CHAPTER 5

CARMEN

“What are you talking about?” Dave asked, staring at his father with as much confusion as I felt.

Dave Wilmer couldn’t possibly be my stepbrother; not after what had happened between us. 

How could I live under the same roof as him? I could barely even look into his eyes without the guilt and shame, the reminder of how I had neglected my father, eating away at me.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t talk about this sooner, son.” Steve grinned as he explained to his son. “Aren’t you happy? You’re the one who has always worried about me, always advising me against spending the rest of my days alone.”

I looked at my mother, shaking my head. When my father got married to her, his business was booming and successful, and she changed when things got difficult. Now, she had played the ultimate trump card – she had woven another rich man into her web.

My mother was a gold digger.

“Yes, but…” Dave stopped himself from saying anything else. He returned his gaze to my face, frowning apologetically. For lack of what to do, I looked away from him.

“I have planned a dinner in place for tonight, to officially welcome Bianca and Carmen into the house and introduce them to my business partners,” Steve announced. “Dinner is set at six. Before then, you’ll be taken out by your assistants to shop for the perfect dresses.”

“You’re too kind, Steve,” Mom laughed, faking bashfulness at his offer.

“It really is nothing. You’re my family now, after all.” Steve walked out, leaving me, my mother, and Dave to stand there in almost awkward silence.

“You.” Mom pointed at Dave, squinting her eyes. “You’re that boy that came to our house with the police, aren’t you? You saved my daughter from getting attacked?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Dave nodded and confirmed.

“I knew I recognized you from the moment you walked in. How delightful!” Mom clapped her hands in excitement. “It’s absolutely fate! Wait till I go tell Steve about it.”

As Mom raced out of the living room to announce the event to Steve, Dave shoved his hands in his pockets as he stepped closer to me. Instinctively, I stepped back. 

He, noticing that I was uncomfortable, stopped walking towards me.

“Did you know?” he questioned.

“Know what?” I frowned at him.

“Did you know that your mom was seeing him?” he said, referring to his dad. “Did you know we were going to be stepsiblings? 

Is that why you avoided me throughout the rest of senior year?”

Because I didn’t know what else to do, I laughed. It was a dry, mirthless laugh, and even Dave seemed confused at it.

“If I had known that my mom was seeing your dad, I would have tried to bring whatever they had to an end,” I corrected him. 

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Wilmer. My father died, so I didn’t have the time to suspect my mother’s relationship with someone else so soon.”

“I’m sorry about your dad. 

I heard it happened on that night.” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, blowing off a breath. “We shouldn’t have done what we did.”

His words sent blows through my chest and into my heart. What I regretted wasn’t the act itself; for it was one of the best things I had ever experienced; but the rashness of it and everything that had happened to my father while I was in the act of a pleasurable sin.

But Dave Wilmer regretted it, and he thought we shouldn’t have done it, so I had no other option but to agree with him.

I nodded, echoing his words. “We shouldn’t have don’t it.”

This time, as he made his way forward with caution, I didn’t step back. He took his right hand out of his pocket, exposing his dimpled smile as he said the familiar words. “Fresh start?”

As my heart deflated, I took his hand and nodded at him as I answered, “Fresh start.”

 

**********

 

“This is amazing, Steve,” Mom marvelled for the umpteenth time that evening as we stood in the ballroom of the Wilmer mansion, where the dinner was being hosted by Steve.

The guests were starting to arrive, trickling into the ballroom and draped in their Sunday best. Their nostrils hung up in the air as their pride entered the room before them. It was obviously a gathering of the rich and nothing but the rich.

Three years ago, I would have fit right in with a crowd like this. My father would have been one of the guests, possibly even the host, and I would be in a dress which didn’t look expensive but cost over a fortune.

Now, I was dressed in fortune itself – an open-back, midnight blue dress which stopped right at my ankles – but I didn’t fit in. I stood in the corner of my room by myself, watching people laugh and engage in discussions about their last expensive vacation.

Mom was perfect. She breezed around the room like she owned it, her laughter competing for the loudest as she spoke to everyone. She looked like she was born for it.

I started to wonder how long she had been dating Steve. Had it been right after Dad died, or had she been cheating when he was sick?

Did she kill Dad so that she would marry Steve sooner?

I shook those thoughts off my head as I gulped down the champagne in my hand. My eyes breezed around the room, searching for Dave; he was nowhere to be found.

“Carmen, I need you over here!” Mom called out to me from one of the tables.

Adjusting my dress, I walked over to where she stood with a young man who seemed to be my age.

“Carmen, this is Jasper,” she introduced. “He was just telling me that he went to the same high school as you and Dave.”

I gave Jasper an acknowledging nod.

“His father is somewhere around— oh, here he is!” Mom laughed as Jasper’s father joined us at the table.

My body froze in shock as I stared at the man at the table, across from me. He stared back at me, but he masked his surprise perfectly by saying,

 “Oh mine! Bianca, what a beautiful daughter you have!”

Sitting right across from me was the man from the bar who had tried to assault me in a dark alley.