"You can't protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness."

- Jonathan Safran Foer

************************************************

"My father? Are you making fun of me for being an orphan right now?" I raised my voice, offended.

Clayton chuckled, shaking his head with an amused look on his face.

"Who do you take me for, Mia?" He asked, turning his head to look at me inquisitively, almost like he was studying me.

"Or.." He smirked.

"Should I say, sister?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

We spent a few sounds staring at each other until I started laughing to myself unamused, I shook my head flabbergasted.

"I can't believe I thought you'd be any help." I didn't even look at him before turning around and started heading back to school.

"So, you're not even a little bit curious, Mia?" He yelled out like he was taunting me.

I stopped in my tracks, my back still facing him. I looked over my shoulder at him with my eyebrows knitted together, he was still standing in the same spot. Was I curious? Of course, who wouldn't be if some lunatic told you that you're related?

"Come on! You're making me feel bad sis! Think about it, have I lied to you yet?" He smiled but his eyes were still taunting me.

What he said was true, everything he's told me had all been the truth. I let out a deep sigh before turning to face him. I looked him up and down trying to check for any signs that he was lying.

"You know, It's not morally acceptable to check out your brother but since I'm so undeniably attractive, I'll let it go this one time." He said smiling widely which caused me to roll my eyes.

"Okay." I said, "I'll take the bait."

"I knew you were sensible, it runs in the family." Clayton joked.

"Under one condition," I added.

"Wow, we are already negotiating? I feel like real siblings already." He said amused.

"You have to answer every question I have," I told him, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. "Truthfully."

"Mm, you drive a hard bargain." He brought his hand up to his chin acting like he was making the hardest decision in his life.

"Deal." Clayton reached out his hand for me to shake.

"Deal." I grabbed his hand and shook it.

The realization of the moment out of nowhere hit me like a ton of bricks. He just said he was my brother, that we are related?

"How do you know we are related?" The words rushed out.

"How do you think?" He questioned.

His words racked my brains, slamming themselves through every inch of my head until it hit me.

"My father?" It came out as a whispered.

"Not your father, our father." He stated.

"You've met him?" My head started spinning out of control.

"Let's go." He said ignoring my question and walking past me towards the parked cars.

"Go? Go where?" I asked still standing in the same spot.

"If we stay here Dumb and Dumber are going to come looking for you when they see you're not in class and we a lot to talk about." He called over his shoulder.

I shook my head even though I knew he couldn't see me and followed after him.

When we got into the car Clayton quickly started it and we left the school grounds. I had so many questions it was making my head feel blank.

"Go ahead, ask away." He reassured me, quickly looking at me before focusing back on the road.

I was about to say something but as soon as I opened my mouth, my phone began ringing. I scrabbled through my bag and pulled out my phone. My eyes widened when I saw it was Axel calling me.

"Bingo," Clayton smirked, snatching my phone out my hands.

"Do you trust me?" He asked

"Well, not really but-"

I watched as he pressed the decline call and held down the power button until the screen went black before he threw the phone into the back seat.

"Hey! Is that necessary?" I yelled at him.

"I don't like distractions." He nodded, looking over at me.

"Also he'll track us down from the GPS," Clayton informed me.

I looked at him wearily, I wanted to trust him but this situation kept getting weirder and weirder.

"Here, look." Clayton started digging around in his pockets, pulling his own phone out and turning it off before throwing it into the backseat with mine.

"There, now we are even right?" He asked.

"I guess so," I said, watching him carefully.

"Are you going to ask any questions or should I give you the phone back to have that idiot come get you," Clayton asked.

I nodded my head, thinking about what to ask first.

"How do you know I am your sister? Because in all of my 17 years I've never known you existed." I asked him.

Clayton took sometime before answering.

"I found out about you when I was 8 years old, I found a picture of you and what I believe to be your mother in our father's office when I was playing in there without permission." He began.

"At the time I didn't think much about it, I thought you guys were just distance family or something. It wasn't until I was 11 that I overheard my parents fighting over an affair that my father had almost 10 years ago. But our father told me about you when I was 15." Clayton finished.

