"Leon found out that Kylie and Elijah were having an affair."

Kylie wasn't stupid, she'd always known that the truth would find its way out. That's the thing about the truth, it exists beyond individual belief – one can escape from it as much as they want but it remains there, niggling at you and everyone else, until one day the world decides that it's time.

And today would be Kylie's time.

It hadn't mattered that she and Elijah had promised to put a stop to their sordid affair. Not when the truth was what Jax had wanted out before his death. He'd wanted her to tell the truth to Jess, to their mother when he'd been alive and she'd resisted completely. Would he be at peace in whatever afterlife he was in if she was still keeping that truth buried within her? More importantly, would she?

It was time. But it seemed wrong.

Because now the silence clung to her skin in the most distressing way; seeping into her bloodstream, entering her veins and paralysing her so much so that she couldn't open her mouth to scream, to cry, to finally apologise.

"What?" Valerie finally breathed out, breaking the all-encompassing silence that had previously ensued. Her facial features were scrunched up in confusion as though she hadn't quite comprehended the words that had left Seb's mouth.

She guffawed suddenly, an erratic sound. One that was inappropriate given the current situation, "that's absolute bullshit, tell him, Kylie! He's got it so wrong. You couldn't be more bloody wrong, Seb!"

"I'm not wrong, Val. I know that much. Jax...he told me that night about Kylie and Elijah's fling, it's been going on for months apparently. And it all makes sense now, Leon losing control of the car, her being in the car, it's because he found it...isn't that right, Kylie?" He roared the last few words, latching onto the back of Kylie's arm to force a response out of her, anything out of her. "Tell me I am wrong Kylie, I beg you. If I'm wrong, then correct me?"

Kylie's hands flew to cover her mouth, her eyes squeezed shut as she realised her luck had finally run out.

"Kylie, tell him? Why won't you tell him?! You wouldn't do that, my little girl wouldn't do that...not after what your father did to us...I know you wouldn't do that...I know it, Kylie, I know it so please just say it. Please..." Valerie howled out, her hands firmly placed on Kylie's shoulders, shaking her hysterically as she spoke.

"Mum...I'm so sorry." Kylie murmured, the beads of tears already dribbling down her cheeks.

"Sorry? Why are you saying sorry?! I didn't fucking ask you to say sorry, I asked you tell me that you wouldn't do that, that Seb is wrong! So why aren't you telling me that, Kylie?!"

"Because...I can't, Ma I wish I could but I can't tell you that. Because...Seb's not wrong, me and Elijah have been having an affair." Kylie snivelled.

Now that she'd said the words, she knew they couldn't be unsaid. They were out in the open and somehow that added a sense of realism to it all. She could finally see how revolting her actions truly had been. How low she'd truly sunk in the past six months.

Valerie suddenly stood up, the chair she'd been sitting on flung back, groaning as it hit the hard concrete. She let out a moan of pain as she moved away from the girl, her head buried in her hands, "he was here...I let him into our home thinking he'd come to see you because of Jax...I thought he cared. Is that why he left here so late because you were sleeping with him?"

"No Ma! It's over, it's been over for weeks. We were just talking, I swear." She turned to face Seb, pleading to his better nature, "I swear, it's over now."

"Well, I suppose that makes everything alright then?" Seb spat out sarcastically. She'd never seen him so furious and it pained her to be on the receiving end of his wrath.

"No...I didn't mean it like that! I know I'm partly responsible for what happened to Jax and I hate myself for it. Honestly, neither of you can hate me more than I hate myself right now."

"Jax...he told me. Months ago but I...shouted at him, I accused him of lying. Because I thought not my daughter, my little girl would never do something so low, so disgusting. But I chose to believe you over him. But maybe...just maybe, if I'd believed him, taken his side for once, he would still be here today." Valerie's lip curled and her nostrils flared as she thought back to the memory.

Could it be true that her son's story would've had a different ending if she'd actually paid any heed to what Jax had said that day?

"I feel disgusted. Just looking at you, it's like I'm seeing you for what you really are for the first time and I'm repulsed...to even call you my daughter." Valerie yelled the final words that would break what was left of Kylie's intact heart.

Kylie never expected her mother to be the one who'd finally make her crack – a heartbreak so unexpected yet so deserved. A wound so deep and raw, a cut directly at the core that she wasn't sure if it'd ever heal.

"I'm sorry." It was all she could say before she attempted to turn and leave her childhood home for the final time.

"I believe you, you know. I do believe you're sorry that Jax died. But I don't think you're sorry for what you did. Because only the lowest kind of woman cheats. And with her best friends' fiancé as well." Valerie clapped slowly, an amused smile upon her face.

"Val, I think – " Seb suddenly spoke up.

"No Seb! Let me finish, please. Kylie, when did you become your father's daughter? When did you become exactly him?"

"Please don't say that, mum. I know I've made a huge mistake but...I'm nothing like him, Ma. I'm nothing like him. I'll never be anything like him." She attempted to grab hold of her mothers' cardigan again but this time Valerie swatted her daughters' hands away.

"You might as well have been driving that car." Valerie suddenly mumbled.

"Valerie, stop." Seb attempted to move between the two women but the two continued to ignore his pleas.

"It was an accident, if I had of known that Jax would've got hurt, I would've ended things ages ago. I swear, it was an accident. I didn't know that Leon knew and would react that way, I didn't..." Kylie knew everything she was saying would be futile now in the eyes of her mother.

"Lies. You've done this before!"

