Chapter 2: The Lie They Shared
“Let go of me, Calvin.””
Brielle's voice trembled, but there was a new edge beneath the fear.
Calvin immediately released her wrist.
Wesley noticed the red marks beginning to form where his father's fingers had been. His stomach tightened. Whatever was happening between them, Calvin had crossed a line by grabbing her, and the instinct to protect Brielle fought with the growing suspicion that she had betrayed him.
He hated that he couldn't tell which feeling deserved his loyalty.
“Dad,” he said, “what was that?””
Calvin straightened his shirt cuffs, a familiar gesture he used whenever he wanted to regain composure.
“She is upset. I'm trying to keep her from making a mistake.””
“What mistake?””
“Talking before she's thought things through.””
Wesley stared at him.
“She's a grown woman. She doesn't need you to decide what she can say.””
“I'm not deciding anything.””
“You just grabbed her.””
Calvin's eyes flashed.
“Don't twist what happened.””
Brielle stepped away from him and stood beside the hallway console table. Her purse slipped from her shoulder and landed on the floor. A lipstick, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, and a folded receipt spilled across the marble surface.
She barely noticed.
Wesley did.
He bent down and picked up the receipt. It was from a coffee shop in Roswell, dated three weeks earlier. On the back, someone had written a short message in blue ink.
We cannot keep doing this. He deserves the truth.
The handwriting was Brielle's.
Wesley held it up.
“What is this?””
Brielle's face drained of color.
“Where did you get that?””
“It was in your purse.””
“Give it back.””
He looked at the message again.
“Who wrote this?””
She reached for it. Wesley pulled his hand away.
“Answer me.””
“Wesley, that's private.””
He stared at her, incredulous.
“Private? You're standing in my father's hallway after coming out of his bedroom, and now you're worried about privacy?””
Calvin moved toward them.
“Give her the receipt.””
Wesley looked at his father.
“Why do you care what's on it?””
“Because it has nothing to do with you.””
“Then why does it say somebody deserves the truth?””
Calvin stopped moving.
Brielle closed her eyes.
Wesley felt the room tilt beneath the weight of the possibilities. An affair was the obvious answer, ugly as it was. But the note sounded different. It sounded like a warning, the kind people wrote when a secret had become too heavy to carry.
He turned the receipt over, searching for a name.
There was nothing else.
“Were you two seeing each other?”” he asked.
Brielle shook her head so quickly that her braids swung against her shoulders.
“No.””
“Look at me when you say it.””
She lifted her eyes.
“No, Wesley. I wasn't sleeping with your father.””
Calvin's expression hardened.
“That's enough.””
Wesley barely heard him.
“Then what were you doing in his bedroom?””
Brielle pressed both hands against her mouth, struggling to control her breathing.
“I came because he told me he was ready.””
“Ready for what?””
She looked at Calvin.
He gave her a warning stare.
Wesley laughed bitterly.
“There it is again. That look. You two keep doing that.
One of you says something, the other one shuts down. You think I don't notice?””
Calvin's voice became dangerously quiet.
“You need to stop accusing people without knowing the facts.””
“Then tell me the facts!””
“Not everything is about you, Wesley.””
The words hung in the air.
For a moment, Wesley looked almost stunned.
Then his face hardened.
“You know what? You're right. Maybe this isn't about me.
Maybe it's about whatever you've been doing behind my back. Maybe it's about something you did years ago that you're still trying to cover up.””
Calvin's eyes narrowed.
“Be careful.””
“Or what?””
“Or you'll destroy this family over something you don't understand.””
Wesley stepped closer.
“You keep saying family like it's a shield. Like if you say it enough times, I'll stop asking why my girlfriend is crying in your hallway.””
Brielle suddenly sank onto the edge of a nearby bench.
“I can't do this anymore.””
Both men turned toward her.
She stared at the floor, tears falling onto her hands.
“I have tried to do what everyone told me was right. I tried to wait. I tried to convince myself there would be a better time. Every day I wake up knowing I'm lying to the person I love, and every time I see you, Wesley, I feel like I'm disappearing.””
His anger faltered.
“Then stop lying.””
She looked at him, and for one brief moment he saw the woman he knew—the woman who sang badly while cooking, who fell asleep during action movies, who called her grandmother every Sunday even when work exhausted her.
But beneath that familiar face was a fear he had never seen before.
“Your father promised me he would tell you,” she whispered.
Wesley slowly turned toward Calvin.
“Tell me what?””
Calvin rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“This is not the way I wanted you to find out.””
Wesley felt his heartbeat hammer against his ribs.
“Find out what?””
“Your father has been trying to handle a difficult situation,” Calvin said, apparently speaking about himself in a way that made no sense. He stopped, shook his head, and started again.
“I have been trying to protect you.””
“From Brielle?””
“From the truth.””
Wesley stared at him.
“You hear yourself, right? You understand how that sounds?””
“I know how it sounds.””
“No, you don't. Because if you did, you'd stop talking in riddles and tell me what the hell is going on.””
Calvin walked toward the living room, then stopped at the threshold. His shoulders rose and fell with a slow breath.
“Your mother left things unresolved when she died.””
Wesley went completely still.
His mother, Denise Carter, had died when he was sixteen. A sudden medical emergency had taken her from him in less than a day. Wesley remembered the hospital lights, his father's hand gripping his shoulder, and the funeral where grown men had cried into their folded programs.
For fourteen years, her death had been the dividing line in his life: everything before it, and everything after.
“What does my mother have to do with Brielle?”” he asked.
Calvin didn't answer immediately.
That was enough to make Wesley's blood run cold.
“Dad.””
Calvin turned.
“Your mother loved you more than anything.””
“Don't talk about her like that unless you're going to tell me something.””
“I'm trying to explain.””
“Then explain!””
Calvin's face tightened with pain, but Wesley could not tell whether it was genuine grief or the panic of a man cornered by his own choices.
“Denise had a complicated history before we got married,” Calvin said.
“There were things she never told you because she wanted to protect you.””
Wesley shook his head.
“No. You don't get to bring Mom into this just because you need another excuse.””
“It's not an excuse.””
“Then what is it?””
Brielle rose from the bench.
“Wesley, your mother and I—”
Calvin spun around.
“Do not finish that sentence.””
The command struck the room like a gunshot.
Wesley stared at Brielle.
“Your mother and you what?””
Brielle began to cry again.
Calvin crossed the space between them.
“I said stop.””
Wesley shoved his father's shoulder away when Calvin tried to move in front of Brielle.
“Back off!””
Calvin stumbled one step, catching himself against the console table. A framed photograph of Denise, Wesley, and Calvin rattled against the wall.
For a moment, father and son faced each other, breathing hard.
Wesley's voice dropped.
“If Mom is part of this, then I deserve to know.””
Calvin looked toward the photograph.
“I made a promise to your mother.””
“What promise?””
“That I would never let her past destroy your future.””
Wesley swallowed.
“My mother's past?””
Calvin closed his eyes.
Brielle shook her head, crying silently.
And then Wesley understood something that frightened him more than the possibility of an affair.
Whatever this secret was, it had existed before Brielle ever entered his life.
May you like
It had existed before his mother's death.
And his father had apparently spent years making sure Wesley never found it.