It felt like someone sucked the air right out of my lungs. My ribs felt they were contracting against my lungs. I looked at Clayton through blurry eyes.

"H-he knew about me?" I choked out not believing what I was hearing.

"He kept a close eye on you and your mother when she was alive." He nodded.

"He knew my mother died?" Tears rolled down face uncontrollably. "He knew and didn't help me?" I could feel a sob trying breakthrough my throat.

"Does he know how I've lived for the last 10 years? Huh Does he?" I yelled.

"Did he know about all the foster homes? The beating and hospital visits?" I cried out.

"Was I not good enough? He already had a family, so it didn't matter what happened to my mother and me right?"

"Didn't he feel the slightest bit of responsibility? I was only 7 when my mom died, I had no one." I scream as loud as I could.

"I'll agree our father isn't the greatest man alive but you haven't heard everything." Clayton looked at me sadly.

"What could I possibly hear that would justify what you've told me," I asked, wiping my eyes.

"Our father is a leader of a mafia gang." He sighed.

"Mafia?" I laughed, "Of course." I looked out the window. "I was fucked from the very beginning," I whispered to myself.

"My mother, Faye and I were always relocating from state to state, city to city, we even lived in Canada for a year. We spent our whole life hiding and running." Clayton explained.

"If any of our father's rivals found out he had another child do you know what kind of hell you would have been in? In his own way, he was protecting you." Clayton said.

"I've never been protected in my whole life and as for that man, he's not my father," I said, shaking my head.

"Why couldn't he take me in? Why couldn't I run away with you guys? Why did I have to be on my own? Why did I have to run alone?" I clenched my fist, my anger boiling.

Clayton sighed deeply, looking down at his hands on the steering wheel.

"My mother didn't want an illegitimate in her family."

I forced myself to laugh at what Clayton said to stop myself from crying instead.

"Of course," I said.

"Wait, so that means I'm related to Faye as-well?" I can't believe it.

"She and I are your half-siblings." He nodded.

"Why are you telling me all this? You could have just went on acting like you didn't know me." I asked.

"Because Axel won't and I thought you should know." He told me.

"Axel?" I said confused. "He knew about all this?" My eyes widen.

This was the perceives danger he was trying me to protect me from? He knew who my father was? He knew Clayton and Faye were related to me? Even after reading my journal and seeing the countless time I wished I had a family he didn't tell me?

Clayton suddenly pulled over to the side of the street snapping me out of my thoughts. I watched as he reached behind him to the backseats and grabbed our phones.

"How does Axel know?" I asked, taking my phone from him.

"Both Axel and Rylan found out while they were fighting over Faye." He said turning his phone on.

"So this is what you meant when you asked what I was doing here," I said more to myself than him.

"But wait, why am I here? Why after all these years?" I looked over a Clayton for answers.

"That's what I would like to know." He said, staring me dead in the eyes.

"Rose is a friend of our father and Axel and Rylan are the safest people for you to be within this town so it makes sense you are staying with them however, I don't understand why you're in Colorado in the first place." He stated.

"Rose is apart of this too?" I shook my head. "There's no way, she's too good to be involved with someone as your father," I told him.

"Good people get dragged into a lot of things, take your mom for example," Clayton said.

"I guess that's true." I nodded.

"This is a picture of our father," Clayton said, handing me his phone.

"I don't want to see him," I stated, turning toward the window.

"Just look in case you see him somewhere you're not clueless." He said, shaking the phone for me to take it.

I huffed out and snatched his phone but the first person to catch my eye wasn't my father but the girl standing next to him. I felt like I was looking at myself, there were some obvious differences like her hair was shorter than mine and her eyes were a little farther apart but we looked so similar it was unbelievable.

"Is this Faye?" I pointed at the girl.

"Yeah." He stated.

"And this is your mother?" I then pointed to the woman.

"And this must be our fath-" I stopped mid-sentence.

"What?" He asks sounding a little panicked.

I looked at the man in the picture closer, examining every inch of him that I could see. He was wearing a black suit that looked too expensive and the front of his head was bald.

"I've seen this man before."