Kristy's jaw dropped, and she looked worriedly at Charlie sitting across from her. Sam cleared his throat, and was the first to speak.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Patrick sighed. "I mean what I said, Sam. David Michael isn't my son."
Somehow, the words hurt Kristy even more now that Patrick had said them for a second time. She didn't understand how he could be so casual about the whole situation; couldn't he tell that her whole world was practically falling apart? Couldn't anyone?
Kristy nervously pushed her hair back behind her ears. This was the reason that she always wore ponytails. Somehow, she summoned enough courage from deep inside of her to speak.
"If you're not David Michael's father, then who is?" she asked softly.
Patrick shook his head slowly. "You're going to have to ask your mother about that."
"Let's get out of here," Sam said suddenly, shuffling his way to the end of the both. Kristy and Charlie followed suit. Patrick rose slowly as well, and shoved his hands into his pockets as the Thomas siblings put on their coats.
"Well it was nice to see you kids again," Patrick said. "I'll give you a call when Zoey and I hear more about the baby." He offered his hand to Charlie, who took the shake, while Kristy and Sam left the table and the restaurant, and waited in the cool November air outside the Junk Bucket.
After a few minutes of waiting silently, Charlie joined Kristy and Sam in the parking lot and wordlessly unlocked the doors to the car. Neither of them spoke until they had left to the parking lot and the city all together, and were truly on their way back to Stoneybrook.
Sam was the first to speak. "Wow," he said.
"Yeah," Kristy responded. There seemed to be no other words to say.
"I wonder what we should tell David Michael," Sam pondered, shaking his head. "That poor kid."
Charlie looked first at Sam, and then his eyes met Kristy's in the rearview mirror that was attached to the ceiling with duct tape. "We're not going to tell him anything, do you understand?"
"Come on Charlie, he deserves to know," Kristy argued.
Charlie shook his head firmly. "Mom's always done what she thought was best for this family. She'll tell him when the time is right."
"I'm not even so sure that I can trust mom anymore," Sam mumbled under his breath.
"Sam…" Kristy protested weakly.
"She's lied to us our whole lives," Sam went on. "If Patrick hadn't said anything tonight, we may never have found out the truth!" At this point, McClelland Drive and the Brewer mansion were coming into view. Kristy wasn't sure if she felt intimidated or relieved at the prospect of arriving home. When she thought about it, if unnamed the two emotions felt a lot alike. It was in assigning the label where the problem presented itself.
Charlie shook his head as he turned into the driveway. "She was going to tell you, she was going to tell everyone, I swear. The timing was just never right."
Sam turned to Charlie, his mouth gaping incredulously. Kristy felt the same way.
"You knew?" She asked Charlie, the words out of her mouth before she could even process the information.
Charlie stopped the car, but kept his foot on the brake and the keys in the ignition. "You guys can go in without me, I need to get back to school. Tell everyone that I said hi, and that I will try to call sometime this weekend."
Despite hearing the words of their older brother, neither Kristy nor Sam made a move to vacate the car.
"Bye," Charlie said pointedly.
"Whatever," Sam said, unlatching his seatbelt and opening the door. "And you call yourself our brother."
Kristy looked pleadingly at Charlie, who ignored her gaze, and then opened the door and ran after Sam. She caught up with him, but lost him as he went immediately upstairs to his room, while she was accosted by Karen in the entryway. Everyone else appeared to be eating in the kitchen.
"Kristy! It is Karen, your long lost sister from Chicago. Do you think that I talk with a Midwestern accent? The Midwest is the states that are in the middle of America. Did you miss me?"
"Of course I missed you Karen," Kristy said, trying to sound normal. "Why don't you go back into the kitchen with everyone else."
"I'm not allowed," Karen explained. "We were eating, and I accidentally threw a hot dog at David Michaels head. And it landed under the table, and Shannon ate it and threw up all over the rug. Shannon the dog, not your friend."
"That's great Karen," Kristy said, pushing her aside and running up the stairs. "We'll talk more later, I promise," she said over her shoulder."
Kristy ran upstairs and barged into Sam's room without bothering to knock. This was serious; she didn't have time for formalities.
"What are you doing in here?" asked Sam, who was sitting on his bed holding the phone. "I was about to call Stacey."
