Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (27 page)

My new stepmother continued to usher in
one compliment after another, trying her best to make me feel
overly-welcome
into the family that my father had formed with both his new wife and, for all I
knew, freeloading stepson, while I was away, living the dream of a life I
actually wanted at school.

Eventually though, the introductions ran
out of words to be uttered and I felt my father tug at my arm.

“I’ll help you with your bags, sweetie,”
he said carefully, as though he wasn’t quite sure how to speak to me anymore.

That wasn’t much of a surprise. My father
hadn’t really known how to speak to me since my mother died. Perhaps I reminded
him of her in a way that was too painful to bear and so, it inherently made him
feel guilty. Or maybe I was a constant, undying thought of his old life that he
would rather forget, and he feared every time he opened his mouth, he might
actually let the truth slip. Or there was a possibility that he genuinely never
knew what to say to me, since outwardly, he was the one who had taken my
mother’s death so hard.

I knew for a fact that he was guilty about
that. While I had never moved on inside my own head, and learned how to adapt
in my life so I could keep some semblance of what life was like before I lost
my mother, my father just stagnated.

Until he met his new wife, he hadn’t done
much except grieve after my mom passed away. Then, when he finally mustered up the
courage to put his foot in the kiddy pool of dating, he married the first
person he thought would have him.

If that didn’t scream guilt, I wasn’t sure
what did.

Still, being my father, I loved him and
therefore I was able to put his obvious misgivings aside to actually want to
work with him.

That was why I was here, secretly being
humiliated and counting the moments until the summer was over, so I could
return to a reality I preferred far more than the reality my father existed in.

I followed him up the stairs as neither
one of us spoke a word. He seemed nervous and jittery though, like he was
trying to get up the nerve to say something to me. Even though I wasn’t a big
fan of my father, I still managed to learn his ticks and his attitude.

For instance, right before he said
something he felt might be confrontational, he always made strange noises,
along with the patterns of his breath. It was hardly noticeable, except to
people who were comfortable being close to him, for he hovered right on top of them,
even if the confrontational situation he was about to embark on had to do with
that person.

I didn’t think that he even knew that he
was doing it, despite the fact that I had made it a point to remind him about
personal space, another annoying and convenient oversight that he had
habitually acquired after my mother’s death.

Still, since I didn’t want to have any
trouble with him, I didn’t want to start badgering him about things that his
wife probably said to him all the time. I needed to be in his presence, at
least for an hour, before I did anything that was considered nagging.

My father walked with me into my room and
when we were alone, he closed the door. He carefully set my suitcase down next
to him and looked at me with wide, serious eyes. “Ashley, are you alright?” he
asked with a grim demeanor.

I sighed and shook off the feeling that
this was going to turn into an argument. I knew that look and while it was
meant to be concerned, it came off to me as aggravated.

Great,
I’ve only been here five minutes and I’ve already upset him…
I
thought, trying to steer clear of growing angry.

“What do you mean? It’s summer after a
great year at my dream college. Of course I’m all right.”

“You don’t seem all right,” he answered,
almost as if that was a trigger reaction that he would have said regardless of
what I had preceded it with.

“What makes you say that?” I asked, now
feeling a rise of heat in my chest as I wondered if he was really trying to
pick a fight with me.

“You don’t seem yourself.” He
crossed
his arms in front of his chest. “What is it? Are you overwhelmed?”

No,
I’m angry that you dragged me out here, where there are so many memories with
people that are no longer around, just so that you can show off to your new
wife and her stupid son.
I felt my brow wrinkle, but what I
said was, “Sure…A little. I mean, I am just meeting them.”

“You met them at the wedding,” he
answered, once again as though he was expecting me to say that.

It caused me to wonder if he had planned
out the entire conversation, inevitably ending in disaster from the start. I
hadn’t thought about this annoying, yet once again fairly new, knee-jerk
reaction to any type of perceived confrontation. Normally when he spoke to me,
he was too thrilled to be hearing from me to pull any of this, post-death guilt
on me. It might not have been my fault that my mother died, but sometimes, with
the way that he acted, it was almost as though he blamed me for it; or for
living when she was no longer around to take care of me. How cynical I was depended
entirely on how I thought. Today, I just wasn’t sure.

I felt my breath speed up, as I tried to
calm the adrenaline that pumped through my head, flooding my brain with quick,
sarcastic replies and hurtful comebacks that would just make him go away. However,
before I said anything, I took a deep breath, held it and let it go. “Yes, Dad.
I did meet them at the wedding, but that was a fairly hectic day.”

“It was a wonderful day!” he exclaimed, as
though accusing me of thinking anything less.

Not
for me it wasn’t.
I thought, trying to hide the contempt
that was steadily growing inside of me.
Why
is he doing this to me? I just got here!
Yet, once again, I calmly replied,
“I am very happy for you, Dad. This is going to be a fun summer. I meant what I
said, I am looking forward to getting to know the new members of our family.” I
smiled and tried not to roll my eyes as I sat down on my bed, trying to ground
myself for whatever was going to spew out of his mouth next.

“It will be,” he smiled brightly, but then
his lips moved back into a slight scowl as he added, “But I wish you would tell
me what is bothering you. You don’t act like this when you are overwhelmed, you
act like this when you are angry.”

“I’m not angry,” I answered, almost too
quickly. Although my father might have his faults, he had always known me very
well and now, I was sure that he had picked up on the fact that I was trying to
hide my true feelings.

