Faking it.

CHAPTER 33

When I get outside I let my instincts take over and simply turn right. It's pretty cold outside for an afternoon in May and goosebumps rise up on my arms from the wind. My instinct and gut feeling have never betrayed me and over the years it has gotten a lot easier for me to interpret the feelings I get from it. I guess that is one thing that I know for sure will always be with me and never lie to me.

Why oh why god did something like this have to happen to me? Why would you choose me to experience all this pain and confusion? Why did mom have to lie about this for so fucking long? Why couldn't -or to say it better- wouldn't she tell me sooner? Would her telling me sooner even change anything about how I feel right now? Would I have reacted the way I did? Or why did she tell me in the first place? I was perfectly fine with how things were. Okay they were not great, but I could have lived with the situation a few years longer until I moved out anyway. Did she somehow think that this would take the guilt she should be feeling away? Or that she would become mother of the year for telling me something like this after sixteen goddamn years? Maybe she just wanted to mess with everything that I thought made me to the person I am today- Wait.

My movements come to an abrupt halt. Who am I? Like who is this girl storming away from this horrible situation she has been put in unwillingly?

If I'm not Hailey Rudes and not the daughter of Hal Rudes, then who am I? What characteristics and genes have I inherited from my so-called father? Do my passions for drawing and dancing come from him? Or my need to keep everything inside me and never tell anyone? No. The latter is definitely from mom as she proved to me now. But what part of me is actually me and whose is the rest?

A headache starts to grow, and I leave the topic to wonder about for later. I start walking again and imagine what my life would be like right now if I had known about this sooner.

Would I still be in this awful town anyways? Maybe I would have grown up in England instead of America. Maybe we would live in a house too right now, where I never needed to share with Abby for so long because the house was insanely huge. Wait- would Abby even be in England if we don't share the same father? And what about Joey? And Dad. Well ex-dad I guess. Would anyone of them be in England? Maybe it would only be mom, my new father and me. Or maybe just my father and me. Maybe mom would have just shipped me off to another continent to grow up and never contact me again. Just simply get rid of the burden that I seem to be.

All those different scenarios run through my head as I look at where I am actually going. My feet decided to take me to Milli's house, but I am not sure if I even want to be here. On the other hand, I don't really have any other choice now. My fist comes up and I knock softly. I stand on their porch and wait a few minutes. When no one opens I knock harder again and wait again. The door doesn't open as I thought it would and I don't hear any movement coming from inside the house. I look at my phone and see that it is not even two p.m., meaning since today is Wednesday I will have to wait two more hours until Milli and Simon get out of their school.

I look around and decide to sit down on the little swing they have on their front porch. Thank god I did that because not even five minutes after I sat down, it started to pour rain. Guess that is a sign to explain how I feel on the inside right now. Like an unnecessary, dark, cloudy and rainy day. I wonder if I'm going to burst into tears as fast as this rain started too or if I will simply take my usual route of coping with emotionally wracking things and push all my emotions down and never let them come up again.

The wind starts to blow the raindrops in my direction and I shiver. My arms pull my knees to my chest and I rest my head on them, staring out into the rain. I don't know how much time has passed when I feel a hand gently shake my shoulder.

"Hailey? What are you doing here?" Sophia asks me and I shrug, not looking at her. "Come on. You are freezing, let's go inside before you catch a cold." She says and I just snort. "I think it's a little bit too late for that." I answer and she nods, opening the door.