Author's Note: I've decided to continue the story despite not having received any more reviews. I'm writing this for me as much as I am for the readers. It's been on my mind for a long time and until I get it done I don't think I'll be able to overcome the block that prevents me from writing anything else. As long as I keep getting hits I'll keep posting chapters.
Disclaimer: I don't own OTH.
Chapter 7: The Righteous and the Wicked
Dan Scott was livid. He had not felt anger of this magnitude since the time he discovered the one-night-stand between his brother and his wife.
"And they call me the bad guy," he muttered to himself as he got out of his SUV. Gritting his teeth he wrenched open the door of Karen's Café and stormed inside. This was the final straw. It was all he could take. Granted he owed Karen a lot after all he had put her through and he truly regretted his actions but what she had done was going too far. When he had approached her about joint custody of Lucas she should have told him the truth. The fact that he had to find out at a PTA meeting from Sherry Smith only added fuel to the fire.
"She didn't even have the guts to tell me herself," he growled. The café was devoid of customers and the only waitress was a tall girl he had never seen before. Marching up to the counter she was wiping down he barked, "Where's your boss?"
The girl looked up at him in surprise and Dan's heart nearly skipped a beat. She had Lucas' eyes. He knew right away who this was. In his rage he hadn't considered the possibility of Karen giving their daughter a job at the small restaurant.
"Um, she's busy. Can I help you?"
Jessi stared at the man trying to decide if he posed some kind of threat. He was clearly angry but he didn't appear to have a weapon of any kind and she thought his clothes looked too expensive to be worn by a robber. Still she didn't like the look on his face.
"Are you her?" Dan asked with slightly less venom in his voice. He didn't quite know how to address his daughter. On one hand he wanted to know about her but on the other it angered him that she had been living in Tree Hill for over three weeks and had made no attempt to contact him.
"Depends on who you're loo-"
"Jessi are you done with the counters?" Karen interrupted suddenly as she exited the kitchen. She gasped and nearly dropped the broom she was carrying. The sight of Dan standing there scared her. He glared at her menacingly and glanced at Jessi.
"How dare you?" Dan bellowed. "What gave you the right to keep this from me?"
Karen struggled to speak. "Dan, I…"
"What? You what?"
"Hey!" Jessi snapped, raising her voice to match Dan's. "Back off!"
Dan took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. While he paced a few steps in front of the counter trying to think of what to say next, Jessi deliberately place herself between him and her mother.
"I think you should leave," she said defiantly. Over the past few weeks she had been struggling with the decision of whether or not to let her birth father into her life and now he had made the decision much easier.
"No I think you should leave. The grownups need to talk about a few things." Dan snapped back.
"Like hell." Jessi retorted. "Maybe you did have a right to know but it was my choice not to tell you. So don't go screaming at Karen like that."
"Look here missy! I don't know where you're from but in this town both parents have rights to their kids."
Jessi crossed her arms as heat flooded her face. Going into this mess she had wanted to keep an open mind and give Dan a chance (albeit a limited one) before she wrote him off completely but he was quickly ruining that chance. Moving to Tree Hill and starting over was hard enough without the man who was supposed to be her father screaming at her.
"That's funny because I was under the impression that a parent wanted to… well you know maybe be in their kids life!"
Karen couldn't speak. The first meeting between father and daughter was going worse than she had imagined it could.
"Don't pretend like you understand what went on back then. If I had known Karen was having twins I would have come back and made things right."
"Whatever," Jessi scoffed, rolling her eyes. "A man who will stand here and claim innocence because he would willingly walk away from one child but not two isn't somebody I would want in my life and I sure as hell would never claim him as my father!"
Dan threw his hands in the air and left. There was no doubt in his mind that that girl was Lucas' twin sister after that. The resemblance in the way she talked to him was uncanny. He was sure that Karen and Lucas had told her all kinds of terrible things about him and that had sparked her immediate defense of her mother.
"This isn't over," he growled as he hit the gas pedal and sped away. "That's my kid too and Karen isn't going to keep her from me."
Back in the café Jessi turned to Karen with an apologetic expression. Although her words had been true and were spoken from the heart she regretted giving her birth mother a glimpse of her fierce temper.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have yelled like that."
"Oh Jessi," Karen choked out before hugging her daughter. "You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry you were put in that position."
"It's okay." Jessi replied while patting Karen's back. The two of them had already grown quite close in the short time she'd been there but it was still awkward for her. "He had no right to come in here like that."
