by Anthology
My panties were damp, reminding me that a little bit of Logan was still with me.
“Oh, my God, Briana Kay. Are you kidding me?” My eyes grew wider until I rolled them, sucking in a deep breath through my nostrils. “Okay, that’s it. Sit down,” mom said, waving her arm toward the living room behind me.
“No,” I said, standing up to her. “I’m going to my—”
“Sit down,” she said, her voice on the verge of scary. “This is non-negotiable. Last I checked, I’m your mother.”
On the verge of scary but not intimidating enough. I’d dealt with mom’s bipolarity for far too long to give a shit. I snorted—not quite a giggle, not quite disdainful.
“Sit down now.”
Still not frightening, but her seriousness was throwing me for a loop. It was unfamiliar and that left me feeling like I was without a rudder…so I turned to the couch and sat.
And mom was right there with me. Her hands trembling, she grabbed a crushed-up pack of Marlboros and fished out a bent cigarette. Flicking the wheel on a black Bic, she sucked on the stick while touching the tip with the flame. As she released a stream of white smoke from her mouth, she looked me in the eye. “There’s something you need to hear, Briana.” This would be rich. But at least I’d be able to go to bed once she shut up.
“I dated Logan in high school.”
Her words echoed in my ears as it felt like I was falling backwards toward the earth. I closed my eyes as a wave of nausea washed over me.
Had I heard her right?
“Dated him? Logan?”
“Okay, I fucked him. Do you prefer that term? We fucked. A lot.”
Holy shit. My world started spinning around again…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I could barely sleep. All night long, I tossed and turned—and, when I wasn’t tossing, I was trying not to vomit. I couldn’t get my vile mother’s words out of my head, and I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what she’d said. I’d spent the better part of an hour trying to convince myself that she was full of shit—but when my brain couldn’t deny that she might be telling the truth, I had to struggle with the meaning of it.
I had never known anything about my dad…I’d never seen his picture, and mom had rarely talked about him. The few times she had she’d referred to him as a sperm donor or piece of shit. Grandpa seemed equally in the dark, and back then I’d gotten the idea that mom had intentionally kept the truth from him.
So could Logan be my dad?
It wasn’t impossible…and that was what I was grappling with. The thought was repulsive and, if it was true, it would explain why I suddenly felt so damn filthy.
Goddamn my mother.
I kept thinking about Brendan. If Logan were my dad, wouldn’t that make Brendan my half-brother? And if he was, it would explain why we’d always been so compatible, why I’d always felt so comfortable with him.
I did fall asleep eventually, but my dreams were haunted by the disgusting possibilities—and, by morning, I was angrier with my mother than I ever had been. I’d dealt with several years of neglect and obvious disinterest, but this latest revelation was inexcusable. What if Brendan and I had married? Would we have had damaged children?
I realized after a cup of coffee that I shouldn’t fret over the couldas and shouldas. Those were things I had no control over. In fact, there wasn’t much I did have control over—but I was going to do my best.
Mom was sleeping late on this fine Saturday morning. I was glad to know her conscience was clear enough to allow unfettered slumbering after she’d completely ruined my life.
I knew her old high school yearbooks were on bookshelf in the living room, so I brought my second cup of coffee out there and sat on the floor before running my finger along the spines of the books. There were three instead of four, but I didn’t know why.
Did I really want to look inside?
Yes.
I pulled out the newest one first. When I read through the names in the back, I went to the index first. Instead of looking for my mother, I looked for Logan and then flipped through the pages to see his pictures. He’d been listed with the seniors that year and I found him in the third row of color photos. Even at that age, he’d been a good-looking guy, and I knew then that I would’ve found him attractive had he been a classmate. What struck me, though, was how he and Brendan didn’t look a lot alike—but oh, my God. Now, looking at him in a new light, I questioned if I looked like him.
I began turning pages, looking at all the kids. They looked to be my age but I could tell they were from an era gone by. The kids in this yearbook had different hairstyles, makeup, and clothes than what kids like me liked. I wouldn’t dream of doing my hair like the girls in the yearbook. As I kept flipping pages, I saw tiny hearts drawn in red pen on some of the boys’ pictures. Then I saw my mom’s picture in the junior class—and my first thought was that I looked nothing like her.
What was with all the hearts drawn on some of the boys’ photos? Were they boys my mom had crushed on…or had my mother fucked them all?
I turned the pages back to Logan’s photo again. He was cute even then, just less polished looking. And, yes, there was a tiny heart next to his face.
But I had to stop staring at him. Just the thought that I might be crushing on my own father creeped me out.
I shoved the book back on the shelf and stood. Then I texted Chelsea. Can I hang with you this weekend?
While I waited for her to text back, I jumped in the shower. Her response reminded me why she was my best friend. Mom trouble?
Yeah. How’d you know?
So when mom walked out of her bedroom half an hour later while I waited for Chels, I jumped up off the couch and grabbed my backpack. “I’m outta here.”
“Really? That’s how you’re gonna be?”
