Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
In the Army, they shared information on a need-to-know basis. As I gazed at my brother and grappled with recent revelations about my father, I made a decision. Matt deserved everything, and what he did with it was up to him.
I had no intention of telling my mom about Brenda Swensen or that I owned half the family’s land because her husband impregnated a young woman. She started it. And I wanted to wash my hands of everything. I felt no loyalty to anyone.
“Once you’re done tripping over your ego, you’ll see that she was never going to marry you. And even if you and everyone else managed to guilt her into it, the marriage would not have lasted. And she said you two broke up. You can’t suffocate someone’s dreams without losing them. But more than all of that, it’s time for you to grow up and deal with reality.”
He clenched his jaw. “You mean that you’re an asshole? And Sarah is a—”
“Careful,” I warned.
Matt drew in a long breath and let it out just as slowly.
“Your reality is this,” I said. “You have a bright future ahead of you if you choose to pack up your belongings and never look back. But you’re going to struggle with it because what I’m about to tell you will hit you harder than finding out your ex-girlfriend likes another guy, even if that guy is me.”
“There’s nothing you could tell me that would feel worse than that,” he mumbled.
“Mom was engaged to another man before she met Dad. Nine months before you were born, she drove to St. Louis to visit her ex-fiancé.”
Matt rolled his head toward me, brow furrowed as he slowly sat up.
“Your biological father’s name is Clyde Jensen. And no, I haven’t kept this from you. I just found this out today.” I slid my hands into my pockets. “If you’ve had either of our parents on a pedestal, I suggest you take a few seconds, right now, to set them on the ground. Make them human. Open your mind to see their flaws, knowing that someday you will inevitably fuck something up, and you’ll beg for understanding and forgiveness.”
Matt didn’t move, not a blink.
“But you won’t get there today. So it’s okay to be pissed off. It’s okay to act out. It’s okay to say things that might be hard to forgive. Six years ago, Dad let twelve year’s worth of resentment turn into his own affair. He got Danielle Harvey pregnant.”
Matt’s head jerked back before he adamantly shook it.
“It’s true. However, I drove her to get an abortion. I took the fall. And Dad signed over half of the land to me in exchange for being the fall guy and enlisting in the Army for a minimum of six years.”
“You’re lying.” Matt continued to shake his head.
I returned a painful laugh. “I wish I were. Even now, I’m still struggling with my decision because no matter how much I stood to gain from the deal, no amount of money took away the resentment that I felt toward Dad for doing what he did. And I resented you for being the protected child. Then, when I returned, you had gone from the protected child to the perfect child. They support your dreams. And no one has ever asked me about mine. Do you really think it’s my dream to take over the ranch? I had a fucking band in high school. Was it not obvious to everyone what I wanted to do with my life?”
Matt’s eyes reddened, and I couldn’t tell if he was drowning in anguish or fighting the urge to kill something—someone.
“Do you want the rest?” I asked.
He swallowed hard, quickly wiping his eyes.
“To be honest, I wish I knew none of this. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. I can leave you with a shred of bliss, or I can go ahead and fuck up the rest of your world like what’s been done to mine. Your choice.”
Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he looked away. “Did you have sex with her?”
Sarah.
My little brother rarely surprised me, but it was admirable that he asked about Sarah in the midst of everything I’d just told him. He gained back a little of my respect after I thought he didn’t really care about her. He loved her enough to hide from the truth when it was right in front of him.
Her shirt and bra were on the ground in the barn, and she was in the tack room. She didn’t tell him it wasn’t what he thought, because it was exactly what he thought.
Yet, there he was, bleeding out, begging for me to tell him otherwise because, in his darkest moment, he needed her. But he needed to believe that she didn’t cheat on him like everyone else in his life.