Chapter 5

KATE

What?

“So all these while, I have been sleeping with a married man?”

What a cruel world!!

“Jerry has a wife and grown kids. That fucker was banging me day and night without remorse and I was foolish enough to offer myself to him every hour he calls for it.

How shameful!

I wept bitterly.

Did he think I wouldn't know? I snuck up on him and caught him on a call with his wife and kids.

I had stayed over at the back of the door, listening to everything he was saying over the phone.

Tears kept rolling down my eyes and in that moment, I heard a loud bang on the floor.

“Kate, open the door,” I heard Jerry shout from outside.

“Leave me alone, you liar.”

“Please just open the door. Allow me explain to you,” He begged.

But I wouldn't listen.

My eyes became heavy and more tears rolled down my cheeks.

My eyes were swollen and my cheeks were plastered with a lot of tears.

He kept knocking on the door but I didn't respond.

“Wife and children, pfff…”

I cried profusely.

I sat on the couch for hours replaying what I heard over the call in my head.

The emotions. Lord knows how long they have been married and here I am happy that I have found someone to call mine?

It was at this point I remembered I had something that could take my mind off the situation.

The album I took from my father's old suitcase.

I went to my box and brought it out and just as I cried, I kept flipping the pages of pictures.

I smiled at the first picture I saw.

It was my handsome dad and pretty mom in their wedding dress.

Then pictures of Mother in the hospital holding a child in her hands whom I presume to be me, being the first child.

I kept flipping and I kept seeing pictures of Mom amd Dad with just one person, one child.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Where is Freya in this pictures?

“There were no photos of her or what?!” I said out loud, channeling my emotions to what was lying in front of me.

I kept flipping and it was the same thing over and over again.

“Just one child in all of the pictures,” I said to myself.

Then I came across a larger sized picture folded at the tip and a small pen note stapled to the edge.

And it reads;

My pumpkin, I cherish the day I met you and the day we started this beautiful thing called love now look at us, living our dream life with our one and only beloved daughter, Freya after which you decided not to give birth again. P. S; I wouldn't take that lightly with you.”

What?

Waht did I just read?

My heart raced and all of a sudden, it started to feel like my heart was failing me.

One and only daughter, Freya?

Then who am I?

Out of anger, I hit the book so hard on the couch that a paper slipped out of it.

I stood up to get it and it was a copy of Freya's birth certificate. It contained the same month and year Mother told me I was given birth to.

How is this possible? We weren't twins?

I wiped the tears off my face and shone my eyes on the paper.

I still can't believe what I am reading.

“Am I a bastard?”

“Has Dad been lying to me all these while?”

Oh No…my whole life had been nothing but a lie.

No wonder….no wonder the woman who claims to be my mother doesn't give two fucks where I end up!

“What have I done to deserve this?”

Why would my supposed parents keep this from me all these while?

That moment, I made up my mind to go see my mother without the knowledge of Jerry.

“I would wait till he is out,” I said to myself.

I heard him pace around my room that morning mumbling words but I was deafened to all of it.

Everything sounded gibberish to me and I wasn't in the best of mood to listen.

I just wanted to see my mother.

Immediately, I saw him leave the house from the windows upstairs in my room, I set out.

I snuck out through the security post to the main gate on foot and boarded a train back to our place.

“Maybe what I saw isn't what it is.”

“Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way,” I thought in my head as I sat in the train; my whole body shivering in fear and anxiety.

Finally, I got to our home back in Charlesville and the smell of Momma's garden invaded my nose as I approached our home.

I chuckled, “Very typical. She still grows those herbs.”

As I approached the entrance, I could hear giggling and laughing and whispers of two people talking and making awkward sounds.

I decided to use the backdoor, one Dad comes through whenever he was late to the house.

The living room was empty and silent but the sound of the boiler scattered the silence and I rushed to turn it off.

“Mom. I'm back,” I called out but no response.

The sound of laughter came aloud again and I traced the sound to my room upstairs.

Delighted to meet Freya or whoever was in the room, I opened the door slightly only to meet a shocking and naughty scene.

Freya and some guy making out on my bed!

I stood and watched for minutes but they didn't even flinch or notice I was there.

They were both lost in the moment.

And I heard Freya speak, “Kiss me harder, James. Touch me more than you do with Kate.”

What?

James?

“My ex; that fucker who broke up with me a week before my parents divorce!”

Multiple shivers spiralled through my nerves and my knee muscles became weak as I fell to my knees.

No!! Who are these people?

Why is everything happening this way?

Have I been living amongst demons parading themselves as my family?

I limped out of the room, not even sure they noticed my presence.

I almost fell of the stairs as I walked on one foot.

My heart again felt like it was failing as I could count its slow beat.

It was as though my whole world was crumbling in front of me.

I got to the door finally and the paralysis worsened.

My hands and legs became so weak that I found it difficult to take any more steps.

But I managed to push on.

My eyes became red and my cheeks swollen.

The tears wouldn't stop flowing and my breath wouldn't become stable no matter how hard I try.

I walked down the road, lost in my thoughts as my life played in front of me like a tragedy movie.

Was this my end?

The honking of cars alerted back to the reality in front of me and as I turned, a moving vehicle was fast approaching me.

And a big bang followed.

……….