“Yeah, Jennifer,” I said, walking toward the front door. “I have a lot of shit to process.” Shit I wouldn’t even be able to share with my best friend…but at least she’d support me just the same while I tried to work through it.
I did a lot of thinking over the weekend, and I decided to talk to my counselor on Monday. That afternoon, I found myself in Mr. Parnell’s office, staring at the old pictures peppering his walls until he finally got off the phone.
“So what can I do for you, Briana? Have you given any thought to attending college?”
“Actually, yes. But I’m torn.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he leaned forward. “What about?”
“Well…after you talked to me, I decided that maybe I do want to go to college.” He smiled warmly and nodded but didn’t say anything. “But I don’t want to go to school here.” In fact, after everything that had happened—actually, after my mother’s stupid news on Friday—I needed to get the hell out of town. I didn’t want to be in this place anymore.
He nodded his head again but his smile waned. “I thought you would go to school here, Ms. Weathers. If you stay at home, you’ll save a lot of money on housing.”
Ugh. I just felt so…dirty now. The last thing I wanted to do was spend another couple of years living with my mother—even if she wasn’t around much. But I wasn’t going to say any of this to Mr. Parnell. He wouldn’t understand.
Or maybe he would. “You said last time that you knew my mom when she went to school here, right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you also know Brendan Brown’s dad?” I considered saying his first name as well just to jog Mr. Parnell’s memory, but I waited instead.
“Yes, I did. He teaches at the college now, if I’m not mistaken.”
Swallowing, I let out a soft breath, hoping I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. “Do you remember if his dad and my mom ever dated?”
A frown wrinkled his forehead, but his face looked as kindly as ever. “Not that I recall…but I don’t remember a lot of that. Just like today, it seems like relationships start and stop faster than I can finish my cup of coffee.” I felt my shoulders droop a littl
e—nothing he would notice, but I was beginning to feel more defeated. “I just remember the ones who…gave me a lot of trouble in the counseling office. Looking back over the years, that’s what I remember the most.”
“So my mom was a troublemaker?” Not that it was any huge surprise—why would she have been different as a teenager? “I’m sorry.”
Mr. Parnell’s smile seemed even sweeter than before. “No need for you to apologize. And I don’t want to give you the impression she was one of my troublemakers. Let’s just say she liked to give me grief. She made my job a challenge—in a good way. But as for the boys she dated, I haven’t a clue.”
The counselor spent the rest of my time with him selling the benefits of attending college while living at home, and I tried to pay attention. But in the back of my mind, I was planning to do the only other possible thing I could to find out the truth.
After texting Logan to make sure he was home while Brendan was at football practice, I stormed over there immediately after school. In the old days, I would have found my boyfriend, kissed him, and wished him good luck at practice, but today I was single. In fact, I’d started hanging with Chelsea more nowadays like we used to before my long-term boyfriend had entered the picture.
Today, though, I told her I had something I had to do. Thanks to my weekend visit, Chelsea had an idea that I was struggling with something: She knew I had some issues that I needed to resolve—but I hadn’t shared with her the fact that Logan might be my dad. That was just too much. All she knew was that I was having problems both with my mother and Logan (in addition to losing my boyfriend once he’d admitted his sexual orientation), and she assured me she was there if I needed to talk.
Her hugs were epic…but this was a journey I had to walk alone.
That was good, because I was able to work myself into quite a frenzy by the time I got to the Brown house. I’d managed to stuff it all down during school but, because Mr. Parnell couldn’t confirm or deny what I needed to know, it had simmered inside my heart throughout the day.
Maybe if our last parting hadn’t been so sweet, Logan might have known what to expect.
He opened the door and couldn’t even step aside when my vitriolic voice barked, “Why didn’t you tell me about my mom?”
“Tell you what?” I saw the recognition in his eyes appear. “Tell you that we dated?” I gave him one nod and jutted out my jaw, hoping it matched the severity of my glare. “I didn’t think—”
“You creep.”
“Briana—”
He went to touch my arm and I jerked away as if he were a branding iron. “You could be my father, Logan!”
“Baby, I’m not your dad. Don’t you think your mom would have told me?”
I couldn’t contain the fury any longer but I did manage to keep my voice low enough that the neighbors couldn’t hear me yelling through the open doorway. “When I was little, my mom said she would never tell the no-good piece of shit who was my sperm donor that he was my dad—so you could be my dad, no matter what my mom says. And you had to have known about me.” I could see in his eyes that he had probably given this idea some thought before.
“So,” I said, walking the rest of the way inside, indicating to him that I was there for the duration, “tell me the truth. Are you my no-good piece of shit dad?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Logan’s blue eyes felt colder than they’d ever seemed before, the hue of icy waters and wintry skies. I stood there all but breathless as I waited for the answer, and I was chilled to the bone as I waited for what seemed like hours as he formulated the words he needed to say.
“Do you really think I’m your father, Briana?”
