The Hardest Fall

Chris walked past by me to take me up on my offer, but JP headed toward the kitchen. “Is there anything to eat in this place—other than your girl’s precious pizza, that is. I’m starving.”

Zoe chose that moment to pick up the pizza box and offer it to Chris. “Would you like to have some pizza?”

JP said exactly what was on my mind: “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Chapter Eleven

Zoe

I knocked on the door and walked in as soon as I heard a muted, “Come in.” When his eyes lifted up and he saw who was in his office, he sighed. “This is not the best time, Zoe. I’ll call you later.”

Ignoring his words, I took a deep breath, clicked the door shut, and squared my shoulders. “I want to tell him.”

I was in Mark’s private office, standing as far away from him as possible. Anyone could’ve told me he didn’t want me in there just from his body language and I didn’t want to be there either, but I’d sucked it up and made my way over to the athletic administration building as soon as I left the apartment that morning anyway. He was just going to have to deal with me.

“No.” Mark looked at me with hard, unyielding eyes. Was he ever planning on telling him? At that moment, it didn’t look like he was, but we had a plan and he was going to tell him. He had to. I just couldn’t wait any longer.

“I need to tell him,” I repeated, my voice coming out stronger this time—at least it sounded stronger to my ears.

He leaned back in his seat and the chair gave a small groan. I barely managed to hold back my flinch.

“Is this because I couldn’t make it last night? I’ll make it up to you some other time. You know how busy it gets during the season.”

He wanted to talk about that? Sure, why not?

“You were the one who invited me out in the first place. You didn’t have to make me wait two hours in that restaurant halfway across town if you had no intention of coming, but this isn’t about last night. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and I’m guessing it won’t be the last, either. I get that you’re busy. It’s fine either way.”

“You need to remember who you’re talking to.”

I needed to remember? I wanted to forget all about him.

Mark tapped the pink end of the yellow pencil he had in his hand on one of the papers that were strewn all over his desk and looked down at them, dismissing me.

“I give up. I don’t want to do this anymore,” I confessed, and his gaze came back to me. Was that relief I was seeing in his eyes? I let out a deep breath and swallowed my disappointment. “If you don’t want to see me, if you don’t care about getting to know me, that’s okay. You don’t have to. But, you should know, Chris was at the apartment last night. That’s why—”

As soon as the words left my mouth, Mark was up on his feet. He threw the pencil on his desk in a calm manner, just a flick of his wrist, which was not what his body language said at all. Instead of meeting his eyes, I watched the pencil roll off and hit the ground with a small thump. When it stopped moving, I finally found the courage to look up at his face. I straightened my spine and tried my best to look like I wasn’t afraid of him or the radiating anger coming off him in waves. Though I had to say, it was the angriest I’d seen him in the last three years. His face was flushed and he bent to put his fists on the table, eyes on me the entire time.

“What did you just say?”

“Chris…he was at the apartment last night, with one of Dylan’s friends, JP. I think they were worried about him.”

“What did you tell him, Zoe?”

When I’d first come in, Mark hadn’t invited me to sit down, so I was still standing in the same spot. My hand tightened on the strap of my bag and the edge of the leather bit into my palm. It felt like the bag was my only protection against him, though in reality, it meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t think he’d actually hurt me, but he’d never looked at me like he wanted to end me right then and there either.

Hadn’t my dad warned me on multiple occasions to be careful around him?

“What the fuck did you tell him!” thundered Mark when I didn’t reply fast enough, and this time, I visibly flinched.

I hated the fact that he had the ability to hurt me. He shouldn’t have, I knew that, and the fact that my voice was small when I answered him bothered me even more.

“Nothing,” I forced out. “They didn’t stay for long.”

“Sit down and tell me everything.”

Maybe I had made a mistake in mentioning it to him. “I didn’t come—”

His palm hit the desk with a sharp crack. “I said sit your ass down and tell me everything!”

My heart hammering, I forced myself to walk with stiff legs and sat on the edge of the chair farthest away from him. A result of the anger I felt toward him, my fingertips bit into my palms the entire time. When I was finished telling him about the night before, making sure to keep the parts about me and Dylan out, he started pacing—angry steps, angry eyes, sharp, angry words.

“He doesn’t know about your mom. How many times do—”

“Our mom, you mean,” I muttered.

His eyes narrowed at me. “Danielle has never been his mom. We adopted him. His mom is Emily.”

It was right on the tip of my tongue to say something, but I decided to let it go. When it came to Mark, I knew it was better to pick my battles. I wanted to reason with him. Technically he was my father and I wished I could manage to call him by that title one day, but every time I thought about doing exactly that, I felt like gagging. This was one of those times.

“Mom called you before she passed away and told you about me. I wasn’t the one to call you. You said you wanted to meet me, you said you wanted to get to know me. You were the one who invited me to come here, so I came. I came because I wanted to get to know you too, not just Chris. My freshman year, you said it should be just us for a while, said we should have the time to get to know each other, and I agreed because I was already nervous about how and why—”

“What are you getting at Zoe? I don’t have time to go over the last three years.”

“Don’t put all this on my mom. She was your wife’s friend and you both cheated behind her back. She didn’t get pregnant on her own, and twice at that. I have no idea how you talked your wife into adopting Chris—I guess maybe she was really desperate to have a kid and forgave you for cheating on her—but I know the lies you told my mom to convince her to give him up.”

He just stared at me, anger burning in his eyes. I rose from my seat and forced my hands to relax at my sides.

“At first, I thought you liked me,” I said in a controlled voice. “I might have been a surprise that came, what, eighteen, nineteen years later, but you acted like you cared about it, cared about learning more about me. I thought we were getting closer. I never assumed I’d be like a daughter to you, but I thought we would have some kind of relationship.” I gripped my bag tighter. Why did I think he’d interrupt me to say something to ease my hurt? Surely he could see it with his own eyes, but he said nothing. “Never mind. I already have a dad, right? I couldn’t ask for a better one. You don’t have to like me, I don’t mind that at all”—that was something I no longer cared about—“but I want to get to know Chris. That’s what I said from the very beginning. Other than my dad, I have no family. No one. He is my brother, not half-brother. He is my brother, and I want the chance to get to know him.”