Dirt

Men are dumb. Men are incredibly dumb. My problem was that no matter how much I didn't want to see Matt again, I couldn't avoid him forever. Especially considering he was a part of my father's club. I woke up the next day with a decent sized hangover and a shitty attitude. So when I got downstairs and found my dad outside with Matt and the rest of the guys, I growled in frustration and ran back upstairs to hide in my bedroom. I could hear them as they came inside and were milling about downstairs. Matt was at least smart enough not to try to come up and see me. I would have kicked him in the dick.

Because of my mood, I was wary when there eventually was a knock on my door. I cracked it open to see Jess and Erin standing in the hall holding all my presents from the night before. I let them in and quickly locked the door behind them. They set the gifts down and they both looked at me with weird expressions. It was like they felt guilty about something. "What?" I asked them.

"Well, we know what Matt did last night, and we wanted to see how you were doing," Erin said quietly.

I shrugged one shoulder. "Whatever. I'll live."

"I just don't understand what the fuck he was thinking? Why would you ever bring your ex-girlfriend to your new girl's birthday party? I mean, it was your fucking birthday party! I should kick him straight in the dick for what he did." I laughed and told her I had the exact same thought. "It's just bullshit," she finished quietly.

I agreed with her. The three of us took a look around at all the presents and decided to open them up. No time like the present. Get it? Present...presents....never mind. Of course, I had to start with their gifts. Jessi gave me two new tee shirts and a bracelet. One of the shirts was black and in white lettering it reads "This BITCH doesn't fall off!", and the other is nave blue and reads, "If you say Gullible slowly is sounds like Oranges". I laughed at both of them and hugged her. They were awesome.

Erin got me a really great pair of earrings and the deluxe edition complete series of The Golden Girls. I love how she just knows me. I'd been eyeing the DVD for a couple months, and she just went out and got it for me. It was definitely one of the coolest gifts ever.

We opened the rest, and I got everything from key chains to a new leather jacket. I even got a stuffed teddy bear in a leather jacket. I got a few CD's and some perfume. And then I came across a small box. It had a purple bow on it and a big tag that told me it was from Matt. Well, shit. Jessi looked over with a worried expression and asked if I wanted to open it. I decided against it, so I put the box on the corner of my dresser. I opened Jimmy's present instead. I'm glad I did. He made me a batch of his 'special brownies'. The girls and I each had a half of one. We were feeling pretty good after that.

An hour later and we were lounging around on my floor, which was covered in wrapping paper, laughing our asses off watching The Golden Girls. That shit had never seemed so funny. Jess got a text and she made a funny noise once she read it. "Uh, so...Zee wants to know how you're holding up." I must have pulled a face because she asked me what was wrong.

"I dunno. It's kinda weird that he would ask how I was doing. He's Matt's boy, not mine."

Jessi and Erin exchanged a look. "Well, he's just...trying to be your friend," Erin offered. "Why is that a big deal?"

"It just is," I told her. "He's kinda starting to wig me out. He's kind of persistent about this whole friendship thing. Why is it so important that he gets to know me?" They looked at each other again, this time looking for the right answer. They knew something. They knew something that had to do with Zacky. Why weren't they telling me? Did this have anything to do with what they were talking about the day before? "What do you guys know?"

"Nothing!" they both said in unison a little too quickly. I wasn't buying for a minute.

So I devised a plan. We watched Golden Girls for a little while longer before I announced that I was going to go take a shower. My bathroom isn't attached to my bedroom, so I had to walk down the hall to the bathroom. I gathered some clothes and trudged down the hall. I quickly showered and dressed, then after making sure no one was around, I crept down the stairs and slipped into my dad's office. I looked through a couple of the drawers in the desk and didn't find anything interesting, so I turned to his one and only file cabinet.

I still didn't find anything that would explain why everyone was acting so weird. And they were. First there was the time I walked in the house and Pop and Zacky were sitting alone together, then there were all those times when Zacky wanted to talk and be my friend, then when my dad was freaking out about me sort of dating Matt, he didn't have a problem with Zack, and lastly, what the hell did Erin and Jessi know that they weren't telling me? I was about to give up. I sat down in Pop's chair and gave one last feeble look around, when I spotted it. There was a folder sitting under some papers that had Zacky's name on it. I quickly opened it up and scanned the first few pages. Nothing caught my attention. I flipped through the rest, but stopped when I came upon a copy of a birth certificate.

No fucking way. It couldn't be. How is that even possible? I couldn't wrap my head around it, so I did what any normal person would do. I called my dad's cell phone and started screaming about how he needed to get to his office really fucking fast.

I was surrounded. Not only had my father come to his office, but so had Jimmy, Johnny, Brian, Matt, and Zacky. And because of my yelling, so did Erin and Jessi. I looked pretty crazy, I'm sure, standing behind my father's desk with wide wild eyes, shaking my head. "Tell me it's not true," I demanded of him.

