Sinner(158)

Find a time machine and go back to tell twenty-one year old, cockier than all hell, super-jock me that in ten years I’ll be going to freaking renaissance fairs and see how hard I laugh.

I frown as I close the laptop and stand. “Yeah, are you?”

“Duh?”

Emily hefts her wooden sword, and I grin. “Hey, I got a surprise for you, by the way?”

“What?”

“Guess who’s coming with us.”

Her brow furrows for a split second before her eyes suddenly fly open. “Serena?! Are you serious?”

“Totally serious. We’re picking her up, so go throw your shoes on.”

Emily whoops as she races back through the house, and I smile as I listen to her until my face falls again.

Serena.

I need to tell her about the shit I’ve just had dug up. I don’t know how, and I can’t even begin to image the ways it’s going to destroy her, but I need to. She deserves to know.

I think.

I grab my jacket before heading out to the car and hoisting Emily into the back seat.

Does she deserve to know? Because knowing is going to come with a whole heaping dose of pain, betrayal, and heartbreak, and I’m just not sure I can sentence her to that.



“See? I told you that you should have dressed up.”

“What? Hey, I dressed up!”

Emily gives me a look. “Daaaad. I mean like them.”

She points at the flocks of actually dressed-up renaissance fair-goers - jesters juggling fire, knights in legit suits of armor, serving wenches in bustiers with their tits practically falling out as they sling pints of beer.

I’m in black jeans and a hoodie.

“You really should have dressed up,” Serena grins, needling me.

“For the record, I’m dressed as the famous knight Sir Weekend.”

Serena snorts and Emily sighs.

“Serena didn’t dress up either, and you’re not giving her a hard time.”

“Hey, I didn’t know it was an awesome renaissance fair until the Lady Emily and Sir Weekend picked me up, or I would have ditched the shorts and t-shirt for my royal robes.”

“Yeah, Dad. She has an excuse.”

I roll my eyes.

“Oh, you could wear that!” Emily tugs on Serena’s arm and points to a stall selling flower garland festooned silver crowns.

“I’m totally wearing that.”

Emily giggles as she and Serena wander off to the stall and start trying on flower-adorned princess crowns.

Fuck. How the hell am I going to go up to a woman that’s smiling like that, who’s having a perfectly great Saturday afternoon, and shatter her world. How the hell am I going to tell her that everything she knows is a lie, and that her real father is an asshole, abandoning philanderer currently lying in a coma.

She looks over and catches my eye, doing a little curtsy with the garland of silver and white flowers perched on her head. I grin, nodding and giving a thumbs up from where I’m standing. She beams, her eyes lingering on me for another second before she turns back to help Emily with a crown of her own.

Goddamn she’s beautiful. And I mean that beyond the obvious physical. Beyond the sable hair that falls like a ribbon across her shoulders, beyond the wide, gorgeous smile that lights up her whole face. Besides the soft curve of her neck, the sparkling emerald in her eyes, or the way every inch of her body makes me crave her like nothing I’ve ever felt, she’s just beautiful.

She’s beautiful in the way she interacts with the world, or the way she stands her ground.

She’s beautiful in a way that slays me, and in a way that has me questioning every absolute and every fucking rule I’ve lived by for the last six years.

I watch as she scoops my daughter up, laughing as she sets her on a stool so she can see into the mirror. Emily beams at the dais on her head, bouncing up and down and giggling at something Serena says to her.

And I’m smiling. I’m smiling like I haven’t in years, because this feels like...I don’t know.

It feels like family.

There was a time where I’d have felt guilt about thinking something like that. There was a time when looking at another woman sent a pang of something like betrayal slicing through me. But this isn’t like any of the other women I saw over the years and tried to bury my loss in. In fact, there’s nothing about Serena that’s like the others, and somehow, I know without a doubt that Sarah would approve.

Somewhere, she’s laughing and pointing a finger at me and saying something like “about fucking time.”

Mourning her for the rest of my life is the very last thing Sarah would have wanted, and somewhere, I know she’d be happy for me.

For us.



“Where’s Serena?”