. He’d planned the whole thing to make me look like a fool; he’d lied to me yesterday in his study. They were going to tear Molly to pieces right in front of me. They were going to make her leave me.
The side table was next, and gripping one of the thin, fragile legs, I picked it up and slammed it to the floor.
“So, Molly, I suppose you’re aware of Romeo’s plans after college?” my momma asked Molly as we sat on the couch, my daddy glaring at me, smiling in victory when my eyes met his.
“With football?” Molly had asked, pulling my focus back on my momma. My parents’ laughter echoed around the huge room.
“Absolutely not! We’re talking about his duty to take over the family business,” my daddy said, moving closer from his place against the fire.
“Daddy,” I threatened, my voice low and harsh. Molly’s frightened eyes darted around the three of us, her hand gripping mine so tight it almost cut off the circulation in my fingers.
“She needs to know, Rome,” my daddy went on. “She needs to know that you won’t have time to continue your player lifestyle.” Molly stilled.
“Leave it!” I shouted. “I won’t do this with you tonight.”
As I stood in the quiet cabin, I tried to put myself in my folks’ shoes. Had I been that much of a letdown over the years? Enough to deserve such blatant cruelty? And Mol, Molly’s only crime was in being with me—the first person I’d truly let in and they were trying to rip her from me. Hell, for all I knew, she could’ve already decided she’d had enough. She hadn’t bothered coming in here after me. Then again, she was probably scared out of her mind. I was acting insane.
Expelling a loud scream that had been building in my throat, I pounded to the wall and began punching it again and again and again at what had happened next…
Then, all of a sudden, there was Shelly, striding in like she owned the place, kissing my momma and being treated like the daughter they’d never had—hell, the child they’d never had.
The grand plan was finally revealed. They’d wanted to get it through to Mol that Shelly was what they wanted, and like my daddy and momma always said, they always get what they want!
I flew toward my parents and snapped, “How dare you do this to us!”
“Shelly is family and Molly needed to be informed of a few things that may affect your little… relationship,” my daddy said in his usual condescending tone.
“Don’t start this shit again, and while you’re at it, treat Molly with some fuckin’ respect!”
And then the fucker bowed, ridiculing my girl. “Your Majesty, how is the queen?”
My hands began to shake with fury. Molly was friggin’ mute beside me, her golden eyes huge with fear. “You invited us here for dinner, to meet her, why? Was it all bullshit? Was your plan to rip on her the minute she walked through the damn door?”
My daddy looked at Molly like she was a piece of shit on the bottom of his shoe. “Why the hell would we want to meet a gold-digging whore, let alone entertain her at dinner? She probably struggles to even use cutlery she’s so poor. Shel’s told us a lot about your girlfriend.”
And then he put the final nail in the coffin. “Tonight was an intervention. We had to get you to bring your new titbit before us somehow. A dinner invite seemed best. So now you’re here and we have your attention. You’ll do as instructed and end this charade. Immediately. Send your little British slut on her way… preferably back across the Atlantic.”
I couldn’t believe the level of viciousness coming from his mouth. He had always been a cruel bastard, but his treatment of my girl was like nothing I’d ever seen before.
“You invited us here to break us up? Christ, this is extreme, even for you!” I remarked, rubbing my hand across my head, feeling the constant control I had on my anger beginning to slip.
I wrenched the old shitty curtains from the windows, and tore them in two in my hands, dropping the faded red shreds of material to the floor. Back across the Atlantic… the fucking Atlantic! Agh! I hated him… HATED him! I swear the man’s evil.
Still too pissed to calm down, I snapped the frail curtain rail in half, throwing the fractured pieces across the room.
My drunk-ass momma stumbled forward, pointing in Molly’s face. “Molly here needs to know that her scheming won’t work.” Taking a large drink from her glass, she slurred, “Leave him alone. You have no idea who you’re taking on, do you? Shelly is engaged to Rome and some trailer trash nothing will not get in the way of that. It’s been arranged for years. I always get what I want, darlin’. You just remember that.”
My control snapped and I embraced the searing hot rage pumping around my body. I looked dead into the nervous eyes of Shelly and spat, “I’m not engaged to her and never will be! Screw your fuckin’ fortune; I want nothing to do with it!”
Lifting my head, I stared at the old chipped wall, now spattered with hole after hole, my fists covered in splinters and plaster, the room a complete mess, scattered with broken furniture. I stepped back, the pain in my chest affecting my breathing, and not knowing what to do next, I walked forward, pressing my forehead to the wall.
Taking tight hold of Mol, I began dragging her out the door, when my momma ran after me, lashing out and slapping me hard across the face. The smell of liquor was so strong on her breath that I was surprised she could even stand. “You insolent child! You dare speak to us like that after everything we’ve given you? You’re the worst thing that ever happened to this damn family, you ungrateful piece of shit! You never get anything right, do you? Always screwing things up, and bringing that into our lives is the worst to date,” she shrilled, pointing her finger in my face.
