My Stepbrother-Too Hot To Handle

DAMIEN:

I was really confused after I saw the picture that I saw with Dabby, because the young guy in the picture looked like me. But I could not remember being in that kind of space going up. The next thing that crossed my mind was going to check, if I still had some other pictures I could check to confirm.

The bad part of everything after I searched my entire room, was the fact that I didn’t have anything related to my childhood or mum. I knew I used to have them hidden somewhere, because Dad never wanted to see anything that belonged to Mum after she left.

He burnt everything that belonged to her from pictures, frames, clothes, shoes, and everything that she owned. I had struggled to save some pictures for myself before he was able to clear the rest, but it was not easy to move around with them because he always made us go on unannounced trips.

I got some from Aunt Adele when I stayed with her in China for a while, and it was so hard trying to hide the fact that I was still attached to Mum.

Years had passed, and thinking about it made me realize that I didn’t remember many parts of my past.

I knew that I grew up hating Dad, wishing I could run away and not get caught, wishing that I would die and be free from him. But that was what most details of my memories entailed.

The rest were too fuzzy to remember, and it had never really bothered me. The clear memories I had again of my life were probably half of middle school, and everything about high school. Everything suddenly began to bother me.

And the discussion they had about Joanna dropping Dabby at an orphanage when she was young, continued to disturb my mind because the photo seemed like something for a reference to the past.

And there had never been a time that I had any memory related to being in an orphanage. Dad was never the type to even visit somewhere like that for volunteer work.

I was unable to sleep the entire night, and it was the same crappy feeling the next morning. I didn’t have any desire to go to school at all, but it wouldn’t do anything good because I didn’t like being at home much. Dad would never be there to answer my questions, and there certainly would be no clues in our house too. Mr. Anderson was so good at hiding things.

When I got to the dining room, Dabby, and her mum seemed to have had another misunderstanding again. I wondered if it had to do with the argument that I heard the previous night, and I wondered what could have caused problems between the two in less than twelve hours.

‘It sure did feel like a typical family now.’

“What was yesterday about, Damien?” Dabby asked me the moment I ignited the car, and she sounded really angry. The look she had on her face was so cute that I wanted to laugh, but I was too stressed to engage in anything that would bring me out of my gloomy state. I knew that I was forgetting something and I needed to recollect.

“Nothing, Dabby. I was just fascinated by the picture and wanted to check it out,” I replied tiredly because I was not in the mood to talk about anything. It was of all days that I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone, that she wanted to talk and even argue.

“Did you hear what me and Mum talked about? Do, not, lie,” Dabby cautioned so sternly with a menacing look. It was crazy for me to see her that way.

“I might have heard a part of it,” I confessed plainly because there was no need to lie. She probably knew that I was around the previous night, and still continued talking with her Mum.

“My mum is not a bad person. It just happened that way,” she retorted immediately like I was arguing with that fact, and I just nodded so that it would not feel like I was snubbing her.

“I know,” I ended up answering

“Then why have you been acting like a jerk? I mean she has been trying her best to be a good Mum.”

“I’m sorry for everything, Dabby. I am really not in the mood to talk and answer your questions,” I finally told her because of how stressed I was, and she frowned really deeply long enough for me to see through the front mirror.

“So that is all you have to say?” She got even bolder and demanded to know in a very angry voice, which made me sigh really hard. I was feeling really sad and sick, and yet she was intentionally stressing the daylights out of me.

I knew that she was talking about what happened the previous day with Gina, but I had no idea where to start from. If I explained in a way that I would think is best, she could take it the wrong way which would end up ruining the definite relationship that we were yet to build.

When she realized that I was not going to answer her again, she told me to pull off at the bus stop where I usually dropped her off.

I refused because I knew that it would make things worse between us, and she threatened to open the door the way she had done before. And when I quickly parked on the left side of the road, she came down from the car and took a cab immediately.

In the past, I would not have cared if it was one of my girlfriends that acted in that way, because I knew that they would still come around after throwing unnecessary tantrums. And it never took long for them to come back to their normal selves. I just drove to school.

Classes were more boring than usual, and I couldn’t help but feel so tired. Nothing filled my head more than the bother that I had forgotten some important memories from the past, and the fact that Dabby had gotten so angry at me in the morning.

To clear my head from overthinking, I followed Xavier to watch a school play. As funny as it was that everyone laughed, It didn’t get to me. When Xavier asked me what happened, I had to lie about something plausible that I had an argument with my dad earlier that morning.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

The day went like that, and nothing changed for the better because I didn’t see Dabby throughout. I went home immediately to see if we were cool, but she didn’t even bother to come home at all. I was really bothered by it, as much as I wanted to ignore it.

When I got tired of pretending that I didn’t care, I picked up my phone to call her but she hung up immediately. I felt so uneasy when she did that repeatedly, and it got to me because no girl has had the guts to do that to me before. Because they knew that if they did, the relationship was over.

I changed my clothes immediately, and drove down to MADELES. I entered the building and sat down to order food, so that I would see her reaction if she saw me.

The moment she came to the table to take orders and saw that it was me, she avoided making eye contact and left after taking my order. A different person came to serve the food. She didn’t come around anymore, and she wasn’t at the counter either. It was then that I remembered that my Aunt owned the cafe.

When I went to ask for Aunt Adele at the counter, the other lady that I met there said that she wasn’t around at the moment. I was about to ask about Dabby when I saw Mason coming in through the other exit door, and just smiled at him as we exchanged pleasantries.

‘A wrong time,’ I groaned inwardly.

Dabby remained in the kitchen intentionally for a long time, and I didn’t get to see her again till I left.

I waited till night in my car for Dabby to finish at work, and I was feeling really impatient because I didn’t get to talk to her throughout the day. By the time I thought she would be done with work, she and Mason hopped on the bike before I realized and rode off. It made me really jealous.

I drove my car behind Mason’s bike, and waited for him to leave after he dropped Dabby off. I alighted from the car immediately, and called her name before she could enter.

“Dabby, wait,” I called out immediately, when I saw that she was unwilling to stop even after she heard that I called her. I ran so fast to catch up with her, and grabbed her by the arm.

“I thought you weren’t ready to talk!” She yelled angrily to my face, and I really wasn’t ready to even argue with her. I was the cause of everything and had been so insignificant about it, because I have never had to care about things like that before.

“You really drive me crazy,” I murmured under my breath as I looked at her face. She was glaring hard at me, and the angle at which she raised her face to mine made her so pretty.

I pulled her close to me and kissed her tempting lips, before she would even say anything further. And she kissed back without fighting back.

It was so hard to act like I didn’t want anything more out of our relationship. It was so hard because we were step-siblings now and our relationship was forbidden. It was so hard that I knew exactly what was wrong with me, whenever she got too close or was not around.

‘I had fallen too deep in love.’