"You're freaking me out," he said quietly. "What are you talking about, Princess?"

"Don't Princess me!" I threw the file on top of the desk. He looked down at it and his eyes got wide. "There we are. You recognize this, then?" He nodded. "And what's in this is all true?"

He shot a quick look over to Zacky. "Yes, honey, it is."

I made a connection. "So, that means you knew," I said pointing to Zacky. He nodded. "Then that obviously means that you guys knew." I said gesturing to his four friends. They all nodded. I was becoming more and more pissed off. "Did you guys know?" I asked Jessi and Erin. They hesitated. That was all I needed. They did know. How could they not when their boyfriends knew the whole time? "So I'm gonna wrap this up. My father, my two best friends, and you five all knew that Zack was my half brother, and no one thought this would be information that I needed to know?" Everyone was dead silent. "Cool. Real nice, Pop. So, everyone in this room can all go to hell." I started to tear up, and it was just making me more pissed off.

I left the room at a run and went straight to the garage. I backed the spare bike out of the garage and after revving the engine, I sped away from everyone who had hurt me. I just rode around for hours, not really having any destination in mind. I was getting chilly, since I was only in shorts and a tee shirt, but I didn't want to stop. I could hear my cell phone going off, but I ignored it the whole time. They needed to wait. They needed to sit and stew in what they did. How could everyone keep something like that from me? It just didn't make any sense. Why wouldn't anyone tell me something like that? After a while I had to stop to let everything I'd learned sink in. I pulled into a parking lot overlooking the beach. I sat down in the sand a couple feet from the bike.

So I had a brother. I wondered how long he had known. His whole life? Just a couple of years? Months? The whole idea was crazy. I wondered how he felt about the whole thing. How mad was he that I got to be raised by both of my parents, when he only got one of his? Did he resent my dad? Well...our dad. Shit, did he resent me? Didn't he say at one point he wasn't sure he was going to like me? My head was spinning.

I don't know how long I sat there, but it must have been a while, because eventually I was snapped out of my thoughts by the sound of a bike engine. I didn't turn to look at who had found me. I guess I was hoping that if I sat still long enough, maybe they wouldn't see me and go home. It didn't work. I looked over as a body plopped down beside me.

"I guess it's only fitting that you would be the one to find me." He didn't say anything. "Was my departure dramatic enough? How devastated did I leave everyone in my wake?"

Zee chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. We were all pretty upset, though. No one likes to see you so hurt. Are you mad at me?"

"Not really. You still should have told me, but out of everyone, you're kind of just as much the victim in all of this as I am. How long have you known?"

He squinted into the sunlight. "A few years now. My mom told me right after I graduated high school. I didn't really want to do anything with that information until recently. To be honest, it was when I found out about you. I was curious to meet you."

I nodded. "That's cool."

"So, are you coming back?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. This has nothing to do with you, or your mother, but my dad cheated on my mom with her. They were married for years before they had me. That's pretty unforgivable. And then to know that my best friends, two of the very short list of people I would trust my life with, knew about this life changing secret and didn't tell me, is really painful. I know that Jessi's your girl, and you're biased, but that was a really shitty thing for them to do."

"Look, I get it. You're hurt. I'm not going to take that away from you. I'm not defending anyone. But I will say that your dad made everyone promise not to say anything to you until he had a paternity test done, then when he found out I was telling the truth, he wanted to wait until after your birthday. I think he was going to tell you. He just couldn't find the right time."

I shot him a look. "Right. And I'm really a fairy tale princess who can talk to animals. At night, though, by the light of the full moon, I take flight and scare all the village children." We sat in amiable silence for a minute. "Did you resent me?"

He looked surprised. "Sort of. I didn't know what was so special about you and not me. After a while I realized this whole thing had nothing to do with you. For all I knew, you could be innocent in all of this, you know? Hell, you could've been this fairy tale princess who could talk to animals. Or worse, by the light of the full moon at nighttime, you could take flight and scare all the village children. I thought I might be mad at you at first right before meeting you, but once I did, I really couldn't be. You were cool, and once I found out you had no clue about any of it, then I really couldn't hate you. I at least I knew about the situation."

I had the strangest urge to lay my head on his shoulder. Maybe it was all the quick brother/sister bonding we were getting in. I decided not to fight it, so when I laid my head down, he looked down at me with a smile and patted the top of my head. "You know, I always wanted a sibling." He told me he did too. "And now I have one. Does that mean I have control over the universe?"

"I don't think so. Maybe, though. Just promise me that if you do, you won't use your infinite powers against me." I told him that I could probably handle that. "So, do you think you might be ready to go back?"

"Nope," I told him. "Let's stay just a little bit longer. Then, you can go ahead of me and make everyone but Pop leave. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it on my terms. I'm only talking to Pop right now. He's got a lot of explaining to do. Oh, and first order of brotherly duty, I want you to punch Matt in the face." He laughed and told me he would think about it. Why was he laughing? I was serious.