“Take that back,” I threatened in return. My mind was racing. She’d never shown such hatred toward me in front of anyone else. Was she losing it? Was she so drunk that she was about to let the truth slip?
“Enough!” my daddy shouted, obviously worrying about the same thing. “I won’t discuss this any further. Quit fucking the girl and get on board with what’s happening. Your one fucking purpose in this life is to do as we say and do your duty as a Prince! So do it! And stop being such a pig-headed asshole!”
Laughing without humor, I gripped Molly’s hand and announced, “I’m through with y’all. I choose Molly. I choose to not be in this fucked-up life anymore. Jesus Christ! What more can you do to me?! You’re the worst fuckin’ people I’ve ever known. I’m your only son and you can’t stand me.” I had one more question, and even then, I couldn’t help but hope the answer would change. “Have you ever even loved me? Ever just once felt anything for me?”
My daddy curled his lip in disgust. “How can anyone love you? How can anyone love a stone in their shoe? You’re just one giant disappointment. But you will do your duty to this family, regardless. We’ll find a way to make you see reason, you mark my words.” The answer was always the same. I’d been a damn fool to ever think otherwise—they would never accept me.
My breath stuttered. Even just reliving tonight’s shitshow felt like a thousand daggers being plunged into
my back one at a time.
I was in a bad place, one of the worst I’d ever been… And then the door opened, and I knew my girl was here to leave me for good, to deliver the final killer blow.
23
As soon as I heard the door shut, I decided to use offense as the best defense and whirled to face Mol.
“You should never have made us come here!” I screamed, seeing her red-with-crying eyes enlarge at the lack of control I had over my anger. “I warned you! I told you they weren’t happy about us, but you didn’t listen to me. You told me it’d be okay, that they would see us together and realize what we meant to each other. But no! Instead, you agreed to your own fucking execution. Christ, Mol! The way they treated you…” I waited for a sign, for some indication of what she was thinking. But there was nothing. She was numb, unmoving, and my heart fucking broke.
“Rome—” She eventually began to speak, but the way she said my name was wrong… off. Panic set in my veins and I interrupted her before she could continue—I couldn’t hear that she was leaving me. It would be the final straw.
Pacing before her, I yelled, “I could’ve stopped it—should have! I knew what they were capable of and still I trusted that you could handle it. But I saw your face in there, Mol—you fuckin’ checked out on me!” She had. They’d attacked and she had cowered.
Red burst across her cheeks, and she stepped forward, eyes blazing, meeting my shit head on. “I don’t care about what they said to me, but I care about what they are doing to you! Why do they hate you so much, Romeo? There has to be a reason. That was beyond brutal. What kind of parent hates their child for no reason?” Tears welled in her eyes and she croaked, “Your mother, the way she hit you, how could she treat her only son that way?” She was struggling to keep her composure.
Why did she hit me? Why does she hate me? Fuck! There was a reason all right! I’d kept the damn secret for so long that I felt I was buried under its massive weight.
Staring at Molly and pulling desperately on my hair, the words not coming easily, I decided to just spit it out quickly, get it done. I’d lost her anyway; may as well tell her why my life was so fucked up.
Blood roared in my ears, and reaching forward, I let go and heard myself shout, “Because I’m not hers!” I sucked in a sharp breath when the sentence had finally been said.
I’d told someone. For the first time in twenty-one years, I’d told someone what my folks had fought so hard to protect, and my hands began to shake with the enormity of what I’d just done.
“W-what?” Molly whispered, her eyes huge with surprise, pulling me back to the here and now.
Skirting a finger down her cheek, needing the support, I repeated, “Because. I’m. Not. Hers. You wanted to know so badly why they hate me. Well, that’s why.”
“No…” I could see the disbelief. No one knew. No one had ever fucking known. It was a secret I was meant to take to the grave.
Molly’s eyes darted around the room and her hands cupped her mouth, tears dripping down onto her cheeks. The slow burn of antagonism built as I thought of my folks, but my girl needed to understand.
Stepping back out of her embrace, I confessed. “Momma was barren. The fuckin’ bitch was barren. The one thing she needed to be able to do as the perfect wife was breed, and she couldn’t deliver, couldn’t give the great Prince Oil tycoon of Alabama an heir.”
“Ohmigod, Rome—” she cried, her head shaking back and forth. But I was on a roll, my untold story unstoppable, now set free.
“They couldn’t adopt because that would be an embarrassment, right? They couldn’t get a surrogate and risk all of Tuscaloosa knowing she was unable to have kids. But, hey, fate decided to intervene just in time.”
I laughed, but there was no amusement in my mind, no humor to find in this damned messed-up story. “One of my daddy’s many paid whores turned up on their doorstep, pregnant with a child she sure didn’t want but was willing to hand over at its birth to his biological father… for a good price.”
Molly stumbled, her eyes fixed on mine as she put two and two together.
