Tyson
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grip the steering wheel as I pulled
up to my parents' house. The porch light was on, warm and welcoming, the same
light that had guided me home a thousand times before. But nothing felt welcoming
now. Nothing felt right. I sat in the truck for a long moment, staring at the DNA test
results on the passenger seat. The words blurred together, but that number —0%
probability of paternity—remained crystal clear. How was this my life? This
morning I woke up next to my wife, kissed my son goodbye, and went to work
thinking about when I could get home to my famil y. Now everything was ashes.
The front door opened before I even made it up the walkway. Mom stood there in
her bathrobe, her face creased with worry. "Tyson? Honey, what's wrong?" She
pulled me into a hug the moment I reached her, and I felt something inside me
crack. I was twenty-four years old, but right then I was just a scared kid who
needed his mom. "Is Dad here?" "Of course. Come in, come in." She ushered me
inside, calling out, "John! Tyson's here and something's wrong!" Dad appeared from
the living room, setting down his reading glasses. His expression shifted from
confusion to alarm when he saw my face. "Son? What happened?" I opened my
mouth but couldn't make the words come out. How did you say it? How did you tell
your parents that your entire life was a lie?
"Tyson?" Celeste's voice came from the kitchen doorway. She looked pale, her eyes
red-rimmed like she'd been crying. Of course she was here. Of course. "Celeste told
us she went to see you and Brook today," Mom said carefully, guiding me to the
couch. "She said there was some kind of... situation. But she wouldn't tell us what.
She's been crying for hours." I looked at my little sister. She was wringing her
hands, looking so young and scared. The same girl I'd taught to ride a bike, who'd
cried on my shoulder when her first boyfriend broke her heart. Why would she lie
about something like this? "Preston isn't mine." The words came out flat, dead.
"Brook... Brook cheated on me. Preston isn't my son." The silence that followed was
deafening. Mom's hand flew to her mouth. Dad went completely still. "What?" Dad's
voice was barely a whisper. I pulled the DNA test from my jacket pocket with
trembling fingers and handed it to him. "Celeste brought me this today. She'd been
suspicious for a while, I guess. She... she had it tested." Mom moved to read over
Dad's shoulder, her face going white. "Oh my God. Oh, Tyson, honey..." "I don't
understand," Dad said, looking between me and Celeste. "How did you... why did
you..." Celeste's voice was small, broken. "I saw things. Over the years. The way
Brook would be secretive with her phone sometimes. How she'd go out and be
vague about where she'd been. I just... I had a bad feeling. So I took one of
Preston's juice boxes from their house a few months ago. And I sent in a sample of
Tyson's hair from his old brush in the bathroom here." She looked at me with tears
streaming
down her face. "I'm so sorry, Ty. I hoped I was wrong. I prayed I was wrong."
"Brook denied it?" Mom asked, sitting down heavily beside me. "Of course she
denied it. She—" My voice cracked. "She looked me right in the eye and said she
never cheated. But the test... the test doesn't lie." Dad was staring at the paper like
it might spontaneously combust. "I can't believe this. Brook? Our Brook?" "That's
what I said," I whispered. "I can't... I don't understand how I didn't see it. How did I
not know?" Mom wrapped her arm around my shoulders. "Oh, sweetheart. Some
people are just very good at hiding things. Very good liars." "But Brook's never
been—she's always been so honest, so—" "Clearly not as honest as we thought,"
Dad said, his voice hardening. "If she could hide something like this for four
years..." "Five," I corrected numbly. "Preston's four. She would have been cheating
five years ago." The betrayal of that hit me all over again. We'd barely started our
life together and she'd already been unfaithful. "I never fully understood it, you
know," Mom said quietly. "What she saw in you." I looked at her, stung. "What?"
"No, honey, I don't mean it like that. You're wonderful. But Brook was always so...
polished. So put-together. And you were still finding your footing back then,
working those long hours at the construction site, coming home exhausted and
dirty. I just wondered sometimes if she wanted more. Someone more... established."
