Underestimated Part 53

I thought about Dawson and Drew next, wondering what the h.e.l.l I was supposed to do about them. Maybe I really did need to start thinking about moving on without either of them, but I loved them. I loved both of them.

Could I ever love like that again? I just had to go and think about having s.e.x on the peak with Drew. I moved my hand to the small of my back. The bruise still felt a little sore when I pressed on it. I could almost feel him entering me as I closed my eyes and visualized our love making on top of the world. Of course my v.a.g.i.n.a had to go and stick her nose in it too. I felt the throbbing between my legs.

I knew my body and my betraying female parts all too well. It wasn't going to shut the h.e.l.l up until I gave it what it wanted. I moved my fingers between my wet folds.

Talk about being f.u.c.ked up. My mind went from Drew to Dawson. They were both f.u.c.king me as my fingers pleased my aching core. Dawson was on his back. I was on my hands and knees with Dawson in my mouth, and Drew was giving it to me up the a.s.s. Maybe I did need therapy. I writhed beneath my fingers, frantically bringing myself to a much needed o.r.g.a.s.m, shaking my head in disbelief at myself as I came down.

It was a very hot summer day. I was sticky from

walking from my room to my car. I wore a sundress which let the ocean breeze braze my skin.

I was starting to get nervous as I drove to the ferry that would take me to my mother. What if she didn't want to see me? What if she told me to leave? What if her new family didn't know about me? It didn't matter. I had to do this. This was one of those parts of my life that would never be laid to rest if I didn't. I wouldn't stay long, just long enough to give her my two cents of what I thought about her and what she had done.

I stood outside my car and watched the waves swirl around the ferry as we crossed the bay. I was running on pure adrenalin and my stomach was in knots. I realized that I had forgotten to go down for the continental breakfast like I had planned. Why the h.e.l.l did I always forget to eat when I was anxious?

It took almost forty five minutes to reach the dock, and then another forty five from Kitty Hawk to Rodanthe.

"Shut the h.e.l.l up," I yelled at the robotic GPS as I waited my turn to drive my car off the ferry. "If I turn right, you're f.u.c.king going swimming," I spoke to the car. I knew it was nerves.

The forty five minute drive took five minutes. I swear I was there five minutes after I had gotten off the ferry. The road that I was driving on was something that you had to experience to even know what I am talking about. I had ocean on both sides of me. It was almost surreal, and I felt like the ocean was carrying me. I just wasn't sure what it was carrying me to. The ocean was its own, G.o.d, its own boss. n.o.body manipulated the ocean, and it could bring you the upmost peace or your worse wrath. I just hoped that we had gained enough respect from each other that it was taking me to a happy place and not the vehemence that was terrifying me as I drove over top of it.

The gray beach house was beautiful with decks sticking out from all sides and angles. It was ma.s.sive, almost as big as the mansion in Vegas. It was pretty secluded, and I could barely even see the closest house to it. I hated the house. I felt like it took the place of me and my little brother. It did.

I parked and walked up to the ma.s.sive deck in the back of the house. I knocked on the door with my knees knocking louder, underneath my pale yellow sundress.

n.o.body came. I realized that I was supposed to open the door and walk into the lobby. I did, and stopped at the desk and rang the little bell on the counter.

Breathe, Morgan, breathe...

A nice looking middle-aged man walked out drying his hands on a white dishtowel. He smiled at me.

"Morgan?" he asked.

I frowned. Who the h.e.l.l was this guy, and how the h.e.l.l did he know my name.

"Do I know you?" I managed to get out.

"No. You don't. I'm Jason, your mother's husband," he offered with his hand.

I cautiously took his hand. She talked about me. He knew who I was. I wasn't expecting this. I was expecting to hear that she never told him about me or Justin. How did he know from looking at me who I was? She must have pictures. I didn't speak. I couldn't speak. I was speechless. No words would come out.

"You have no idea how happy you are going to make your mother," he smiled.

"Is she here?" I managed.

"No, she had to take Caroline to the dentist this morning. She won't be long. Are you hungry? We were just getting ready to have brunch. Would you join me?"

"Sure." What else was I going to do? Sit outside and wait for her?

He led me to the front deck facing the ocean. There were two families, three other couples, and two tables with pairs of women. We sat at a table, and a lady wearing shorts with a palm tree on the right leg asked what we would like to drink. I'm not sure why I noticed the palm tree or why it was even significant. I just noticed.

I asked for coffee. I hadn't had any yet. Jason got an iced tea.