“Yeah, Mol. It was me. My father got a private paternity test and I was his, the fuckin’ heir to his fortune. The whore had one stipulation, though. They had to keep the name she’d given me. She wanted control, to play some sick, twisted game with her most frequent customer, probably pissed she would never be more than a fuck to him. My name was a lifelong reminder of where I came from, and my mother despised it, despised me on sight.”
“Romeo,” she whispered, sympathy saddening her face.
“Romeo.” I still hated that fucking name—no Bama in that name.
My legs felt weak. All the fight I’d had for so long drained out like a flood. I couldn’t deal with my parents controlling shit anymore, and I was pretty convinced this would be where Mol checked out too. Hell, who wouldn’t?
Dropping my head, completely done, I hushed out, “So there you have it. I’m the illegitimate child of my father’s slut on the side, but they had to have me, didn’t they? The fact of the matter was my father wanted to keep his assets in the family. He was expected to have children, an heir. My arrival ensured that could still happen. They paid for the whore to have me in secret. Then my folks disappeared for a year, you know, off on some bullshit cruise, and they returned with a new baby—and of course, the great billionaire’s lies were believed.”
Moving to the couch, I used it to support my weight—I hadn’t dared look Mol in the eyes during all of this shit, didn’t want to see my future slipping away. “My momma fuckin’ hates me. I’m a living, breathing reminder that my father was a cheat. But that’s not the only reason they’re like this. They expected a docile, obedient child, who, when they said jump, would ask how high. But not their letdown of a son, right? I ended up being freakishly good at sports and I had my own mind and own dreams—unacceptable for a Prince!”
The more I talked, the more the agony built back up.
“How dare I? How dare I want something for myself after they’d so selflessly taken me in? Taken me in and reminded me every minute of every fuckin’ day that I was the product of a paid fuck. Beat me until I couldn’t even hold a football, let alone throw one—if you’re injured, you can’t play, right? So my daddy made it a frequent thing, a father-son weekly tradition.”
“N-no one helped you? Figured it out?” Molly stuttered out.
The thought made me laugh. “Who’s going to take on a powerful billionaire and question why his kid flinches whenever someone touches him?
“Then to make it worse, their failure of a child is expected to enter the draft for NFL, twice, and was forced to say no, to sacrifice his dreams just in case people found out he’s not really Kathryn Prince’s biological pride and joy. The mass of skeletons must be locked up real tight!”
My voice sounded raw, all of the screaming and the emotion tearing me in two. Finally lifting my head, I stared at Molly, still rooted to the same damn spot, and walking to her, spread my arms wide—I had nothing left to give.
“So there you go, Mol. That’s why my parents hate me and why my being with you has just added to their already mountain-high disappointment of their beloved fuckin’ son.” I worked hard to keep in the tears, didn’t want to expose myself so open, but when my girl edged forward, straightening my clothes with unashamed affection, and pressed closer into my chest, I almost broke. She just made everything better.
“That’s why everyone calls you Rome, not Romeo… why you hate it so much. It reminds you of your past,” she stated, smoothing back my messy hair.
“Yeah,” I rasped out. “My birth momma said if they didn’t keep Romeo, she’d go to the media, expose the story, and they couldn’t have that, so they agreed… reluctantly. Had her sign some contract to keep quiet.”
Loving the feeling of her warm breath against my skin, I huffed. “What the hell kind of name is Romeo for the prized son of the wealthiest family in Alabama? My folks always called me Rome in public, but
in private, I was Romeo. They used it as a taunt and curse. Romeo the whore’s son, Romeo the non-returnable bad gift—and they never, ever let me forget it.”
“Where did she go, your birth mother?”
My stomach churned as I thought of the woman who practically sold me off like some damn piece of meat. I used to wonder if my life would’ve been better if she’d kept me, but hell, she was just some whore, some bitter slut. Ironic really considering that’s what I’d turned into too, a whore who treats girls like crap.
I caught Mol’s expectant gaze, awaiting my response, so I shook my head and said, “Probably back to whatever hole she crawled out of.”
Sighing deep, she dropped her gaze and said quietly, “Romeo, I—”
I knew this was it, the part when she let me down gently. I wouldn’t recover from the loss.
I couldn’t deal, so thrust her out of my arms and said bitterly, “You’re going to leave me, aren’t you? I knew I’d lose you. I just knew it. Who’s going to put up with my parents’ shit? I’m not worth everything they’ll put you through if we stay together, am I?”
Flashback after flashback of my life over recent months slammed into my mind. I’d never known such happiness, and although I’d coped with a lot during my life, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it without her by my side anymore. Sometimes you just know when a person is meant for you, and I always had with her. She got me… She fucking saved me.
I could no longer control my breathing and a hollow pain burst in my stomach, causing me to slump on the sofa and, fuck, but I couldn’t stop the tears this time. The thought of her leaving reduced me to a crying friggin’ mess.
