Page 54 of Pucking Them
The twins are younger than me. They’re only just starting to get help.
What will having their pain being exposed in this vile article for everyone to see do to them?
Fuck.
I’m clutching my phone too hard, unable to look away from the article on Peninsula Daily News that has ripped apart our lives.
Yet I can’t loosen my grip.
…The kids who fell in love and then fell pregnant while tweaking… Guess which new rising NHL star was born in a crack house…?
The article is sick.
I’m dressed in my pinstriped suit, but it’s early morning, and my hair is mussed. I should fix my hair, but I can’t look away from the phone.
There are purple shadows underneath my eyes.
After returning from the arena, I only snatched a couple of hours of sleep in our bedroom.
It’s more than the twins managed.
Shay grabbed Eden by the shoulder and marched him upstairs to a spare bedroom. He insisted to us on the ride back from the arena that he explain what had happened to Eden by himself.
They needed space. I got it.
They haven’t come out since. I bet that neither of them slept at all.
Dread curls in my guts.
I’ve just found this family. I won’t have it destroyed by anyone.
Especially not by these Webb assholes.
“Can we prosecute the Webbs? They admit everything terrible that they did back then. I hope that the tabloid paid them enough to make up for life in jail.” Robyn’s expression is fierce, even though she is sleepily blinking from the rumpled silver sheets next to me on the four-poster bed.
Her fierceness contrasts to how cute she looks wearing Eden’sKIT-TEAt-shirt.
Pale morning light streams over the bedroom from the arched windows and skylights. It makes the branches of the mural oak tree appear to burn, which spreads across the far wall with painted robins hopping in its branches.
I scan the article again for at least the seventh time. I can’t look away like it’s a car crash.
The words must be branded on my mind.
…No one has a bloody clue what it’s like to give birth to twins by yourself in some abandoned shithole.” The pretty, blonde Nicole shudders. She starts to cry. “We were just kids ourselves with problems. You don’t know what addiction is like. Maybe we were selfish for letting them be born at all. We could barely look after ourselves, right? We thought that we were giving them a better life by sending the boys to that nice couple. How were we to know that the bastards were actually…? We couldn’t get them back after they’d been…you know…like that. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel bloody guilty. I want to see them and say how sorry I am. You know, just tell them: I love you…
The twins’ mom is spinning lies to explain away the neglect and abuse.
Yet what if the twins fall for it because they want to meet their mom and dad? Hear them say sorry and how much theylovethem?
Wouldn’t I do the same if my parents offered it?
Except, mine never will.
“I don’t know. But you can bet that I already have my highly expensive team of lawyers looking into it.” I throw a velvet cushion out of the way, adding it to the pile on the far side of the bed, to make room to lie next to Robyn.
Her brows are pinched. I can tell how shaken she is as well and how much she is trying to hide it.
I press close to her. She is warm and smells of sweet vanilla from Eden’s t-shirt.
