Shards of Us

I can feel his anger at my words by the way his stare gets three million times as intense, but he doesn't push it. He knows me well enough to leave me be.

I keep my gaze focused on my mom. I'm biting my lip so hard that blood is trickling out, but I don't even care. 'Well? Are you? Answer me, Mom! It's the least you can fucking do after all this time,' I yell, eyes burning into hers.

She sighs as if pretending she's been dead for the last two years has been some sort of inconvenience, like having to do the laundry when you're tired. Bile rises in my throat at that, and I just keep glaring at her, hands tensing at my side.

She sighs. 'I never meant to hurt you, you know.'

'But you did,' I say. My head starts pounding. 'Tell me why, Mom,' I whisper. 'Tell me what's going on.'

She looks at me sadly. 'It's a long story, hun.'

'Mom,' I hiss. My heart pounds faster, and I just let all of the rage pour out of me, my tongue hurting from the intensity in my words. 'You pretended to be dead for two goddamn years. I almost died because of you! The least you can do is tell me why.'

She takes a breath, leaning against the threshold of the door and shaking her head. She glances back at Dad, who comes up behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. 'It's time,' he says, and then they both look at me.

Fear clings to me in that moment, because suddenly, I question whether I really want to know.

I mean, my parents are still alive.

My parents are still. freaking. alive.

I should be happy about it, that's for sure. I should be thrilled to see them again. But I can't be. I can't bring myself to feel anything but hurt. I've spent so much of my life totally alone because of them, and these last two years, every single shred of misery I felt was because I thought they'd been murdered, thought they'd left the world. My life felt so painfully empty at the time, and now I find out it was all a lie. It was all because my parents just… what? They felt like it? They up and decided to abandon their daughter and let her spiral into depression and not even give a fuck?

I grit my teeth, clenching a fist. I'm done making excuses for them.

Mom sighs again. 'Crystal, sit down. We need to talk.'

'No,' I hiss. All of the rage, the fear, and the loneliness of the last years rise up, and it feels good to let it out, to let the pain pour out of me. 'Tell me now, Mom. Tell me or I'm leaving.'

I start to turn away, too, pushing past Sebastian, wanting to just get out of here, but Mom stops me. 'Okay!' she says quickly. 'Okay.' A breath. 'Okay.' I turn around, glaring at her, waiting for her to continue, but she seems to be struggling.

'We aren't sports agents, Crystal,' Dad says for her, stepping in front of her.

I grit my teeth harder now, working to keep my expression unfazed. 'What?' I hiss. Of course they're sport agents. That's why they have so much money. That's why they're always traveling. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean,' Dad says, looking at me sadly. 'We're… consultants of sorts, Crystal.' He locks eyes with mine. 'We work for a drug cartel.'

Everything stops then. My whole body feels like it shuts down. My heart sinks.

They work for a drug cartel.

My parents work for a fucking drug cartel.

All those times they were traveling, they weren't going to client meetings like they said. They were helping people sell drugs.

I clench my hand into a fist so hard that it starts whitening, but I don't even care. I'm fuming now, and I can feel the rage pulsing through me. My jaw gets tenser and tenser, but I keep my glare trained on my parents.

'We worked for Marco's competition,' Dad continues. 'We were logistics people, basically. The husband and wife duo. We helped them plan their transport of drugs, designed where they'd be and when, helped them find the drugs they needed and gave them price points to sell it at, and… well, we did whatever we could to make sure their system worked. We helped them do what they had to do. And sometimes, that meant helping them… dispose of the competition.'

'You helped them kill people?' I whisper. My hand is shaking now. None of this makes any sense. First they're alive, and now I learn they worked for drug dealers. They're worse than Sebastian, and they don't even seem remorseful about it, don't even seem to care how much it all affects me.

The rage continues to build up inside of me, and suddenly I just want to scream. Want to run away and never come back. I hate this. I hate all of this. I hate everything that's been happening to my life--everyone, but Sebastian. He is the one who sees through my pain, who loves me for who I am. He's my shard of happiness, hidden and buried, and now, finally, in front of me.

But he's been keeping things from me. Things that may be too much for us.

'Yes,' Dad says slowly. 'Sometimes we needed to kill people. But it was all for good reason, remember that. These people deserved to die. They were bad and we got rid of them. It was just part of the job. You can understand that, can't you, Crystal?'

I keep shaking my head, not believing any of this. Dad's and Mom's gaze are sad and distant, but not compassionate. They hardly even care, especially not about the fact that I'm standing here, trembling all over.

Sebastian whispers, 'It's okay, angel. It's okay' behind me but it doesn't help. I'm too shaken up and furious that both my parents and Sebastian would betray me like this.

'I don't understand,' I whisper, trying to keep my voice from cracking. 'I'll never understand you.'

'Honey, I'm your mother,' Mom cuts in, putting down her wine glass and taking a step toward me. 'I'm here for you, okay? I'm just trying to do the right thing.'

'And where were you these last two years?' I scream. 'Or if we're getting technical, these last twenty-two years of my life? Because you were nowhere, Mom. You left me. You almost got me killed because of what you did. You didn't even warn me.' My voice falters. Tears burn at my eyes, but I try to stay strong, try to keep it together. I won't let them see me weak. Not ever.

Mom winces at that. 'I know,' she says. 'I know. And I'm sorry.'

'Stop it,' I say. 'Just stop pretending.'

She raises her eyebrow in surprise, but I can see right through her. I know she's just trying to manipulate me. She's always trying to manipulate me. I'm her own child, and all she sees me as is some chess piece, some stupid little doll that she can toss away and then retrieve whenever she needs something from it. From me. Mom opens her mouth to argue, probably spit out another fake, half-assed apology, but Dad beats her to it.

'To answer your original question,' Dad says, 'yes, we're the reason Marco is after you and Sebastian. It's also the reason we... pretended to be dead.' His brown eyes stay on mine. My head keeps throbbing, and suddenly I'm not sure I want to know anymore. 'It was all because Marco, though, Crystal. He had a son. And the cartel we worked for… well, they asked us to plan a way to kill this son. He was not a good person,' Dad adds quickly. 'He deserved what he got. He was hurting innocent people and we needed to get rid of him. Anyway, so we planned the killing as we always did. Our boss asked us to map out the details, and when we got them for him, he asked us to accompany the hit squad--just in case. So we did. It was just a formality, though, because Marco's son was supposed to be all alone in his house at the time. It was supposed to be a quick job. Get in. Kill him. Get out. But… well, it wasn't.' Dad looks at Mom, then back at me. 'Our hit team died, Crystal. All of them did. We were waiting in are cars when the explosion went off. Apparently, the door had been booby trapped, and so the second they stepped inside, that was that. Your mom and I, we started to race out of there and abort the mission as we were supposed to in case anything went wrong, but then we saw Marco's son running out of the building, still alive but totally alone, and we looked at each other and knew what we had to do. And so we killed him,' Dad continues without a hint of remorse. 'Shot once in the head. He was dead in a second. And then we left. Marco has been out for revenge against us as soon as he found out we pulled the trigger, and we've lived these last two years in hiding because of it.'

'But remember, his son deserved to die,' Mom adds. I turn to her. Her voice is sharp and condescending, and her eyes are filled with annoyance as she places her wine on the table beside her. 'I'm telling you, Crystal, we did nothing wrong. Look at all those men he killed. Look at all the bad things he did.