He sighed and sat down next to me. Now,
having realized what was actually going on, his nervousness had dissipated and
he was able to come to terms with the way I was acting, and that caused him to
be a little more rational. “Why?” he asked, as his eyes bore into me.

Remembering this look from childhood, one
of the few that remained from when we were really a family, I wanted to cry and
embrace him, happy for the small memory and hope that the father I was once so
close to was still there, somewhere. This look was not an angry one. It was a
kind and gentle gaze, which accompanied a question about what was going on. He
simply wanted a reason for whatever it was that was bothering me. This look
told me that he was willing to help, instead of just focusing on the negative
aspects and demons that I was sure still surrounded him on a daily basis.

Just because he claimed to have a good
life with his wife and stepson, while his daughter lived out her dream, far
enough away from home as to not mess anything up for him, did not mean he
didn’t think about what happened and what he could have done differently. It didn’t
mean that he didn’t wonder why there was so much going on inside of his head,
or didn’t try to decipher the craziness that was all a part of his mind since
the moment my mother took her last breath.

However, when I thought about this,
instead of answering his question, he stood up and demanded, “Why are you
angry?”

Now the look was gone and I was rocketed
back into the reality of having the volatile, crazy father whom I knew well,
but could rarely handle. This change in him only made me feel angrier, which
caused me to stand and glower at him. I didn’t mean to be callous with my
words, but I had already endured too much aggravation to feel any pity or
remorse concerning what I was about to say. “Why did you have to bring them
here?”

My father stopped and stared at me as
honest confusion glossed over his eyes. “What?”

I sighed, realizing that I might as well
jump into the argument that he seemed to want so badly, instead of trying to
fight against the current, which I knew from experience would simply swallow me
whole. So I demanded, matching his original volume and tone. “Tell me why you
had to bring them here, of all places! This was our special place. We could
have gone anywhere, literally, anywhere in the world, but we didn’t. We came
here. Why?”

At first, I was afraid that he was going
to scream at me. After all, he was teetering on the brink of going absolutely
insane; but instead, he bounced back and tried to actually answer my question,
instead of attacking me.

He sighed and tried to explain. “Well, we
always had good memories here, right?”

He left room for me to comment, but I felt
that would only make me feel worse, so I just widened my eyes, as though
expecting more before I would give him any kind of feedback.

He shrugged. “I just…I really thought it
would be a nice place to bond…”

“But I don’t want to bond here,” I
exclaimed, far louder than I had intended. However, before giving my father a
chance to retort my claim, I felt myself breaking down. I didn’t want to cry
now though, so I fought it. Instead, I just plead my case with him and
explained, in an irritated tone, “This was the place that mom loved most!” I
tried
to make him see, but as the thought struck me, even harder once I had said it
out loud, I was overcome with emotion. “I know that she would have rather seen
you sell it and use the money to buy your own new family getaway then to share
it with these strangers!”

At this, my father reared back. But
instead of coming back at me with fury, he seemed wounded as he plead, “They
aren’t strangers. They are our family. I know you think that I took this
decision lightly…either marrying Theresa, or coming out here for the summer,
but I didn’t. I thought about both for a really long time…and you were even
okay with it, or at least I thought you were.”

When he paused, I crossed my arms and
answered with the most honest, while still trying not to be hurtful response I
could muster. “Well, Dad, I thought I was okay with it too. I thought that
everything would be fine, but I can’t help how I feel.”

My father returned his argument a little
more indignantly. “I’m sorry, Ashley, but that just isn’t my fault. I asked
your opinion and I thought you gave it to me…”

“So, what? Now my opinion doesn’t matter?”
I spat, knowing that I shouldn’t be so petty, especially with my father, who
was slightly unstable in times like this, but I just couldn’t let the moment
pass without saying anything.

“It isn’t that your opinion doesn’t count.
Stop being so difficult. It’s just that…” he stopped then and breathed out, as
his eyes furrowed, before he answered, “It’s just that now it is too late. I
married her six months ago and we are sitting in the beach house, during summer
vacation now, so even if I wanted to correct what you think are mistakes, I
couldn’t do it anyway. Maybe next time, you’ll tell me the truth.”

I turned my head, ready to retort, but
looked at the stormy darkness welling within the pools of his eyes. I figured that
now would probably be best not to respond with anything.

So I just stared at him, until the
cloudiness in his eyes began to pass and he continued the conversation with me.
“Look…” he hissed, “maybe this isn’t your ideal vacation, but it means a lot to
me, so could you please try to give your new stepmother and stepbrother a
chance?”

My head made some motion that might have
resembled a nod, but otherwise I didn’t answer him. I was too depressed to
answer him and too hurt to continue to lie. I just stared back at him, waiting
for my father to either say something that I had to respond to, or leave.

Eventually my father chose to leave and
when he did so, I flung myself back on the bed and finally allowed myself to
cry. I quickly grasped the pillow, which made my emotions grow even fiercer,
since it still smelt the way everything used to smell, before my life was
turned upside down. I was completely devastated. I had countless fights with my
father before. That wasn’t really the issue. The point was that I was so
aggravated by his need to turn everything around, so that nothing was ever his
fault that I felt like disappearing into the bed, never to be seen again, just
so I never had to be made to feel like this.

I
should have kept my anger in check…
I thought;
you know there is no talking to him when he
is like this!

Still, I knew that no matter what had
happened, or how I had reacted, eventually, he would have pushed one too many
buttons and the result would have been the same.