"I know." Karen said as she wiped her eyes and began sweeping the floor. "And if you don't want anything to do with him you don't have to. Dan may think he's almighty but when it comes to protecting my children I'll tear him down."
"Well… I can kind of understand why he's so angry."
Karen looked up at her daughter's face with a confused expression. That one threw her off. One minute she was yelling at Dan and the next she was defending him.
"Don't get me wrong!" Jessi exclaimed when she realized how that sounded. "I don't blame you for what you did and it's his own fault he never knew about me. He lost the right to know anything about Lucas and me when he walked out on you. But… I just think the situation is more complicated than that. Now that he's had his blowing up moment he might come around and be a little more understanding."
Karen didn't know what to make of this. She was proud of her daughter for being so considerate of the situation after being yelled at by Dan but she also didn't believe that Dan would ever come around and be understanding. He had proven how ruthless and conniving he could be when he hired a woman to break Keith's heart, all because Keith had put further strain on an already crumbling marriage. Karen didn't want to even begin thinking about what scheme Dan would come up with to get revenge on her."
"Jessi there's nothing wrong with you wanting to get to know Dan. He is your father and it's natural that you want him in your life but you have to be careful. You don't know Dan like I do and believe me when I say that he's capable of anything. He doesn't like it when people get the best of him."
"That may be true but…"
The lanky teen wandered over to a stool and dropped onto it. Starting her life over here was harder than she had expected and the issue with Dan was turning into a major roadblock. So many emotions were hitting her at once and she wasn't sure how to deal with them all.
"But what?" Karen asked. She set her hands on the counter to brace herself. After the confrontation with Dan her stress levels were spiked and she wasn't sure she was as prepared for the fallout as she had thought. Guilt was also coursing through her. Watching her daughter sit there, her chin resting in hand as she chewed her bottom lip, was almost too painful to bear. She knew that the confusion she saw in Jessi's eyes fell on her. It made her question ever second of the last seventeen years. Deciding to give the girl up for adoption had been extremely difficult but it had been done to protect her. Karen had truly believed it would allow both of her children to lead fuller, happier lives but now she knew in her heart that it had all been a mistake. As Jessi sat there trying to find a way to explain, Karen saw a glimpse of the pain her daughter had been through. The similarities to the look in Lucas' eyes when he was upset made a chill run down her spine.
"I understand that you're telling me these things about Dan to protect me," Jessi began. "But I can't help wonder if the way he hurt you isn't clouding your judgment."
Karen allowed the counter to support even more of her weight. "Why would you think that?" she asked as she tried to calm herself. She was terrified that she would say the wrong thing and push Jessi away.
"Well… when my parents got divorced my dad was always saying bad things about my mom. He told me a lot of stuff from her past that I didn't need to know and… he really messed with my head. I don't know if it was intentional but he pretty much destroyed my relationship with my mom. My dad said he just wanted me to have all the facts but I was only thirteen and it all just confused the hell out of me. He convinced me that she didn't care about me and after a while I started to hate her."
On the verge of tears, the guilt-ridden mother dropped her gaze to the counter. So much for sending her daughter to a stable, caring family.
"And it's not like she was the world's greatest mother. There was a lot of stuff she did wrong and she wasn't anywhere near as involved in my life as I wanted her to be, but she wasn't the horrible person my dad made her out to be. It was years before I realized what a narcissist he is and by then it was too late. My mom and I were slowly patching things up but…"
Jessi trailed off, not ready to go there yet. It was true that she was opening up about her life a lot more than was normal for her but the accident was still too much. Hoping that Karen would understand what she meant she sat in silence waiting for a response. After a while, when Karen remained quiet, she began to feel guilty.
"I'm not accusing you of doing that," she said in an apologetic tone. "It's just, back home I didn't have much of a relationship with either of my parents and… I just… I'm sorry," she finished.
Her daughter apologizing to her was too much. Tears started to fall and Karen rushed around the counter to sit next to Jessi.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," she said in a choked up voice. "I can't even begin to imagine how confusing and scary this is for you. If anyone should be sorry, it's me for putting you through this."
Jessi shook her head as a pair of glistening tears rolled down her flushed cheeks. "I don't blame you for giving me up. I just… I don't know how to make sense of all this."
Karen pulled her daughter into a tight hug as the troubled teen began to cry.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading. Let me know what you thought.
