Faintly I heard Leland stuttering a few…. Uh, uh….uhs as Olivia made her newly discovered knowledge known to everyone.
'Breathe, breathe…breathe' were the words I kept repeating over and over to myself. 'Don't let Leland see the fear on your face…breathe.'
I could hear the muted words as Kaiden spoke to me while I focused on my breathing. I had no idea what he was saying until he tapped me on the arm.
"Mommy, can I play in my new room?"
"Sure baby, go ahead." I whisper. What we were discussing really didn't bother Kaiden in the least bit. As he took off running into his new room I looked up, meeting my ex-husbands eye's; hurt and anger flashed across his face.
He calmly pulled out his phone and dialed someone's number, asking them to come by and pick up the kids for the afternoon. I didn't bother to ask who it might be; he would never leave them with just anyone.
Leland stands up, pulling the girls up with him, "Girls grandma Beth is coming to pick you up so you can swim at her house with the other kids today. Do me a favor and go get your swimsuits and help Kaiden find his okay?"
I sat motionless in the chair. My secret had been brought to light by my six year old. I couldn't be upset with her, she didn't know the difference. I only wondered how she put two and two together and came to that conclusion; as far as I knew neither Duane Lee nor I had ever mentioned Dylan being my child. I suppose it was possible that she overheard Dylan himself saying something when he didn't know those little ears were listening.
Leland and I just stared at one another until the doorbell rang. And no sooner had he shut the door and watched Beth drive away with our children did he start questioning me.
"Honestly, I don't even know where to start Mila."
I looked down at my hands. I didn't know where to start either.
"Is it true, is Dylan really your son?"
I chewed the inside of my mouth, and continued looking down at my hands.
"It just blows my fucking mind that my own children know and I don't. It's truly unbelievable."
I closed my eyes, and continued to chew the inside of my mouth until I could taste blood. I refused to look at him.
"This…this is just…bullshit. I really can't comprehend how you could keep something like this from me; you and Duane Lee. My own brother kept this from me."
I began to shake one leg up and down, up and down. Trying to do anything I could to keep from looking at Leland.
"Say something damn it!" he says grabbing my face roughly with his hand. "Say something Mila… anything! Defend yourself and tell me this isn't true! Just fucking say SOMETHING!" he screams in my face, punctuating each word with a squeeze of his hand.
"Get your hand off of my face." I whisper, quite calmly. "I don't have to defend myself to you or anyone else for that matter. I no longer answer to you!"
"So it's true?" He asks as I stand up, coming eye to eye with him. "I should have known you were nothing but a whore when I met you."
Read more: thread/136/tangled-web?page=7#ixzz3CBEFtjO2.
"Slow down…Baby, I can't understand you!" I say for the second time, trying my best to figure out what Mila was saying between her sobbing.
"It's out… he knows…"
"What's out? I don't understand?" I say shaking my head.
A fresh batch of tears fall as she screams; "Leland!"
Laughing, I say; "He's out… Out of what, the closet, his mind?"
"This is not the time to be funny, damn it!" I straightened up as she hits me lightly in the arm; "Our secret about Dylan. Olivia told Leland and now he knows that Dylan is our son."
"Oh." I whisper, rather shortly. "What did he say?" I ask, already knowing the answer. At least I knew what I might say if I were in that position.
"He called me a whore and a few other choice words and I ran out the door."
My eyes went wide, "Excuse me? He called you what?" I questioned her, as my blood started to boil. No one called my fiancé a whore and lived to tell the tale.
"Leland said I should have known you were a whore when I married you."
"Fuck him! I'm going over there."
"No!" she yells, grabbing my arm. "Please… I don't want to start anymore fights. This is enough for now; we have to deal with this Duane Lee.
I sighed and sat down next to her on the bed. "I guess now we need to explain ourselves to everyone."
"Where's Amy to steal the spotlight when you need her?" Mila looks up at me and asks, finally able to smile instead of cry.
I pulled her into my arms; squeezing her tightly to let her know everything would be alright when I heard a knock at the front door. We looked at each other, both shrugging our shoulders and walked downstairs.
"Oh great, it's Leland.' Mila tells me as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. Without saying a word, she calmly opens the door, letting him into our house.