"Why do you think I'm like this?! Why do you think I'm so fucked up in here?!" She tapped her index and middle finger against the side of her head as she screamed the words, wanting her mother to finally understand.

A hand cracked across Kylie's face, leaving multiple red lines on her face. It took a moment for her to realise her mother had slapped her.

Kylie's hand flew to the side of her face in a weak attempt to comfort her aching cheek.

"Don't you dare blame this on me! Don't you dare." Valerie hissed, "get out. Get out of my house. I can't bear to look at you for a second longer."

When the young girl didn't show any movement, Valerie violently shoved her forward and out of the front door, "don't come back Kylie, don't ever come back. As far as I'm concerned both of my children died in that car accident."

Kylie stood silently, listening to her mothers' cruel words. Her mother had already slammed the door behind her before Kylie had had a chance to rush to the door. Her fists were pounding against the front door, "Ma, I'm sorry! Please...I have nowhere else to go. I have nowhere else to go, mum." She bawled out as she allowed herself to sink down against the door.

Seb remained stunned, unable to completely digest what had just happened before his eyes. He'd wanted to punish Kylie for her actions but even he could see this was cruel, the girl was clearly riddled with grief and battling her own demons, this was the last thing she needed. He reluctantly followed a now erratic behaving Valerie to Kylie's bedroom where he watched her proceed to pack Kylie's clothing into a bin bag.

"Valerie...is this really necessary? Kylie did something horrible, terrible even but..."

"Something that cost Jax his entire life. He had so much to live for, and she took that away from him, from you." Valerie mewled as she continued throwing the clothes in the bag.

"I know. But Jax...he wouldn't have wanted you to throw Kylie out. He loved her more than he loved himself...and that's saying something." Seb joked, attempting to lighten the mood.

Valerie giggled lightly in response, "You know what, Kylie was right...she's only like this because of me. It's my fault."

"Val, you really can't be blaming yourself. You didn't tell Kylie to have sex with a nearly married man, did you?" He offered.

She laughed, before gazing down at her aged fingers, "I did though. I mean...I might as well have done. She was eight years old, I was hurting and I told her stuff that you shouldn't tell anybody, let alone an impressionable young child." She mumbled inaudibly before recalling the dreadful advice she'd given to her daughter years ago.

An eight-year-old Kylie remained planted at the foot of her mothers' bed, unsure of how to approach her, for she wasn't sure how she would behave today.

Would it be tears or anger? Kylie had quickly learnt how to handle both; it was just the silence that she couldn't bear.

Two long months had passed since their father had left. Disappearing without a word and a trace, leaving them in poverty.

For Valerie, it wasn't the fact that her man had left her that had hurt the most. It was the agonising sums of unpaid money he'd borrowed earlier that year, not caring that he'd be leaving her and their two children in debt. Debt that Valerie just couldn't pay back. She'd offered the bailiffs everything, even the most intimate part of her but it just wasn't enough. They'd come back every week, wanting more.

So she just gave up. She knew the bailiffs still came, she could hear them. But she was weak; she allowed her children to take the brunt of it all because it was easier. Because it was easier than her having to have sex with another sweaty old man.

So there she was. Lying in bed, thinking. Thinking and drinking. It was all she did these days.

"Ma? It's bath time." Kylie jumped up, planting a kiss on her mothers' warm cheek, the reeking stench of vodka lurking on her mothers' clothing.

"Kylie, go away please."

"Ma, please. We have warm water now too. I'll plait your hair in the shower if you want, like how you used to do to mine." Kylie promised, offering her hand to her mother who was now stumbling out of the bed.

Kylie always wondered why her mother stumbled so, she knew it must have been this new smelly drink she loved. But why drink it if it meant you couldn't walk?

She allowed her mother to rest against her shoulder as she stepped into the bathtub. She hurriedly opened the tap, allowing the water to soak over her mothers' now naked body. She popped open the L'Oreal shampoo. It was nearly finished, she and Jax would have to buy some more tomorrow. She gently massaged the shampoo into her mothers' scalp with her small fingers.

"Kylie, I'm sorry." Her mother cried.

"Ma, don't cry. I like helping you wash your hair." Kylie lied because lying had already proved to be easier than admitting the truth.

"Men...they just ruin you." Valerie abruptly stated, grasping at the nearly empty bottle on the ground.

"How?" Kylie queried.

"They all only want one thing. You try not to believe it but at the end, it's the truth. He'll always leave you for the younger model. I mean look at your dad, he left me for a woman less than half his age."

"Daddy's coming back though," Kylie responded defensively.

Valerie howled with laughter as though Kylie had made the funniest joke of the century, "dream on, sweetheart. He's gone and he's never coming back."

Kylie grabbed the washcloth and gently rubbed it down her mothers' back, ignoring her. Ma was wrong, their dad would come back, she knew it.

"Kylie, if there's one thing you learn from me, learn this. Never ever give yourself completely to a man. Be like Libby, not like me... because she won and I lost. Give your body and he'll follow you."

"Give...my body? What do you mean?"

"You'll understand one day that this," she pointed from her chest down to her legs, "will get you further in life than anything else will." Valerie finished before chugging the remainder of the drink.

"Why did I tell her that? Why did I think it was okay to tell my eight-year-old daughter that?" Valerie cried, finally realising that Kylie hadn't just become her father's daughter overnight.

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AN: So I felt that the flashback was kinda necessary here just to make it all a little clearer.

Let me know if you enjoyed this chapter, sorry it was very Valerie and Kylie dominated. We'll see more Jess and Elijah in the next chapter! Love you all and please please please do vote or comment! xx