"That can wait, Sam," Kristy said impatiently. "We need to talk about what we're going to do about this."
"What are you talking about Kristy? It's not our call, it's mom's. We need to stay out of it."
Kristy rolled her eyes, exasperated. "We can't do that Sam. We owe it to David Michael. We need to do what is right for the family. I know that we don't really know what that is right now, but that's why we need to figure it out. We need to make things right again!"
Sam suddenly stood up from the bed angrily. "We can't fix everything, Kristy. We can't, and we're not supposed to. I don't care if Charlie did everything right his whole life, but I'm not him, and neither are you. Get out of my room, so I can call my girlfriend like a normal teenage guy."
"Come on Sam, we need to do something," Kristy protested weakly.
"Leave," commanded Sam, who picked up the phone again and started dialing.
"Fine," Kristy muttered, heading out the door. Once in the hallway, she could hear everyone downstairs in the kitchen, talking and laughing. Part of her wanted to go down there with them, but she didn't think that there was anyway that she could put on a smile and be normal after this dinner. She didn't really think that she could be normal after this month, Things were changing so fast she could hardly keep track of them, much less try and understand them. More anxious than ever, Kristy headed to her room. If Sam wasn't going to help her, she would have to figure things out for herself. She didn't really have a choice.
Once in her room, Kristy was still at a loss for what to do. Who was she trying to kid, anyway? Maybe Sam was right. She couldn't really do anything. This was something that was best left to her mom, the way they always had been. More than anything, she wished for one of her famous great ideas to come to her. So much for being an idea machine.
Kristy picked up the phone next to her bed, being silently thankful that Watson had installed a second line over the summer. She quickly dialed Abby's number. Even though their last conversation had been a fight, she couldn't think of any one else to call at a time like this. Abby had to be there for her. She didn't really have anyone else.
The phone rang five times, and she was about to hang up when finally someone picked up on the other line.
"Hey, this is Abby."
"Hey. It's Kristy."
"Oh," came Abby's response on the other end. Nothing but silence followed.
"Can you come over? I just came back from dinner with my dad, and… I guess I just really need to talk about it. Please?" Kristy asked.
Kristy was greeted by silence again. Finally, Abby responded. "I don't think I can."
"Abby, come on. I just really need to talk to someone," Kristy pleaded.
"I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't. It hurts to much to listen to you complain about everything that your dad did, and everything that he doesn't do, when I don't even have a dad that can do anything for me. You have no idea what that feels like, and you never will. You can feel free to call me when you have something else to talk about."
With that Abby hung up the phone, leaving Kristy cradling the receiver on her end. After a few moments she hung up, slamming the phone down. Still unsatisfied, she kicked her nightstand for good measure, causing her alarm clock to fall to the floor. She ignored this, and fell to her bed where she curled up with a pillow, letting the tears fall freely when she heard a knock at her door.
"Kristy? Can I come in?"
Kristy did her best to wipe away the tears on her sleeve. "Come in."
"I heard quite the commotion coming from in here," Elizabeth observed. "I guess dinner with Patrick didn't go so well?"
"It went fine," Kristy said defensively, clutching the pillow tighter.
"You can tell me if it didn't, you know."
More than anything, Kristy wanted to tell her mom what Patrick had said, and have her deny it, and say that he was lying. But something inside her told her that was not the case. Besides, Charlie had pretty much confirmed everything that Patrick had said. She hated to believe that he had been hiding this from her and Sam all of these years. Despite everything, she had always been happy with her family. Now things were just falling apart.
"It's nothing, mom. Dinner was fine. I just had a fight with Abby on the phone, and that's why I'm upset," Kristy hated lying to her mom, but tried not to care. After all, her mom had been lying to her for years. She just couldn't bring herself to talk to her mom about everything now. She needed to have a plan.
"Don't worry about it sweetie. You and Abby are great friends. I'm sure that things will look better in the morning," Elizabeth said
Kristy sighed. "I hope so."
Elizabeth gently rubbed Kristy's shoulder and left the room, closing the door behind her. Kristy climbed under the covers, and closed her eyes. Even though she would wake up to everything tomorrow, she could escape into sleep for the night.