"How did you know who I was?" I asked Jason.

He smiled.

"I will show you after we eat," he answered.

We didn't talk about anything personal. Jason explained life at the beach house. He told me that they had eight rooms and were booked most of the year. He explained that they closed up for four weeks every year, two in the winter to celebrate the holidays without company, and two in late summer to vacation by themselves. I guessed that you would have to do that to keep your sanity, working where you lived twenty four seven.

I had a delicious Reuben on toasted French bread with Jason. I hate to say it, but I liked him. He talked about seven year old Caroline. He was a proud pop, and I envied the little girl who had a family, a real family.

"She looks a lot like you," he said. "You can definitely tell that you two are sisters."

Sisters...

I hadn't thought about her like that, but she wasn't my real sister. We had different dads. Wait. Justin and I had different dads, and I couldn't imagine loving him anymore. That wasn't fair to Caroline.

Jason led me back into the house and to a side of the house that I was sure was off limits to the guests. It was its own little house inside of a house. There was a small living room, opened to an eat in kitchen with a small table. There were three other doors that I presumed were bedrooms and probably a bathroom. I was mesmerized when I looked around at the wall of fame. The whole wall was plastered in pictures of not only Caroline, but Justin and me, as well.

I watched my little brother grow up in pictures on the wall. I brushed my finger over one of him sitting in front of a birthday cake with seven candles and a happy, toothless smile. It made me smile, but made me wonder, as well. Every last picture of me on the wall lied. If you didn't know it, you would have thought that I too was the happiest girl on earth. Most of the pictures of me were when I was all fancied up and at one of Drew's functions.

There were several of the two of us, and the one that I thought that I looked beautiful in brought back the after party memory. I had stayed locked in the empty gym eating fruit, naked for three days.

I felt a little better when I moved to the next picture of Justin. He was just a little guy and riding on the shoulders of a man who I presumed to be his dad. He was happy and the beautiful woman pus.h.i.+ng him on the swing in the next one must have been his new mother.

"Morgan?" I heard my mother say. I knew that voice before I ever turned around. My heart took a plummet right to my stomach.

I cautiously turned to see her holding the hand of a seven year old mini me. I again was speechless, and couldn't think of one G.o.d d.a.m.n word to say. She let go of Caroline's hand and embraced me. She cried. She really cried. She did miss me, and probably thought about me more than I had thought.

"Oh, my G.o.d, baby. I can't believe that you are here."

Baby? She never called me baby.

"Yeah." That was it. That was the only word that I could think of.

My mom let go of me and walked back to Caroline. She squatted to her level and held her hand out for me to come.

"Caroline, do you know who this is?" she asked as she took my hand. I squatted too. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

"My sister," she smiled. I held out my hand and took her little hand into mine. "It's nice to meet you," she said.

I shook her little hand and smiled. "It's very nice to meet you too, Caroline." I f.u.c.king loved the kid, right off the bat. I f.u.c.king loved the little girl that I hated and resented just five minutes earlier.

"Come on kiddo, let's go batten down the hatches," Jason said to Caroline, wanting to give us some time.

"There's a big storm coming," Caroline informed me.

I only smiled. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I suddenly had no words in my brain.

Jason kissed my mom before taking Caroline's hand and leaving us alone. She was happy, and I was happy that she was happy. I'm not sure why. I hadn't felt like that before I had gotten there. I hoped that she was miserable.

"Can you bring Morgan's things in?" she asked, kissing him back as she hooked his fingers with hers.

What? I'm not staying...

"Sure thing. Can I have your keys?" he asked.

I gave him my keys.

"Do you want to take a walk?" my mother asked.

I shrugged. "Sure."

This was strange. This was not the mother that I had grown up with for almost eighteen years. My mother was a loud mouth drunk with the vocabulary of a drunken sailor. This woman was soft spoken, well kept, and very loving. She was pretty with the same dark hair as mine, manicured nails, painted in a light pink to match the toes sticking out from her sandals. She looked healthy and in shape. My mother wore s.l.u.tty clothes and didn't keep herself up at all.

She held my hand as we walked along the beach.

We both laughed when we slid out of our shoes at the same time. We walked out to the end of the pier and sat down with our arms over the railing and our feet dangling from the side.

"You can ask me anything that you want Morgan. I am sure that you have a million questions," she started.

I couldn't hate her. I just couldn't do it. I loved her, no matter what she had done. I loved her d.a.m.nit.

