Excruciating Truths

NATASHA

I couldn’t do it.

I didn’t have the heart to say it to Elsida so, I did what every bastard does, I kept my mouth shut and wallowed in my despair.

I was trying to come to terms with the fact that Julien is supposedly my half-brother.

That’s some messed up shit.

After I read that bit of my mom’s journal, it took two hours of sitting blankly in the living room before I was able to gather the willpower to organize her things and hide the journal far away, where no one could find it.

However, I think keeping my mouth shut is the biggest mistake I’ve made because now, I’m sitting in the same room as my smiling sister who looks ethereal in her wedding robe and sits patiently as the makeup artist accentuates her face.

“Nat, are you okay? Don’t tell me you stayed up all night watching Gossip Girl?” Elsida asks, arching an eyebrow at me.

I lift my face from the newspaper in my hand and rise to my feet with my heart thudding rapidly against my rib cage.

“I’m fine El, my bad, I shouldn