Chapter 6: Revelation

Chapter 6: Revelation

“It all started eight years ago, when your brother came back from college.” Angie began. “You must remember that he wanted to open his own business and asked your dad for money?”

“Yes.” I frowned, pushing my hair out of my face in frustration. “What does any of this have to do with him?”

“Everything had to do with Kyle, trust me.” Rika pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration before taking a gulp of her beer. “Just stay calm and listen.”

Oh, she had no idea exactly how calm I was right now. But if I had to wait any longer to find out the truth, things were going to get ugly really soon.

“As I was saying,” Angie gave Rika a glare before continuing. “Your father basically gave Kyle all of his savings so he can get his business up and running. But after an entire year of struggling to get things together, the business crashed, badly. Your family was in debt and your brother could go to jail at any moment. That’s when Jordan’s family stepped in to help.”

“So…what you’re essentially saying is…my father just decided to sacrifice me in order to keep Kyle out of prison and save his sorry ass?” I snapped, getting up from the couch as I started pacing the room like a caged animal. “You know that just makes matters worse, right?”

Always Kyle! It was always bloody Kyle! I could lie dying in front of my parents but if Kyle came home with a paper-cut at the exact same instant, the entire family’s attention would instantly shift towards him like I didn’t even exist. That’s how little my value was in the eyes of my family.

Sometimes, I wanted to ask my mother why the fuck didn’t she just get an abortion when she found out she was pregnant with me? It would’ve saved us all too much pain.

“How can I ever again trust the man who just thought selling me out for money was a gracious thing to do?” I asked them, my voice harsh and my hands balled by my sides. “And on top of that, I came all the way here, just before my wedding, to apologize to the man who thought it was his bloody right to sell me out to save my brother!”

“Calm down, Kyra.”Angie placed her hand on my shoulder to stop me from pacing. “This was why we didn’t want to tell you all this right away. Your father thought that what he tried to do was right and Jordan’s family had covered up the whole story by saying that Jordan was madly in love with you and that’s why he wanted to marry you. Everyone just thought that putting the blame on you was easier since you weren’t here to correct them and now its seven years too late for that.”

“Angie I don’t care if it’s late or not,” I told them both firmly. “I came here, feeling guilty for having run away on my wedding day, hoping that I could finally make amends with my family before I marry the woman I love the most in this world, but...I honestly don’t know what to think or do anymore. Everything that I once knew just turned out to be a big, fat lie. Everything that I should believe in was all a lie.”

“Not everything.” Rika cut in. “The part about Jordan being bonkers about you? That’s all true.”

“What?”                

“Yes. We all knew he was obsessed with you ever since we went to high school.” Angie agreed. “The entire school noticed it. We were kinda surprised that you didn’t. We knew you were busy with your ballet training and maybe that was the reason why you didn’t notice it. But as it turns out...”

“I didn’t notice because I was gay.” I completed the sentence for Angie. “And Cathy? How did she end up involved in all of this? And what happened to Kyle after I ran away?”

“Well, we bore witness to the drama after you had left, but you better sit down for this.” Rika urged and I decided not to be difficult anymore and took a seat opposite them once again. After all, I needed to get to the bottom of all the drama.

“So, after you eloped, your mother came crying to the cathedral,” Angie told me. “Everyone was shocked, but honestly, I think a few people actually felt relieved. That was until the truth about the debt came out. The deal was off instantly and Jordan’s dad offered to pay any woman a handsome amount of money who would marry their son immediately.”

“Cathy took the bait?” I asked her incredulously. “That’s not like her at all!”

“It isn’t, until you count in the fact that she had secretly been in love with Jordan for years now.” Rika frowned. “And she told them that she didn’t need any money. She would marry him because she loved him. All of a sudden, Cathy becomes the hero, the saviour and people hail her love story.”

“Cathy loved Jordan?” Everything was getting even more confusing by the second, so I ditched the glass and took a swig of vodka right from the bottle. “How come she never told me?”

“Maybe because she knew Jordan didn’t love her, but you. And maybe in the midst of all the drama, it was easier to forget that we were all just eighteen year olds with not the best decision making capabilities in the world.” Rika took another sip of her own beer as the reality of the situation finally started to make sense.

“She thought that by marrying Jordan after you ditched him, he would fall in love with her gradually…but that never happened. To Jordan, she was just a replacement who happened to have similar features to you.”

I felt the ground shift under my feet. Cathy had loved Jordan and yet…she was being treated unfairly. I had never felt so helpless, so useless in my life.

The pieces of the puzzle finally started to snap back in place, however, the picture they created wasn’t pretty at all.

No wonder Danny was so angry. He probably knew the exact truth behind Jordan and Cathy’s marriage and how miserable she was. But rather than making Jordan understand that what he had been doing is wrong, everything thought that if I had stayed back and married him, it would’ve ended in a happy ever after for everyone.

Everyone but me.

“Your brother had to serve two years in prison.” Angie added before I had time to process the weight of all the revelations. “And the reason you don’t know about it is because it was kept pretty hush-hush. Your dad had to sell off the business and a part of your family’s estate to survive. But once your brother got out of jail, he managed to trap this lovely woman and got married to her with a big dowry. But his luck at business is horrible and so is his choice at careers. He tried to start a new one but ended up losing everything once again and this time, in less than a year…and…”

“And what?” I asked them. “What did my father sell this time? My mom’s jewellery or his own kidney? They’re still living in the house so that hasn’t been sold yet.”

What more could I expect from them. My parents had always held my brother in such high esteem that it was nearly impossible to reason with them when it came to Kyle. They were blinded by their love for him, to the point of insanity. Kyle could murder someone in cold blood and my parents would blame the victim instead.

What was so great about him anyway? Just because he was born a man? Did that mean he was some incarnate of god or what? Because it wasn’t rocket science that he wasn’t the only man in the entire world.

I was preparing myself for the worst of it all…after all, it didn’t seem like they were done dropping bombshells on me just yet. However, I couldn’t have ever been prepared enough for what Angie told me next.

“Kyra…your dad doesn’t live in that house anymore…he’s dead.”