"Brah, of all the people in the world you couldn't tell me?" were the first words out of his mouth.
"We didn't tell anyone Leland…not even mom."
"This is such bullshit. I mean… pure fucking bullshit!" he screams to no one in particular. "Well congrats on keeping it a secret."
"I know that you're hurt... But you have to realize that it's not all about you! It wasn't like we were out to get you or cause you any pain. It was a decision we made as Dylan's parents." I tell him as I gesture between Mila and myself. "Believe it or not, Mila did have a life before she married you."
Leland sits down in the chair; running a hand across his forehead. I hoped that he was trying to calm down.
We sit down on the couch and after a few minutes of silence he speaks up. "How could you be married to me for that long and never once tell me? How could you wake up every single day knowing that you had another child that you weren't raising?"
"Leland, I –"
"Let me finish please." He says interrupting Mila. "When Dylan was born that would have made you sixteen years old and my brother was what, nineteen or twenty. Brah, that's sick.
I started to open my mouth to respond but Mila placed her hand on my thigh, stopping me from getting too angry with my brother.
Leland falls silent for a moment, no doubt trying to sort things out in his mind. "If you would have just told me all those years ago we wouldn't be going through this right now."
Mila looks up and calmly says, "There are a lot of things we wouldn't be going through right now if you or I had said or done something different all those years ago. Leland, I can't change the past and I can't change what happened between us; it is what it is… Dylan is my son. And more than anything it breaks my heart that I tried to hide that for so long. It wasn't fair to him or Duane Lee."
"Or yourself." I whisper, putting my arm around her.
"I just don't know if I can ever forgive you Mila." Leland tells her.
She leans into me as she starts to cry; "I don't know if I can ever forgive myself."
Read more: thread/136/tangled-web?page=7#ixzz3CBEJU3kI
I slid into the seat of my Hummer; feeling the weight of Mila's confession on my heart. Taking a deep breath and realizing that I had reached rock bottom; I started the truck and pulled out of the driveway. I drove endlessly for hours; ignoring every phone call and text from Amy... she was persistent to say the least.
Eventually I pulled onto the side of the road and sat on the edge of the retaining wall, watching the waves crash against the rocks. The orange/pink sun was beginning to set.
I was deep in thought before I realized there was a young girl sitting a few feet from me. The gentle breeze rustled her light red hair causing her to tuck the annoying strand behind her ear. She was cute, maybe twenty one; fair skinned…definitely not a local girl.
She looked up and I quickly turned my head. I had been caught staring.
"Hi." Came a sweet voice from my right.
"Uh… Hi." I stammered. I didn't know what it was about this girl that had me so flustered.
"This is so beautiful." She says gesturing out to the ocean. 'I just had to pull over and see the sun set. I don't see anything like this at home."
Home, I thought to myself… "Where's home?" I asked the girl.
"South Carolina." She says softly.
"Southern Belle." I mumble.
A short laugh; "So they tell me."
I scoot a little closer to her, closing the gap between us. "You're a long way from home. Are you here alone on vacation?"
Sadness quickly passes across her features. "No… well yes and no." She says with a wave of her hand. 'I came here with my fiancé for our engagement but he broke it off with me earlier today. He said he wasn't ready to be married."
"So he left you here?" I asked, amazed that anyone would be so cruel.
She nods; "I told him to. I don't have anything worth going back home to now. My family doesn't speak to one another so I've kinda been on my own since I was a teenager."
"You don't look much older than that now." I reply with a smile.
"Thanks, I'm twenty three."
"Leland." I say, reaching out to shake her hand.
"Gabrielle" she says taking my hand. "Or Gabby; that's what most people call me."
"Gabby…that's a beautiful name." I say with a wink, feeling very much like an old pervert. I had at least twelve years on this young girl. Why was I flirting?
She blushed and bit her lip; making her look that much more appealing to me. "Thank you."
"So when do you go back home? Or are you going back home?"
A long silence falls upon us as she thinks about my question. The ocean breeze was still blowing her red hair in different directions as she absent mindedly kicked her feet back and forth.
"Not sure yet. I might see what Hawaii has to offer me." She says with a tilt of her head as a wicked grin spreads across her face.
"Let's get out of here." I whisper quickly; taking her hand.