I didn’t want to believe it, but my mother had me convinced, so I raised an eyebrow, daring him to prove he wasn’t.
“Honey,” he said, placing his hands on my shoulders. If he’d still been my lover, then that touch would have been okay—but if he was my father…well, it could have been okay, too, if done in a paternal fashion. At least he wasn’t acting creepy. “You don’t look anything like me. You—”
“Brendan doesn’t look anything like you, either.”
“At first glance, maybe. But look at his build. Then look at his nose and jaw. If you look at our bone structure, there’s no denying he’s my son. But you, Briana…you look like your mom.” The expression on my face must have communicated what an insult that was. My mother and I looked nothing alike. I had curves—nothing outrageous, but I had breasts and hips and a little bit of a butt. My mother, on the other hand, was anorexic thin. I knew part of that was probably due to her lifestyle but I had no way of knowing how much of it was natural, because she’d always looked like that to me—and pictures of her when she was younger didn’t look much different. Add to that, her hair was so dark, it was almost black, whereas mine was a dark brown, more like Logan’s. Plus my mother had brown eyes, while mine were green. Before I could present that argument to him, though, he said, “And you look like that loser Jonny Shaw, the guy she dated before me.”
I paused, unable to speak. I was now hearing parts of my mom’s life I’d never been privy to before. Even if I didn’t find out who my dad was, I was closer than I’d ever been. Logan continued. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant when…” I felt my eyes grow wide as I considered calling bullshit. “Let’s sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit.”
Logan let out a breath and I saw a twinkle in his eyes, one that communicated volumes. It said that he was amused by my vehemence, but he respected the emotion and me enough that he wasn’t going to actually smile. “It’s a long story, Briana, and I want to tell all of it to you—all of what I know, at any rate.”
I weighed the options, because I feared falling for whatever line he gave me, true or not. I had to promise myself that I’d be rational—and strong. So I nodded and he motioned me through the doorway toward the living room. Once we were seated on the sofa—not too close together—he began talking.
“Your mother and I dated during Christmas break of my senior year. It was just a short fling before school started up again. I remember she dropped out of school later during the next semester, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t even see her again until I came back to town years later.” I was assessing his words, wondering if they were true. “I didn’t know why at the time and, since your mom and I weren’t that close, I didn’t really care. Years later, though, when I came back here, I realized she must have dropped out because she was pregnant with you.”
I just stared at him, because I didn’t know what to say—and I still didn’t know that I could trust him. “My wife and I married because she also got pregnant. And it was okay at first, but after several years together, neither of us was happy, so when I graduated, I applied for a job at the college here instead of other colleges, thinking Robin would be happier around her parents—and I knew it would be good for Brendan to be closer to both sets of grandparents.”
I could feel my eyes pinch into a glare but I couldn’t help it. “Something you might not understand, Briana…when we moved here, I felt like I’d barely started living. It was the first time I ever felt like our little family was stable, and I thought that would help my marriage—but it didn’t.” He gritted his jaw and looked down at his hands. “I never really had a chance to fall in love with my wife, either. There was Brendan, who made me feel fatherly love…and then, years later, seeing you through his eyes made me fall in love with you.” He looked up at me and I rolled my eyes. As if to let him know his words weren’t affecting me, I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, clamping my mouth shut.
“What I’m about to tell you, I’ve never told a soul—and I’ll deny it if you ever repeat it—but I know Brendan’s mother got pregnant to trap me. She knew I was getting ready to go to college and when we broke up and I dated your mom, I think she was upset that I was moving on. When we got back together, all she wanted to do was have sex. She’d been on the pill before, so I didn’t think tw
ice about it when we got back together. But I wasn’t going to let it ruin my plans, so I joined the army and then went to school on the GI bill, and I was able to support my family—and I made sure we only had the one child.”
“That still doesn’t prove you’re not my father, Logan.”
“Look, Briana, I know it might be hard for you, but I hope you’ll trust me. I was with your mom for maybe a week and a half. She’d broken up with her boyfriend and I’d broken up with my girlfriend and it was right before Christmas break. I don’t know whose idea it was, but we thought getting together would be sweet revenge—except I got back with my girlfriend on New Year’s Eve. And, no matter what Robin put me through, I wouldn’t trade my son for anything.
“But we moved back to town and I’d been here half a year before I saw your mom with you. I figured out you were her daughter, but I never thought once that you were mine. And your mom and I continued to bump into each other once in a while. Not one time did she even hint that she thought I was your father.”
I wasn’t going to admit it to Logan then, but just that knowledge quelled my fears a little bit. My mom wasn’t the type to just let things go—if she’d believed Logan was my father, she definitely would have bugged the shit out of him about it…at first, at least.
“When we moved back to town, I thought Robin and I would be better—but she was apparently more miserable than I was. But I figured she at least had her family. Ultimately, though, that wasn’t enough.” Logan looked across the room. At first, he was looking at a picture of himself, his wife, and Brendan as a toddler, but I could see that his eyes lost focus. “She took her own life.”
