I barged into his office just as he sunk into his leather office chair; a glass with brown liquid in his hand. I could tell he was in his element; his sleeves were rolled up, and his demeanor was calm and relaxed.
“If this is about the shit with Viviana, I just want to make it known that she started it and I ended it. She had no right to touch Noelle as she did,” I started, only to realize that Mark didn’t seem to care. His eyes were heavy with emotions, and his mouth was in a grim line.
“Viviana is a bitch nearly every day. I wouldn’t expect you or her daughter to get along with her. I can barely get along with her and I’m married to her,” he admitted, taking a drink from the glass in his hand. The smell of sweet whiskey permeated the air. I licked my lips, suddenly thirsty.
“You mean you’re not mad?” I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling as if he was playing some type of game with me. He’s lectured me since I got here about fighting, grades, and maintaining a positive attitude. There was no reason why he wouldn’t set in on the lecturing now, for calling Viviana out for being the bitch she truly was.
He smiled, and it was the real kind with actual teeth showing. It made me want to smile, and I didn’t fucking smile. Ever. Not unless Noelle got me to crack one and that was rare as well.
“Viviana is just a temporary wife. She wasn’t who or what I thought she was when we married. Her entire life seems to have been a lie, and the lies she makes up as well as the way she treats Noelle makes me sick, but what can I do…” He sipped at his drink. “She’s not really my child.”
Confusion started to sink in, where was any of this coming from? I was just about to ask him what the hell he was talking about but he stopped me with a halt of his hand as if to say one moment. He stared at the confusion written plainly on my face, and started to speak.
“I know you’re confused as to how your mother and I ended things and then suddenly I was remarried with another child. Believe me it all seemed to happen rather fast.” The amber liquid shined in the light as his eyes swung from my face and down to it. He stared at it swishing around in the glass.
“I loved your mother, in case you were wondering, I guess I still kind of do. There will always be a piece of me that belongs to her, after all you can’t just have a child with someone and then it seem as if you never cared for them.” His eyes shot up to mine. I wondered about it, only a million and one fucking times.
“Things became messy when I left on a business trip. I was just starting out and trying to get my feet wet in the industry. I was at a dinner party and ended up getting hammered.” A bark of laughter left his lips as if he was reliving the memory in his own mind. I couldn’t even ask questions; I was too eager for the answers that I’ve been wanting for years and he was finally offering them to me.
“Anyway, I went to this party, networked, socialized trying to make the right connections with the right people so I could go somewhere; become successful for the family I had at home,” he said with a shrug of his shoulder as if it made complete since.
“Somehow I apparently ended up drinking too much. The next morning, I woke up in bed with another woman. As you realize now, that woman was Viviana. I couldn’t believe that I cheated on your mother. It wasn’t like me, not after all we had been through; not with how much I loved her.” I could tell it hurt him just thinking about it, and I hoped it did because it hurt me more watching my mom have to suffer from the very moment I was a young child.
“You did though, didn’t you?” I had to ask, the question was right on the tip of my tongue, burning a hole in my head.
“That’s just it.” His eyes shot down to the papers on his desk. “I didn’t. I had no idea at the time that I didn’t, but I’m not lying when I say that I never cheated on your mother. I loved her…” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Hell I still do, I think about her almost every night as I get into bed next to Viviana.”
“Then what happened?” I slouched back in the chair, my belly filling with tightness. I wanted the pain of all of it to go away.