"I want to know about my real dad. How did you meet a rich man from Vegas in the hills of West Virginia?"

My mom took a deep breath. I had just married your dad. We had been trying to get pregnant for about four months." She laughed. "I wanted to have a baby so that I could get a monthly state check, like everyone else. It just didn't happen. He decided to take off for the summer and follow the carnival across the south side of the United States. Michael was there on business, something about some diamonds that had been found while mining coal. I don't know a lot about that because he had told me that it was all hush, hush and he was there to retrieve them before anyone caught wind of the outrageous find.

"He was so young and good looking. He made me want out of there and make a better life for myself. I always knew that he wouldn't be my knight in s.h.i.+ning armor and be the one to save me, but none the less I dreamt about it. I fell head over heels in love with Michael. We spent the entire two weeks that he was there together. We spent it in Charleston of course, in some fancy hotel. He wasn't the type to stay in the rent by the hour hotel back home. When your dad got tired of being a carney and came home after three months, I was almost two months pregnant."

"He beat the h.e.l.l out of me but never told anyone that you belonged to another man. He would throw it up to me occasionally, but no one else knew."

"How did Michael find out about me?" I asked.

"He came back six years later for the same reason.

That find didn't turn out to be the gold mine that he had hoped for. They were just some sort of crystals that wasn't worth much. I was still waitressing at the truck stop. I spent the night with him and told him about you." She snorted. "I was hoping that he would take us away from there. He didn't, and he was gone before I woke up the next morning."

"I still don't understand. How did you end up here? How did my little brother end up adopted by a family in Vegas? How did I end up married to a man that I didn't even know?" I asked, not taking a breath from the never-ending questions.

"Is he good to you, Morgan?" she asked, moving my hair from the front of my shoulder to the back.

"Yes. He is very good to me," I said. That wasn't a lie. He was good to me. It just wasn't always like that.

What was I supposed to do, tell her that he took me to be his lawfully f.u.c.kable s.e.xmate? To f.u.c.k and to suck in various positions until his o.r.g.a.s.m do we part? I had a good feeling that she had been through a lot herself, and this was harder for her than I had originally thought.

She smiled content with my answer. "Mr.

Callaway showed up at the truck stop when you were close to eighteen. He had a whole slew of pictures from a private investigator that had been spying on me. He made me feel like a piece of s.h.i.+t when he showed me the pictures of the trailer back home and the living conditions that I allowed my children to live in. He had pictures of the church bringing in food, you in a thin worn coat, trying to pry frozen wood apart, Justin with the same clothes, three days in a row. I didn't think I had a choice, Morgan.

Please try to understand that I did this for you and Justin, not myself. I would have agreed had he not offered me one penny."

"He explained that he never knew about you until Michael was on his deathbed. I knew that you were going to marry Drew Kelley. I knew that Justin was going to be adopted by Hillary and Peter Dunn. They had tried to have kids for years and were not able to. I knew he would have a good home, and you would never want for anything."

I wanted for a lot of things, mostly love.

"But the welfare department came and took him away. I was there when they did," I a.s.sured her, still not understanding.

"That was only temporary. Mr. Callaway arranged that until the paper work was complete. He wasn't about to let him stay there. He didn't want to take you until you graduated because you were so close. I could have stayed until then too, but I couldn't stand the thought of being there without Justin and not being able to tell you what your future held."

"Where did you get all of the pictures?" I asked.

"That was the deal. I would only agree to walk away quietly if I was insured that I would always know that you guys were okay. I have actually talked to Justin's new mother. He was sick once, and she wanted to know about our family's medical history." My mom smiled.

"She was so worried about him. They really do love him,"

she added, happy of the fact. I smiled too, knowing that he was with a good family made me glad that things worked out the way that they had, if only for him.

"I like your hair better your natural color. Blonde just isn't you," my mom said, playing with my hair again.

I snickered. "I did that for Drew," I replied. I did do it for him. I just didn't have a say in the matter.

"Tell me about him," she coaxed.

How was I supposed to do that? Oh, we have this amazing f.u.c.ked up s.e.x life.

"Well, he's busy. He works a lot." I couldn't do it.

I couldn't think of anything to tell her that wasn't going to sound f.u.c.ked up.

"So things are good with you two?"

I pondered for a second before speaking. "Not right at the moment. We are on a trial separation right now."

"But you're going to work it out, right?" she asked, almost desperately.

I shrugged my shoulders, and for the life of me, I don't know why I had just blurted out the rest.