*Joe's POV*
The sound of her pleads and excuses muffled in the background. I didn't want to hear anything that came out of her mouth. I was tired of being lied to.
"I'm going to ask you one more time," I snipped, cutting whatever nonsense she was saying off, "Did we meet before that day at the park?"
"No!" tears were already spilling down her face, "Please, Joe, please let me explain!"
"Are you sure?" my blood started to bubble, the anger wanting to boil over, "Because you have pictures that prove otherwise!"
"Yes I'm sure!" her hands moving with her words helped express her deep frustration, "Joe, was I in any of those pictures with you? No! I wasn't even there during that hospital visit!"
"But your sister was!" I flung back, "The same sister I've been asking about for almost a full fucking year! The same sister I've been begging to meet when I apparently already did!"
"I've been wanting to tell you for a while!" she responded back with, not having the slightest of clue as to how deeply this betrayal was affecting me.
"Then why didn't you?" I argued back, "Do you know how many times I've asked you about her?"
"I didn't know how to!" our shouting most likely created an audience on the other side of the door.
"How about, 'She's no longer here, but I don't feel ready to talk about it,' hm?" my cheeks had to be flushed by this point, the heat rising within me, "Instead of constantly lying and making me feel like a fucking idiot by calling her fully knowing she wouldn't answer, or planning to visit her, or buying her gifts for her birthday and Christmas, or sending you things to send her on my behalf!"
"I'm sorry!" she said in the midst of sobbing, "I'm so sorry, okay?"
Sorry was no longer good enough.
"What about all the times I cried to you about my dad or Papa? Or when Pri opened up to you about losing her father to cancer? Or when Kev had skin cancer cut out not that long ago?" I spat out, "You accused me of not letting you in my life, or feeling left out, when it was actually the complete opposite! There were no secrets with you! Nothing! You were included in every aspect of my life! I would've understood not telling me straight away, but almost a whole year?"
"I couldn't even say those words out loud! Fuck, I still can't, but I'm trying for you—"
"You know what's going to be the hardest part of all this?" My vision became blurry, my heart breaking not just for me, but for my daughters as well, "Telling the girls that they'll never see you again."
"Joe," she reached out to grab my hand, but was unsuccessful at doing so with me pulling it away before she could touch it, "Please don't do this, please."
I scoffed, "Liv was right."
Her face twitched at Liv's name, "What do you mean?"
"It's too fucking late," I rose my hands up in an over-exaggerated shrug.
Her eyebrows stayed furrowed together with her doe eyes staring at me, "How do you know that?"
"She told me earlier today the real reason why she temporarily ended your friendship with her," I informed her, letting her know I knew literally everything now, "And how she told you numerous times to tell me the goddamn truth."
All those times Liv told me that I needed to hear the answers straight from Taylor's mouth instead of hers all made sense now. She wanted to give Taylor a chance to tell me herself before I straight-up asked her, knowing she wouldn't have been able to keep up this charade too.
"Please, Joe," her bare face completely reddened and soaked, "You're not even giving me a chance to explain!"
"You know what we were?" I already had completely shut down, our conversation going absolutely nowhere, "Just a fantasy of what this could be. That's it. None of this was real, was it?"
"It was real!" she desperately grabbed my arm despite me trying to actively avoid her from touching me, "All of it was real to me!"
I shook my head, a few tears escaping down my cheek, as my arm retreated from her grasp. My future with Taylor that I planned out in my head all fell apart.
"You used Liv. You used me. You used my whole family," I could tell by her facial expressions she didn't agree, "Yes, you did. Don't fucking deny that. You emotionally used us."
"Joe—"
"Get out," she didn't even fight me, lowering her head and opening the door. I was right. A few of my family and friends were gathered by the door, concern and anger on all their faces. I even felt Nick shoot daggers directed to Taylor.
As she was starting to walk away, I called her name for the very last time, "Taylor."
She turned back around, hopeful that we still could fix us with a sudden change of heart from me.
I put my hand out towards her, "I want my favorite hoodie back."
Exhaustedly defeated and broken, she slipped my hoodie off above her head and handed it to me without saying a single word before walking down the hall.
I didn't allow myself to break down until she was out of view, reality setting in that she was actually gone.