Chapter Three

MY FEET ARE SCREAMING IN PAIN. I get to walk back home like an idiot with a bunch of Doritos packets to avoid suspicions. For the first time, I feel grateful for treating my phone as a secret piggy bank and saving money in my phone case. All I ask is punching Abel in the face for my muscle soreness and making me look like a weirdo at the store with my panda onesie pajama. Then I would regret it considerably right after because he is my handsome husband, and I helplessly love him so much. Maybe I can overlook all the jitteriness and awkwardness he has caused today only for saving me from Theresa's gut-churning movies.

The house is quiet, and the lights are dim. It seems that everyone is in their rooms and getting ready for sleep. Thank God, that means I'm off the hook. I would pay anything in return for keeping this quietness and going to my rooms safely and taking a soothing warm bath.

My plans for the rest of the night also include heating a comforting packaged mushroom soup and pondering my secret marriage with Abel. There is a lot to think about concerning this subject, which is making my mind race, and hardly finds anything to reassure it. Many miscellaneous thoughts are whirling inside my head, making the loudest and roughest storms. They are angry thoughts and pitiable ones. I feel stuck between deciding if I should confront Abel with the Polaroid and get a divorce or not help that anonymous blackmailer approach their aim. I have to decide by midnight or at least before Christmas Eve.

I release my crossed arms, letting all the chips bags rest on my bed and sit on its edge. I've gotten myself some too to snack on. Thinking I should not disturb this quietness by knocking on Gabriel's door and checking on him. I don't think dad is back yet. It's Saturday night, meaning he is definitely at the bar drinking beer and talking gibberish with his old friends from the army. My dad was recruited in the armed forces years before his former close friend Jeremy Harper introduced him to his former wife, Vanessa Mitchell.

Vanessa is as beautiful as Helen of Sparta in Greek mythology. Theresa says that the story of Vanessa is a real live version of Helen, though Helen is much innocent. The Trojan War has occurred between Paris of Troy and Menelaus of Sparta over Helen. Meanwhile, the hostility between the Conners and the Harpers was caused by Vanessa's elopement with Jeremy Harper.

Before I can shove my back to the bed and think of something, Gabriel spoils all my plans for having a quiet night. "Where have you been?"  He runs into the room and shuts the door with his back.

In a pale face, I approach the bags of tortilla chips behind me. "Here are your chips." I toss the bag for him to catch. And he grabs each side of the bag and pulls it apart.

He glares at my pale face with a puzzled look while casting down some chips in his mouth. "Did you walk all that way to the store for my Doritos chips?"

"I got myself some." I casually raise my chip bags to manifest my statement.

The bed has made a squeaky noise after Gabriel takes a seat next to me so he can investigate the terrible state of my face from a closer angle. "Your eyes are swollen. Have you cried recently?"

I nod. "Abel was at the house door, and I had to bolt out before Theresa saw him."

"Are you serious?" His jaw drops, and he pauses from chewing chips. "Your boyfriend is kind of crazy." No, gab there's a missing upgrade. He's my husband LOL. "I mean, he's one of Harper's, what do you expect."

"I think everything is becoming like a ticking bomb. From somewhere, everything will burst entirely and become crystal clear to our father."

"He will kill me for covering you up." He swallows his throat.

"He definitely will not allow us to his house and his world ever again like-" I hesitate. I am not sure if I should mention her at all. "Like our real biological mother." I don't want to refer to that woman by our real biological mother ever again. Calling her that is sickening. It makes me wish so bad to travel in a time machine to murder her without giving a slight fuck about the Butterfly Effect. She is not the mother of me and Gabriel since we've discovered her infidelity. She is just Vanessa. Vanessa Harper. A trashy gold-digger who I will never attend her funeral.

"Vanessa, okay?" Gabriel asserts, and he completes me. We are on the same page for a long time now. Everything he says and everything he does assists me to carry on with my life. He has always been in my back, and I wouldn't ever hesitate for a second to fight dragons, Crusaders, or whatever for him if necessary because he wouldn't too. "This may be the minimal thing he can do to us, Sabrina."

Vanessa has a baby face and is gifted with her sweet talk, which has made dad propose to her a month later after meeting her for the first time. No one can ever expect that she manipulates people with her innocent appearance to get what she wants. She has given birth to Ryan – her first spoiled son who is brought up later as one of the Harpers, to Gabriel and me. But, for her, having a family is not enough to dedicate your heart and soul to it. Twenty-two years of marriage with dad hasn't stopped her from becoming infatuated with Jeremy Harper and his wealth. The two get laid and meet secretly for three years before the story comes to light. Anyway, she married Jeremy right after getting her divorce from dad.

Gabriel and I pretend we don't have an elder brother. Ryan hasn't only Vanessa's face, but her greed. He lives with the Harpers – yes, with Vanessa and Abel, of course. Abel is not close to them even though he is living with them at the exact mansion and partying in the same dining room. My family used to be extremely close with every single family member of the Harpers, but today we barely know anything about each other. So, I don't have much data on Abel's daily life with his family as one of them, which makes me think of his actual life as a mystery to me.

Theresa opens the door of my room with a serious face. "Ryan is here." She informs us.

My mind received the news with an extreme regret to even mention his name in my head. I should've thought about a million dollars so I can find it on my doorstep instead of that douchbag.

I exchanged looks with Gabriel. "Why is this bastard here?" He cries, and I roll my eyes.    I see that the Harpers are passionate about our doorstep today.

Now Gabriel's face is red. He furiously bolts out of the room with tight fists. Having Gabriel and Ryan under the same roof is equivalent to a nuclear war. Ryan is here, and oh God, how badly I wish if Gabriel is joining dad right now at the bar drinking beer and talking gibberish with dad's old friends.