POV: Jason
The words didn't make sense. I heard them. I understood the individual sounds. But my brain refused to process what my mother was saying.
Richard wasn't your biological father.
You're not a Hartley by blood.
You never were.
The ground felt unstable beneath my feet. The world tilted sideways. Everything I knew, everything I was, everything I'd built my entire identity on, gone. Erased. A lie.
"You're lying," I said again, but my voice sounded weak even to my own ears. "You have to be lying."
"I'm not." My mother's face was illuminated by the burning cabin behind her. She looked older suddenly, worn down. "I should have told you years ago. But I was a coward."
"Who?" The word came out strangled. "Who was he? My real father?"
She hesitated, and I saw something flash in her eyes. Fear. Real, genuine fear.