"Juni," Dad said warningly. "I'm not saying Tyson isn't good enough! I'm saying
maybe Brook thought she could do better. Maybe she had someone else all along.
Someone she thought was more exciting, more successful." Mom squeezed my
shoulder. "I'm sorry, baby. But we have to face the possibility that we never really
knew her at all." My stomach churned. Was that possible? Had Brook been playing
me this whole time? But no—I'd seen her face tonight. The devastation, the shock,
the way she'd reached for me... "She seemed really surprised," I said weakly. "When
I showed her the test. She seemed genuinely shocked." "Of course she did," Celeste
said softly. "She didn't know I'd figured it out. She thought she was safe." Dad set
the paper down on the coffee table like it was contaminated. "What are you going to
do?" "I don't know. I just... I needed to get out of there. I needed to think." "You can
stay here as long as you need," Mom said firmly. "Your room is exactly how you left
it." "What about Preston?" Dad asked. "And the baby?" The baby. Sofia. My little
girl who wasn't even born yet. Was she mine? Or had Brook been lying about that
too? "I don't know," I r epeated. The words felt like all I could say. I don't know, I
don't know, I don't know. "We're here for you," Mom said. "Whatever you need. We
love Brook —loved Brook—but you're our son. And Celeste is our daughter. Family
comes first."
I nodded, but something felt wrong. Something felt off about all of this. The way
Celeste had shown up right when I got home. The timing of it all. And Brook's
face—God, her face when I'd accused her. That hadn't looked like guilt. That had
looked like genuine confusion and hurt. But the test was right there. Black and
white. Scientific proof. "I should try to sle ep," I said, standing up. My legs felt like
they might give out. "Of course, honey. Do you need anything? Are you hungry?"
Mom was already moving toward the kitchen, desperate to do something, anything
to help. "No. I just... I need to lie down." I climbed the stairs to my old bedroom,
each st ep feeling like I was walking through concrete. The room was exactly as
Mom had said— my old football trophies on the shelf, the blue plaid comforter on
the bed, posters of bands I'd loved in high school still on the walls. A time capsule of
who I used to be before Brook, before Preston, before everything. I lay down on the
bed fully clothed and stared at the ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars I'd stuck up
there when I was twelve were still visible, faint green dots in the darkness. I pulled
out my phone. No calls from Brook. No texts. Part of me had expected her to blow
up my phone, begging me to come home, to listen to her. But there was nothing.
Maybe that was proof in itself. If she were really innocent, wouldn't she be fighting
harder? But then I remembered her eyes. The way she'd looked at me like I'd
physically struck her. The way her hand had gone protectively to her belly, to Sofia.
I pulled up the DNA test on my phone, the photo I'd taken of it. Stared at it until the
words swam together. My phone buzzed. For a second my heart leaped—Brook. But
no. It was Caleb. Dude where are you? Brook just called Mayken crying. What the
hell is going on? I turned my phone face-down on the nightstand. I couldn't deal
with this right now. Couldn't deal with questions or accusations or having to
explain. Downstairs, I could hear the murmur of voices—my parents and Celeste,
probably talking about me, about Brook, about what a mess everything was. I
closed my eyes, but all I could see was Preston's face. The way he smiled exactly
like I did. The way he laughed at my dumb jokes. The way he'd started copying the
way I walked, his little shoulders thrown back in an exaggerated swagger that
made Brook laugh every time. How could he not be mine? But the test said he
wasn't. Science didn't lie. I didn't sle ep at all that night. Just lay there in the dark,
listening to the house settle around me, wondering how everything had fallen apart
so completely in the span of a few hours. And trying not to think about the fact that
somewhere across town, Brook was lying in our bed alone, seven months pregnant,
probably crying. Probably hating me. Maybe she should.
Maybe I deserved it for being too blind to see the truth all along.