A year after losing her older sister in a tragic accident, Charlie's Mom marries the father of the most popular boys in school. Still grieving, Charlie struggles to accept her new family and gets involved with her stepbrothers worst enemy, the capta...
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GOING HOME WAS EASIER than I thought it would be. A peaceful quietude had settled over me unexpectantly. I knew what I wanted now.
The whole drive home, I ignored Harry's nervous glances in my direction. I knew he wouldn't like what I decided to do, but it was the only way I could see things working out.
Peter was the only one home when Mr Hudson dropped us off. Harry and I refused to instigate a conversation with him, leaving him to turn to the kitchen to distract himself. He ended up placing some drinks and snacks on the kitchen table. I realised the food was a time-filler. We needed to cut the crap and quit stalling. So I said nothing to the gesture and took off into the garden.
"Charlotte, please can we talk?" Peter asked me, following Harry and me into the garden.
We should have done that a long time ago.
Harry glanced at me hesitantly, but I nodded. My Mom's absence would allow me to hear Peter's side of everything without her influence.
"I know how we handled things wasn't right, but it was the only way," Peter told me, regret seeping into the currents of his crystal blue eyes. "Despite that, I'm glad you know the truth now."
Peter gave me a sad smile, and I found my eyes trailing to the ground. After spending all those years pretending, he can't act like this is what he wants now. Sixteen years is a long time to pretend you don't have a daughter.
"I want to know something, Peter," I said, sitting in one of the garden chairs. "How much of what happened was you, and how much of it was my mother?"
Peter shifted, looking at me like he was hurt. I knew how my question sounded, but I had to know how much he went along.
"I didn't know anything, to begin with," Peter began, a sigh escaping his lips before he found the courage to continue. "As your mother said, she kept me in the dark until we moved back to Long Shore. Everything was complicated, but after she told me about you, we kept in touch and told me how you were doing. I was more involved than you know."
Harry shook his head and glared at Peter's explanation. "Dad, we went to school with Charlotte — our little sister — for years, and you never told us," Harry said, his voice shaking slightly.
Briefly, I remembered one of my first memories of the Lakewood brothers. Harry spoke to me for the first time in middle school during an art class. He told me his painting was better than mine and then made fun of my outfit. How was that the first memory I had of one of my older brothers?
It wasn't right.
"But you were in each other's lives. You knew each other — at least at school anyway," Peter said as if that could justify years of being kept in the dark.
"— but I hated them around school, Peter. They are Long Shore high's football stars, and that's how I knew them before you and my Mom got together. That shouldn't have been how I knew them. I should have known them before, just like I should have known you were my Dad. Instead, I thought my Dad had left my Mom and me. It makes sense now, but even with understanding, I'm not happy about it. You discarded me like he did and are biologically my father."
