Page 3 of Destroying My Ex

Lily Sinclair, if she’s telling the truth, is the complete opposite of her sister. Lacey is blonde and blue-eyed like her mother, while Lily has jet-black hair and what I call panther-green eyes, stunning and unusual. She also looked more like their father with her olive complexion.

I did some digging on my own and found out that she was telling the truth, but I still didn’t know the story behind her existence or why I was only now meeting her after knowing her Dad and stepmother for most of my life.

For the next few weeks, we’d run into each other on campus, but nothing more was said, and we’d just wave and go about our business, which was the only change in our relationship until one day, she sat next to me at the end of one of our classes and said, “You ready for that conversation?”

LILY

My sister has always been a bitch. One of the only three people that I have held disdain and hatred for from the time I can remember. My parents divorced a few months after I was born because my Mom found out that Dad was having an affair, and the woman was also having his child.

He begged Mom to stay with him, but she filed for divorce right away and kicked him out of the marital home. He went on to marry the other woman and proceeded out of spite to fight for fifty-fifty custody of me. Mom tried her best to stop it but it was no use.

From the age of two, I spent every other week at his home, being tormented by his wife and daughter. Then, when I was old enough, the courts cut the custody down to every other weekend, which was even worse because now they hated that I chose Mom over them as if there was any doubt.

I knew why his new wife hated me and Mom, but I could never understand why their daughter hated me as much as she did. Until it dawned on me that they were never at my grandparents’ house at the same time I was.

For some reason, when I was younger, I always thought they just went at different times since my Mom was usually with me when I visited, but once I got older, I found out that my grandparents had almost disowned Dad for the affair and had forbidden Janice, the wife, from ever crossing their door and refused to acknowledge Lacey as their granddaughter.

I’m not sure what any of that had to do with me or why I was the one who had to pay the price for the decisions the adults in my life made, but when I was younger, it used to hurt like hell.

Every time Lacey took something or broke something of mine, and my Dad ignored it or yelled at me for crying; I died more and more inside. His wife would always threaten that if I told my mother what was going on in their house, I would be taken away and put into foster care, so I never said anything when I was younger.

It was only when I turned fifteen and was a little more aware that I started to speak up about the abuse I endured in that house for the last thirteen years that Mom went back to court and got Dad’s custody time cut down tremendously.

It didn’t affect child support because Dad still worked for the company owned by his parents, and they threatened him once again with expulsion if he even thought about hurting Mom or me.

Their anger and hate turned into passive aggression, which was a step up from being locked in my room for the weeks I was there in the past. Lacey was pissed because she could no longer get away with tormenting me, and since I only had to see her four days out of the month instead of two weeks, I was able to ignore her most of the time, which only seemed to piss her off more.

Her mother hated that my grandparents still favored Mom and invited her to all of their important events; we still went on vacation with them twice a year, while Dad and his family were never invited.

When I was old enough to discuss these things I asked my grandmother why they never forgave Dad. Their answer was that when he cheated, they saw it as a bad reflection on them and their parenting.

They hadn’t raised their son to be so unfaithful as to cheat on his pregnant wife, and accepting him and the woman he cheated with would be the same as saying they accepted his behavior, which would have been a slap in their daughter-in-law’s face.

To them, Mom was the daughter they never had, and when they accepted her into the family, that’s the way they intended to treat her and since she had done no wrong, they weren’t going to punish her. They even encouraged Mom to get married again, but she never had any interest.

I never asked her about that, but I’m pretty sure she was traumatized by the whole thing and never wanted to endure such pain again. Anyway, Lacey and I never had any kind of relationship because she was a terror growing up, even though we were only two months apart in age.

Of course, her mother favored her, which was fine, but all the added abuse was not and will never be forgotten. After the custody change, my grandparents had another meeting with Dad where he was warned that if the abuse continued, he would no longer have a job. And I guess that was the eye-opener he needed to get his act together, but by then, it was too late.

I don’t hate him; in fact, I don’t hate any of them. I just don’t care for them as people and would never choose to be around them if it wasn’t necessary.

When we were about sixteen, Lacey was always going on about her boyfriend, some childhood friend whose dad worked for ours. I’d heard her mention the kid before but never paid too much attention because it had nothing to do with me.

Then, one day, I overheard her talking to her friends about how she was seeing his friend behind his back, and for some reason, whereas I had ignored whatever went on in that house for years, this rubbed me the wrong way.

It wasn’t just that she was cheating; it was the way she talked about it, and the fact that her mother had done the same thing to mine just flipped some switch in me, and I knew I had to do something.

I waited for one day when her parents were out of the house, and she had gone into the shower to go into her room and grab her phone. She had no idea that I knew her password, which was something that just happened because she uses her birth date for everything, which I once overheard her say because it’s easier to remember, and she was tired of forgetting her passcodes.

I found the boyfriend because by then, I’d heard his name mentioned and then found the images of her and the other guy together that she’d stupidly taken and bragged about with her friends. I sent the images to the boyfriend anonymously and that was that.

I never imagined that I would one day meet the guy, seeing as we’d never met and I didn’t live in their neighborhood, so imagine my surprise when he approached me on my new college campus.

I can’t say I was surprised that he was hot. Lacey, for all that she’s a witch, is very pretty on the outside, though she’s rotten from the core. I wasn’t sure what kind of person he was seeing as they were friends for so long, so when he approached me that first day I gave him the brush off.

But I’d since done some digging, which is my way, and found out that he’s actually a great guy; I just couldn’t understand what the hell he was still doing with my nightmare of a sister, but that was none of my business.

I took some time to think about how much I wanted to share with him because it was obvious he had questions, and in the end, I’m not sure what it was about him, but for some reason, once I started talking, I didn’t stop.