My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 477

Chapter 477

I stared at her, “What?”

“I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to go to college, graduate. I wanted you to dance. I wanted you to laugh. I wanted you to have one year where you weren’t worrying about hospitals and medications and doctors”

Her hand pressed against her chest.

“I wanted one year where you got to be young.”

I shook my head. Every word made me angrier, “That wasn’t your decision.”

“I know.”

“That was my choice.”

“I know.”

“You stole it from me.”

My mother’s face crumpled, “I know.”

The fact she agreed made tears burn behind my eyes.

Jules’ crying filled the room. She was still wrapped around in Mom’s arms, still holding on.

Tears slipped down my face. I wiped it away angrily, “I’ll never forgive you. I mean it. I will never forgive you for taking that choice away from me.”

Mom looked like I had physically struck her but I couldn’t stop.

“You decided what I could handle. You decided what I deserved to know. You decided how much time I got with you.”

Mom covered her mouth with her hand, “Gianna…”

“No,” I shook my head, “No, because every birthday, every holiday, every dinner, every stupid movie night-“my voice broke completely, “I would’ve known. I would’ve known they mattered.”

I looked around the table.

The betrayal sat heavy in my chest.

“I won’t forgive any of you either. I trusted you. All of you.”

Then my mother spoke, “You don’t have to forgive us but if you need somebody to be angry at…” her voice wavered, “Be angry at me.”

“Mom-”

“I asked them not to tell you. I made that choice. And if I had to do it again… I’d probably make the same one.”

“No,” Jules cried, “No, Mommy. No.”

My chest hurt, “And I would’ve chosen you.”

I wiped angrily at my face then looked at my mother.

“I love you but I’m so angry with you and I don’t know how to be both things at once.”

Mom just cried harder, “I know, baby.”

The thought made me feel sick, while I was crying over Raphael, while I was wondering why he couldn’t love me, while I was trying to figure out how to stop loving him.

My mother had been dying… actually fucking dying.

Every single day, every single week, every single month and I hadn’t seen it, I hadn’t asked enough questions, I hadn’t looked closely enough because I had been so wrapped up in my own problems.

My own wants.

My own future.

My own heartbreak.

The guilt hit me so hard my stomach turned.

I looked at Mom again, the woman who had worked herself to exhaustion raising me. The woman who had loved me through every mistake. The woman who had sat through every dance recital, every school event, every bad day.

And I had spent the last few months thinking the biggest tragedy in my life was loving someone who couldn’t love me back.

The thought felt disgusting now. It was small and meaningless because none of it mattered, nothing mattered more than the woman sitting in front of me.

And for the first time since she had spoken those terrible words…

I was terrified.

Because suddenly I could see it, the possibility, the reality, the future without her.

And I couldn’t breathe through it.