How long have we been here?

Why hasn’t anyone come to stop it?

I check the security monitor—there are people out front starting to gather on the street.

Someone knows I’m doing this.

The tweets are working if there are sightseers here.

I look at the clock.

An hour.

Is that all this has been? It seems longer.

Zoe is sitting just out of view of the cameras against the wall by the open bedroom door, sobbing hysterically. But she didn’t bail. She stayed with me. I shut down the rising emotions and crash the aluminum into a wall mirror.

“Kaley, put down the bat.”

I whirl.

Bobby.

He starts reaching over to shut off the camera.

I rush across the room. “No, don’t turn it off.”

He freezes, those green eyes holding me in an anxious stare. “OK, I won’t shut it off. I’ll just pause it. OK, baby? Watch. I’m only pausing it.”

He halts the feed and then steps around the equipment, his eyes wide and dismayed as he stares at the walls, the room, and then me.

“How did you get into the house?” I wail. “I didn’t want you here. I didn’t want you involved in this, Bobby.”

He pulls me up against him. “Shush, Kaley. I got in the same way you did. The panel. Your mom’s birthday. We came here the last time together. Remember?”

I stare up at him. “You need to go. Quickly.”

“No point. There are people on the street. Press. I’m in this whether you want me to be or not. What’s happening here? Why did you do this, Kaley?”

I rummage in my pocket and shove the test results at him. He reads them, then starts raking a hand over and over again through his hair.

“Oh fuck,” he groans as shock registers on his face. “Why didn’t you talk to me first instead of doing this?”

I snatch the paper back from him. “Because you would have stopped me, Bobby. And I couldn’t back down from this.”

His palms close on my cheeks, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Baby, you should have come to me first. You’ve hurt you. You’ve hurt me. You’ve hurt us. You’ve hurt Zoe. You’ve hurt your family. There’s a crowd and the media outside. There’s going to be cops soon. You’ve committed a crime. And you’ve put it on the Internet for everyone to see. They will arrest you. The cops won’t back down from this either, baby. Please, stop. Put down the bat. You have to be calm when the police get here. You’ve pushed it too far. Now you have to calm and we wait.”

Police?

I shake my head and step quickly back from him. “I’m not going anywhere. Not with anyone. Not until my dad gets here.”

Bobby studies me, his face ragged with alarm. “OK, baby,” he says soothingly. “Then we’ll stay until your dad gets here. But it’s time for you to pull it together. Don’t do anything else.”

I set down the bat, sink to the floor on my knees, and wait for Alan, turning the kinship analysis constantly in my trembling hands.

*  *  *

I hear a sound. I look up. Alan.

“Shut everything off. Cut the feed. Turn off the cameras. And get out of here. Both of you.”

I shut down my reaction to my dad being here, jump to my feet and rush across the room, dropping to where Bobby has done nothing but sit with his head in his hands waiting with me for this.

“Bobby, no. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me here alone with him.”

He pulls me against him, kisses my forehead and then holds my face in his hands. The look in his eyes rends my heart.

“It will be all right, Kaley. This is what you wanted. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right outside the door. But you need to do this with him alone.”

He springs to his feet and leaves with Zoe following close behind him.

Alan starts reading the walls.

My pulse is so fast I can’t think.

The silence between us is torturous.

The wait for the next part of this agony.

“You’ve got my attention, Kaley,” Alan says, his voice stripped of emotion. “Talk to me. Why would you do something like this?”

He’s staring at the walls.

How can he still not know what this is?

“You can’t even look at me,” I hiss. “Maybe if you could look at me, really see me, you’d already know and I wouldn’t have to tell you. Goddamn it, look at me.”

He slowly turns to face me, black eyes locking on black.

“I’m looking at you. This is not the way you deal with things, Kaley. You didn’t need to do this to talk to me. I will always listen. I’m always there for you. You didn’t need to do any of this. Say whatever it is that you got me here to tell me.”

Oh God, what’s that I see on his face?

Confusion?

Fear?

Inability to admit truth when it’s shoved in his face?

“How would you know if I needed to deal with it this way or not?” I scream. “You don’t know what it is like to be me. I’ve tried to talk to you. You can’t hear me. Not ever. But I’m not letting you wall me out any longer. I can’t. It was almost survivable when I thought it was only me. But to find out—”

I break off, shaking and unable to look at him.

“Survivable? What was almost survivable?” he probes gently.

I jump to my feet. “You don’t get to pick the kids you want. Kids are not disposable items. Why Khloe but deny me? You make me hate her and I don’t want to because I love her. But, fuck, you are my father. What kind of man are you? What kind of man can do this?”

I throw the results into his face and watch through tears as he picks them up and studies them.

The stillness in the room is shocking.

Then it’s as if Alan’s legs give way. He stares at the paper and collapses to the floor “What is this?”

I fight back my tears.

How could he ask that?

It’s there in his hands.

“You wouldn’t do the test for me so I bought a kinship DNA test. It’s designed to test siblings. I figured I’d match me to Khloe and have the truth since she’s the only kid you haven’t denied.”

He looks at me, stunned.

His expression.

My stomach starts to convulse.

Oh God, I didn’t expect this.

I thought he was lying—but no, he doesn’t know.

“Who is sample one?” he asks in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Khloe. Sample two is me. Sample three is Krystal. And sample four and five are Ethan and Eric. 99.97 percent confirmed we are not half siblings. We’re all full siblings. We all know who our mother is, but you being all our dads is a bit much to take in a single day, don’t you think, Daddy? Now tell me I’ve overreacted here today.”

His eyes never lift from the report. Why doesn’t he say something?

“Just explain to me why,” I beg. “It’s driving me crazy. Why did you lie to all of us? Or was it Mom? Did she lie to you? Is that it? I can’t take not knowing which one of you to hate another minute more.”

“I didn’t know,” he says raggedly, and somewhere deep inside me I know, I can hear it in his voice, the same way I saw it a moment ago on his face.

My thoughts twirl.

My emotions unleash.

Reality starts to nip at me.

I’m drowning in everything inside me.

It was Mom.

But still—

“How could you not know?” I harshly accuse. “Explain it to me.”

The energy leaves my limbs in a single gush and I sit on the floor, back against the wall, facing him.

Minutes tick by, wordless between us. I’m not sure Alan even remembers I’m still here. He’s just staring at the kinship test, his face blank. Then I hear footsteps from the hallway and Alan snaps to, alarmed, and shoves the paper into his pocket.

He crosses the room to me, crouching down until we’re at eye level. “Kaley, we’ll talk as long as you want to, I’ll answer anything that you ask me, sweetheart, but the cops are coming in. Don’t say anything. My attorney is with them. We need to finish with the police and then we will work on you and me. I promise. Do you understand?”

The room is quickly filled with police officers. They’re all around me, talking at once, and Alan is just out of view, pacing frantically, but he doesn’t stop them. I’m led from the room.