Page 127 of Drawn Together

In spite of everything he’d just told me, his confession caused my heart to race. It was incredible how the heart and the mind could go in two totally opposite directions. My mind despised him, still trying to assimilate everything he’d just confessed to me, but at the sound of the wordlovefrom his mouth, my heart melted, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“I hate you,” I said, wishing the words were true.

Sebastian kept his composure. “I didn’t expect anything less.”

I turned my back on him and wrapped my arms around myself.

Why was all this happening to me? Why did my father have to be a drug lord? Why couldn’t I have been born into a normal, everyday family? Why couldn’t I have an affectionate father who looked out for me, who took care of me and protected me? Why couldn’t I have a mother who fed me chocolate ice cream and gave me advice about my fears and ambitions? My mother…

“My mother wasn’t killed in a robbery, was she?”

Sebastian moved closer and stopped in front of me. I could feel the warmth of his body, but it did nothing to thaw the icy shell around me.

“You’re going to have to ask your father that, Marfil… but I doubt it.”

My mother had been killed for being married to someone like my father, and I was now following in her footsteps.

“Is that why you and your wife separated? Because you’re a fucking drug dealer?” I spat.

“That, and a long list of other reasons.”

I laughed. “Of all the things that could’ve come out of your mouth…”

“This is the only thing that would keep you away from me, I know.”

I lifted my head to look him in the eye. “I can understand that my father does it, you know? I never thought he was involved in something as big as this, something as terrible, but deep down I knew there was something that didn’t add up…” I whispered to the man in front of me, the man who had taken care of me, who had guarded me in my sleep… “But I never thought that you were like him.”

Sebastian remained silent.

“It’s clear that you’re not who I thought you were. You forced me to live a lie, and I’ll never forgive you for it.”

“I always knew you were smart,” he said, looking at me very seriously, “but don’t judge me so quickly. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth.”

“A silver spoon? You mean a stolen spoon.”

“Neither one of us can change what we’re born into, Marfil, or who our parents are. I was left in a dumpster at just one day old; you were born surrounded by drug dealers and murderers, but you had twenty years to grow up oblivious to that world and learn to look down on it. I couldn’t afford the luxury: I had to do everything I could to survive.”

“It’s always possible to choose a different path.”

“Says someone who’s spent five minutes in my world.”

“Sorry for not being a fucking criminal!” I shouted, angry that he’d now turned against me. I stepped away from him, but he stopped me, pulling me closer, and I glared at him.

“One day you’ll understand everything, I promise.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Not all of us are cut from the same cloth.”

“No one is forcing you to be a fucking drug dealer!” I shouted, wrestling away from him.

“You think it’s easy to get out? Do you have any idea the things I’ve seen? They’d kill me for just thinking about it!”

“My father would never—”

“Your father is a murderer, Marfil, just like the rest of us.”

“Are you hearing yourself?”